[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team" Episode 11

The title card gives away the ending. And while I'm fully assuming there's some sort of ridiculous gimmick involved to explain that this was all elaborately staged somehow, that's not enough to make the whiplash in "Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team" any more obnoxious. This is supposed to be a comedy. It has a silly premise, and for most of the drama they haven't even been dealing much with the question of how they got turned into old people. And now, at this of all times, we're supposed to be seriously worried about life and death situations?

Advertisement

The move into serious stoytelling might be more palatable if the villain was in any way plausible. I know villains aren't always supposed to be plausible but escape acts like this practically require the man to be a wizard. How exactly is his plan supposed to work anyway? How many people have to die before an authority figure realizes that the man lacks credibility on an inherent level? Never mind the police- what about the people he has to do business with?

All of this is also similarly put together right on the edge of all the romantic subplots. They certainly have their fun moments. Once again, Joon-hyeok getting mad about his sister never stops being funny. But it's hard to forget that this is all a literal life and death situation, and that maybe the villain will do some other crazy evil stuff at a moment's notice and we'll be in for another case of mood whiplash.

I suppose the drama can't actually mess around with these kinds of plot points much longer, given that we're almost finished. At the same time, it's hard to imagine what could possibly bring success to the heroes next episode that hasn't already eluded them several times in the past. When the police are all apparently so powerless that they can't pull off any kind of credible threat at all...

Look, the problem here is just that the story has no credibility. There's no mystery to be curious about, and the cuteness at this point just isn't enough to make up for all the other narrative problems in "Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team". It's just a giant collection of typical stock villain tropes just tossed in arbitrarily for the sake of creating conflict with no regard to logic. This can work fine in a silly comedy, but at this point the drama is clearly going for pathos, not bathos. Oh how I wish it were managing bathos instead.

Review by William Schwartz

"Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team"is directed by Kim Jin-young, written by Moon Seon-hee and features Lee Soon-jae, Byun Hee-bong, Jang Gwang, Kim Heechul, Lee Cho-hee, Kim Eung-soo.

 

Watch on Viki