'You And Everything Else' Netflix Review: Kim Go-Eun’s Heartfelt Friendship Drama Is Overlong Yet Touching 

The first thing I need to tell you before I talk about You And Everything Else is that if you’re hoping for a happy ending, unfortunately, you’re not going to get it here. I know that for a lot of us, Korean dramas began as an escape from reality. They’re dramatic, a little bit too saccharine, and a lot unrealistic. However, recently we’ve had a flurry of sad K-dramas that global fans haven’t taken too kindly to. The biggest example being Twenty Five, Twenty One, in most recent memory, which, for the most part, was a well-received TV show that left people disappointed for its realistic, hence sad, ending. But the reason I bring this up is because, at first glance, You And Everything Else seems like a show about friendship over the years. Like how youth may turn your little jealousies into massive toxicities, but eventually everything will be okay. However, as soon as you watch the first 15 minutes of the show, you already know it’s not going to end well. Whatever the ending result of those first 15 minutes, it will still hurt and leave you devastated. So the question is (imagine I’m asking like the host of Squid Game), “Will you keep watching?” 

Truth be told, on good days, always yes. But I understand if your answer to that is no, because not everybody wants a good cry on a Saturday evening after watching 15 hours of a friendship rivalry that can occasionally get really annoying. You And Everything Else, which has a completely different title in Korean, is a show about two girls who meet in school and their future together. Eun-Jung and Sang-Yeon are complete opposites, but they’re both drawn to each other because they’re brutally honest, and while one is kind, the other is stubborn, making them balance each other out.

I think the biggest mistake was expanding this story to 15 episodes and then releasing it all in one go. To be honest, while I enjoyed it in bits and pieces, especially right at the start and then the end again, I thought the middle piece was very badly done. It feels never-ending and doesn’t really go anywhere, just an endless loop of back and forth between the two girls. I think just like how the childhood bit got a couple of episodes for us to soak everything in, youth and college could’ve been just the same, but instead it became a draggy melodrama that really felt boring and almost made me want to stop watching. Kim Go-Eun certainly shines in this role, and I’ve got to admit she’s really grown on me as an actor since Goblin. I like her best in mature roles such as this one, where she can express herself through subtle emotional moments. But this time around, she’s got a well-deserved partner in crime who’s just as good. While Park Ji-Hyun is an excellent actress, and it looks like she’s been around for a while, I feel like this might be her breakout role. She really shines through as an almost villainess, but you still feel pity for her. The girls also have fantastic chemistry, and no, before you think it, it’s not a girl-love drama, so don’t go in expecting that.

Could I call this show romance? Well, yeah, a lot of it is romance and romanticizing the world, especially if you’re a fan of photography and movie-making. But it’s actually the romantic bits in the college timeline that really drag on for too long, lingering a bit too much for enjoyment. For a bit, it almost felt like instead of skipping a few years, it would just continue from the college timeline to the present day, but instead, it skims over a bunch of important details between college and full-blown adulthood that are quite important to the story. Maybe we wouldn’t have been able to sense this erratic pacing had it not been for all episodes being dropped at once. It definitely left me annoyed, though. The Korean title of the show is just the two main characters’ names, which I found was way more true to the story than this random title that’s trying to feel “cool.” It is just a story about “Eun-Jung and Sang-Yeon,” like the Korean title suggests. 

The thing about this story is that while in parts it feels very raw and beautifully done, in others it raises the question, “Why was this made?” I have a feeling this show will leave us divided, kind of like the book “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. While some thought the book was sadistic, making it feel like torture was inflicted on the protagonist specifically for the heightened emotions in readers, others believed it was a masterpiece, just because it left them weeping. Obviously, You And Everything Else isn’t as bad as all that, but occasionally it does very clearly draw lines between the two main leads, making it very obvious that we have to pick a specific side, even though in the end, the thing we want is for both of them to be loved. 

Somewhere in the middle of the show, you might end up thinking, “This is just a show about a bunch of people asking each other to give them another chance after yet another betrayal.” And this makes me a little bit sad because it could’ve been a masterclass in female friendships and how to do it right. There’s a lot of good here, but I would not recommend binge-watching it alone because you will definitely end up feeling the weight of the loneliness of these characters, and that can be draining. It’s a show that tackles a lot of dark subjects, so please make sure to check trigger warnings before watching it. Also, keep the tissues and some sort of sweet treats by your bed, just so you can cope with that ending. With that said, I’ll give You and Everything Else 3 out of 5 stars.