3 Things We Loved & 3 Things We Hated From The Finale Of "Bad Memory Eraser"

The end has come! While “Bad Memory Eraser” got a great mix of reactions toward the second half of the show, it’s undeniable that this K-drama was a wild ride. From mysteries to romance, frustrations, and happiness, we watched Kyung Joo Yeon (Jin Se Yeon) and Lee Kun (Kim Jae Joong) go through many ups and downs until their well-deserved happy ending, something that seemed practically impossible at some point. For all of us who continued hoping for the best for this couple, here are the best and the worst of the final episodes of this story. 

Warning: spoilers from episodes 15-16 ahead! 

HATED: Lee Kun going back to his old depressed self 

After the debacle of the clinical experiment, seeing Lee Kun going back to his old self—or into an even worse state than before—was heavily disappointing. Something that many enjoyed watching during the show was his upbeat, confident, and cheeky side. So seeing him lose all of that in the blink of an eye and at the hands of someone as hateful as the cheating ex-boyfriend of Kyung Joo Yeon is more than anyone can stand. After all, he fought to build his new company, overcoming every hurdle, so it’s very pitiful that he still has so much pain in himself, adding the heartbreak after finding out the truth. 

His poor state of spirit proves that science can’t easily erase the pain in your heart. With or without the experiment, in the end, he was the one who found his happiness back again. It would have been so much more endearing and realistic to see him overcome his mental struggles with proper treatment instead of simply seeing him go from zero to 100 after a couple of years. Despite all of this, Kim Jae Joong’s acting portrayed throughout the whole show is truly commendable, something that kept a lot of viewers faithful to the drama until the last episodes. 

HATED: The thrilling plot of Jeon Se Yan’s dad 

If anyone were to watch only these last two episodes, they would feel like they are watching a completely different show. The whole build-up from the second half is left off and the plot behind Jeon Se Yan’s (Yang Hye Ji’s) dad—who turns out to be a dangerous criminal—takes the central focus in its place. While this isn’t necessarily something bad, it feels very rushed and somehow forced. Admittedly, it has a logic behind it and it’s very important to understand many of the dynamics between the leads. However, it could have been brought up a lot earlier than just the ending to see the importance of the past in the present time. 

If used properly, this subplot could have helped to explain so many things that were only known until this bitter end like the overprotective attitudes of Se Yan’s mother, the threats from Lee Shin’s stalker, and so on. In a sense, this tragedy is what connects everyone’s fate, which is why it is a shame that they left it until this point in the story. Although with this we finally know who killed Joo Yeon’s father, something that traumatized her and changed her life forever, it had so much more potential to have a better foundation and progression in the show.  

HATED: Jeon Se Yan and Lee Shin’s bittersweet ending 

Another thing that left a bittersweet taste is the ending given to both Lee Shin (Lee Jong Won) and Jeon Se Yan. In Se Yan’s case, she not only has to go back to Italy, away from the people she considers her family, but she also has to learn and face the fact that her father is a criminal after all she wanted was to meet him. Though she appears to have no regrets or bad feelings towards the end, we can’t see a proper closure for her character beyond her departure and long-distance communication with Joo Yeon and her nephew. 

On the other hand, after having so much spotlight as being part of a love triangle, Lee Shin goes back to being a secondary character without much screen time in the end. We barely know that he goes back to school to try to be a teacher, but we never get to see how he is coping with his own mental issues and what his new dreams are. Even more, they waste the opportunity to have a potential enemies-to-lovers secondary couple despite the incredible chemistry they portrayed.

LOVED: Lee Kun’s family trying to make up for the past 

But not everything is bad about this ending. One of the best things is watching Lee Kun’s family making amends for the past once they know how much both he and Lee Shin suffered, especially his mother, who seemed almost unredeemable. Even if these moments can’t erase all the pain and loneliness he lived with during most of his life, Lee Kun can start to overcome his sad childhood, creating new memories with his parents and brother. 

Feeling his mother embrace him for the first after so long ignites the will in Lee Kun’s heart to start his process of healing. Furthermore, it’s not shown in a shallow and merry-go-lucky way, but they actually use screen time to show them talking, opening up about their reasons for doing what they did, and how that affected their whole family. Ultimately, even with their flaws and mistakes, their love for each other that holds them as a family is what truly helps Lee Kun to get back on his feet. 

LOVED: The ending of the clinical experiment 

For the first time since the beginning of the drama, we see Kyung Joo Yeon and all the people involved in the clinical experiment facing the consequences of their medical malpractice. It starts with Joo Yeon, who bravely accepts to quit her job and asks to cease any future experiments involving the bad memory eraser. Unexpectedly, she also gets Lee Kun’s help, despite knowing he still despises her for playing with his heart. 

Luckily, the rest of the medical team don’t go unpunished. Both Doctor Teo Yun and the hospital’s director receive punishment for unethical experimentation and lose all support for future procedures. You indeed reap what you sow, and these so-called doctors face their dismissal from the hospital after letting their ambition cloud their judgment. It led them to overlook the well-being of Lee Kun in order to get recognition for an experiment that didn’t have the results they expected. 

LOVED: Lee Kun’s true first love finally revealed

And at last, we confirm what many of us speculated for a long time: Kyung Joo Yeon is really Lee Kun’s first love. After much confusion, we see that Joo Yeon herself couldn’t remember that she saved Lee Kun due to the trauma of seeing the death of her father, which caused her memory loss. This gives a perfect ending to the first love plot since it also shows that despite all her fears, she isn’t stealing Se Yan’s place, and she is free to pursue her feelings for Lee Kun. 

However, as both of them have wounds to heal, they don’t reunite right away. It’s only after three years that they meet again in the place where they met for the first time, leaving us with an open ending in the sense that it’s up to the viewers to picture what their future will look like. Hopefully, we will meet these actors and actresses in a future project that will bring out more of their chemistry and their acting skills. Until then, this is a farewell to “Bad Memory Eraser”! 

Watch all the episodes of “Bad Memory Eraser” here! 

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