This article contains spoilers of the show.
3/5 stars
When a show enters its final run, there are a few paths it can take. It can swing for the fences by giving full-throated voice to all its themes, it can take a chance with twists or a shake-up to its formula, or, it can play it safe, by drawing all its focus to its main plot and slowly winding it to a close.
After 16 emotional and energetic episodes, charged with romance and complicated by themes of self-worth and social acceptance, True Beauty opted for the safer path. At its heart, the show is a youth romance and, in the end, that’s exactly what it gave its audience. Once Im Ju-kyoung’s (Moon Ga-young) true face was revealed to her classmates at the end of episode 12 there was no going back.
The ever-present threat of her outing gave the show a constant source of tension, but once that was taken away it had to be replaced by a new one – who would Ju-kyoung end up with, Su-ho (Cha Eun-woo) or Seo-jun (Hwang In-yeop)?
Compared to the webtoon it was based on, the show was less ambiguous about its central love triangle. While Seo-jun has been an engaging and full-bodied character throughout, his unrequited love for Ju-kyoung has been just that. Ju-kyoung has remained – rather astonishingly – oblivious to his affections and there’s never really been any doubt that she would end up with Su-ho.
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Ju-kyoung’s life falls to pieces when her beauty is revealed to be fake at school. She is taunted by students in the halls and even her close friends reject her. Despite the emotional shock of it all, which prompts her to stay at home for a few days, she soon summons up the courage to present herself with her real face at school – partly drawing on the self-confidence she has gained from having Su-ho at her side, a relationship that they now make official on the school grounds.
With this new self-confidence, she stands up to bullies at the school and even to her former tormentors at her old school, and once her friend Soo-jin (Park Yoo-na) is revealed to be the source of her outing, the negative vibes of the collective student body are shifted to her. Ju-kyoung repairs her relationships and all is well again, at least until Su-ho is forced to leave for America when his father falls ill.
Just as he is set to return, Su-ho’s father takes a turn for the worse and now his responsibilities as a dutiful son clash with his love for Ju-kyoung. With everything else in Ju-kyoung’s life more or less resolved – she can be herself at school and even her mother has accepted that she’s going to make up school – she must be confronted with a new obstacle, which comes when Su-ho calls and tells her they need to break up.
For it final brace of episodes, True Beauty jumps two years into the future and finds Ju-kyoung as a diligent intern who still pines for Su-ho. Her school is now in the rear-view mirror and with it all the excitement and drama that ebbed and flowed in rapid waves within its walls. Seo-jun, now nearing his debut as an idol, is ready to confess his love to Ju-kyoung but as soon as he does so, who should turn up out of the blue but Su-ho.
Ju-kyoung, still hurt from their sudden break-up, initially resists Su-ho, who turns up everywhere she goes, essentially stalking her until she relents. Giving up on his desires, it’s ultimately Seo-jun who pushes them together, tricking Ju-kyoung into thinking Su-ho is leaving again. She dashes to his apartment and after making up, they even spend the night together. With that suggestive sleepover, their union is sealed for good.
Once Ju-kyoung recovered from her shock of being found out at school, she bravely returned without her make-up, with her gawky glasses on for good measure. Her true face was then accepted at school but when we find her again later in two years’ time, drinking in bars and interning in a beauty shop, she’s back to wearing make-up and thus hiding herself once again from the world.
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The central conceit of True Beauty, of a young girl seeking love and acceptance through the cover of a new face through make-up, was a springboard that launched the series into some tricky yet compelling thematic territory. Erring on the side of romance for its finale, it’s a shame that the show largely ignores this discussion, save for an unnecessary and poorly thought-out scene in which Ju-kyoung’s mother takes her to a plastic surgeon only to decide her daughter doesn’t need any work done – she’s already beautiful.
True Beauty ends with Ju-kyoung’s sister’s wedding, Seo-jun’s debut performance and then a call back to Ju-kyoung and Su-ho’s first close quarters encounter – as she pulls down a book in their beloved comic book store named, of course, “Happy Ending’. For their relationship, maybe. But for Ju-kyoung the budding make-up artist? Who’s to say if she’ll show her “true beauty” to the world again.
True Beauty is streaming on Viu.
