Ripley, DONE! It's not bad overall but it's not gripping me at all most of 15, 16. I still love that powerful YH+YoungMR mirage scene to death. I want redemption for MiRi with some caveats. It's nice she paid her dues (legally) and got a fresh start. But to completely win me dramawise, she'll have to stand up and man up to her own crimes and lies instead of playing victim almost to the very end. Yes, You had a tough miserable existence for 20 years, girlfriend, You have the right to lash it all out on ur despicable Mother, but Don't fake you don't know, you are very aware many of your decisions are LIES esp initially. I saw your glint and you know what you are doing, I got lethargic seeing MR playing HUGEST victim of all and put the blame on everyone else and didn't really own up to her own decision making. I REALLY hate how she treated MH, he needs a spine and a set of real balls but that doesn't make it right MR just lets him be pooped, entirely for her sake just with a whimper of 'I'm sorry, very much so.' I saw MH as paving the road to her reformation, sparking that notion of 'is that love?!' in her psyche, what they had is not love in the highest order, purest romantic sense, but he did love her, as shallow and for the sake of rolling in the sheets as it was. He's the one I saw starting it all, not YH. What YH had with MR is more compatible and closer to the real deal but without MH softening her up, I dun see MR able to develop any genuine feelings for YH, which she has some, but still hasn't reached my romantic notion of love.
And I'm still batty over HJ totally reduced to less than a humidifier in most of the second half. Come on, those nameless coworkers at Mondo has more silly lines than her. That whole MR guilttrip HJ is a lot of ho hum bullcrap, HJ is also an orphan, and just so she's adopted by caring grownups, this is out of her control, she studied her way through ToDai, and for HJ buying ALL of it and stayed in limbo…meh!!! I would be grander if operation rescueMR had a friendship element to it other than the grand romantic power of LOVE fr a man, the core of MR's transformation. It's too knight in shining armor rescuing damsel. And in my head, MH can be utilized way better in a daddy long legs way, even the savior complex can be done more intelligently. I expected him to aid MR not in the stupid sacrificial martyr way but through shrewd business savvy loopholes. He's oddly un-resourceful for someone his station.
As I didnt see MR/YH able to completely move past their history of deceit as is, this is a perfect ending for me. A year later, MR gets her fresh start, she has a real gf in HJ, she's still young and learnt her lessons in love the hard way. I'm rather hopeful she'll meet her OTP down the road, starting fr an absolutely honest slate. It may even be a grown up YH…but he needs to take care of his own daddy/stepmom issues and reach a new calm normal family dynamic first. I'm very lenient with my fauxcest, I have a sense YH is as well, they didn't grow up together, they are not blood related, nth illegal there.
I just don't think YH will be happy with MR in the long run. I'm still not sure what was the hook that got him so obsessed with MR to begin with since I an anti love-at-first-sight and the birthMom fancy/lookalike is creepily Oedipal for me, he had a lot of thought on that esp in crisis and still nth substantial and I don't see them bonding as their true selves. Stepmom treated him civilly well, no blunt trauma there, doucheDad is totally loving towards him. I think his love for MR has been too damaged and ungrounded to savage esp if he compared what they had, how innocently innocuous his take on romance was preMR and I don't see much of a foundation enough to withstand the cracks of time.
This is minor, but bug the HELL out of me that pedopimp is romanticized to almost saintly so very much in last arc. What the hell is going on for a hospital to allow some stranger, the patient's assailant to be honest to walk in and out freely AND PLAYED SOME MAGIC FLUTE?!?! *hurllllll DESK*
I would still prefer an actress with a much more understated style than LDH, I know it's me and not a prob;em for 99% of Ripley viewers. She's fine in the high strung explosive scenes, but her OTT switch can't be turned off and I find it distracting and actually taking me out of the drama when it's so unconvincing to me she's fooling every character in sight. I don't know what curriculum they teach in the ToDai or for an MD, but I thought psych 101 is easy peasy a leisurely read just to spot the obvious lyingliarwholies esp those gasping, jumpily do eye somersaults of OMO! and glaring at her own freaken lies?!?! Many times I got MR was STUNNED mostly by her own lame lies that she'll scoff and rofl at in a less dire circumstances fooled alllllll them fools.
