This drama actually blew me away. The low ratings really scared me at first, I was wholly expecting a hot pile of garbage. But watching the first episode I was entirely and extremely pleasantly surprised. While I must admit the first two episodes were kind of patchy and had a rocky start, the development of the story was certainly something incredible to watch. It is WAYYY more than just about the world ending. It's deeply philosophical, political, emotional, uncomfortably realistic, and eye-opening. The story was so unique and had so many layers, I liked seeing how some of the plotlines ended up intersecting at one point, and how it ultimately always came down to the wellbeing of the innocent souls (children especially) being harmed by selfish and greedy humans.

It reminds me of the short drama Monstrous, where both works reveal that humans are inherently evil, and society is a f*cked up place rid with black souls ready to ensue chaos at any given moment to fulfill their greed for worldly desires. But the main message is that, of course, the consequence of this greed and selfishness will never be good. I enjoyed Sungjae's story the most, because it seemed most of the drama revolved around the church and the support system they created for their community during these trying times. JSW's emotions and gaze during many of his scenes, especially the city hall memorial scene and fasting period scene, WOW, actual chills. Special shoutout to all the main cast because they were all amazing. I was especially excited about this drama ever since it was first announced because all my faves were in the main cast, seongwoo, eunjin, yoonhye, and they CERTAINLY did not disappoint. They were perfect. I have never watched a YAI drama before, and honestly I was fully expecting they would cut him completely out of the drama's footage, but he had many scenes! His character was nice, but nothing that stood out for me, personally. I enjoyed seeing eunjin and ahin together more, they had good chemistry and their love story was really interesting to watch given the context and both of their situations. I LOVED the dynamics between the four friends, they were worked so well together. Obviously I was very excited for a Diary of Prosecutor eunjin x seongwoo reunion, but they barely interacted tbh LOL. Also a ton of bromance between YAI and JSW, so good, really unfortunate that YAI didn't actually get to promote the drama with the gang.

This drama has overall given me very much jdrama vibes, and i guess this makes a lot of sense because it IS based on a Japanese novel. Within the plot there is just a lot of ruminating and reminiscing and enjoying the little moments in life, even amongst a catastrophe like the world ending. But I quite enjoyed that aspect of it. Because, HONESTLY, if we were to face a countdown to the end of the world right now, what else could we do besides just go on with our lives until the end? Maybe create a bucket list and do everything we've always dreamed of? Or maybe panic ration, remaining in denial that the world is not ending? Or maybe do something bad, because the world is ending anyways? This drama showed pretty much all of those aspects of human nature, which I really really loved, because it made the drama and story feel so real. I am highly considering to read the novel this drama was based off.

Overall, I think the MDL rating for Goodbye Earth is way too low, it doesn't deserve such a low rating. I think the YAI scandal just caused a lot of people to start the show with very low-expectations and the fact it was more slice-of-life and slow-paced rather than a thrilling action plot probably gave a lot of people whiplash, leading to the overall low rating. I recommend giving it a chance! It might be your cup of tea if you usually prefer slow-paced plots with more slice of lifey elements rather than fast-paced plots meant to keep you on the edge of your seat. This drama most closely reminded me of a drama I watched recently, the korean drama Live, which is that intersection of slice of life with crime, emotional topics, and thriller. It is certainly NOT everyone's cup of tea.

The only reason I give this drama a 9 rather than a 10 is because while the whole drama was so good, the ending felt a bit vague and I didnt feel like it was quite enough closure for all the characters. It could definitely use a special movie sequel or something, I need more ??? Like I'm actually gonna miss them so bad, I got so attached to the church gang. The scene at the end with the doggy and sungjae was the CHERRY ON TOP, it was for me >>>>>>> also ina lesbian agenda is SO REAL AND TRUE