I’ll start off by saying that I absolutely loved Mouse and I can confidently say that it’s one of the best murder mystery/thriller dramas I’ve seen. Even though I picked up on the clues very early on in the second episode, I was still completely left in the dark as to how the story would unfold and what would happen to our main characters down the road. The writers and director consistently kept me engaged and anticipating throughout the entire show, and I never really felt that the plot line was being “dragged” as is unfortunately the case with so many dramas. And of course, Lee SeunGi and Lee HeeJoon were excellent in their roles, and by the end I was completely in love with both of their characters.

Mouse is DEFINITELY worth the watch. And that’s why I’m giving it a 9.5/10.

But that being said… there are a few things that I felt were lacking, or had more potential than was actually realized. I’ve managed to narrow it down to two factors. One*, there were certain characters that I felt were too one-dimensional and could’ve benefited from more complexity and character development. And two**, I would’ve loved to see the social, political, and particularly ethical themes surrounding the treatment of psychopaths explored with more depth.

* In the end, Mouse presented us with as close of a “good ending” we could have for the victims/bereaved families as possible, but I still wasn’t quite left satisfied. More specifically, I didn’t feel there was the right amount of closure for the side characters’ stories; NOT because things were left unanswered but because their story was never properly explained in the first place. I was constantly wanting to get an inside look into the psyche of characters like BongYi… what thoughts were going through her head, how did she work through her internal struggles? We were given her backstory and an explanation of how her trauma affected her in the present day, but not much beyond that. She had so much more potential for character development towards the end but instead she became a helpless little girl, for lack of a better term. And what about characters like Detective Park DuSeok? He was just a dude who lost his kids to the Head Hunter, but I felt there could’ve been more insight on how he struggled to reconcile his desire for revenge with his own moral compass. And Choi HongJoo - who became a key character - I felt like I only ever got a stranger’s perspective on her life, rather than being persuaded of her conviction. I guess you could say that besides the two MCs everyone else felt like a prop to the storyline. Even if I liked them, and even if they served their purpose.

** I understand that the main objective of Mouse is to thrill you, keep you on the edge of your seat, maybe creep you out a little lol. And this objective was well accomplished. But for all the talk of the psychopath gene and the introduction of the “abort psychopathic fetuses” bill / debate between the two political parties that was shown in the beginning, there was hardly any dialogue that truly laid the topic out in full. In the end it was just an agenda that provided a motivation for the puppeteers in the story; one that really only came into play within the last episode or so too. Just imagine if the script also played with this theme? How psychopaths affect society, how society affects psychopaths… The ethical issue of preventing a life that also has a 1% chance of being a genius. I’m also surprised that there was never a mention about sociopaths vs psychopaths. Or the possibility of psychopaths existing without causing physical harm to anyone. Especially since they kept mentioning how a “trigger” was necessary to start a psychopath’s killing spree… What if that trigger never occurred?

Again, I just wanted more dimension beyond ‘catch the killer and make him pay’. As entertaining as it was without it, I believe Mouse could’ve reached an even higher class if the two things I mentioned were included. But oh well! The cast and crew still deserve plenty of praise!