I’m dropping Lovely, Horribly for a number of reasons. What passes off as lovely isn’t enough to overcome the horribly written female lead.

First, the plot has deteriorated to a tedious see-saw of misadventures that I’ve lost interest in sitting week after week to see what new disaster will befall Eul Soon and Phillip Yoo.

From the onset, the writer warned us that one person’s misfortune was another person’s good fortune. But I didn’t expect that for the next seven episodes (or exactly one month), I had to endure watching the pendulum of luck swing back and forth with the regularity of a Newton’s cradle.

And although I relish seeing Phillip Yoo getting his comeuppance, I cannot fall in love with Eul Soon’s character. Even when she was “winning”, she’s still maddeningly pathetic. Maybe it’s her unruly hair and untidy appearance. Maybe it’s her low self-esteem. Or maybe it’s her being a doormat. Whatever it is, she exasperates me. The best thing she’s done so far is to chuck that darn apple-charm necklace. But it’s too little, too late too late for me.

Enough, show!

Second, I can’t muster up any interest in Eul Soon and Eul Chook/Phillip Yoo’s romance while people are dying (or coming back to life) around them. To me, it’s bothersome that death is treated like a cheap collateral to Eul Soon’s writer’s craft.

Who IS truly being selfish here, I wonder?

If Eul Soon truly comprehends the enormity of her power to write the life and death of real people through her script, then why does she continue to treat her characters as expendable to her plot development? I dislike how she disposes of them at will and how she can be so cavalier with them.

Take for example the introduction of Gon in the script.

Phillip Yoo’s anger is justified in Episode 5 when Eul Soon introduced the masked character without giving him heads up. His life is in danger, but she can’t be bothered to wake up and pay attention to Phillip Yoo’s concern.

Phillip Yoo: You agreed to tell me once you have the script. That was our deal! (She ignores him and dozes off.) Ms. Oh!
Eul Soon: I wasn’t sleeping. (grrrr…. Hasn’t she learned her lesson yet from the landslide and the dead writer? Whatever she writes becomes a reality.)
Phillip Yoo: Ra Yun is one thing since that was already in the premise. But… hey! (she nods off again.) But look at this. This friend. Who is this? Who’s Gon?
Eul Soon: I don’t know. (Sheesh! This director must think that a sleepy-head Song JiHyo is cute. I see a haggard face that needs a wash.) I don’t know. (She continues to make light of the reality that her writing poses a clear and present danger to Phillip’s life.)
Phillip Yoo: How could you not know? You’re the one possessed!
Eul Soon: (sighs) Do I carry the ghost on top of my head? That’s all I got. What do you want me to do? (She acts like she can’t be bothered. Really, I want to slap her with a water to wake her up.)
Phillip Yoo: Then, who’s this guy, Gon? Where did he come from?
Eul Soon: I was eating pizza, and Go… Go… (Eww…Yawning without covering her mouth! Her breath most likely stinks, too.) Gorgonzola pizza.
Phillip Yoo: What? You made someone you’re not sure of as the culprit?
Eul Soon: What could I do? The deadline was near, and that was all I had. For the most shocking reveal, the culprit must be someone closest to him.

See that? Her blatant disregard for the possible consequences of her writing makes her actions detestable.

Another source of irritation for me? Song JiHyo’s character’s incoherence. For a writer who must express thoughts and ideas into words, she often speaks in a disjointed and unintelligible way. For instance, when she suddenly realizes that Phillip Yoo was in danger, she rushes outside to stop him.

Eul Soon: Phillip! Phillip! Wait! (She klutzily stumbles over her own two feet. Am I supposed to feel pity for her here, Director? At this point, I want a truck of doom to run over her.) Phillip. Phillip.
Phillip Yoo: Are you okay? Why were you rolling down the hill?
Eul Soon: Don’t go home.
Phillip Yoo: What?
Eul Soon: Your house is dangerous. Don’t go.
Phillip Yoo: Why are you saying it’s dangerous? (He’s being kind. I would have said, “Just spit it out, you moron. You call yourself a writer but can’t string two words together?)
Eul Soon: Just… Just.. What is it? (She grabs her head. Grrr… she can’t remember. Why does she always lose her mind at the most importantly moments.) Well. I’m not positive…but bathroom? Is it the living room? (What the heck? I can’t make out what she was trying to say. She stomps her feet in frustration, and I want to punch her in exasperation.)

But what really takes the cake is that the show capitalizes on Song Ji Hyo’s 4-D image from Running Man…as if this 4-D-ness is the best and optimum interpretation of the character Eul Soon.  Song Ji Hyo may have have an eccentric and bizarre image but it’s nonsensical to portray her character Eul Soon as eccentric, too.

For instance in Episode 2, her character Eul Soon furiously re-writes the script and exchanges the landslide cliffhanger for the death of a writer. In the middle of the night, she then rushes over to the house of Phillip Yoo to show him the revised draft. But upon arriving at the gate, she hesitates to ring the doorbell (really?? She does not wait till morning and travels all the way there only to change her mind at the gate???). Then, she hears a ghostly voice telling her to go in, and she heeds the voice and enters (Like, Really? Is that sane?)

Inside, she sees Phillip You trapped between the leg of a seat. A normal reaction would be to announce her arrival. Like, “Hey there! What’s going on? Need a hand?”

Instead, she quietly kneels beside him and shows her half-covered face to scare the bejeesus out of Phillip Yoo. She looks like a lunatic or deranged axe-murderer. Then, she talks to him in an exaggeratedly slow voice. Like she was possessed or something.

Phillip Yoo: What…how… How did you get it? Get out! Get out, right this instant!
Eul Soon: Reallllyyy? Shouuuld I? I wonder if it’s okay to leave you here alone.

Facepalm. Her script was hot off the press. She rushed through it all night and drove all the way to his house to get him to read it. She sees a chance to have his full undivided attention, and she tells him tonelessly, “Really? Should I leave you now?”

I know the director wants her to sound haunted, ghostly. But her shy and hesitant demeanor doesn’t make sense when a few minutes later, she shows her feisty self and tries to SCARE him as payback.

Phillip: What’s your relationship with Ra Yun?
Eul Soon: What relationship? I’m a writer. She’s my character. (breathless)
Phillip: No one knows that Ra Yun locked me up and set a fire. (she looks surprised. I didn’t even tell my agency’s CEO. So how did you write his as if you were there?
Eul Soon: Hold on. Hold on. You’re saying Ra Yun is a real person. (she’s beginning to act bewildered here.) For real? Really? Wow. Really. This is amazing.
Phillip: Amazing? You say a dead person is alive, and it’s amazing?
Eul Soon: Dead. Dead. (she stutters here.) She’s dead. She’s dead?? (then she looks around, scared.) This place…This place is weird.
Phillip: What? How is it weird? What do you mean? (she crouches in fear and keeps on looking over her shoulder)
Eul Soon: I mean, I was standing in front of the house, and I thought I heard a woman’s voice. “Go inside. Go inside.” (she’s acting it out.)
Phillip: What?
Eul Soon: (she acts scared) Phillip. Did you do something bad to that dead woman? Is that why she’s hanging around near you. You did. You really did. (accusing him) What do I do? Do you know? They say the scariest of all ghosts are single female ghosts with a grudge. (giving him a mean look.)
Phillip: Why you…
Eul Soon: Plus, there are so many strange things happening. I mean, how could a normal person get his head stuck under the chair like that? (stuttering) An adult, at that (pointing at him). And that gate just opened slowly as if somebody just opened it.
Phillip: You’re creeping me out. How could you say that to someone who lives here? (she jerks around as if she feels something) What? What is it? Is something there?
Eul Soon: The truth is. I…
Phillip: Don’t do that. (she looks at him creepily and approaches him)
Eul Soon: You see, I…
Phillip: Stop it.
Eul Soon: Dead people… (she whispers)
Phillip: Stop it. Lalalalala. No… (flapping his hand over ears)
Eul Soon: I don’t see them. (she taunts)
Phillip: What? Why you…neither do I. Most people do not. Did you have to make that sound so scary?
Eul Soon: It’s scarier because you said I wrote something that happened in real life. (that’s her whole point! She wants to teach him a lesson so she scares him.) This won’t do. I’m leaving.

In that dialogue, Eul Soon seems to exhibit multiple personalities. One second she sounds indignant. The next second, she sounds genuinely scared. Then, she ridicules him and admits that she concocted a horror story to scare him and to teach him a lesson that he’s being silly. So passive-aggressiveness!!

Really. It’s with great disappointment that I’m dropping this show. I had look forward to enjoying it because of Song JiHyo so it’s ironic that it was Song JiHyo’s character that turned me off. It was tiring to watch such a tiresome heroine. I desperately searched but sadly failed to find the “lovely” in all this horrible mess, hair and all.

Off to bed now. Will edit tomorrow.