Trying to catch up
Despite the title, it is a murder story.
Cast and Characters
Maybe Not a Murderer ML is played by Liu Guan Ting (Love of Sandstorm, Meet Me @1006, Tears on Fire, On Children, Marry My Dead Body. He's what I would say is a Very Taiwanese Guy: dopey, probably misguided, but generally well-meaning, if not downright idiotic at times (sorry, Taiwan). He's a struggling actor who keeps trying even though he's not a very good actor and is trying to break into a very selective field even though he's financially struggling yet unwilling to hold a part-time job.
ML's Long Suffering Girlfriend is played by Gingle Wang (Detention, On Children, Till We Meet Again, Light the Night 2 & 3, The Outsiders, The Wave Makers, At the Moment, The Pig the Snake and the Pigeon, Marry My Dead Body). For some reason, she continues to support her deadbeat ML boyfriend.
Murder Victim is played by Sonia Sui (Black & White, The 9th Precinct, Scamsgiving, Lovely Villain). Whenever I see this actor, I think she's like a younger version of Cheryl Yang.
Pre-murder
Special shout-out to Berry Luo (Our Times, Cafe Waiting Love, My Egg Boy, The Fearless, Someday or One Day, Someday or One Day (movie), Light the Night 1-3, Secrets in the Hot Spring, Golden Dream on Green Island, My Missing Valentine) who plays the competent police detective. It's nice when drama has overweight characters that aren't just there for comic relief and the butt of jokes.
Pros and Cons
Pro: The initial black comedy
I can't tell if it's intentional or not, but I enjoyed the first 5-6 episodes where it's ML trying (poorly) to cover up the fact that he spent the night with the murder victim before her death. He's amusingly incompetent and just keeps digging a deeper hole for himself with everything he does. So I actually thought it was a black comedy.
Con: The ending
The end of the drama plays like a standard whodunit. And maybe it's just that murder mysteries are not my bag. New information about the night of the murder are tacked on near the end, so it's not even a thing where audiences can guess who the actual murderer is just by paying attention. We're just fed extra information at the end to justify the murderer reveal. So that's uninteresting to me.
All so sus.
Pro: The acting and the setting
It's my Taiwanese bias, but I generally enjoy all the actors in their roles. I also like the mood and setting of the drama.
The End
This was an enjoyable way to pass eight episodes, but it's generally forgettable. And writing this made me remember that I also watched The Wavemakers, which I thought is a much better drama than this one. It's a drama about election workers (sounds boring, right?) and I initially only watched it for Hsieh Ying Shiuan and Gingle Wang. But it was very interesting and I much more recommend that drama over this one. I'll try to write about it next time.