True Beauty ep 11-12 Discussion post

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

Drama: True Beauty
Revised romanization: Yeoshingangrim
Hangul: 여신강림
Director: Kim Sang-Hyub
Writer: Yaongyi (webcomic), Lee Si-Eun
Network: tvN
Release Date: December 9, 2020
Runtime: Wed. & Thu. 22:30
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea

CAST: Moon Ga-Young as Im Ju-Kyung, Cha Eun-Woo as Lee Soo-Ho, Hwang In-Yeop as Han Seo-Joon, Park Yoona as Kang Soo-Jin

PLOT: Im Ju-Kyung is a high school student. Since she was little, she has had a complex about her appearance. To hide her bare face, Im Ju-Kyung always wears make-up. Her excellent make-up skills makes her pretty and she hides her bare face in front others. She gets involved with 2 men; Lee Soo-Ho and Han Seo-Joon.

Drama info and poster from: AsianWiki
You can watch it on: Dramanice

Comments

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

ready for another argumentative essay by yours truly? i was pretty frustrated with these episodes, so i wrote it off lol

ep11: this episode was apparently called “the truth about seyeon” but i feel like we got the bare minimum in terms of their friendship and what happened. why couldn’t suho take the call? why couldn’t seojoon help out? did i miss something or was this really underdeveloped?
also the set-up they are developing for soojin ANGERS me. this drama truly uses all the cliches in the book and even though i am enjoying some of them - when they’re light and cute - in terms of character development for such a cool character, it’s soooooooo frustrating. not looking forward to the next episode because of this
despite that, this episode did made me laugh several times; i loved seeing suho and seojoon’s friendship being rekindled and i still enjoy the teacher x heekyeong

ep 12: nooo jookyeong :(((( she doesn’t deserve this. ugh i was frustrated when she pushed suho’s hand away but she first needs to love herself.mp3
it was nice to see the overall healthy relationship between suho and jookyeong return in these episodes.
i do feel bad for seojoon though, i wish more for him than just being the second, lead just watching the main couple happen, the tropes in this drama are making me tired
soojin’s character development remains a disappointment…. i can't believe they're truly going for the jealous bitch now. again, i’m tired
again, parts of the show made me laugh again, like when heekyeong and jookyeong were arguing while their boyfriends were trying to cook food or when the boys were knitting together

random thoughts:
- seyeon had really pretty manicured nails
- why do these people all have soooo many different coats (and are still not dressed warmly enough for winter! one of my biggest tv show pet peeves)
- suho has a corner in his house with a white pebble floor?? ok

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

I had an essay to write as well. I think Soo-ho didn't take the call because he just heard his father's manager talking about his affair and he had a lot on his mind. Apart for helping Soo-ho and Seo-jun's relationship it's true it didn't help much.

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

The total flip of Soojin's character is aggravating. They really just had to turn her into a two faced bitchhhhh. There's no redeeming her now...I thought maybeeee there was a glimmer of hope, but after what she pulled in these two episodes? NOPE. I mean, the only thing I can think of is maybe she will try to put that Se-mi bully on blast with the stuff she collected about Jookyung from her....even then...I hope Jookyung does not forgive her! She is past the point of forgiveness. When she threw the necklace in the fire and tried to kiss Suho, I was like GIRLLLLLLLLL. I hope Soo-ah doesn't abandon Jookyung. She needs a friend!

Now that Jookyung's secret is out, that means Suho and her can be public, right? Maybe after they do and the others see that Suho does not care about how Jookyung looks, they'll be more accepting since he is popular...(although this is awful and they shouldn't judge her based on her looks regardless of who she associates with).

Justice for Seojoon, seriously! Poor bb is so supportive and deserves better. I wonder if Jookyung will ever find out about his feelings for her? The bickering between Seojoon and Suho is cute now that they're on better terms.

lol the white pebble floor area is like a garden/terrace kind of thing. He is rich, OK?? But for real, it's quite popular to have something like that now.

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

yess i feel like it's really unforgivable now, unless there's a huge plot twist there. but i don't expect it because of that scene with suho you described, which was also very gross!! i just really don't understand her motivation for this — from what we've seen in the show, we have only seen her taking out her anger and frustration on herself, so why is it different now?

i hope the same but i'm not sure whether i can expect this from the writers now :(

i think this might be the storyline they're going for (after creating some drama because jookyeong did push suho's hand away, so they'll have to make up (lol)/ talk this out first) but i agree that would be an awful storyline that she is only accepted because some goodlooking popular guy 'approves' of her, but because looks should not matter in the first place.

i just want a drama in which hwang inyeop is 1) the male lead and 2) plays a character of his age! he deserves better, i love that he's not that intelligent but sweet and caring

lmao i guess i don't know nor understand the style of rich people! i always think it's interesting how kdramas show the houses of rich people because they feel so random and often impersonal to me. but thanks for clarifying!

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I hope they don't recon stuff to redeem Soojin. It really is weird how they changed her character and didn't allude to her being this type of jealous, backstabbing person at all. We knew she was slightly unhinged (because of her hand washing thing and lashing out at Suho about grades), but.....

Hopefully Hwang Inyeop is cast in a more mature character next! He reminds me of Woo Do Hwan sometimes! It's good that he doesn't have military service to worry about getting in the way of his momentum.

Hahah I've only really seen that garden/terrace thing in other dramas and in those celeb home video tours, so that's how I know. I wish I was rich! lol!!!

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

Soo-ah is the definition of an extra character. She’s just there to say the right thing at the right moment or to make us laugh with her boyfriend. It’s quite ironic knowing it’s the same director as Extraordinnary You, even if it’s not the same as the scriptwriter. I think the only drama I watched where side characters had an interesting personnality and storyline was My ID is Gangnam beauty. They weren’t just random people doing everything for the main characters. Actually I had hopes True Beauty would be similar but it’s lacking in many ways. In Gangnam beauty the female lead’s secret is revealed quite early and it’s mostly about how she resolves her image problems.

It seems that we are going to hate Soojin in next episode and it bothers me. If she’s the one who leaked JunKyung’s pictures she’s unforgiveable but it annoys me to throw her under the bus like that. She was such a cool character. She has a lot of issues but she’s still nice with everybody and doesn’t show her weaknesses. Soo-ho knew she was beaten by her dad and closed his eyes ! As a teeanager he couldn’t do a lot but at least he could have talked about it with her. And he was so mean to her even before knowing she was the reason why Junkyung wanted to hide their relationship. He totally rejected her without thinking about her feelings. I was scared she would attemp to commit suicide and considering what happened to Seyeon I don’t understand how Sooho can be so harsh with his old friend. His character would be less boring if he tried to help.

Well, so many opportunities wasted in this drama but hopefully it still brings good laugh. The car accident was so cliche but it brought funny scenes at the hospital.

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

Junkyung's sister and teacher...that side story is at least cute

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

Yes it is! Except sometimes it looks like she doesn't care about his opinion but in the last episodes she respected his choice to not talk about their relationship. I really like that she stands for herself.

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

yeah that's why i liked my id is gangnam beauty too! i think it handled the theme of loving yourself outside of one's looks well. i was also hoping that true beauty would explore this topic more, but it's taking a while....

it also shows that just having a good director isn't everything - screenwriters are crucial too

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Agreed about the screenwriter thing!

[fritterish.livejournal.com]

Damn I liked Soojin tho ): But of course they had to do her dirty.

Can’t Gayoung choose better dramas next time? This had the same energy as Tempted. Find Me in Your Memory was a bit better but she could venture in more dramas with better writing...

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

She's such a good actress! I hope she can find better dramas with time.

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

I'm going to need Gayoung to star in something with Lee Jaewook. I think they are both on par in terms of acting skills and have similar vibes. Or I'd even go for something with Woo Do Hwan again whenever he comes back. They had fire chemistry. Find Me in Your Memory was a turn off for me because of the age gap.

[inwazyja.livejournal.com]

Read the spoilers and I’m bouncing until the series is finished. Otherwise I’ll be raging every week, and I’d rather it happens it one go.

Why have strong female friendships when instead you can have a jealous bitch trope, amirite?

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

Yeah the friendship was so cute at the begining. The good thing is that the actresses really like each other. Moon Gayoung said that they can't live without each other right now.

[goldenrosalie.livejournal.com]

i had this faint hope that it's not gonna play out the same way as in webtoon because of some scenes where soojin/jookyung were trying to get back to normal. but then soojin started lashing out on her again and probably exposed her old pictures to everyone. webtoon writer is really gonna catch these hands for ruining friendships because of boring rich boy.
i still enjoy this drama for what it is but it's rage inducing how there are all pieces in place to focus on more interesting things and fleshing out secondary characters but instead we gotta go ahead and make all girls evil scheming assholes incapable of being supportive friends. i actually just stopped to think about this aspect and we really don't have a single normal friendship in this drama. what's up with that.

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

I still have hope since the preview often leads to misunderstandings.
I enjoy the drama without thinking about the moral but considering it takes place in high school I guess they aim at teenagers. And they don't send good messages.

[goldenrosalie.livejournal.com]

i write off a lot of things in this drama as 'teens being teens' because it's totally normal for them to be overly dramatic and focus on all the wrong things lol. it's a good time to make mistakes, fall in love, etc. but writer is sending a lot of shitty messages regarding girls and their friendships which is quite tilting. the fact that basically every girl around jookyung participated in some kind of form of bullying is a lot to take in! it's like author is trying to tell me that no matter if someone is 'ugly' & unpopular (old school friend), cool & smart & inspiring (soojin) or beautiful & popular (whole group of bullies from her old school) - all girls are shitty and not worth your time.
tho maybe i'm especially critical regarding this aspect simply because in early eps i loved the fact that jookyung was so overjoyed to have friends and spend time with classmates. it was genuine and cute.

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the webtoon, so I keep wondering how much of the original source the drama adapted. Unfortunately it sounds like most of the drama's issues lie with the original writing. Wish they had strayed away from some of the tropes, but maybe they weren't able to without permission from the writer? IDK.

[goldenrosalie.livejournal.com]

yeah that's kinda why i keep trying to throw hands with webtoon writer instead of drama scriptwriter. one can never be sure how much control scriptwriter has when adapting someone else's story.
reminds me of CITT where there was a scandal because second lead got more screentime (and i actually liked drama scriptwriter take on the story more than webtoon lol).

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Oh man....CITT....In Ho's story was good, but I think it would have worked better if there was a second season of CITT. I'm all for exploring other characters, but it was odd how he got so much screen time. CITT was so good.....until the last few episodes.