Final Review: She Would Never Know (JTBC, 2021) (2024)

March 15, 2021 bearcatchong

Major Spoilers:

• Yoon Song-ah (Won Jin-ah) broke up with Lee Jae-shin (Lee Hyun-wook) after learning that he was going to marry the granddaughter of the cosmetic company’s chairman, Lee Hyo-joo (Lee Joo-bin). Song-ah was supported by her junior of the marketing team Chae Hyun-seung (Rowoon), who already declared his love for her. Song-ah took some time to figure out her feelings for Hyun-seung before they are officially in a relationship. However, Song-ah’s mother was very dependent of Song-ah and was against Song-ah to be a relationship, so Song-ah had to asked Hyun-seung to be just her colleague in front of her mother. Song-ah’s mother eventually learn to let go of her obsession of Song-ah and Song-ah’s late father when she learnt that her obsessive behaviours had been making life difficult for Song-ah. She was also aware of the relationship between Song-ah and Hyun-seung as Hyun-seung had been taking care of her in Song-ah’s absence.

• In order to gain more experience for her personal development, Song-ah chose to be posted to the marketing team at Europe. However, her busy schedules always prevented her from meeting Hyun-seung. Feeling apologetic that Hyun-seung always had to wait for her, Song-ah chose to break up with Hyun-seung, thinking that Hyun-seung would be better off without having to wait for her fruitlessly. A year after their break-up, Song-ah return to the marketing team after being promoted to the manager. Hyun-seung’s indifferent attitude towards Song-ah made Song-ah upset. Although Song-ah pretended she was not upset to hide her feelings, she eventually still revealed to Hyun-seung that she was still much in love with him. However, Hyun-seung was hestitant of reuniting with Song-ah as he knew that was nothing he could do should Song-ah initiated break-up again. Therefore, Song-ah was the one who took the initiative this time to “seduce” Hyun-seung. They were finally together with intention to get married.
• Jae-shin wanted to break ties with his birth father who kept asking for money, even telling his father that he did not want to see him anymore. Sadly, his father met with an accident while escaping from debtors and passed away. No matter how much he hated his father, Jae-shin was still upset with his father’s death. He also went to look for his birth mother (cameo by Kim Mi-kyung), who was quite indifferent to Jae-shin despite guessing his identity. Jae-shin then called off his wedding with Hyo-joo and became uncontactable. Hyo-joo was then hospitalized again after attempting suicide. Jae-shin also quitted his job at the cosmetic company, and wanted to start his own brand of cosmetics. Hyo-joo’s brother and Jae-shin’s good friend, Lee Jae-woon (Lee Kyu-han), was upset with Jae-shin’s betrayal, so he tried to stop other investors from investing in Jae-shin’s company. Hyo-joo also decided to listen to Jae-woon to be take care of herself. 3 years later, Jae-shin met Hyo-joo at a cafe and both were doing well. Hyo-joo was able to face Jae-shin without much feelings, showing that she was no longer resenting or dependent on Jae-shin.

• Jae-woon met Hyun-seung’s eldest sister Chae Ji-seung (Wang Bit-na) at the department store and fell for her immediately, even requested the marketing team to manufactured the lipstick that the company had stopped producing. He used to wait at the department store to meet Ji-seung again, and even used the lipstick as an excuse to see her again. They eventually became together in a relationship, and going to get married.
• Hyun-seung’s second elder sister Chae Yeon-seung (Ha Yoon-Kyung) was a housewife married to a Korean medicine doctor Kang Woo-hyun (Lee Dong-ha), and they had a daughter Kang Ha-eun (Park Sol-yi). Ha-eun was very matured for her age, even giving advice to the adults for their problems. Yeon-seung was on good term with a chef Ryu Han-seo (Choi Jung-won), who was said to be good friend with Woo-hyun since university. Once, Yeon-seung overheard that conversation between Woo-hyun and Han-seo that they were in a relationship in the university, which Woo-hyun insisted that he did not like guys and he did that only out of curiosity. Initially, Yeon-seung was not able to accept this news, and refused to hear Woo-hyun out. After Yeon-seung seek advice from Ji-seung, she then gave Woo-hyun a chance to explain. Woo-hyun wanted to divorce Yeon-seung, thinking it was the best for Yeon-seung. Although she did not want a divorce, she still signed the divorce paper, telling Woo-hyun that she still loved Woo-hyun for all he was, and that she would support Woo-hyun no matter what kind of person Woo-hyun was, encouraging Woo-hyun to be honest to his inner-self. The couple divorced 3 years later, much to Ha-eun’s grief. However, they assured Ha-eun that they would still love her like before even if her parents were separated.

Comments:

Honestly speaking, other than seeing this as a romance story in a workplace setting of a cosmetic, I have no idea what is the theme of this drama. If looking at the English title of this drama “She would never know”, assuming that the “she” refers to our main female lead Yoon Song-ah, I really have no idea what she did not know, especially when Hyun-seung had been so frank with her from the beginning. If it was referring that she did not know that Jae-shin had been “two-timing” her, the conflict was pretty much resolved in the first few episodes. If we refer to the Korean title “Senior, Don’t put on that lipstick”, I also had no idea why Song-ah should not put on that lipstick, and there was no reference to Song-ah wearing lipstick after episode 1 as well.

If the theme of this drama is supposed to be about different kinds of love relationships, I feel that there are too many supporting characters whose stories are not impactful at all. The potential conflicts all just happened like a spark, extinguishing by themselves without the need for external aid. The conflict between Yeon-seung and Woo-hyun should be the most impactful, as the topic is no longer just as simple as if they loved each other or not, and yet Yeon-seung was behaving like a fickle. I could understand when she was acting like a spoilt brat being in denial, refusing to believe Woo-hyun was not the husband she dreamed to be, but I could not understand her sudden 180^o change in perception to be encouraging of Woo-hyun to be honest to himself just because Woo-hyun made an effort to make sure she would not be hurt further through a divorce? Jae-shin and Hyo-joo were also supposed to be the second leads, but their stories were not given much writings as though they were just one of the supporting characters. I do appreciate that Jae-shin finally decided to achieve his goals though his own hardship rather than wanting to take the shortcuts through Jae-woon or Hyo-joo.

Although our OTP in this drama did look good together, their romance was also uninteresting. I do enjoy the time they supported each other to resolve the marketing problems of their company, but other than that, they were rather uninteresting as a couple. After the break-up with Jae-shin, Song-ah and Hyun-seung were in an ambiguous relationship that was felt much longer (as compared to resolving the conflict between Jae-shin and Song-ah), that even the romance between Jae-yoon and Ji-seung overtook them despite meeting later (and less frequently?). The brief separation due to long distance relationship was so typical of kdramas, which was also what I hated the most (the famous noble idiocy 😴) as it seemed to always happen just before the last episode. Dear writer-nims of kdramas, I do understand the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, but it does not necessarily have to apply to every romance. Also, is it possible to be more encouraging to those who are already in long distance relationships by showing long distance romance that can work, rather than keep telling them their relationships are destined to fail? Besides, what is the use of a brief break-up if the leads are going to reunite anyway? I really hope that we don’t get that brief separation just before the end of the drama series, as this plot tool is really getting boring.