that's how you write an ending, honestly. bittersweet as it is, Baek Ahjin deserved to be the one who made it to the end. Dear X gave us an incredibly written female character and actually let her win right until the very last moment. what makes the ending hit even harder is how Episode 1 and Episode 12 mirror each other so perfectly. Ahjin ends exactly where she started. stuck in the same cycle, forced to relive the same misery over and over again. every time she thinks she's finally made it to the top, life drags her right back to the beginning. and god... Kim Yoojung absolutely killed this role. i genuinely didn't expect her to portray Baek Ahjin this well. the way she carried Ahjin's pain, rage, manipulation, emptiness, and desperation felt way too real at times. this drama is honestly exhausting in the best and worst way possible. not because it's bad, but because it demands so much emotional energy from you. there's a reason even the cast had psychologists on set because some scenes are genuinely hard to sit through. episode 11 especially felt mentally draining from start to finish. at least for me, some parts hit a little too close to home. Baek Ahjin really feels like a portrayal of what happens when depression rots into something destructive and manipulative. Dear X doesn't romanticize trauma at all. it forces you to sit with it, watch it spiral, and deal with the consequences alongside the characters. i'm usually not a fan of open endings, but this drama somehow became an exception. everything about it landed perfectly for me. the storyline, the performances, the characters, the symbolism... all of it. lowkey one of the best K-Dramas of the year fr 🫶🧎‍♀️‍➡️ also kinda funny how this drama moved me enough to actually edit and write my review because i’m usually too lazy to do that after finishing a series 😭