Early Access: She Would Never Know E1 (Patreon)

E1. I'd originally planned on giving this one a pass, because of several reasons.

First, I'm not a huge fan of either of the leads. Won Jin Ah's pretty alright in my books - I liked her well enough in Just Between Lovers - but I'm just not about to watch something purely because she's in it. At the same time, I'd been underwhelmed by Ro Woon in Extraordinary You. I'd found him quite bland and uninteresting, despite most other viewers going gaga over him, and I wasn't super keen on having him on my screen again.

Second, I'd heard some negative reactions to this one. Mainly, that our male lead oversteps personal boundaries in the first couple of episodes, in ways that some viewers found offensive and unacceptable.

So why did I decide to check this out? Well, it's partly because I've heard that the issues that viewers had, about our male lead's behavior, are resolved satisfactorily in subsequent episodes. And also, I do think I'm in the mood for some noona romance. (I did consider Kairos as the show to take over Start-Up's slot, but half an episode in, I decided that I wasn't in the mood for something so heavy and serious - and stressful.)

One episode into this, I actually like it more than I thought I would. A very promising start indeed. I'm immediately engaged, and no one is actually objectionable, on my screen.

Importantly, I actually find Ro Woon more interesting in this, than in Extraordinary You. Sure, it's still too early to tell if he'll be up to delivering more demanding scenes, but so far, I find him perfectly decent in this opening episode.

I like the idea of starting our story in a place where our male lead is already secretly smitten with our female lead. There's a lot less emphasis on a random meet-cute, even though we do get a flashback of how they met. I like that right away, we get to see Hyun Seung and Song Ah interacting. And right away, I feel like Show's giving us a solid sense of the kind of relationship they have. They seem friendly, and there are hints of familiarity between them, but there's also a distinct sense of hierarchy between them, because she's his sunbae at work. He's clearly chafing at the way she seems to see him like a little kid, almost, and the simmering desire for her to see him as something more, is rather alluring.

Because of Hyun Seung's feelings for Song Ah, the lines between personal and professional are getting blurred, and this is where his behavior starts to rub viewers the wrong way - especially towards the end of the episode.

To Hyun Seung's credit, though, he conducts himself reasonably well, when he realizes that Song Ah is dating BM Lee, and is therefore not single and available for him to court. He even tells his sister that Song Ah had looked very happy with BM Lee, and sadly prepares to process all his feelings and wrap up his crush, once and for all. That is, until he spots BM Lee with his fiancé at his sister's bridal shop.

It's after this point that Hyun Seung's behavior comes into question. I agree that in our final scene, there's a lot that Hyun Seung says and does that's out of line. It's not appropriate for him to have followed Song Ah to the storage corner where she'd met BM Lee, nor was it appropriate for him to eavesdrop on their conversation, and then call Song Ah out for being free that evening, because BM Lee had canceled plans with her. And most of all, it's not appropriate for him to rub the lipstick off her lip, while asking her not to put on that lipstick anymore.

I rationalize, though, that even though Hyun Seung's behaved this way, Show hasn't actually demonstrated that it approves or endorses this behavior as good or correct. Song Ah hasn't had a chance to react, certainly. And, in Hyun Seung's defense, he's not thinking straight at all by this point, having endured one whole month of going crazy knowing that BM Lee's stringing Song Ah along, while engaged to someone else. Given Hyun Seung's feelings for Song Ah, this one month of coping with the knowledge of this terrible secret, has got to have worn him down greatly, and therefore, I can understand that he'd say and do things that are reckless and poorly considered.

At the end of episode one, I'm actually looking forward to watching episode 2, which, I think, adds up to a pretty solid showing, in Show's opening episode.