I don’t know if it’s me, but I’m just not hitting it off with finales this time around. [It is SO NOT just you. --javabeans] It’s just, when you think about it…you’ve spent sixteen, or TWENTY friggin episodes in the will-they-or-won’t-they-oh-god-they-won’t-even-get-close, and speak!-please-for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy-speak! So it’s not asking for too much to be rewarded at the end with a satisfying conclusion. It’s actually the cardinal rule of episodic storytelling. Otherwise why on earth would we submit ourselves to such torture? (I mean this generally, in terms of enduring all lengthy plots of all dramas.)

I wanted to love this finale. Hell, I even wanted to hate this finale. Either would have been awesome. But it just sort of fell flat, without kicking up the tension, the chemistry, or even the cuteness, which I would have accepted in exchange. Maybe. What makes me extra crazy is that it has a pre-ordained ending in the Cinderella framework—all you’d have to do is turn it on its head, and add a touch of whimsy, and you’re golden. It’s a classic fairytale for a reason. I would have forgiven all your sins for a great finale, but you missed your shot, Show. And for that, I am truly sad. [And I'm pissed. --jb]

CINDERELLA’S SISTER Episode 20 >>

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Except for a few minutes’ worth, most of the scenes in this episode are obscured by an election ticker running across the bottom. I considered cropping it out of the frames, but that looks just as odd, so we’ll just have to put up with it.

This may just be the light at the end of the tunnel speaking, but Episode 19 was a big old relief to me. Some of the conflict resolutions felt anticlimactic after all the many hours of hard-core angsty build-up, but I’m beyond the point of caring about that and am just glad that things are speeding to a close. Well, maybe “speeding” is the wrong word, but at least we’ve resumed moving from that standstill — quicksand, even — of the middle stretch.

SONG OF THE DAY

Cinderella’s Sister OST – “나무” (Tree) by Alex [ Download ]

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CINDERELLA’S SISTER Episode 19 >>

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Well look who turned the titanic around in the moments before impact. While this episode mostly has me screaming an exasperated “FINALLY!” at every turn, I can still appreciate it for being what I wanted the show to be around the midpoint. We’ve got plotting, wheeling, dealing, sharing, and hugging…but the real star of this episode is The Unholy Relic of Unspoken Love Between Two Stubborn Souls, aka The Letter. Archaeologists have declared it a monumental find, as historians had originally deemed it too old to matter; but apparently, they were wrong.

CINDERELLA’S SISTER Episode 18 >>

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I think I have to start out with an apology, because I’m just so emotionally checked out of this drama that I can’t tell a good episode apart from a bad one anymore. I’ve read a lot of comments about how Episode 17 is so much better than the previous ones, which was promising to hear, but in the end all it gets from me is a resounding “Eh.” There are two conflicting adages that come to mind: “Better late than never” and “Too little too late.”

SONG OF THE DAY

Lemon Tree – “또 운다” (Crying again) [ Download ]

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CINDERELLA’S SISTER Episode 17 >>

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Well, if you’ve made it this far, you deserve a prize. Perhaps a bobblehead Eun-jo doll, or a Ki-hoon weeble wobble, perfect for punching. What we get in this episode, along with the last one, are finally some major revelations and confrontations, ones that we desperately needed perhaps last century, but hey—when you’re dying of thirst in the desert, you don’t turn down a drop of water.

In this episode, Hyo-sun seeks out a skeleton in Mom’s closet, Eun-jo and Mom get lessons in feeling feelings, Ki-hoon gets emotionally pistol-whipped, and Jung-woo stands around with very little to do but get squarely ignored by Eun-jo.

CINDERELLA’S SISTER Episode 16 >>

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