[HanCinema's Drama Review] "She Was Pretty" Episode 12

The opening of this episode somewhat hilariously completely undercuts the entire emotional catharsis of the last one by revealing that the situation of Hye-jin's friends was nowhere near as extreme as Hye-jin had been assuming. Well, except for Seong-joon. It turns out that simply being in close proximity to Hye-jin is not enough to make people happy. Other life challenges often take priority, because there's just so much to do on a daily basis.

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I continue to love how Hyeok manages to turn every single thing into a joke. Obviously the issue with Ha-ri was the bigger more relevant conflict, but Hyeok's parallel story gives a very good alternate vibe to the resolution of the story. When there are multiple possible explanations for why a person has disappeared, why assume the worst possible one? Which is to say, why assume that they are acting in a cowardly way just because of something that you did or did not do?

In one sense that's what friendship actually is- even friendship that has pretensions of romance. You have to have some faith that the other person is going to be straight with you rather than just freaking out. Hye-jin's status as the perspective character has a lot to do with this. Even if Ha-ri committed the greater sin of deceit, all of this was Hye-jin's idea in the first place so of course she feels that the primary responsibility for everything that happened actually lies with her.

Yet at the same time Hye-jin really is more of a perspective character than she is a main character. Hye-jin has very little plot. Ha-ri is in about the same position. Now that the Seong-joon issue between them has been resolved, there is in fact very little left to in their relationship except go back to fun times and emotional support. Because that's what friendship is all about- making that extra considerate effort and convincing the other person that they're not a selfish jerk for wanting things.

So there's not actually all that much story here- although "She Was Pretty" has never really had narrative for its strong points so much as characterization. Presumably Seong-joon and Hyeok are going to take up the slack in that department from now. We've had too many hints about their life situations being more complex than they let on and now that the romantic conflict appears to be over with, that's presumably where the rest of the drama is going to go. For now, well, just enjoy the cliffhanger.

Review by William Schwartz

"She Was Pretty" is directed by Jeong Dae-yoon, written by Jo Seong-hee and features Hwang Jung-eum, Park Seo-joon, Go Joon-hee, Choi Si-won, Yoon Yoo-sun, Seo Jung-yeon and more.

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