Rose Mansion 장미맨션 [tvN]

I had previously watched Class of Lies with Yoon Gyun-sang as the male lead and thought it was not bad, so I was quite expecting 12-episode 2022 TVING drama Rose Mansion to be interesting too.  I mean, to be able to narrate and close a kidnapping case within 12 episodes seemed challenging and I was looking forward to a short snappy drama, but NOOOOO, the 12-episode Rose Mansion opened so many story arcs with almost all not resolved by the finale.  If TVING decided that to leave the audience with so many ??? at the finale is okay, I would be quite disappointed.

Baring the rather irrelevant opening scene and the irritating rain scenes - Hometown really takes the cake for the incessantly long rain scenes - Rose Mansion started off with a relatively straight forward story: the female being called home from Busan by her father when her older sister went missing.  

What started out as a kidnapping case became a stalking case quite intertwined with the impending redevelopment of the estate in which the older sister disappeared from.  And like every korean dramas, there are odd characters living in the estate which the female lead seemed to take fun in accusing them of being involved in her sister's disappearance.  Yoon Gyun-sang as the male lead played a detective who seemed way too concerned about the female lead's wellbeing - which of course in TVING's world meant that there was something off about him, which indeed it was so.

If I am looking forward to a season 2 for the outstanding story arcs to be resolved, another reason would be the supporting cast who made Rose Mansion so much more tolerable.  The actress who acted as Han Hong-joo, Jung Ae-ri who acted as Charlie's mother - this is so different from the other characters she had played, and the actor who acted the part of the butcher (seemingly) in Charlie's supermarket.

This is probably the third korean drama I watched that featured a supermarket quite prominently, the others being the hoot-worthy Pegasus Market and The Killer's Shopping List.  Charlie's supermarket has to be the darkest and chilliest supermarket so far out of the three.