The Secret, my fellow Beans, to getting through The King (if you’re game for a test of stamina), is to approach it like Twilight. Yes, Twilight. The tween vampire movie based on the terrible vampire book that should never have been published.

The Twilight movie was a serious, urban fantasy YA “adventure” that, when watched in earnest, was absolutely, horrifyingly horrible in every way. BUT – when watched as a straight up comedy – it was possibly one of the funniest moves I’d seen that year.

THIS! This… is the trick to The King. Because it’s an epically EXTRA dumpster fire of glorious WTF moments that, when you try and take them seriously as a normal show, just don’t compute. But when viewed as a parody of what it’s supposed to be – it’s actually kind of fun.

Despite the directing, writing and a lot of the flunked story opportunities, there are some redeeming qualities (I think, anyway).

Kim Go-eun is a fun, spunky FL. Woo Do-hwan is definitely being under-utilized, but he’s looking fiiiiiine in his bodyguard duds. I’m really digging the unintentional homoerotic subplot between LMH’s King and WDH’s Captain of the Royal Guard.

The villain, Prince Lee Something-or-other, also has potential, though mostly because he’s actually scary. He’s a raging psychopath who will actually kill anyone in his path. No one is safe. Not his brother, not even children. Yes, he will kill children. Clearly, this bro is bad news bears for everyone – AND, he’s got a piece of magic flute so WATCH OUT!

And LMH. Well. I’ve only ever seen BoF so I can’t speak from a place of connoisseurship, but he is killing it at the staring game. He can stare like nobody’s business. Dead stare, quasi-dead stare, almost but-not-quite-alive stare – he’s got it, it’s all there. So, yes, looking forward to more staring from him for sure.

All in all, will I be tuning in next week? Abso-freaking-lutely! We live in strange and terrible times and I can always use a good laugh.