My Dearest

One box. Everything you need to decide.

The full cast of My Dearest — leads, villains, and the supporting players who hold the war-era world together.

Namkoong Min

Lee Jang-hyun

Lead

Ahn Eun-jin

Yoo Gil-chae

Lead

Lee Hak-joo

Nam Yeon-jun

Supporting

Lee Da-in

Kyung Eun-ae

Supporting

Kim Yoon-woo

Ryang-eum

Supporting

Ji Seung-hyun

Goo Jam

Supporting

Park Jeong-yeon

Jong-jong

Supporting

Kwon So-hyun

Bang Yeo-ok

Supporting

Park Kang-seop

Eom Joon-seo

Supporting

Choi Moo-seong

Gu Yang-cheon

Supporting

Kim Jong-tae

Hong Gyeok

Supporting

Kim Moo-joon

Crown Prince Sohyeon

Supporting

All 21 episodes of My Dearest — spoiler-light recaps for every instalment, from the first stolen glance to the war-torn finale.

EP 01

The Girl on the Swing

August 4, 2023 · MBC

Yoo Gil-chae floats above her world on a swing, convinced she knows exactly how her life will go. Lee Jang-hyun watches from below, sees something she doesn’t, and says nothing. The chemistry is immediate; the misunderstandings are already in motion. The pre-war Joseon backdrop is lush and unhurried — enjoy it while it lasts.

EP 02

A Poor Choice of Heart

August 5, 2023 · MBC

Gil-chae’s determination to win Yeon-jun’s affection keeps running into one obstacle: Jang-hyun. He is not trying to interfere — he just keeps being there, sharper than expected, harder to dismiss. The banter here is some of the best in the series; the lightness will not last, so the drama is right to savour it.

EP 03

What the Sword Knows

August 11, 2023 · MBC

We begin to understand that Jang-hyun is not simply a charismatic nobleman — there are things he does with a precision that noble leisure does not explain. Gil-chae still does not see it. The first signs of the coming invasion appear on the horizon, distant enough to feel abstract. They will not be abstract for long.

EP 04

Before the Storm

August 12, 2023 · MBC

The world that Gil-chae has always assumed would hold her is beginning to show fractures. Jang-hyun’s feelings have crystallised into something he is not ready to name — and Namkoong Min plays that restraint with extraordinary precision. The last truly quiet episode before the invasion changes everything.

EP 05

The Day It Fell

August 18, 2023 · MBC

The Qing army arrives. The series shifts register entirely — this is not the gentle Joseon of the opening episodes. Gil-chae’s world collapses in a matter of hours, and Ahn Eun-jin carries the full weight of the chaos without overplaying a single moment. The episode marks the point from which the drama never fully retreats.

EP 06

Survival Grammar

August 19, 2023 · MBC

Gil-chae learns what survival actually costs — in pride, in choices, in who you have to become. Jang-hyun moves through the devastation like a man who has always known war was coming and prepared accordingly. The gap between their positions is never more visible, or more charged.

EP 07

What He Sees

August 25, 2023 · MBC

Jang-hyun tells Gil-chae, without quite saying it, that he has always seen exactly who she is — not the version the world approves of, but the real one. It is the episode the entire first half has been building to, and it earns every minute of the wait. The most-cited scene in the series happens here.

EP 08

The Marriage

August 26, 2023 · MBC

The circumstances of wartime force a decision neither character is ready for. The episode handles the politics of survival and the politics of feeling with equal weight — a difficult balance, and the drama manages it without sacrificing either. The ending leaves viewers certain of very little except that things are about to get worse.

EP 09

The Cost of Staying

September 1, 2023 · MBC

The full weight of what Gil-chae and Jang-hyun are to each other becomes undeniable — which makes everything that follows more painful. Ryang-eum’s storyline deepens considerably here; Kim Yoon-woo’s performance has been quietly exceptional throughout, and this episode finally gives him the space it deserves.

EP 10

End of Part One

September 2, 2023 · MBC

Part 1 closes on a separation that shattered the internet. The episode is deliberately constructed to leave viewers with maximum longing — and it succeeds almost cruelly well. The six-week wait for Part 2 was, by all accounts, genuinely difficult. Knowing Part 2 exists makes watching this far more bearable; experiencing it at broadcast was another matter entirely.

EP 11

Part Two Begins

October 13, 2023 · MBC

Part 2 opens with a time jump. The world has changed; the people in it have changed more. Gil-chae is no longer the girl on the swing — she is someone shaped by loss, pragmatism, and a love she has never quite been allowed to keep. The tone of Part 2 is darker, more patient, and more confident.

EP 12

Separate Lives

October 14, 2023 · MBC

Both leads are living lives the other cannot fully see, in circumstances neither anticipated. The reunion the audience is waiting for is being carefully managed — held at a distance long enough for you to feel its weight before it arrives. The parallel storytelling in Part 2 is more sophisticated than Part 1, and this episode establishes why.

EP 13

The Resistance

October 20, 2023 · MBC

Jang-hyun’s double life becomes clearer — the resistance operation he has been running threads together threads the drama has been laying since episode three. It reframes everything we thought we knew about his early behaviour, and adds a dimension to the love story that elevates it beyond pure romance into something about survival and witness.

EP 14

Reunion

October 21, 2023 · MBC

The long-anticipated reunion. It is not triumphant — it is complicated, weighted down by everything that happened in between, which makes it far more affecting than a straightforward embrace would have been. Namkoong Min and Ahn Eun-jin have calibrated their performances so precisely across 14 episodes that every glance carries history.

EP 15

Danger in the North

October 27, 2023 · MBC

The Crown Prince storyline gains momentum — Kim Moo-joon’s quiet, dignified portrayal of a man trapped by royal circumstance has been one of Part 2’s underrated pleasures. The political machinery grinds toward a confrontation that puts multiple characters in danger simultaneously. The pacing tightens noticeably.

EP 16

The Price of Truth

October 28, 2023 · MBC

Jang-hyun’s full past is laid out — including the parts Gil-chae had no way to see. The episode is structurally a revelation, and it recalibrates the viewer’s understanding of nearly everything that came before. If you have been patient with the slow burn, this is a significant payoff.

EP 17

What She Chose

November 4, 2023 · MBC

Gil-chae makes a decision that has divided viewers since broadcast. The drama is not interested in making her choice easy to judge — and it shouldn’t be. The wartime framework ensures that every decision carries a cost that comfortable peacetime romance never has to face. The episode is difficult and it earns that difficulty.

EP 18

Returning Home

November 10, 2023 · MBC

The aftermath of the series’ hardest episode is handled with care. What could have felt like emotional punishment becomes instead an exploration of what home means when the world has been rearranged by war. Ryang-eum’s arc arrives at a moment of heartbreaking clarity — one of the most affecting supporting character resolutions in the drama.

EP 19

Memory and Return

November 11, 2023 · MBC

Jang-hyun regains the memories he lost and discovers what the Crown Prince and Princess left behind for him — a letter that ties together two narrative threads the drama has been carefully managing. The pieces are falling into place with an elegance that rewards attentive watching. The finale is one episode away.

EP 20

The Final Separation

November 17, 2023 · MBC

The penultimate episode raises the stakes to the series’ highest point. Everything Jang-hyun has been protecting, every secret he has kept, every sacrifice he has made — it all lands here. The drama knows it has your full emotional investment and uses it without mercy. Do not watch this episode without access to the finale.

EP 21

My Dearest

November 18, 2023 · MBC

The finale. The series earns its title in full. Whether you consider the ending earned or heartbreaking or both will depend on what you came to the drama wanting — but it is deliberate, carefully written, and impossible to dismiss. The final frames remain the most debated in 2023 Korean drama.

The weight of everything finally arrives in Episode 21. Lee Jang-hyun, who has spent the entire series operating in the space between what he feels and what he allows himself to say, is stripped of all his defences. The letter from the Crown Prince confirms what he has been protecting — and confirms too what it has cost. By the time he reaches Gil-chae, neither of them is the person they were on that swing in Episode 1. The drama is entirely clear-eyed about this. It does not pretend the war left them unchanged.

The ending has divided audiences primarily over one question: does Gil-chae get what she deserves? Writer Hwang Jin-young’s answer is not the triumphant vindication of romance convention. What Gil-chae gets is something more complicated — a recognition, finally, of who she became through the war. Jang-hyun does not love the girl on the swing; he loves the woman she had to become to survive it. The distinction matters, and the finale makes it explicit in its final stretch. The reunion is real. But it carries the scar tissue of 21 episodes.

Ryang-eum’s conclusion is the most emotionally devastating thread the series closes. Kim Yoon-woo has been the drama’s most heartbreaking presence throughout Part 2 — a man defined by a loyalty that the world consistently punishes. His final moments do not offer him a conventional happy ending, because the drama has always been honest about what war does to people who love the wrong things at the wrong time. The scene is quiet and unbearable in equal measure.

The final frames return, deliberately, to the imagery of the opening. The swing, the light, the specific way this drama has always framed Gil-chae when she is most herself. It is the series’ central visual motif closing in full — a statement that the person who survived the war and the girl who floated above the world in Episode 1 are the same person, only now she knows it too. My Dearest never promises its characters safety — only that what they feel for each other is real enough to survive even the things the story puts between them.