This week KBS 1980’s period romance Youth of May wrapped up and perhaps the cheerful posters and seemingly innocent romance setting mislead viewers or the production chose to downplay all the Gwangju Uprising backdrop, the ending was of course T-raumatic with a capital T. That happens, it’s happened to me a lot watching twenty years worth of K-dramas. The early Hallyu ones were notorious for jerking the rug out from under people with mostly the terminal illness plot device but since then it’s evolved and death/separation comes for our OTP and beloved drama characters in newer ways. But even then some K-drama BE (bad ending or the opposite of HE or happy ending) are more traumatic and tear-inducing than others, it’s not all created equal. Some memorable ones for me are of course the OG What Happened in Bali (don’t play mind games with a totally mind-fucked already male lead), Shark (or shall I say Kim Nam Gil in Shark, and earlier in Queen Seondeok and Bad Guy), Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart: Ryeo (though that helped I was already once traumatized over by Bu Bu Jing Xin so knew what to expect), Mr. Sunshine (not just a rock but meteor fall down), Seven Days Queen (39 years, really?), Hundred Million Stars Falling From the Sky (also tempered by knowing what to expect), and Uncontrollably Fond (cried so much I got dehydrated). What are yours?