Alchemy of Souls - Draggy AF

Just finished watching this K-Drama called Alchemy of Souls and it was such a drag. The only reason why I watched it in the first place was because it had the "weak but actually secretly super strong" main character trope that I am a sucker for.

The main premise of the story that they show from the trailer is about this main female lead who is an extremely skilled and powerful assassin who switched souls and got herself stuck in the body of a weak person, all that happens within the first 15 minutes of the series and so for the next 20 episodes of the show, I was just watching in anticipation for her to finally get her badassery back to kick some bad guy's ass, but the writers really dragged that shit out and she doesn't show any hint a her original powers until Episode 18, which doesn't last long and then after that, the next 2 episodes, she is back to her powerless self again, gets mind controlled by the main antagonist, reverts back to her powerful self again but under mind control this time, and ends up killing the Main Male Character and offing herself in a lake. Luckily I was bingeing the 1st Season because it was already fully released by the time I got into it, otherwise I think I would have been really annoyed at how the story was playing out if I had been waiting for it to be release at the glacial rate of 2 episodes per week.

Well, season 2 started a month back and I ended up experiencing the need to go through the glacial rate of 2 episodes per week and it was so fucking draggy. I guess because I had to wait for new episodes, I was able to really get  immerse into each episode and just catch every single draggy AF moments and moments that just felt like lazy writing, whereas with Season 1, I was just bingeing to get to the end, so certain issues that I might have had with the show escaped my radar a little.

So the premise of Season 2 is set 3 years later and the Main Female Lead is now an amnesiac after she was saved from drowning in the river, her appearance is completely different because I guess they had contractual issues with the first main actress, so they got the original actress who was playing the badass assassins' in the first 15 minutes of the first season to take on the lead role, and they were able to have a good reason to explain why she looks different in the storyline, so I was okay with it, and the Main Male Character resurrected and is now an emo-boy because of the shit he went through... or because of what went through him, the Main Female Lead's sword.

So what everyone was looking forward to in Season 2 is for the Main Female Character to get her memories back and fall back in love with the Main Male Character so he can stop being so emo, we were also expecting her to become the kickass assassin again just because she got her original appearance back and the show claims she has "divine powers" now. 

As with season 1 however, the writers really DRAGGED that shit out and they only gave the Main Female Characters short snippets of her memories back, which she mistakes for someone else, like for literally 6 to 7 episodes, they would tease the audience with 

"...oh, here is a core memory for her to remember, will she be flooded with her original memories after this?"

... spoiler alert, she fucking doesn't, she just keeps thinking they belong to someone else until episode 8 when she finally realizes it's hers, after which she doesn't tell the Main Male Lead she is who she is because she feels bad for killing him in Season 1, so they drag that shit out for the entire episode and the Main Male Lead only finds out about her true identity in Episode 9, literally with only 2 episodes left that is meant to have the 2 Main Characters get back together again and then also to fight off the main antagonist. 

They get all emo in Episoide 9, both feigning ignorance to her true identity, it's like so fucking stupid, all that built up that had been created for 8 fucking dragged out episode, and when it came to that moment, the both of them just agree to each other that they will pretend not to know who she is.

Like FUCK OFF! 

He had been emo-ing for her for so long and when she is finally there, instead of bursting with emotions, he is just repressing and telling her even though he knows, he will pretend he doesn't, and she also does the same shit, she knows he knows, but she pretends he doesn't, like fuck off.

It's like the writers were dangling that carrot in front of us the whole time for us to chase, only for us to finally bite into that carrot and then we find out it's just a turd that had been painted orange.

That's just one of many issues I had with the show. The pacing is just horrible, side characters were also making really odd decisions that I couldn't wrap my head around, like for example..

We have 3 characters in this scenario that I will explain..

Mommy Bitch - a powerful mage who is in charge of storing sentient artifacts in her magic cave.

Kim - the maidservant of the Main Male Character who is like a mother figure to him

Kim Husband - another powerful mage that is betrothed to Kim

So horrible pacing of the show has led to the main bad guy indirectly destroying the magic cave that Mommy Bitch has been guarding and now all the sentient artifacts are trying to escape, Kim happens to be there as well because she was visiting Mommy Bitch to ask about where the Main Male Character went to, and just to add on, Mommy Bitch and Kim have no friendship with one another whatsoever, they are acquaintances at best. 

Anyways, the cave starts to collapse and Mommy Bitch has to go stabilize it, so she ask Kim to assist her to enter the cave together because she had been injured after she got wrecked by the main antagonist, so Kim assists her in and then the Cave starts getting really unstable, Kim Husband then pops into the scene and realizes that Kim is in the cave with Mommy Bitch, he then panics at the entrance of the cave and calls for her to get out.

We switch scenes to the inside of the Cave and Mommy Bitch is doing her magic to prevent the Sentient artifacts from escaping, but what is Kim doing? Well, she is just propping Mommy Bitch up like a tripod, that is literally all she is contributing to the situation, so Mommy Bitch ask her to leave the cave otherwise she will die as well.

Kim then thinks for a while and ask Husband Kim to use his magic to seal off the cave while both her and Mommy Bitch are inside, everyone is crying in the scene and it is suppose to be heart wrenching but all I am wondering is...

"Why the fuck are you staying in the cave with Mommy Bitch, you have literally no relationship with one another, you guys are acquittances at best, like what is the justification of you being willing to die with her in the cave? The entrance to the cave is literally still wide open, just leave!"

It makes zero fucking sense, I mean one can argue that it's in her character's personality to do that, but that is the kind of lie you will tell yourself to hide the fact that the writers just wanted to make things sad for the viewers, so they lazily wrote this scene in to evoke that emotion. Well, it feels badly thought out and makes zero sense to me, that scene was what made me realize that this show's ending was going to be like what the final season of Game of Thrones did for the entire franchise, ruined it, the only difference is that Game of Thrones was good for the earlier season, what this final episodes did for me for Alchemy of Souls is highlight all the deux ex machina issues that I had with the show since the first season.

What would make sense for that scene is that Kim assisted Mommy Bitch into the Cave, but the main entrance ends up collapsing, so they both get stuck inside with no way out and without any chance of escaping, Kim then decides to help Mommy Bitch as much as she can by becoming her fucking tripod. Husband Kim isn't able to do shit while he is stuck outside and all he can do at that point is seal the cave with his magic to prevent the Sentient Artifacts from seeping out, Kim then tells him to do it since she had zero chance of getting out anyway, so he does it and everyone gets sad. 

Like that chain of events would make sense to me because there is no fucking reason for Kim to stay in the cave with Mommy Bitch at all unless she was literally stuck in there with her. Like why would you make the decision of choosing to stay with Mommy Bitch so she won't die alone over your Husband's grief from losing you, it makes no fucking sense! 

Anyway, they didn't actually die, turns out they were saved last minute and the show had a happy ending, they actually rushed the fight scene at the end as well, which was also fucking stupid. The show was talking about how the bad guy was going to release this fire bird that will cause massive damage to the lands, but then that fire bird gets killed within 5 minutes by the main character after it gets released, the main character just shoots an arrow "filled with magic from some mystical lake" in it's neck and it dies, talk about anti-climatic. 

Overall, I will rate this show a 4/10, had a promising premise and likeable characters, but the show was just completely bogged down by pacing issues. Season 1 aside because I was bingeing that so I don't really want to comment to much, but with Season 2, you had 10 episodes to play with, and you drag out the first 8 episodes with meaningless back and forth between the 2 leads playing hard to get with one another, and then squeeze all the main overarching storyline progression into the final 2 episodes,  I guess my expectation for the show was way too high because when I went to reddit to check everyone else's reaction, they were all happily eating that shit up because the writers gave them a happy ending.

Really, are our standards for K-Drama really that low?