January 2026: Idols, Lesbians, and an Island of Evil

Truth!

Happy New Year! Secured my BTS tour tickets so I am set for 2026.

Let's talk dramas.

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Idol I

Idol I is a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of a K-pop fangirl living her best/worst life when her idol is accused of murder and she ends up defending him as her lawyer. 

Maeng Se-na (Choi Soo-young) is a criminal defense attorney who sucesssfully gets her celebrity and infamous clients off. She is focused on her work unless her favorite group, Gold Boys is playing and her her bias Do La-ik (Kim Jae-young) is having fan meets. Then she is a committed Goldie cheering them on. 

But one night Do La-ik is having drinks with his bandmate Kang Woo-seong (Ahn Woo-yeon) only to wake up and find Woo-seong stabbed and dead in La-ik's living room. La-ik is accused of the murder. His label, fans, and the public assume he is guilty and the prosecutor Kwak Byung-gyun (Jung Jae-kwang) thinks it will be a slam dunk case and help him break into politics. But Maeng Se-na steps in to defend La-ik.

As crazy a set-up as it is, the series shows how messed up life as an idol can be. The relentless public face they must wear, invasions of privacy, hiding their private life, and struggling to remain relevant as their group ages. It also gives a lens on Korean media and how quickly the pig pile of accusations and assumed guilt happens. 

But the real drama here comes from  the more complicated relationship Se-na has with La-ik. Once he is standing in front of her needing a lawyer, he can no longer be this person who she has loved from afar and who has brought her immense comfort.  She has to let go of what he meant to her to defend him. His proximity has changed and so has what he means to her.  And that is not as easy as just taking down her posters and putting away her photocards. 

And no one makes light of this. I think the tendency in mainstream media is to look at idol fandoms with a dismissive tone. This series refuses to trivilialize this dynamic. Her struggles with essentially losing her idol is handled with respect and with no condescension. 

Yes there are sasaengs (obsessive fans) who go beyond what is legal or reasonable and those are depicted. But this show tries to fill in the nuances around fandom. 

As with many dramas, each of the characters has experienced a traumatic loss including Se-na and her good friend,/upstairs nieghbor/private investigator, Park Chung-jae (Kim Hyun-jin). Their friendship and support for each other is touching and is integrated well into the enarrative. But having Se-na's bias waltz into their comfortable dynamic upends things. 

For maybe too long, La-ik is lost and rudderless as he is accused of murder. But eventually he comes back into his own voice, maybe for the first time, and seeks to protect Se-na when she comes under criticism. They both have "survived" a lot and not all survival means you come out unscathed.  

Meanwhile he also survived a terrible wig/hairstyle from his debut era. 

Eventually it becomes a murder mystery/romance and manages to juggle both pretty well. 

A solid drama

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Mine

Strong relate

I was scrambling to find a show over the holidays and was glad to stumble upon this makjang which I missed back in 2022. 

On the surface, it presents rich people smashing things up including the lives of people around them with the staff picking up the pieces. But at its core, the show is about women who have been underestimated and are willing to do anything to fight for their families. While that might sound somewhat traditional, the show pushes a much more progressive view of what makes a family. 

Set up as a murder mystery we know that someone or more than one person has died but in a series of flashbacks we learn who all the people are, what they saw, and why things happened the way they did. 

In this chaebol family, Jung Seo-hyun (Kim Seo-hyung) manages the family compound, the extensive staff, as well as an art gallery. Her husband, Han Jin-ho (Park Hyuk-kwon) is the first born son and an alcoholic. He has a son from a prior relationship, Han Soo-hyuk (Cha Hak-yeon) who has mostly avoided the family. But he meets a new maid in the houseKim Yu-yeon (Jung Yi-seo) and strikes an unusual bargain with her. 

Living in the family compound in a separate house is Seo Hi-soo (Lee Bo-young). She was a top actress but gave up her career when she married the second son of the family,  Han Ji-yong (Lee Hyun-wook) who has been a devoted husband and father to his son Ha-joon. They hire a new tutor/nann for Ha-joon, Kang Ja-kyung (Ok Ja-yeon) who starts to undermine the close relationship between Hi-soo and Ha-joon. 

Add into all of this a hysterical matriarch obsessed with her peacock (not a euphemism), house staff spying on everyone, a suspicious and meddling nun who found the bodies, and a whole boatload of secrets. 

No one is as they seem and the show goes the distance to show what happens when each of these characters are put through a high pressure vise. There will be murder, bloodshed, and secrets unleashed. 

This show is also one of the first in Korea to have a lesbian main character. And frankly the way the show handles queerness is what makes it so remarkable. There is more acceptance than you might be expecting. 

Also, while the men are clearly shitheads, cruel, and manipulative, the women meet this challenge and refuse to accept the situation these men have left them in. This is where the drama and tension really comes from. 

And even if set around a rich family full of power, the fights are less about greed (well for some characters) and more about love. Rather than taking for themselves this is a battle to save others. 

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Taxi Driver 3

Honestly I had forgotten how this series started out so seeing a brief reminder of what transpired in season 1 and what had inspired the taxi revenge crew was helpful here. 

But the brief interlude into an island of evil was dumb. 

And the ripped from the headlines coup planning at Burger Meister was unexpected! 

Not sure this show needs to keep going and going.