I’ll be honest that Cha Eun Woo is the primary reason why I watch True Beauty.
So, I’m elated that True Beauty has been making me smile and laugh a lot. It is sassy and sweet; a perfect series if you need a feel-good treat.
Given my age, youth drama is evidently not my cup of tea. Thus, I’m happy that the four episodes so far do not have slapstick comedy. In fact, the smart quips and conversations of the characters are quite perky.
While we see the usual roles in a high school set drama, the actors are doing an amusing and amazing job. We are already sold in their pretty faces, so we are really having a bonus to how they are keeping the upbeat story.
abbyinhallyuland watches True Beauty on Viu
Episode Recaps: 01 & 02 | 03 & 04 | 05 & 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 & 10 | 11 & 12 | 13 & 14 | Review |
For its premiere week, the series modestly scored at 3.57 and 3.62 in nationwide viewership rating. The second week has maintained the initial range with 3.81 and 3.58 ratings.
You can check the opening week recap below.
Now, let’s look back on the highlights this week.
Su-ho Confirms Knowing Ju-bal and Ju-kyung are the same
Ju-kyung’s nagging thought if Su-ho knows her real identity spirals to a level that all she can think of is how to confirm it. Lucky for her, she was given a chance when Su-ho summoned her at Prince comic book shop.
Initially claiming she’s not Ju-kyung, she put a great defense against Su-ho’s parade of evidence. But then, her mom arrived and calls for her in her full name, obviously affirming Su-ho’s inquisition.
Surrendering, Ju-kyung finally admits, gets triggered and asks Su-ho if he will report her for fraud. She runs away barely dragging herself home and slumps on the floor with depleted energy.
Apparently Su-ho learned her two identities when she handed the paper bag with the book and his jacket, he already read the note when Ju-kyung asked to get it again.
Fearless Ju-kyung
The weight of her secret known by Su-ho keeps troubling Ju-kyung. Thanks to her sister who animatedly crushed her opponent in the online game, Ju-kyung’s energy to be brave surged high. Hee-kyung (Im Se Mi) made me laugh hard in her celebratory pose after her victorious online game. Who wouldn’t love these crazy sisters.
Offense is the best defense. From that premise, Ju-kyung takes the initiative and messaged Su-ho to meet her early. Armed with smokey make-up, she calls for his name and imagines destroying the young man in front of him complete with a female warrior attire.
But her courage fades easily when Su-ho raised her hairband. On her knees, she pleads for him to understand her situation. Desperate for his cooperation, Ju-kyung makes a promise that she will do everything for him.
Little did she know that she just made a pact to a mischievous errand-trigger-happy classmate.
Hee-kyung’s Lady-in-the-Shining-Armor Moment
Finding herself in front of her younger sibling’s school reminiscing the man who caught her heart aka Teacher Han Joon Woo (Oh Ui Shik), Hee-kyung chides herself. But she got lucky because she sees the man she has been inadvertently stalking having a car trouble.
A perfect excuse to unleash her inner MacGyver, she walks to where he is to offer help. Smoothly changing his car’s flat tire, Teacher Han was impressed on her strength and knowledge that he should know about.
This side love story is probably going to send us in perpetual laughter because the role reversal is just adorably cute. While Teacher Han pictures a gentle heart and hopeless romantic persona, Hee-kyung takes charge and just know what to do to get the man she wants.
For days, Hee-kyung waits for his call to share a meal with her. But Teacher Han, worried he will take her busy time, offers reimbursement instead.
Look forward to how Hee-kyung will claim her romance, as it will probably loads of fun.
Su-ho’s Errand Girl
Obedient Ju-kyung is at Su-ho’s beck and call to keep being at his good side so he won’t spill his secret. Doing her job efficiently, she rushes to leave him at a lightning speed not catching up how the errands are excuse for him to see it.
Su-ho finally settles her down in a rooftop lunch he set up with what he claimed to be food leftovers. Surprised at the instant bibimbap Ju-kyung concocted, Su-ho happily eats the hearty meal.
Proposing a one big mission to settle their score, Ju-kyung explains how burdened he will be if she will lurk around him doing all the small things. He relents to her wish and points to the poster on their table of the school audition for the talent show.
Ju-kyung realizes her being tone deaf won’t save her so she settle for a different show. (Who else missed Moon Ga-young’s singing voice?) However, after going to the washroom, she enters the wrong room and showed her performance to the teachers. Su-ho was also there to watch her pretty decent dance of Hwasa’s “Maria”.
“It’s really mean to mess around with someone’s pain.”
Coming late from school, Ju-kyung’s mom scolds her for spending effort on her make-up fixation. Rubbing salt to her wound, she even berates how without make-up she would be ugly so no one would marry her. *ouch mom
She sulks in her room but Su-ho’s message for the comic book errand made her get up. Suddenly, rain pours so in her hurry, she bumps to a mean drunk man who mindlessly threw harsh words at her highlighting her ugly face.
Surprised to see Ju-kyung drenched in water, Su-ho asks why she didn’t bring an umbrella. Emotionally drained, she finally burst and tells her agony. Crying her heart out, she tells him how it’s mean to make fun of someone’s pain.
Su-ho takes off his jacket and settles Ju-kyung down in the nearby bench. He asks her to wait, but when he returns she’s nowhere to be found. Unknown to them, Seo-jun (Hwang In Yeop) saw how he fervently looked for Ju-Kyung.
He finds Ju-kyung who moved to a different bench and tends to the wound on her knee. He meets her eyes and apologizes for everything.
Former Friends Su-ho and Seo-jun
We definitely know there’s a painful backstory that led to the friendship fallout of Su-ho and Seo-jun. That involves Se-yeon (Chani) who committed suicide and is the same person which inspired Ju-kyung not to do her own suicide staging.
It is also inferred how Su-ho gravitates to Ju-kyung because she is a reminder of his dear friend, whom he was not able to save.
Obviously wanting Su-ho to be forever feeling the guilt of their friend’s passing, Seo-jun caused him trouble the next day. He rudely pushed Su-ho’s lunch plate spilling the food on the floor. Then, he goes to sit beside Ju-kyung who he saw with Su-ho having close interaction last night.
He throws a punch, but Su-ho holds back in returning it. When the teacher came in, they were summoned for a discipline session and were asked to clean the gymnasium. Seo-jun forbids him for saying the deceased Se-yeon’s name and tells him how their friend rushed to see him thinking he would believe in him.
Ju-kyung’s Blind Date
Slowly but surely, the bond between Su-ho and Ju-kyung is getting more pronounced. Although, they do not recognize it yet. Whether cutely bickering at their common hangout at Prince comic book store or talking about the rules of dating, the two just effortlessly yields collective smile for viewers.
After participating in a Math competition, Su-ho goes undercover to observe Ju-kyung’s blind date.
His eyes shoot daggers when he sees Ju-kyung’s date moving for an embrace. He loses his cool when he thought he was kissing her and goes out of his hiding only to find out that he mistook the couple he was eyeing. When Ju-kyung and his date noticed the commotion, he hides right away.
Still stalking on Ju-kyung’s date, Su-ho sees red when he saw her received a head pat from Ju-kyung’s older guy blind date. Just when she left, he sees the guy another woman happily.
Following Soo-ah’s advice to play hard to get, Ju-kyung did not reply when the blind date messaged her a follow-up sweet nothings. Just as she was about to message him, she receives a message telling her that he is a piece of trash and he won’t see her again.
Turns out that Su-ho has a hand on it when he threatened the serial cheater who is obviously luring Ju-kyung to add in his collection.
Seo-Jun’s Weakness
Excited for her first blind date, Ju-kyung goes to her mom’s parlor to have a facial but an unexpected visitor has had her apply a mud pack on her face. Apparently, her mom is friends with Seo-jun’s mom.
Ju-kyung sees how Seo-jun’s rudeness seems to be absent and he’s like the “most behaved” young man ever. Knowing how to make use of her new knowledge as leverage for Seo-jun in the future, she agrees to his mom’s wish of being her eyes on Seo-jun at school.
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The Study Group
Together with Soo-jin and Soo-ah, Ju-kyung go to their scheduled study group session. Surprised at the sight of Soo-ho, they proceed as planned. Soo-jin notices how Su-ho pays attention to Ju-kyung, something that is not like him.
He even patiently watched his study partners “crazy karaoke” sight. When Ju-kyung stumbles on Seo-jun’s presence at the same karaoke house, she hides him from Su-ho, who already saw them together.
The two bump on the band of delinquents who Ju-kyung remembered to be the same baddies in their first encounter. They escape the scene but Su-ho took the ire of the gang leader. Fortunately, the police arrives causing them to disperse.
The luckiest schoolgirl – Ju-kyung
Melting Seo-jun’s rude and jaded attitude, he agrees to drop her in the neighborhood and finds Su-ho waiting. Because whenever the two meets, they engage in a verbal spat, that’s what happened again. This time around, they ask the same question – if they both like Ju-kyung.
At night, Su-ho surmises on the hanging question he got about Ju-kyung. It turns out that as he was unable to concentrate at the Math competition, Su-ho leaves the test room to go where Ju-kyung is having a movie date
The next day, Su-ho sees Ju-kyung arriving in her glorious pretty state. Seo-jun cuts in and throws his motorcycle key while suavely declaring that he will stop riding it because he wants to listen to her moving forward.
That leaves a “seo-jun just made a confession” impression to the students surrounding them. Wanting to clear what just happened, Ju-kyung calls for Seo-jun, but Su-ho stops her from going after him.
True Beauty Week 2 Musings
Su-ho and Seo-jun are K-Drama reincarnations of the School 2013 boys. *wink I hope the reason for their friendship fallout will be communicated well soon in concrete details. So they can make amends, and us girls, can be all happy and love them together in bundle.
This week, we also saw that Ju-kyung and Su-ho had previously connected when they were young. Not sure if it will be emphasized in the next episodes. But the scene in episode 4 stresses on how Ju-kyung seems to be with Su-ho at sad moments of his life without them knowing about it.
Ju-kyung is probably the girl every young woman and young-woman-at-heart wish to be right now. For Su-ho, what started as sympathy and resemblance to his best friend’s situation, seem to be leaning to a more romantic emotion. Still, he is trying to process it. And with Seo-jun’s goal of just wanting not to see him happy, it might escalate fast.
Burdened by the guilt Seo-jun keeps pushing on him, by finding Ju-kyung, it somehow made Su-ho subconsciously become protective of her. Without Su-ho’s knowledge of Ju-kyung’s emotional vulnerability, he might inadvertently hurt her in the process of hurting Su-ho.
It’s quite a simple problem, but the shared pain of the two former friends, who can’t reconcile their indifference might cause a heartbreak to Ju-kyung. A girl who has been saddled by insecurity owing to the harsh treatment she received by people who don’t even know her personally. A girl who is like the bestfriend who caused an irreparable void and guilt in their hearts.
Running on a zippy and fun note, we are looking forward to Su-ho and Seo-jun’s “who’s the sweetest showdown” this week!
True Beauty airs on tvN every Wednesday and Thursday.
abbyinhallyuland watches True Beauty on Viu.
Photos/Videos: tvN | Screencap from Viu
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