[
There are so many great K-dramas out there, but even the most hardcore fans have to admit that even the best ones aren’t perfect. Even if a series drags out for longer than ten one-hour episodes, having plenty of time to patch up any holes in its narrative, some series don’t take the opportunity to do so, leaving the empty space feeling even emptier at the end of the show.
While plot holes feel like a great error, they happen everywhere, from prestige dramas and epics to B-movies and network shows, but massive plot holes are hardly forgiven, even in the best of shows. Here are eight great K-dramas with glaring plot holes; we can forgive them, but we can’t miss those obvious mistakes.
8
‘The King: Eternal Monarch’ (2020)
The King: Eternal Monarch is an entertaining and sometimes excessively dramatic fantasy romance K-drama. The chemistry between Lee Min-ho and Kim Go-eun is powerful, and the show’s high production value, epic romance, and fascinating “what if” premise keep you glued to the screen—even when its logic is failing it. The story follows Emperor Lee Gon of the Korean Empire (Lee), who discovers a gateway to a parallel world, which is the modern-day Republic of Korea. He crosses over to find the culprit behind his father’s murder.
The King: Eternal Monarch has some time-travel rules, including a mysterious portal between worlds that is never clearly explained. Furthermore, the story establishes a complex system for how the two worlds interact, only to seemingly abandon its own logic by the end. Some critics have claimed that “the parallel world is too complex to understand,” while The Korea Herald stated that “the series fails to fully explain the parallel universe to the audience.” Despite this, fans were thrilled to see Lee make a comeback after serving his mandatory military service.
7
‘The Penthouse: War in Life’ (2020–2021)
The Penthouse: War in Life is the epitome of makjang drama, a genre known for its outrageous plots and absurd twists. In the world of The Penthouse, logic is the first victim, with even the show’s writer, Kim Soon-ok, famously admitting that her plot “defies logic,” joking that viewers might be confused by how “supposedly dead characters come back to life as if they were zombies.” The Penthouse takes place in a luxurious 100-floor apartment complex in Seoul and follows a group of wealthy families willing to commit any crime, from fraud and extortion to murder, to ensure their children’s success. The twist-filled K-drama show spans three seasons of escalating betrayal, vengeance, and one shocking revelation after the next.
Throughout the three explosive seasons, characters are revealed to have secret doppelgängers, to fake their deaths only to reappear seasons later with no explanation, and to engage in long-term schemes that would be impossible in any real-life setting. However, The Penthouse is pure, addictive, and unabashed entertainment. Fans love to hate the villains, and the show is a masterclass in delivering shocking cliffhangers. For many, the sheer audacity of its plot holes contributes to the show’s bizarre, alluring appeal.
6
‘Reborn Rich’ (2022)
Reborn Rich follows Hyun-woo (Song Joong-ki), a devoted secretary to a powerful chaebol (conglomerate) family, who is accused of embezzlement and murdered. He awakens decades earlier, reborn as Jin Do-jun, the youngest member of the same family. Using his knowledge of the future, he devises a complex, multi-lifetime revenge plan to take over the company from within. For 15 episodes, Reborn Rich is a brilliantly paced and deeply satisfying revenge thriller; Song is captivating as the anti-hero, and the corporate intrigue is genuinely compelling—but many believe the final act falls short.
Reborn Rich is a textbook example of a promising setup that is abandoned near the end. After 15 episodes of an intricate corporate revenge fantasy, the final episode reveals that the entire rebirth was not what anyone expected, bringing the series into the realm of deeply dissatisfying payoffs akin to “it was all a dream” or “they were dead the whole time.” This twist rendered nearly every event in the show’s main plot meaningless, leaving viewers perplexed and frustrated. The show was also chastised for a more basic plot flaw: how did Hyun-woo, after being shot in the head, walk around as if nothing had happened? Reborn Rich is based on a well-known web series with a much more straightforward ending, but some consider the drama’s ending to reflect real life much better (including the production team).
5
‘Start-Up’ (2020)
Start-Up is one of the earlier Netflix original K-dramas, and it’s overall a very likable show with great performances from the entire cast (though Kim Seon-ho is often singled out as giving a spectacular performance as Han Ji-pyeong). With 16 episodes, the show’s first half is a masterclass in emotional storytelling, and its depiction of the high-stakes start-up world is vibrant and fun, but the ending feels abandoned in some ways, especially the emotional stakes that the show raises until the very end. Not only that, but Han Ji-pyeong is built to have this intricate emotional landscape, and then his arc is abandoned for no good reason.
Start-Up follows Seo Dal-mi (Bae Suzy), who dreams of becoming Korea’s next tech billionaire. During a start-up competition, she meets Nam Do-san (Nam Joo-hyuk), a math prodigy who founded a failing startup, and Han Ji-pyeong (Kim), a wealthy and successful venture capitalist. The story begins in childhood, when Ji-pyeong, an orphan who is taken in by Dal-mi’s grandmother, writes a series of letters to Dal-mi, signing them as Do-san after seeing his name in the newspaper. Dal-mi spends years believing Do-san wrote the letters, which serve as the show’s emotional center. However, after the truth is revealed, the show abandons the storyline without providing a meaningful emotional resolution. Start-Up squanders the potential of its most compelling character, Han Ji-pyeong, by ignoring this crucial connection.
4
‘It’s Okay to Not Be Okay’ (2020)
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay is a beautiful and darkly complex fairy tale about Moon Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun), an emotionally repressed caregiver at a psychiatric hospital, and Ko Moon-young (Seo Yea-ji), a well-known children’s book author with antisocial personality disorder. Her life becomes entangled with Gang-tae and his older brother, Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se), who has autism and whom Gang-tae looks after wherever they go. Overall, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay boasts deep emotional depth, stunning production design, and career-defining performances. However, it also contains a massive plot hole that fans couldn’t get past.
The plot hole in question concerns Moon-young’s mother, who Moon-young was told had died at the hands of her father several years prior. The drama later reveals that her mother isn’t only alive but that she has been working as a head nurse at a psychiatric hospital under a different name for years. This revelation becomes more painful as the show repeatedly fails to provide a logical explanation for how a woman who was allegedly murdered could completely change her appearance, pursue a new professional career, and work in a hospital without anyone recognizing her. Many people thought this twist was a plot hole that couldn’t be easily fixed, and it went too far for an otherwise grounded show about mental health.
3
‘Squid Game’ (2021)
Squid Game is a global phenomenon of a series that sparked the most recent Korean Wave and helped popularize K-dramas on streaming services. Most people are familiar with the show, which follows hundreds of financially desperate people who are invited to play a series of children’s games on a remote island in exchange for a massive sum of money. However, the stakes are extremely high, as each game is life or death; participants must survive rounds of Red Light, Green Light, tug-of-war, and marbles, among others, with the ultimate prize going to the single survivor. However, there is one small detail in Season 1 that has left viewers wondering: how is the frail, elderly Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su), the secret mastermind behind the games?
In Squid Game Season 1, we learn that Il-nam, the mastermind of Squid Game, is terminally ill and joined the games to get a thrill before dying—but he was never truly meant to die, as he was shielded from most of the games, particularly the marbles. However, this raises a major inconsistency: how did he survive the previous Tug of War game? In that game, the losing team was literally dropped to their deaths, so if his team had lost, his death would have been genuine, contradicting the notion that his life was never in danger. Despite this, Squid Game is a sharp, brutal critique of capitalism and inequality, with a unique visual style, memorable characters, and suspenseful games that make it a must-see television series.
2
‘Big Mouth’ (2022)
Big Mouth is a Disney K-drama that went under the radar for mainstream audiences, but whoever appreciates the work of Lee Jong-suk has likely seen it. It follows Park Chang-ho (Lee), a bumbling lawyer who speaks before he thinks, being dubbed “Big Mouth”; he gets framed for a series of high-profile murders after being mistaken for the real perpetrator, known as “Big Mouse.” While in prison, he must take on the persona of Big Mouse to survive, while his wife Mi-ho (Im Yoon-ah) works on the outside to clear his name. Big Mouth is a tightly plotted, twisty, and thrilling cat-and-mouse game for the first half of its run, but then there are a couple of plot holes that appear to be there just to exist.
For example, the show’s final act is derailed by an illogical prison riot. Prisoners can easily overpower guards, hold them hostage, and effectively run the facility, making the ease with which this occurs completely unrealistic. Even more bizarre is the complete lack of consequences for the prisoners, with some even granted parole by the end of the show, as well as the identity of Big Mouse and his gang never being revealed. In a show that prided itself on being a gritty crime drama, this sudden breakdown in the rule of law was a major flaw.
1
‘Vincenzo’ (2021)
Vincenzo is a hugely popular show that combines thrills, romance, and legal procedural processes. It has one of the best revelations of a mastermind villain and a beautifully stacked cast; it’s just so much fun. And yet, everything Vincenzo does feels like a glaring plot hole—he is a walking contradiction. The plot revolves around Vincenzo Cassano (Song Joong-ki), a Korean-Italian mafia consigliere who returns to South Korea to retrieve 1.5 tons of gold hidden in the basement of a run-down plaza. However, he is drawn into a fight against a corrupt and powerful conglomerate attempting to take over the building, resulting in a wildly extravagant and stylish revenge battle.
The show suffers from an overpowered lead; it’s so afraid of letting Vincenzo fail that the extremely high-stakes premise becomes pointless because you always know he has the advantage. His invincible status causes many logical issues, as he appears to have an immediate solution to every impossible situation. People also point out that we shouldn’t expect Vincenzo to be a serious show, but it establishes a grim storyline and introduces us to a character who doesn’t appear to mind killing. Calling a show like this a screwball comedy to justify its plot holes feels like a cop-out, but if you’re completely willing to suspend disbelief, Vincenzo is unquestionably the show for you.
https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/vincenzo-2021.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop
https://collider.com/k-dramas-with-plot-holes/
Anja Djuricic
Almontather Rassoul
