It's no secret that I'm an absolute sucker for romcoms and that's probably why I found She Would Never Know fairly enjoyable to watch. While many of my initial thoughts would undergo some form of change after finishing the drama, what I can confirm is that this series is filled with lots of fluffy scenes that are sure to make the drama fan in you squeal. That being said, even though this drama was fairly interesting, I feel like there were a lot of wasted opportunities. Without further ado, let's dive right into our series retrospect.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
There's a lot of things to like about this drama, especially if you're into very simple romances. The plot isn't hard to understand, it's literally centered around the office romance and the sunbae/hoobae relationship of leads Hyun-seung and Song-ah, and it works fairly well. The couple have excellent chemistry, with Rowoon and Won Jin-ah giving us excellent performances, making their romance seem totally real. Our leads are very interesting to follow and seeing the struggles that they go through as their relationship develops is truly engaging, especially seeing their character development. They shared lots of heart-fluttering scenes and it's in no small part due to their insane height difference plus Rowoon just being one of the most truly handsome actors around (I think it's the result of him also being an idol). Hyun-seung and Song-ah have indeed cemented themselves as one of my favourite K-drama couples of all time.
With all that being said, what we got was very clearly a classic cookie-cutter K-drama romance, with initial animosity developing into love and then encountering strife before getting back together. It's nothing new to viewers but it's good enough to get us through the drama. Unfortunately, I feel like the drama lost its way after a while because it focused way too much on the "office romance" aspect. Yes, I know that was always the central idea behind this drama but I felt there were way more things that could've been explored. Maybe that's how the original webtoon was written (I haven't read it) but there were so many more areas that could've been expanded on rather than purely looking at Hyun-seung and Song-ah's relationship. I'm a sucker for romantic fluff but this drama had the potential to touch on lots of other far deeper concepts and it's just a wasted opportunity to cover them so briefly. There's also the fact that the drama chooses to address certain topics in a very strange manner, almost presenting them in a way that shouldn't be happening.
For starters, one of my foremost initial thoughts was that second male lead Jae-shin was purely a cheating scumbag who was two-timing Song-ah behind her back and while everything I just said still holds true, there's a lot more to his character than we think. Underneath the distant exterior of what would be considered a successful man, we see that he's actually been struggling since his youth with financial issues. With his mother abandoning the family when he was thirteen and his father ending up mired in debt as well as being chased down by his creditors, Jae-shin gets caught in the crossfire and even gets assaulted in high school by one of them. This starts to build his hatred and resentment of his father, and also what eventually ties him to third male lead Jae-woon, who he strikes up a deal with to "absorb" him into his rich family. While both of them consider each other friends, Jae-shin has always harboured thoughts of being Jae-woon and his family's "dog", with their obvious social class difference being an insurmountable wall separating them.
Jae-shin is portrayed as a fairly tragic antagonist, a victim of his circumstances. Having lived in poverty and being scorned by the world for so long, when he's finally given the opportunity to rise out of his situation and gain power, he doesn't want to lose that chance. Even if that means getting engaged to Jae-woon's sister and second female lead Hyo-joo so as to not fall out of favour with their powerful family, Jae-shin will do anything to maintain his current position in life. At the same time, the reason why he entered a secret relationship with Song-ah was because she was the first person to look past his impoverished background and treat him like a normal human being instead of as a rich person's lackey, and he also doesn't want to let her go as she's one of his few remaining tethers to a normal life. He really does love Song-ah but because he's enjoying the benefits of having an "in" into the world of the wealthy by being Hyo-joo's fiancé, he doesn't want to lose any of it.
This results in very toxic behaviour because when the truth of his cheating ways comes to light, it ends up hurting Hyo-joo, Song-ah and even himself. The whole situation is just very self-destructive and while Jae-shin eventually decides to fully enter Jae-woon's family by accepting his breakup with Song-ah, attempting to fully commit to Hyo-joo and also severing ties with his good-for-nothing father (who just blackmails Jae-shin for money anyway), he's not truly happy and the stress is building up in him. Everything comes to a head when Jae-shin's father dies and he snaps, breaking off his engagement with Hyo-joo, resigning from the company and falling out with Jae-woon. He can't live this lie anymore and doesn't want to pretend like he belongs to the wealthy side of society, with the only way for him to escape being to start afresh away from everyone and everything.
Jae-shin is someone that you'll love to hate but at the same time is someone that the screenwriters are trying to push as a sympathetic character. That said, he has the same vibe that When My Love Blooms gave me where cheating is presented in almost a more positive light. Don't get me wrong there's still a negative connotation associated with it in the series but for some reason I feel like the screenwriters aren't doing that idea justice.
Jae-shin's backstory also presents another fairly serious problem that the drama addresses strangely, that of poverty. Being poor isn't a sin and while not ubiquitous, you'll often hear stories of those living in poverty rising above their situation by working hard and becoming successful. That's fine and all but in the drama, poverty is also presented as something that's only working in opposition to our leads. Jae-shin is the foremost example of this. The drama has decided to show us that he can only be successful when he has the backing of a rich and powerful family, and while he does eventually set up his own company after a 3-year time-skip (more on this later), a larger portion of the series has Jae-shin struggling with his poor upbringing and how that forever haunts him. This is depicted through his father, who constantly asks his son for money, and threatens to show up at his office and humiliate him if he doesn't get the cash. Understandably, this is a creative choice that was meant to push the plot forward but could alienate some viewers for its controversial take on this topic.
Another issue I want to bring up is the lack of focus on other characters. Like I mentioned earlier, the focus on our lead couple was so strong that it relegated even our second and third lead couples to merely being supporting characters. While Jae-shin was initially a fairly important cog turning in the machine that this drama was, he sort of fell into the background the moment he accepted his breakup with Song-ah. Despite being the second female lead, Hyo-joo barely got any screen time, in fact I think she may have actually appeared less than some of the side characters. For the fact that Hyo-joo was integral to the initial plot arc of Jae-shin and Song-ah's breakup, she really didn't do anything important beyond that, only showing up here and there as if to remind viewers that "hey, I exist". They could've explored so much more on her personal motivations and her insecurities, as well as her road of healing once she comes to terms with the fact that her love for Jae-shin is truly unrequited, a fact that she had been trying so hard to deny.
In the same vein, I felt that third leads Jae-woon and Ji-seung were really squandered. Jae-woon had his fair share of screen time and I think he really shone in his scenes alongside Jae-shin. Yes, Jae-woon's still a chaebol but he was always slightly different. He didn't want Jae-shin to be his lackey, he just wanted a friend and when we see them fall out over this fact, it's quite heartbreaking to watch. I think it was quite impressive to see Jae-woon behave like that because he provides a fair amount of comic relief throughout the drama, especially in his antics with Ji-seung. Now speaking of that, these two were really cute also but if you kind of look at it, I feel like their courtship was kind of weird. Granted, I still liked this couple but Jae-woon was kind of creepy as he chased after Ji-seung. If you did this in real life, I'm pretty sure you'd be locked up by now. Anyway, yes they eventually end up together and everything's fine and dandy but I wish we got a little more on them as well. We do know that by the end of the series they're getting married and it leads to some funny moments between them but man, we could've gotten more of them.
For Ji-seung's case, despite being a lead character she really isn't all that important. Her whole plotline is basically being single despite being close to 40 years old but there was another part of her story that was brought up once and never mentioned again. We find out that she was previously engaged but broke it off for an unknown reason. She does eventually meet her ex-fiancé one more time and they share a somewhat cordial interaction but other than that we get nothing. It would've been nice to have her backstory develop and reveal why she called off her previous engagement, then we could have Jae-woon accept Ji-seung for who she is despite anything in her past and have another more interesting plotline there rather than focusing too much on our lead couple.
In truth, taking the drama as it is, I feel that Jae-woon and Ji-seung's romance plus their storyline could've actually been relegated to a smaller scale in favour of Hyun-seung's other sister Yeon-seung's story. Yeon-seung was the only one of the Chae siblings who was in a relationship, being happily married to TCM doctor Woo-hyun and they even have a daughter, Ha-eun. They seem like the ideal happy family, albeit with Woo-hyun being a little more reserved and careful with affection, but in truth, there's something else brewing here. As the drama progresses, Yeon-seung ends up becoming closer to Ryu Han-seo (or Chef Ryu as we'll call him), Woo-hyun's only friend. Everything seems normal but Woo-hyun starts to act far more distant around Chef Ryu, behaving as if he doesn't want him to be around Yeon-seung. Through certain hints dropped throughout the series, it would be easy to believe that Chef Ryu might have feelings for Yeon-seung and thus Woo-hyun wants to keep him away but we us K-drama fans know better than that.
As it turns out (and also something I predicted correctly), Chef Ryu is gay and likes Woo-hyun. We find out that in college, the former confessed his feelings and according to the latter, they had some moments of intimacy in what he calls a mistake. It's never confirmed to us if Woo-hyun's gay, bisexual or whatever his sexual orientation is, but whatever it is he heavily denies the fact that he's anything other than straight. Yeon-seung does eventually find out about this and is understandably devastated, refusing to believe anything other than the fact that her husband is "normal". Woo-hyun plans on divorcing her because he feels sorry for putting her through such trouble but Yeon-seung vehemently refuses, tearing up their divorce papers. There's a little bit of strife between them and there's palpable tension in their family, picked up on by Ha-eun.
Eventually, Yeon-seung comes to terms with this issue and agrees to divorce Woo-hyun, although she promises him that she'll be by his side until the point where he finds his true self. Fast forward 3 years and they're still married, with a blissfully ignorant Ha-eun and a sense of normalcy returning to their family. Of course, all good things must come to an end as Woo-hyun thanks Yeon-seung for supporting him all these years and telling her that it's time for him to continue his journey of self-discovery alone, which then leads to their divorce (obviously distressing Ha-eun). Here's the thing, this is such an interesting storyline but it practically doesn't get any development whatsoever. Will Woo-hyun finally come to terms with himself? How will Ha-eun react to this divorce? Will Chef Ryu make his return? All these were questions that could've and should've been answered, rather than focusing so heavily on Hyun-seung and Song-ah or half-assing Jae-woon and Ji-seung's romance. Again, maybe it's because that's how the webtoon was written but the screenwriters could've done better with adapting this plotline.
You'll notice a recurring theme throughout my retrospect thus far and it's that we get way too much focus on our lead couple's romance. Like I said, I liked their relationship and they're still one of my favourite K-drama couples but at the same time, the drama dragged on for so long because of them. Rather than showing the "will they, won't they" aspect of things, the drama could've delved way deeper into our other characters, like Jae-shin and Hyo-joo, Jae-woon and Ji-seung or even bringing Yeon-seung and Woo-hyun up to lead role level. In fact, even if we look at Hyun-seung and Song-ah's relationship, there were certain other aspects that could've been touched on, such as Hyun-seung's bad experience with his previous relationship and how that's changed him as a person. We get that idea very briefly but so much more could've been done with that. It's a shame too because of this strange creative choice, the drama felt a little draggy near the end. As a casual viewer, I didn't mind it particularly because like I keep saying, I like me some good romantic fluff but in the grand scheme of things, the plot could've been executed so much better.
I mentioned this in my initial thoughts post but She Would Never Know is a very smart English title choice, rather than simply going with the direct translation of the Korean name (Senior, Don't Put on That Lipstick). It's a title that works on so many levels, not just for Song-ah, but even for Hyo-joo and Yeon-seung (not so much Ji-seung though). Heck, even Song-ah's mother could be involved with this title. It's such a powerful title but yet, this drama just doesn't deliver the punch that I thought it would, with wasted opportunities abound, it regresses into a very typical romcom that while probably enough to satisfy viewers with cute scenes, doesn't really do much to expand on its various plotlines. Thanks for reading.
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