Secret Royal Inspector & Joy

I just finished watching this drama a few minutes ago, and I've had the entire review in my head for a few days now. The drama had an interesting beginning , a very nice development, but the ending was quite poor. Of the 16 episodes, 3 (even 4) should never have been published. Secret Royal Inspector & Joy could be a light but interesting drama 😏, but it went down. I can already say that the drama cannot get more than 6.5 😕

Who is the Inspector and what does Joy do?

The idea of a secret inspector's job is to work undercover and not reveal his position until the case is solved. No one except the king and the most important officials in the state knows anything about the current work in progress. Ra Yi Eon is one of them. Born a nobleman, educated and handsome. The problem is that she prefers cooking more than work. One day he is sent to a distant province with the task of finding the previous secret inspector. On the way, he decides to stop at a famous tavern and thus finds himself in the middle of a murder case.

At the same time and in the same village, Kim Jo Yi is struggling to obtain a divorce. She is fed up with her domineering mother-in-law and tragic husband. Jo Yi, unfortunately, is also indirectly connected with the recent murder in the village and to help solve the case, she obtains a divorce. The more these two learn, the bigger the case of the previous inspector's disappearance becomes.

It will be short and concise review. The acting wasn't bad and the script wasn't bad either. However, many episodes were dragged out, too many side scenes and weird out-of-nowhere characters were added. I don't understand the appearance of some childhood friend or the switching of children. It made practically no difference to the main story, but we lost 1 episode because of it 😓 Someone had too many ideas and wanted to cram them all into one drama. I'm sorry, but that's not how it's done 😬 I've watched almost 120 dramas I know what I'm talking about 😅😆

When it comes to characters, most of them were well build. Main couple Ra Yi Eon (Ok Taec Yeon) & Kim Jo Yi (Kim Hye Yoon) looked great together and played well theirs characters, just didn't feel them together. Not enough of chemistry. Ok Taec Yeon had it more with Jeon Yeo Been in Vincenzo than with Kim Hye Yoon here 😟 I also feel his "best villain ever" character will for long be his best role as he was more than excellent there. Here he turned out to be mediocare+. 

I cannot say much about Kim Hye Yoon as I saw her for the first time but I will be on a search for something else with her as she might bring something nice 😏 Lee Jae Kyoon on the other hand was EXCELLENT! PEOPLE! GIVE THIS GUY A MAIN ROLE! He is incredible. To be honest, the main storyline could be omitted and replaced with Park family. Love the complexity of relations and interaction. I don't want to reveal too much about the content because a lot happens in each episode so all I will say is that the history of the Park family was ultra interesting! Who would have expected such a twist at the end! But it was too late revealed to save the show. The drama was too stretched till then and lost it's shape 😣 Nonetheless, (unpopular opinion comming) he seemed to me be holding vast amount of the show on his back.

All in all, drama was good. But that's about it. It had it's good moment (Until episode 10, I greately enjoyed Secret Royal Inspector & Joy) but also bad ones which made the quality of the show drop from 7.5 to 6.5 in just 2 episodes. For that I'm very angry with producers who seemed to want to push all cliches into one drama 😬

To sum up I will only add that I loved the addition of the food aspect and that the inspector loved cooking to the extent that he found a list of recommended taverns on the way to far province. For a foodie like me, it was total icing on the cake 😍

If you decide to watch this drama, be on a look out for crown prince. His and king's story is shocking. I didn't understand my immediate dislike towards the king since the first moments but later I exacly knew why it happened! WHAT AN ASSHOLE! He totally deserved that what came at him! 😡