> CURIOSITY and HEALING are two things " A piece of your mind " had and also two things nailed, the cinematography and the performances.

**RATING don't define how good a show sometimes we need to be patient with the gems like these**

Usually I dislike slow paced dramas, I feel like they just try to be artistic for no reason. Somehow, the slower pace added a whole new level of charm that made me love A Piece Of Your Mind even more. The game of light, colors and nature was just brilliant, with a nostalgic note, beautiful sceneries from Norway, and melodic pieces of classical music and piano to paint the perfect picture of an idyllic and tranquil picture. The pace of the drama was equally perfect for the cinematography, as it was calm, with nice notes of drama here and there.

PLOT
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While it is mainly a romance drama, it's main theme has always been about loss, and telling the story through its characters has been an up and down experience. The tone and mood of the story is quite dreary, but the delivery was good.

Granted, the mild science element of the story is improbable, completely improbable, but it elevates the major key element of emotional coping, which is the struggle of our male protagonist (and a few other characters later on). Some viewers may find it creepy at some point, especially in the first four episodes, but do know that it needs to be as unsettling as possible to prove a point that an unhealthy obsession should be stopped. You'd also be forced to think what it means to love someone who has always been absent.

Overall, A Piece of Your Mind worked best when it was at its natural pace. It gave some wonderful lines that fully described the characters. tvN cutting it short definitely affected the drama, like how Minjung's storyline seemed like it wasn't completely attached. The support characters, while they did good, should have also gotten more exposure.


CAST
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The characters are quite unusual but in a refreshing and realistic way. Every one of them has a unique perspective on life and can teach us few important lessons. Watching them interact and see them conquer their fears, accepted failures and move on to happiness is quite therapeutic.

Jung Hae-in always gives lovely understated performances and his portrayal of the inventor Moon Ha-won is no exception. Ha-won has loved and lost but always from afar as he observes life but fails to live it. He is an inventor in the world of artificial intelligence working on recreating the personalities of lost loved ones for therapeutic purposes. He is driven by the need to understand [spoiler] both the sudden death of his mother when he was 18 and the loss of his childhood friend, Kim Ji-soo (Park Joo-hyun), whose husband insisted she break ties with him after their marriage. [/spoiler]

While working on the project he acquires a recording studio to lay down voices and meets orphaned sound engineer, Han Seo-woo. Chae Soo-bin is wonderful here as the warm but still grief-stricken Seo-woo. These two embark on a healing relationship of mutuality and reciprocity. This couple's ability to understand and accept the other's losses and to each give and take to an equal extent is heartwarming to watch unfold.

Our core couple orbit the black hole that is the loss of Ji-soo. But around them swirl a host of other damaged characters. Ha-won's niece , Moon Soon-ho (Lee Ha Na) who has taken nine years to get over a bad breakup. Jis-oo's controlling and almost-abusive husband, Gang In-wook (Kim Sung-gyu); the source all the pain and loss in the show. And the found family of guests living in the boarding house that Seo-woo took shelter in after the death of her family.



VERDICT
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While the show examines grief in all its iterations - whether through the death of a loved one, a relationship, or even the person you used to be - it's also about the way in which we grapple with the hole a person leaves in the world when they're gone. How we want just a piece of them to hold onto and how we struggle with the realization that we will never know what they were thinking because we can never speak to them again.

The Ji-soo AI that Ha-won creates becomes that piece. But it's through Ha-won and In-wook's reactions to that piece that we see most clearly what this drama is trying to say. People are not pieces or object to possess, control or dominate. We will never own them, just as we will never know truly what they think and feel. But that isn't necessary to gain comfort and strength from them and to give that comfort and strength in return.

Grief is overcome by connection and community but most of all through true mutuality. And that's the most heartwarming message of all.

With dismal ratings in Korea, the show even ended up being cut to 12 episodes. But even though the loss of those four is a tragedy and the show was forced to speed up its storytelling to compensate, it is still an almost-perfect study of grief, loss and how we grapple with the hole people leave in the world when they pass.

I can only hope that now it's over, people can finally realise what a gem this show was. And maybe, just maybe, next time Korea produces something as finely-written and beautiful as this, people will watch it.