She Was Pretty

The short briefing before you dive in.

CompletedOFFICE ROM-COM PICK

She Was Pretty

그녀는 예뻤다 (Geunyeoneun Yeppeotda) · 2015 · South Korea

WriterJo Sung-hee

DirectorJung Dae-yoon

Episodes16 eps · ~60 min each

Where to Watch⚠️ Not currently available to US viewers

⏱️

Binge Time16h 0m

AiredSep 16 – Nov 11, 2015

GenreComedy · Romance · Drama

Content RatingTV-14

MBCViu

Office RomanceMistaken IdentityFashion MagazineChildhood FriendsRom-Com

Everything you need to decide, in one place.

Four leads at the magazine Most, plus the colleagues who keep the office running.

Hwang Jung-eum

Kim Hye-jin

Lead

Park Seo-joon

Ji Sung-joon

Lead

Choi Si-won

Kim Shin-hyuk

Supporting

Go Joon-hee

Min Ha-ri

Supporting

Shin Dong-mi

Cha Joo-young

Supporting

Ahn Se-ha

Kim Poong-ho

Supporting

Kang Soo Jin

Joo A-reum

Supporting

Shin Hye-sun

Han Sul

Supporting

Park Yu-hwan

Kim Joon-woo

Supporting

Cha Jung-won

Jung Sun-min

Supporting

Bae Min-jung

Lee Kyung

Supporting

Im Se-joo

Eun-young

Supporting

Spoiler-light recaps — enough to remember where you left off, nothing that ruins the ride.

EP 01

The Hidden Picture

Sep 16, 2015

Ji Sung-joon, back from New York, looks up the childhood friend whose returned letters he still keeps: Kim Hye-jin. The Hye-jin we meet is frizzy-haired, freckled and juggling bar shifts and a student loan, while her best friend Min Ha-ri is the one everyone notices. Too embarrassed to face him, Hye-jin sends the glamorous Ha-ri to the reunion in her place, and Sung-joon hugs the wrong woman. A job mix-up then lands Hye-jin at the magazine Most on a three-month assignment, and the last twist arrives on cue: Sung-joon walks in as the new deputy editor.

EP 02

Three Months to Save Most

Sep 17, 2015

Sung-joon is introduced to the Most staff as the new deputy editor, and Hye-jin nearly swallows her tongue. She hides under her desk and sprints for the stairs, while only Shin-hyuk notices her escape. Behind closed doors Sung-joon tells Chief Editor Kim a secret: in three months the magazine will be discontinued unless it reaches the top of the industry. Meanwhile Ha-ri keeps up the London story, sending a photo to answer Sung-joon’s friendly email, and he nearly collides with her at her hotel before grabbing her wrist and calling her Hye-jin.

EP 03

Wifey’s Cover Story

Sep 23, 2015

Cornered at her hotel, Ha-ri hugs Sung-joon before he can read her name tag and claims she was called back from London for a job. He half believes her. Hye-jin’s survival plan is a crash course in fashion with Ha-ri as her teacher, mostly a matter of learning the English terms for everything, and soon she is impressing her colleagues and even Chief Editor Kim. A hand injury keeps Ha-ri troubled. The hour ends when Sung-joon sees a dead ringer for the young Hye-jin in a cafe: her little sister Hye-rin, with Hye-jin walking in at the worst moment.

EP 04

The Shattered Puzzle

Sep 24, 2015

Hye-jin dashes to cut off Hye-rin’s chat with Sung-joon, using a made-up call from the chief editor to get him out of the cafe. Back at work, Sung-joon extends his three-minute rule to project proposals and shoots down the team’s work. Hye-jin sinks to the bottom of a gym pool, then drinks with Shin-hyuk at a street stall, while Ha-ri hands a lost MP3 player to a hotel guest and realises it is Shin-hyuk. The episode closes in Sung-joon’s suite, where Hye-jin knocks his Renoir puzzle off the table and ends up in his arms.

EP 05

Under the Hoodie

Sep 30, 2015

Hye-jin sneaks into Sung-joon’s suite to get her phone, cracking his lock by remembering that his favourite day is International Left-hander’s Day. When the puzzle frame breaks she runs out, then spends the next day dodging him at the office, even offering to shine his shoes. Shin-hyuk bails her out by hugging Sung-joon and hiding a stray puzzle piece under his own shoe. At night Sung-joon freezes at a car accident that echoes his mother’s. Hye-jin covers both of them with her hoodie and tells him to look only at her, as a truck bears down on them.

EP 06

Soup and an Onion

Oct 1, 2015

The truck misses them, and a shaken Sung-joon is put into a driver’s care by Hye-jin before he collapses into Ha-ri’s arms at his door. She wrecks his kitchen trying to make soup. At the office an onion appears on Hye-jin’s desk, Shin-hyuk teases her that it is a pricey Italian onion for a photo shoot, and she works out that Sung-joon left it there as a folk remedy against illness. Chief Editor Kim asks how long until Hye-jin becomes more Most-like, Shin-hyuk cashes in his first favour for a dinner date, and a last-minute business trip leaves Hye-jin riding alone in a car with Sung-joon.

EP 07

Cow Poop and Childhood Letters

Oct 7, 2015

The silent drive to the meeting turns into a lunch where Sung-joon fusses over an apron, insists the meal is on him and has left his wallet back at Most. On a field outing he finally opens up to Hye-jin about the lonely years in America, when he was bullied and the letters from a friend in Korea were what kept him going, until the letters stopped. Later Ha-ri asks him point blank whether he only spends time with her because they grew up together, and she kisses him as Shin-hyuk happens to look on and finally understands the whole mix-up.

EP 08

The Answer He Didn’t Give

Oct 8, 2015

Shin-hyuk spins Hye-jin away so she will not see Ha-ri’s kiss, then keeps her busy with talk about her roommate. Ha-ri tells Sung-joon she wants to be more than a childhood friend and waits for an answer. At a cover shoot, a torn dress and a stack of clues finally add up for Sung-joon: the curly hair joke, the “It’s a go!” line and the jacket held over him in the rain all point to Hye-jin, and he stares at her in disbelief. A broken machine at her father’s print shop pushes her to reconsider, and she walks back into Most with a very new look.

EP 09

The New Look

Oct 15, 2015

A hairdresser tames the curls and a shopping spree follows. Hye-jin walks into the building polished, and the Most team can only stare while Shin-hyuk mourns the old Jackson’s freckles and Seul calls her unni for the first time. The mood collapses at the launch event, where Chief Editor Kim announces to the crowd that it is a disaster and calls her team crazy. Sung-joon is frozen in his car in tears. A news story then sends him racing to find Hye-jin during a storm, and when he finds her unharmed on the roadside he holds her tightly while Shin-hyuk watches from across the street.

EP 10

Who Are You?

Oct 21, 2015

Hye-jin heads to an interview in a borrowed car, which breaks down near the scene of a serious road accident. Sung-joon, who has read about it, drives through the rain in a panic and holds her tightly when he finds her unhurt, saying he did not even notice it was raining. Shin-hyuk, who also raced out, watches from across the street. Later he spends his third favour on a confession: he does not think of her as a friend and never wants to be. Elsewhere Sung-joon walks up to Ha-ri at her hotel, hears her boss use her real name and asks: “Min Ha-ri. Who are you?”

EP 11

Ha-ri Disappears

Oct 22, 2015

Sung-joon confronts Ha-ri, who can only say that she is Hye-jin’s friend, and he walks away from her without a backward glance. As he replays everything he has heard about the real Hye-jin, a conversation between the two is cut off when Reporter Cha interrupts, and Hye-jin turns her Onion Head to its crying side. Ha-ri resigns without notice, and Hye-jin comes home to find her things gone and a to-do list that includes quitting and selling her car. She races to the airport, remembers Ha-ri pushing her home in a shopping cart as a child, and breaks down in the middle of the terminal.

EP 12

The First Kiss

Oct 28, 2015

Hye-jin collapses in tears at the airport until Ha-ri strolls past, there only to see her mother off to Japan. Ha-ri explains that she is not running away: after what she did to Hye-jin she decided she was immature, so she cut up her credit card, deleted the men in her phone and quit the job her father found for her. At the office, Joon-woo sprints out for a thermometer and every medicine he can find for Seul. In a quieter scene Shin-hyuk flips a coin to decide whether he lets Hye-jin go, sees her tears, pockets the coin and tells her to go, and she finds Sung-joon asleep and pale, hugs him, and he kisses her.

EP 13

The Law of Luck

Oct 29, 2015

Sung-joon has collapsed from overwork, and Hye-jin finally gives him the hug he has been asking for from his hospital bed. He tells her he will not hold back any more from liking her, missing her or hugging her, and when Chief Editor Kim barges in dressed like a cowgirl, Hye-jin hides in the closet while her chattering teeth nearly give her away. Red bean pastries and a Carpenters song later, the two oversleep in his car. The episode ends at a lake, where he promises to save Most and then propose, kisses her, and a phone left at the office rings with Leonard Kim’s name.

EP 14

Ten and the Chaebol Heir

Nov 4, 2015

Holding Hye-jin from behind, Sung-joon says that once Most is saved he will propose, because he has missed her for fifteen years and does not want to lose her again. Back at the office his big feature interview is cancelled over the subject’s looming drug scandal, so he scraps the cover story, lets the staff fill the issue with the pieces they have always wanted to write, and Chief Editor Kim tells everyone to enjoy what may be the last issue. Two reveals follow: Poong-ho, from the Most team, is announced as the company’s new vice president, and the author Ten is Shin-hyuk.

EP 15

Goodbye for Now

Nov 5, 2015

A clean-shaven Shin-hyuk hands Sung-joon an MP3 player holding everything he needs to know about Ten and writes the interview for the twentieth anniversary issue. Sung-joon asks Hye-jin to come to the United States with him, and she says yes without hesitating, though he is quick to say this is not the real proposal. She returns to the management team, and an offer to join a children’s book writers’ group changes the plan: she stays to chase that dream, and Sung-joon flies out alone after a goodbye with no airport scene, then turns back to say that he loves her. Some time later, with curly hair and glowing cheeks, Hye-jin pedals through a small town, thrilled that a visitor has come.

EP 16

Miracles

Nov 11, 2015

Hye-jin has settled into a writers’ group for her children’s book project when Sung-joon turns up in the rain, unannounced, to say that he is back for good as the new chief editor of Most. Her name soon appears in print on the book. Her parents hand her the marriage savings account they have kept for ten years, so that the print shop machine can wait. Shin-hyuk is last seen travelling and writing, Ha-ri wins a hotel job on her own merit, and Hye-jin and Sung-joon marry. A few years later a little girl with her mother’s curls skips through the rain beside her father, and the Ending Explained section below covers how the drama closes.

Spoilers from here on — what actually happened, and why it lands.

A happy ending, with nobody lost She Was Pretty ends well. After weeks of viewer fears about a tragic twist, iMBC reported that the final episode showed every lead living as the main character of their own life, and Dramabeans’ recapper wrote of being glad that nothing worse happened. Hye-jin and Sung-joon get married, and Ha-ri, who spent most of the show lying on her friend’s behalf, ends it standing on her own: she lands a hotel job on her own merit and makes Hye-jin a garland and bouquet of flowers the night before the wedding.

Sung-joon comes home, and Hye-jin gets her book The last stretch starts with a scare. Hye-jin is working on her children’s book in a writers’ group when Sung-joon stops answering his phone, and she spends a day imagining the worst. Then he appears in front of her in the rain, the business settled and back for good, the new chief editor of Most. Her parents finally give her a bank book they have been filling for ten years, because her wedding mattered more to them than a new printing machine, and her name appears in print on the book, called The Story of a Peeping Girl. Sung-joon hands out wedding invitations to a stunned team.

Shin-hyuk keeps his secret and his friend Shin-hyuk is the lead who does not get the girl, and the finale treats him with care. He is last seen working on a new novel in a hostel somewhere in Europe, where a fellow guest recognises him as Ten; he half admits it and then claims he was joking, tossing the rubber spider he once used on Hye-jin. Later we see him back in Korea, looking at a billboard of himself. His new book is dedicated to “My best friend, Jackson,” the nickname he gave Hye-jin, and she reads it with tears. He remains a famous author whom almost nobody can recognise.

What happens to the rest of Most Everyone else lands softly. Reporter Cha is now Deputy Editor Cha and has to throw Sung-joon out of what has become her office. Chief Editor Kim announces she is marrying a young Italian model who calls her noona. Poong-ho is stunned by the invitation, and Seul and Joon-woo, who are still dating, agree to marry within the year. Ha-ri has her hotel job and a younger man who keeps bringing her coffee. Both recaps agree that nobody in the main group is left worse off.

Married life, and the fairy tale she asked for The final minutes jump ahead. Hye-jin works at home on a little library of notes while Sung-joon complains that she no longer gives him kisses, then they pack a picnic and he sings badly in the car. In voice-over Hye-jin says she once believed that some people live as main characters and others as supporting ones, and now thinks she was the one who turned off her own spotlight. If you do not give up, she says, something even more like a fairy tale can happen: finding a first love and keeping a childhood dream. The episode ends a few years on, with a little girl in yellow rain boots skipping ahead of her father, who carries a familiar red umbrella. She has her mother’s curls, and he looks at her as the prettiest girl in the world.