Love Alarm S2 K-Drama Review: Reminder to Stop Having High Expectations
Long story short - Love Alarm Season 2 is slow and disappointing. Love Alarm is a Korean drama on Netflix about a world in which a phone app exists to tell you whether you love someone or whether someone loves you. If you step within a 10 meter radius of someone and you love them, the phone will automatically “ring” their love alarm. It’s fictional technology that is a bit insane and improbable to think about, but hey! Dramas! I’ll be the first to say that this drama is cheesy and the depiction of love is problematic, but that did not stop me from absolutely loving Season 1. Season 2 was released just a few days ago, and I am not a fan of this season at all.
SPOILER ALERT for the rest of this review.
Please raise your hand if you were really upset that Jojo ended up with Hye Yeong at the end of the drama ✋🏼 ✋🏼 ✋🏼. I think that most fans of Season 1 were fans because they shipped Jojo and Sun Oh together, and it’s almost tragic that Season 2 throws that ship out of the window. From the opening, I was a bit confused because the season starts off not picking off from the end of season 1. The end scene I’m referring to is the cliffhanger scene where Jojo, Hye Yeong, and Sun Oh are in this long corridor and both of the boys ring her love alarm. I was really excited to get right back into the action, but the writers decided to pretend that scene never even happened. And overall, these 6 episodes felt really slow and boring to me. On a personal level, it was definitely slow because I am not completely won over by Hye Yeong’s character. Watching the majority of the episodes filled with him and his character development was not thrilling for me.
While watching this season, I felt the same disappointment and dread I felt while watching Start-Up. Ironically, the situation is flipped because in Start-Up, I was devastated when the second main lead did not get the girl at the end. But in Love Alarm, I am devastated that the show decided to let the second main lead get the girl. It’s like modern dramas these days (especially ones with technological themes??) are trying to be unpredictable and realistic. I’m not sure they understand that fans tend to congregate around a certain ship, and when the story deviates from that ship, it just becomes disappointing to watch. I’m not trying to watch a K-drama to get a documentary feature of what it’s like to live life and how love can be unpredictable. I’m trying to watch dramas to enjoy my favorite character tropes and stereotypes deliver on their promises. And Season 1 felt to me like a promise to us that Jojo and Sun Oh had something special. I’m a bit unsettled by the fact that the thing that made me love this drama the most ended up not being featured in the second season.
Love Alarm S2 does have some things going for it that Start Up didn’t have. First of all, I appreciated that Sun Oh got some closure from his obsession with Jojo, and the viewers also got to see him move on from the past. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, but at least it was something! I also liked how Sun Oh opened himself up to a new friendship/relationship after receiving his closure, like what normal people ought to do. One of the best scenes of the series is in the final episode, where Jojo was running the marathon on Jeju Island. I enjoyed watching her have an internal moment where she reconciles with her past, insecurities, and bad decisions. It was very therapeutic and good to see her character development! But then I literally groaned out loud in frustration when I saw Hye Yeong waiting for her at the finish line because that was the final nail in the coffin for me.
In conclusion…
If you enjoyed Season 1, then I think you need to watch this season to see how it ends…but I also think that it’s totally fine to skip around. Midway through episode 6, I actually fast forwarded to the end because I did not care anymore. I just can’t believe K-dramas are messing with my feelings this way. But I guess I will say a thank you to Start-Up and Love Alarm for truly opening my eyes to how K-Dramas can be unpredictable.