The Silent Sea

The Silent Sea 

Korean drama, mystery, sci-fi series 

Complete 8 Episodes, Netflix streaming 

With Bae Doona, Gong Yoo, Lee Joon 

December 24, 2021

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The series is brilliant tackling the subject of killing hundreds to save millions. The story borrows from a few sci-fi novels and movies specially Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Is it ethical to create clones for experiment that kills them in order to save humanity? The illegality of owning pets is borrowed from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?. The dialog-heavy style which many viewers find boring is similar to Danny Boyle's movie Sunshine and the Russian movie Solaris. IMHO, the story is complete and doesn't need a second season. You draw your own conclusion based on what happened.

Spoilers

Bad And Crazy

Wookie (Lee Dong-Wook) is back in Bad And Crazy 

Action, comedy, corruption in politics and police, Korean series starts December 17, 2021 Fridays and Saturdays

The first episode suggests that the 2 characters are one and the same person just like the characters in Fight Club. Ryu Soo Yeol (Lee Dong-Wook) is a competent police officer but with questionable work ethics kissing a politician's ass for fast promotion. But his activities are suddenly thwarted by the appearance of K (Wi Ha-Jun of Squid Game) who is rather crazy but righteous.

Lee Dong-Wook as Ryu Soo-Yeol and Wi Ha-Joon as K

Ryu Soo-Yeol was relaxing in the sauna when K suddenly appeared fully clothed wearing a bike helmet and shoes and tossed the poor guy around. He asked for CCTV footage but K appeared nowhere in the video.

At the end of Episode 2, newly promoted Bad Ryu Soo-Yeol realized he is Crazy K when he kicked the dirty politician right on his face. One of the best and funniest second episodes in KDramaland. 😁

The Witcher Season 2

Bingeing starts tomorrow, December 17, 2021.

The Man Who Died Twice

tags: MI5, murder mystery, septuagenarians

⭐⭐⭐⭐

From GoodReads

It's the following Thursday.

Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?

From the first book, The Thursday Murder Club 

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

The Man Who Died Twice is the second book of a new mystery series, The Thursday Murder Club. I read it because the first book is not available yet from the library. The story is a stand alone but there are recurring characters aside from the 4 septuagenarians. 

The story-telling is straightforward without flowery language which I like and the story is full of surprises. I figured out who the murderer is about 2/3 into the book. Just a wild guess and I was right. 

Good read. I recommend for murder mystery fans.

The Intangible

tags: broken people, soap opera

⭐

from GoodReads

Amanda Jackson has always longed to be a mother. The early weeks of her first pregnancy are a mixture of joy, anticipation, and uncertainty as she and her husband prepare for the journey ahead.

Then comes a devastating loss. Even though her doctors tell her otherwise, Amanda believes she’s still pregnant. Her diagnosis is a rare, mysterious condition called pseudocyesis. Betrayed by her mind and body and her marriage strained, Amanda turns to neuroscientist Patrick Davis for answers.

Patrick understands the strange twists and turns of the human mind better than anyone. But as he spirals ever deeper into Amanda’s illness, his own homelife crumbles as his wife, Marissa, struggles to cope with her own loss. Marissa’s unique and, some may think, macabre work is her salvation, but it’s pulling her further and further away from Patrick.

As the two couples confront the fraught intersection of science, death, and human emotion, they venture into the darkest corners of each other’s lives. What they find there could change them forever.

*Sigh* I never learn. Once again I got tricked by glowing comments on Amazon, and the science aspect convinced me to download the book from Amazon First Reads for January 2022. What a huge disappointment and complete waste of my time! The book, inhabited by broken people, is nothing more than soap opera disguised as science-y. There are extremely long paragraphs on science and mathematics that bored me to death. The math theory that Marissa is working on is supposed to discover parallel universes but it never came to fruition. Nothing. So what was the point? SMH

Spoilers