Circle Ep 11-12 (Final) Discussion Post

[keytfelt.livejournal.com]

Synopsis: Taking place in both the present year 2017 and in the year 2037, when people believe that their future depends on humans controlling and regulating their emotions, this drama is a sci-fi mystery. When alien visitors arrive on Earth, humans learn new skills from them and take advantage of them; what ensues is a story of alliance, resistance, and love.
Each episode will contain two shorter stories, the first part set in 2017 and called “Beta Project,” with the second set in 2037 and called “Grand New World.”
Cast: Yeo Jin Goo, Kim Kang Woo, Gong Seung Yeon, Lee Gi Kwang, An Woo Yeon
Writer: Kim Jin Hee, Yoo Hye Mi, Ryoo Moon Sang, Park Eun Mi
Network: tvN
Episodes: 12
Release Date: May 22 - June 27, 2017
Runtime: Mondays & Tuesdays 23:00

Watch Here: Dramafever Dramafire

Sources: MyDramaList | AsianWiki

I highly, highly recommend this drama. An intriguing story, good writing, great acting. Definitely one of my favorites this year.

Comments

[jaeslurpy.livejournal.com]

i just finished episode 11. i couldn't stop crying. my poor baby woo jin. :( i'm about to watch the last episode. i'm sad to see it go cause this has been such a good drama.

edit: okay finally finished it. ugh i loved it. this was such a good story and great acting. i liked how most of the flashbacks added facts to the story we didn't see before.

omg that ending though. please someone make a season 2 with another alien coming down. its probably not gonna happen but i wish it would lol.

the clone plot broke my heart a little bit cause my poor baby woo jin but i'm glad that he's still alive either way and can be with his brother and jeong yeon again.

[ah0000.livejournal.com]

omgggggg what a ride. i loved it. i was sobbing at the end of 11 yeo jin goo you fantastic actor, you. recovered and then watched ep 12 and they reaired the scene and i lost it again lol

also watching the behind the scenes with adult bum gyun and woo jin and when they hugged omg my heart.

anyway throughout the whole two last eps i kept going :o like. his plan, the car accident, the clone reveal, hyung being in denial, hyung accepting, the new plan, the chairman's death (!!!!). not really the new alien thing tho that was weird lol but every other part of the show was awesome and really cohesive so i love it. one of my faves for sure

[by-venoms-sting.livejournal.com]

The conclusion of things was super satisfying. They kept me guessing as to what everyone's next moves would be and there were some heart wrenching emotional moments too.

From the very beginning of the show I thought there was an Ancient Aliens (lol) type of thing going on in that aliens like Byul had been meddling with mankind here and there for centuries so the very last scene confirmed it for me which I loved. I also liked it because it shows the writers were aware of the lack of a conclusion in regards to Byul/her past/the source of the tech that caused everything to happen. Acknowledging it makes it clear that it just didn't fit into this particular part of the story instead of it just being a plothole/something that was forgotten or overlooked. I also just love being right about stuff lol.

I think my favorite bits of the final two episodes was Bum Gyun accepting that Woo Jin is Woo Jin and the parallels of the past and present. Things playing out similarly but people making up for what they saw as their past failings. Plus the shot of the head of Human B after his fall that mirrors Woo Jin's position after he was hit by the car. After having to watch Woo Jin get hit twice and then lay there suffering (it was so painful omg) it was sweet justice to see Human B chairman like that. He deserved that pain.

I remember when this show was first announced and while I was loving that concept.gif I was wary of how things were going to the executed so this show has been a delight for me. I came in with low expectation but it managed to keep me on my heels while giving me compelling characters and a storyline that was well thought out. I watch a lot of tv so I'm used to being disappointed by something more than being pleased with something so my praisemay be a bit ott rn for a show that wasn't super revolutionary~ or anything. I'm just really happy lol.

[keytfelt.livejournal.com]

I loved this drama, it was everything I hoped it would be. Yeo Jin Goo is such a fantastic actor already, I hadn't actually watched him in any dramas before this but now I see why everyone raves about him. I just want him to get all the roles (minus his actual next role in Reunited Worlds ha). Kim Kang Woo also did a great job, going between light hearted detective and heartbroken brother. The reunion scenes were just fantastic and I'm glad the actors got to play off each other. If they had gotten an older actor to play Woo Jin, it definitely wouldn't have been anywhere near as emotional as it was. Gong Seung Yeon did a great job playing basically 3 different characters, I get more impressed with her the more I see her in and I'm happy she's had a bunch of roles this year. I also though An Woo Yeon did a great job with his character.

Now I'm done raving about the actors, I can unload my feelings about the drama itself. These last two episodes were amazing. When Woo Jin got hit by the car I was swearing up a storm lol. (I started texting my best friend so I could talk about it only to find out she was only on episode 6. What a disappointment.) The clone thing had me freaking out, I love clone stuff. I also really liked how there was conflict with the clone--he's obviously not actual Woo Jin, but since he had his memories etc, is he Woo Jin? The scenes were Joo Hyuk is struggling with this and then accepting him as his brother had me all teary eyed. And they hugged! And my heart filled with joy! The brothers were finally reunited!

I liked the ending--my Woo Jin/Jung Yeon ship will rise! I thought they had great chemistry and were super cute together. Just hold hands you two! I enjoyed Joo Hyuk following behind them, just happy to have his family back. I love that last scene at the end--I would have been annoyed if they just dropped the alien thing (it was marketed as an alien drama, when it ended up being more scifi), but that last flash confirmed they didn't forget about that story.

One of my favorite things in shows in general is a good set up where you think one thing is happening but then something else happens and then you get to see the set up for what happened. I knew that they wouldn't have just told Woo Jin where Joon Hyuk and Jung Yeon were going to be hiding out since Human B could see his memories. I had noticed the tapping in the original scene and thought it was weird but then when they revealed the Morse code and the plan I was jumping around. It just came together in such a great way. I did laugh at Woo Jin throwing the cube off the roof, he could have just stepped on it and confirmed it got destroyed? I saw something on tumblr about how the chairman met his end the same way all the students who had his blue bug put in them did. This show...

My only questions/complaints: they traveled back and forth between both ~worlds~ in 2037 too quickly. The first ep showed them riding a plane to this island separated from Normal Earth but later episodes it seemed like they were jumping back and forth, like once you got through the Smart Earth checkpoint you were automatically in that world? I was interested in how Normal Earth is now and we didn't get a lot of that. Also, why were there always so many people lined up to go to Smart Earth? Were these new people that just got their chips and are moving to Smart Earth? Or were they visiting people in Normal Earth?

The silly gray hair all the older people in the second half of the drama had made me laugh, it looked like when I spray too much dry shampoo into my hair.

So that pic of Woo Jin in 2022? Was that another clone? They were referring to him as Circulate 3, so I'm assuming he's the 3rd different clone they created? They said he was ~created~ 15 years ago, so was he created as college aged, not a baby like you think clones are created?

Oi, that turned into an essay, but I really really liked this drama and feel so satisfied with it and how it ended.

[jinkiestabi.livejournal.com]

Episode 11 was CRAZY. Oh my god. I have never seen someone being hit by a car shown in that way. That was traumatizing to me. I ......I can NEVER watch that again. Usually they don't show it in slow motion? But I've gotten so attached to Woojin as a character and naturally Jingoo, that I can't imagine it. I don't even look at the screen when he cries, lol.

I'm....wanting to knock down everybody involved in Human B for killing the real Woojin and not even valuing his life or what it was. And even worse, only keeping him alive in the name of science. No ethics, none. Disgusting. I understood Bumgyun's feelings about the clone not being Woojin and whatnot, but it's the closest thing he has. All those memories are still there. His feelings, emotions, thoughts are all real. I'm glad Bumgyun didn't walk away from that.

It's so weird how all the shows I'm watching have similar overlaps: time, clones, unethical scientists killing people.

I can't believe Park Donggeon died in such a stupid way. Sir. But I'm glad he's dead, lol.

I LOVE how this ended. SEASON 2 TWO???! Omg YES please! Usually I get annoyed with open endings, but I hope this leaves room for another season. I hate that this was so short, but I'm also glad this wasn't dragged out.

[1of1girl.livejournal.com]

OMG, I have hard time to write my thoughts here coherently. I watched the finale yesterday but I'm still disturbed but happy etc.

I got the impression that Woo Jin is going to get hit by a car like 0.1 seconds before it happened bc it's pretty common in films etc when someone tries to escape then they run to the road and get hit bc they didn't watch for vehicles and obviously the driver doesn't see them. But the scene itself, I don't have words. The slow motion was painful to watch and I felt so bad for Woo Jin. The student/Smart Earth worker who ran Woo Jin down was at least remorseful about that and I'm glad that he didn't try to kill them at the end and also that he didn't kill himself. Talking about Smart Earth workers tho I guess they went to jail (at least the ones who knew of the chairman). As they advertised Smart City as a crime free city then they had to build prisons I guess lol.

I loved how well they thought out their plan when they went to save the mayor. The usage of morse code was genius. It's really satisfying to watch how things happened afterwards like with that plan and also some other things in previous episodes. Lmao @ the police dudes coming into the elevator and knocking the guards out.

It was really interesting that the drama touched the ethical aspects of cloning/sceience. They did it especially well with Woo Jin and if he could really be considered Woo Jin if he's not him physically speaking but has his memories/feelings and ofc looks like him. The scene where Bum Gyun accepted clone Woo Jin as Woo Jin was great and really touching, I think I cried watching it lol. Also if we're talking about clone Woo Jin, it puzzles me why he was circulate 3, like 3 clones in 15 years seems a bit too much for me. Like what happened to the previous ones, is their life span really only some years or were they killed or something... And the picture with Woo Jin in the chairman's office, why did they let him out of his room? Idk why they woke the clones up at all like they would have been fine if Human B just injected them with medications that put them to sleep and they would have never woken up. Tho we'll never know how much the previous clones were up etc.

OMG @ the ending scene tho. It left things open for season 2 (idt that's going to happen tho) and gave us things to speculate about. Like Byul is some kind of alien but how long time have these aliens been coming to Earth like that? What is their purpose here? etc. I think that there are some (if not all) answers in Byul's memory but even if she wanted to recover it they don't have the cube. Also, regarding the cube: it went down the sewer lol but did it broke beyond repair or is there a tiny chance that someone might pick it up and try to start new Human B with it? They would have of course know about ~things~ but I guess it's not impossible.

Overall, it's my favourite kdrama that I have watched so far. It wasn't ~problematic~, the characters and acting were great. I love the story - all the attention to little details, the world building etc (the phones, I want one).

[suggestivepeach.livejournal.com]

I think the reason why he was called Circulate 3 was because the clones before him were all failed clones in some way?

[suggestivepeach.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly annoyed that this drama didn't get the love it deserved. The actors were great, the storyline was original, it really made you think about ethics and morals, it maintained a steady momentum throughout, I was really invested in each of the supporting characters as well, and the ending was really satisfying and open-ended without it being frustrating. The car crash scene was so hard to watch. Usually movies and shows pan away right before the car hits the body. I also did NOT see the whole clone thing coming until a commenter brought up the theory. Yeo Jin Goo was so great in this drama.
I kind of guessed that they would use the whole "watching memories like a video" thing as part of their plan to trick the chairman, but the rest of the plan was really clever. The morse code thing was so... convenient though lol. Did they mention that before?
All in all, this was a brilliant drama imo. Definitely worth a watch.

[she-devil666.livejournal.com]

oh? was my bby kiki was good at acting? if he was, i might give it a watch. that is a very big might because me and kdramas are like oil and water