Love in Contract

One box. Everything you need to decide.

Meet the full cast of Love in Contract (2022).

Park Min-young

Choi Sang-eun

Lead

Go Kyung-pyo

Jung Ji-ho

Lead

Kim Jae-young

Kang Hae-jin

Lead

Jin Kyung

Madame Yoo Mi-ho

Antagonist

Kang Hyung-suk

Woo Kwang-nam

Supporting

Lee Ju-bin

Jung Ji-eun

Supporting

Park Cheol-min

Senior Manager

Supporting

Park Kyung-hye

Kim Yu-mi

Supporting

Oh Ryoong

Kang Seon-jin

Supporting

Ahn Suk-hwan

Jung Gil-tae

Supporting

Kim Dong-hyun

Choi Sang-moo

Supporting

Bae Hae-seon

Kim Sung-mi

Supporting

All 16 episodes of Love in Contract — spoiler-light recaps with the key beats you need.

EP 01

The Schedule

Sep 21, 2022 · tvN

Choi Sang-eun has her life running like clockwork — a perfectly managed roster of contract marriage clients and zero room for unexpected feelings. Her longest arrangement is with Jung Ji-ho, the quiet judge she visits every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When Ji-ho casually floats the idea of ending their contract, Sang-eun is unsettled in a way she can’t quite explain — and refuses to examine too closely.

EP 02

The First Love Problem

Sep 21, 2022 · tvN

Sang-eun deflects Ji-ho’s suggestion with a thin excuse, unsure of her own reaction. Meanwhile, hallyu star Kang Hae-jin spots her at a social event and recognizes her immediately — she’s the girl who vanished from his life thirteen years ago. Hae-jin grows suspicious of Ji-ho’s peculiar behavior around Sang-eun and decides she might need saving. She does not agree.

EP 03

The Forced Reveal

Sep 28, 2022 · tvN

A three-way collision at Ji-ho’s residence forces the truth out — Ji-ho reveals the nature of his arrangement with Sang-eun to a deeply suspicious Hae-jin. Their scheduled contract end arrives, but Sang-eun finds herself visiting Ji-ho under the flimsiest pretense. The visit takes a dangerous turn when an armed intruder appears at the door.

EP 04

The Comeback

Sep 28, 2022 · tvN

Ji-ho surprises Sang-eun with concert tickets and proposes extending their arrangement after a fortuitous run-in with a colleague. The far more volatile development: Madame Yoo, Sang-eun’s estranged former guardian who lost everything partly because of her, resurfaces with designs on a comeback. Despite their mutual wariness, Sang-eun steps in to help — and delays her own retirement plans as a result.

EP 05

The Triangle Opens

Oct 5, 2022 · tvN

Hae-jin formally requests Sang-eun as his contract wife for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday — the exact three days Ji-ho doesn’t occupy. After catching Hae-jin at a genuinely vulnerable moment, Sang-eun agrees. The love triangle is now fully operational. Ji-ho registers discomfort with the new arrangement in his usual quiet, controlled way — which is to say, loudly, by his standards.

EP 06

Domestic Complications

Oct 5, 2022 · tvN

Madame Yoo moving into Sang-eun’s apartment is exactly as awkward as it sounds. The tension between Sang-eun’s need for control and Madame Yoo’s instinct to meddle makes every shared scene a minor disaster. Meanwhile, Ji-ho’s protective instincts grow more visible, and Hae-jin begins pushing past professional lines — politely, charmingly, and persistently.

EP 07

Quiet Admissions

Oct 12, 2022 · tvN

Ji-ho begins sitting with a question he’s been avoiding: why did he seek out Sang-eun’s services in the first place, and why does he keep manufacturing excuses to stay close? Hae-jin, fully aware of his own feelings, turns up the pressure. Sang-eun’s careful emotional walls show the first hairline cracks — though she’d never admit it.

EP 08

The Pivot Point

Oct 12, 2022 · tvN

Both Ji-ho and Hae-jin make moves that force Sang-eun to stop running from her own feelings. The emotional stakes shift significantly as hints of Sang-eun’s hidden past — her connection to a powerful chaebol family and a carefully constructed false identity — begin surfacing. The tension between the two male leads reaches a new peak, and the audience starts to sense which way the wind is blowing.

EP 09

The Hidden Life

Oct 19, 2022 · tvN

Sang-eun’s backstory is revealed in full: orphaned young, absorbed into the powerful Ina Group, and raised to be the ideal bride for a chaebol alliance she never wanted. Ji-ho — who originally sought her out after watching her appear repeatedly in his courtroom’s divorce proceedings — finally understands the full weight of the life she’s been carrying. The people who shaped her painful past begin reappearing.

EP 10

Exposed

Oct 19, 2022 · tvN

Sang-eun’s connection to the Kang Jin chaebol family becomes harder to contain. Ji-ho’s instinct to shield her sharpens now that he understands the danger — these are powerful people, and they’re not finished with her. Hae-jin, unaware of how deeply his own family’s world intersects with Sang-eun’s past, continues pursuing her with genuine feeling.

EP 11

Closing In

Oct 26, 2022 · tvN

The chaebol entanglements around Sang-eun grow more threatening. Ji-ho takes active steps to place himself between her and the forces closing in — not as a client, not as a legal professional, but as someone who has made a quiet, personal choice. Sang-eun grapples with whether giving him the full truth about her past would protect or endanger them both.

EP 12

Past Meets Present

Oct 26, 2022 · tvN

Sang-eun’s carefully separated worlds collide. Figures from the Kang Jin family and Madame Yoo’s scheming converge, threatening both her livelihood and her safety. Ji-ho and Sang-eun face the storm together — the shared danger doing what neither would admit alone: bringing them unmistakably closer. Hae-jin begins to read the situation clearly.

EP 13

The Graceful Step Back

Nov 2, 2022 · tvN

Hae-jin makes a heartfelt, honest attempt to win Sang-eun — and the attempt itself is moving, even as it becomes clear it won’t work. Her emotions are anchored elsewhere, and she’s stopped pretending otherwise. The antagonist forces escalate their pressure. Ji-ho weighs his professional position against everything he privately wants, and makes his choice.

EP 14

Full Disclosure

Nov 2, 2022 · tvN

Sang-eun’s true identity — her origins within the Ina Group’s chaebol training scheme — is finally laid completely bare. Ji-ho responds not by stepping back, but by publicly and clearly committing to standing beside her. The love triangle reaches its emotional conclusion: Sang-eun’s feelings for Ji-ho are no longer ambiguous to anyone, least of all herself.

EP 15

Dismantling the Enemy

Nov 9, 2022 · tvN

Ji-ho and Sang-eun go on the offensive — confronting Madame Yoo and the chaebol forces that have been circling Sang-eun for most of the series. Hae-jin, heartbroken but not bitter, chooses to step aside with dignity and begins looking ahead. The finale draws near, and the show starts connecting its remaining threads.

EP 16

No More Contracts

Nov 10, 2022 · tvN

The finale. Sang-eun and Ji-ho drop every professional pretense and choose each other — openly, freely, without a contract in sight. Madame Yoo’s scheming is permanently dismantled; she accepts the consequences of her past and exits Sang-eun’s life without further interference. Hae-jin reconciles with his chaebol family’s uncomfortable truths, finds closure, and walks forward with genuine purpose. The drama ends where it always wanted to: with Sang-eun finally free to choose her own happiness.

Full spoilers ahead — everything that happens in the finale and what it all means.

The contract finally expires — by choice. The finale of Love in Contract isn’t interested in a dramatic twist or a last-minute crisis. Instead, it delivers exactly what the series has been quietly building toward: Ji-ho and Sang-eun abandoning the fiction of professionalism and choosing each other on entirely their own terms. There’s no clause, no renewal date, no mutual benefit to calculate — just two people deciding that what they have is real, and that real is worth keeping.

Madame Yoo exits — but not with a villain’s defeat. The show handles Madame Yoo with more nuance than it needed to. Rather than destroying her completely or redeeming her cheaply, it gives her a quiet reckoning. She acknowledges what she did, steps back from Sang-eun’s life without a final power play, and accepts that the door she closed through her own choices will not be reopened. It’s an understated resolution that fits the drama’s tonal register — neither triumphant nor tragic.

Hae-jin’s goodbye is the most emotionally mature beat in the finale. He knows he lost. He knows why. And rather than stewing in it or making one last desperate bid, he chooses to use the heartbreak as fuel — reconciling with the painful realities about his chaebol family, finding closure about Sang-eun, and deciding to move forward as a better version of himself. It’s the kind of second-lead exit that earns genuine affection rather than pity.

What the ending is really about. Love in Contract was never truly about a scheduling conflict between two men. It was about a woman who had spent so many years performing a role — the perfect wife, the dutiful ward, the professional with no needs of her own — that she forgot she was allowed to want things for herself. Ji-ho’s journey from quiet protector to openly committed partner mirrors Sang-eun’s journey from self-erasure to self-possession. The drama closes not on a wedding or a grand gesture, but on the small, radical act of two people being honest about what they feel — and finding that to be more than enough.