Love, Take Two

Everything you need to know before you hit play.

CompletedMOTHER-DAUGHTER HEALING PICK

Love, Take Two

첫, 사랑을 위하여 (Cheot, Sarangeul Wihayeo) · 2025 · South Korea

WriterSung Woo-jin

DirectorYoo Je-won, Ham Seung-hun

Episodes12 eps · ~64 min each

Where to Watch✅ Viki

⏱️

Binge Time12h 48m

AiredAug 4 – Sep 9, 2025

GenreRomance · Family · Slice of Life

Content RatingPG-13

tvNVikiViuTVINGWavve

Mother-Daughter RelationshipSecond Chance RomanceHealingCountryside LifeFound Family

Here’s the verdict — no scrolling, no guesswork.

A mother, a daughter, and the first love waiting for both of them in the same small town.

Yum Jung-ah

Lee Ji-an

Lead

Park Hae-joon

Ryu Jeong-seok

Lead

Choi Yoon-ji

Lee Hyo-ri

Supporting

Kim Min-kyu

Ryu Bo-hyeon

Supporting

Kim Sun-young

Kim Seon-yeong

Supporting

Yang Kyung-won

Yoon Tae-oh

Supporting

Kang Ae-sim

Grandma Mimi

Supporting

Jo Beom-kyu

Lee Jae-dong

Supporting

Jang Se-hyuk

Ryu Jeong-seok (Young)

Supporting

Kim Mi-kyeong

Jung Mun-hui

Supporting

Seo Young-hee

Ji-an’s Mother

Supporting

Jung Hoe-ryn

Kim So-yeon

Supporting

Light-touch recaps to keep you oriented, episode by episode.

EP 01

The Diagnosis

Aug 4, 2025

Lee Ji-an has spent years building a future for her daughter one construction shift at a time, and Hyo-ri’s brain tumor diagnosis undoes all of it in a single conversation. Hyo-ri responds by quitting med school and driving off alone in a camping van without telling her mother why. Ji-an is left to process the news by herself, right as a debt Chief Hwang reneges on threatens tuition money she no longer even needs. The premiere doesn’t resolve anything — it just makes clear how much distance these two have to close.

EP 02

Reunion in Cheonghae

Aug 5, 2025

Hyo-ri washes up in the seaside village of Cheonghae and settles, almost by accident, on flower farmer Ryu Bo-hyeon’s land. Ji-an quits her job after one final blowup with her CEO and follows her daughter there, determined to drag her back to Seoul for treatment. The reunion goes nothing like she planned — Hyo-ri finally admits she’s sick and flatly refuses to leave the village. The bigger surprise lands last: Bo-hyeon’s father, Jeong-seok, turns out to be Ji-an’s first love.

EP 03

What Her Mother Did

Aug 11, 2025

A health scare — Hyo-ri nearly loses consciousness and gets diagnosed with tonsillitis — cracks something open in Ji-an that years of silence couldn’t. For the first time, she tells Hyo-ri the truth about her own mother, who left her behind for a man in Vietnam after her father died. It’s the first real vulnerability either of them has shown the other, and it changes the shape of their relationship overnight. Ji-an also gets pulled into renovating an abandoned village mansion, which pulls Jeong-seok — and village gossip — right along with her.

EP 04

Unspoken Feelings

Aug 12, 2025

Renovating the abandoned mansion becomes Ji-an’s whole personality this episode, and Jeong-seok, resistant at first, eventually gives in and helps. Hyo-ri, unhappy about the project initially, softens the more time she spends with Bo-hyeon on his flower farm — including trying surfing for the first time. Ji-an’s best friend Seon-yeong arrives skeptical and leaves won over. Then the house is finished, and an elderly woman named Jung Mun-hui shows up claiming to be Ji-an’s long-lost mother — leaving both Ji-an and Hyo-ri stunned.

EP 05

My Love from the Sad Star

Aug 18, 2025

Mun-hui’s sudden appearance rips open a wound Ji-an thought was permanently closed — she believed her mother was dead, not standing in front of her. Reconciling with that shock gets harder when Mun-hui’s confusion nearly starts a kitchen fire, and Hyo-ri, watching her mother’s distress up close, starts understanding exactly how deep that old pain runs. She confides in Bo-hyeon about it. Jeong-seok’s ex-wife Yeo-jeong arrives in the village too, adding one more complication neither family asked for.

EP 06

I Choose to Begin

Aug 19, 2025

Hyo-ri collapses again, and the hospital trip reaffirms something in Ji-an — she’s not repeating the mistakes made on her. There, Mun-hui turns out to be a retired doctor whose confusion comes from grief over losing her own daughter, and she quietly uses her old connections to get Hyo-ri a private room. That kindness becomes a real bond; Hyo-ri starts calling her something close to grandmother. Meanwhile Seon-yeong’s push to open a restaurant gives Ji-an and Hyo-ri something Cheonghae hasn’t offered yet — a future worth staying for.

EP 07

Yeo-jeong’s Warning

Aug 25, 2025

Hyo-ri and Bo-hyeon finally say the quiet part out loud, and their first kiss makes the romance official. Ji-an and Seon-yeong’s new restaurant, Nature’s Masterpiece, opens to a village-wide celebration — until Yeo-jeong crashes it to tell Ji-an, in no uncertain terms, that she doesn’t like how close she’s gotten to Jeong-seok. The night takes a darker turn when Mun-hui’s grief pulls her toward the ocean and she falls in; Tae-oh pulls her out, and Ji-an finally breaks down in Jeong-seok’s arms, admitting how helpless she’s actually felt.

EP 08

First Love Advantage

Aug 26, 2025

Jeong-seok gives Ji-an permission to actually feel what she’s been holding back, and something between them shifts for good. Ji-an invites Mun-hui to move in, hoping to show Hyo-ri what it looks like to lean on someone else, and Mun-hui finally apologizes for how she handled things earlier. At a university seminar, Yeo-jeong’s condescension toward Ji-an sets off Jeong-seok’s protective instincts in front of everyone. The quieter moment that matters most, though, is a painting class — Ji-an and Hyo-ri, relearning how to actually see each other.

EP 09

Running to Him

Sep 1, 2025

Ji-an and Jeong-seok’s first real date is awkward in the specific way two people who’ve been avoiding their feelings tend to be, and it doesn’t make either of them any less obvious about it. Yeo-jeong makes one more play, revealing her own history with Jeong-seok and even floating a move to Germany with him and Bo-hyeon — he shuts it down cold, calling out the betrayal that ended things the first time. With Mun-hui and Hyo-ri both nudging her forward, Ji-an finally stops holding back and runs to him, and they say what they’ve both been avoiding saying.

EP 10

Spring and Spring Again

Sep 2, 2025

Cheonghae has an opinion about Ji-an and Jeong-seok’s relationship now, and their matching cat-ear-helmet date gives the whole village something to smile about. Hyo-ri and Bo-hyeon’s attempt at a secret trip gets comically derailed by Tae-oh’s watchful eyes and then by Bo-hyeon getting sick, but the mishaps only bring them closer — Hyo-ri tells him flatly she wants to live without regrets. The lightness doesn’t last: the episode ends with Hyo-ri’s surgery date getting moved up, and the spring atmosphere goes cold fast.

EP 11

Before the Surgery

Sep 8, 2025

With Hyo-ri’s surgery date closing in, the whole village quietly rallies around her and Ji-an. Mun-hui, drawing on her medical background, walks Ji-an through the real risks — nerve damage, language impairment — in a way that’s honest instead of comforting, and Ji-an’s anxiety spikes accordingly. Jeong-seok spends the day with Hyo-ri, promising her he’ll never let her mother feel alone, then keeps that promise in real time by being there for Ji-an when she needs him most. Nobody in this episode is pretending they’re not scared.

EP 12

My Mother Is My First Love

Sep 9, 2025

The surgeon’s news is good — Hyo-ri’s operation succeeds, and relief hits the whole community at once. Mid-surgery, prompted to say ‘I love my mother,’ Hyo-ri instead says ‘my mother is my first love’ — the line the whole season’s been quietly building toward. Recovery brings its own fight, with temporary memory and language loss pulling Hyo-ri inward before her found family brings her back. The finale closes on Ji-an and Hyo-ri traveling together, mother and daughter both finally at peace with where they’ve landed.

The finale, explained in full. Spoilers ahead.

What actually happened Hyo-ri’s surgery succeeds, resolving the season’s central medical crisis, but recovery isn’t instant — she deals with temporary language and memory impairment that makes her withdraw before her mother, Bo-hyeon, and the found family Cheonghae built around her bring her back. Ji-an and Jeong-seok end the season together, her second chance at love intact. Mun-hui, the woman who once claimed to be Ji-an’s mother, finds real healing in the family she’s adopted instead of biologically joined. Seon-yeong’s restaurant thrives, a small but concrete symbol that everyone in this story ends up building something that lasts. The finale closes with Ji-an and Hyo-ri traveling abroad together.

Why “my mother is my first love” matters The line Hyo-ri says mid-surgery instead of the one she’s asked to say is the whole show in miniature. Love, Take Two spends twelve episodes arguing that the romantic kind of first love and the maternal kind aren’t actually different categories — they’re both about someone choosing you before you can choose them back. Hyo-ri saying it under anesthesia, without the filter of performing it for anyone, is the show’s way of proving the theme instead of just stating it.

What Mun-hui’s story was really about Mun-hui was never actually Ji-an’s mother — she’s a retired doctor whose grief over her own lost daughter curdled into a delusion she clung to. The show could have played that as a cruel twist, a false hope dangled and yanked away. Instead it lets Ji-an and Hyo-ri choose her as family anyway, delusion and all, which reframes the whole season’s argument about what family actually requires. Blood was never really the qualifying test — showing up consistently was.

Why Jeong-seok’s promise landed Jeong-seok telling Hyo-ri he’ll never let her mother feel alone — then following through on it in real time with Ji-an — is a smaller beat than the surgery, but it’s the one that actually earns the finale’s romance. Nothing about Ji-an and Jeong-seok’s reunion depended on rescuing her from anything; it depended on him showing up for the parts of her life that had nothing to do with him. That’s a quieter kind of second chance than most K-dramas bother writing.

The KDW verdict Love, Take Two never asks its ending to do more than it’s earned across twelve unhurried episodes, and that restraint is exactly why it works. Nobody gets a miracle; Hyo-ri’s recovery is hard, Mun-hui’s grief doesn’t vanish, and Ji-an’s second chance with Jeong-seok is built on months of small, deliberate choices rather than one big gesture. It’s a finale that trusts healing to look like what it actually looks like — slow, uneven, and worth it anyway.