Originally written on Nov 08, 2022

One Spring Night has to be one of the most realistic depictions of a relationship in a show that I've ever seen. It's fantastic. Yu Ji-ho, a single father and pharmacist, falls in love with Lee Jeong-in, a librarian who is about to leave her boyfriend. The two begin as friends, but as their feelings for each other grow, it quickly becomes clear this won’t be enough.

The show is the slowest of slow burns, but that’s what makes it so wonderful. We’re seeing a beautiful relationship unfold right before our eyes in the span of 16 hour-long episodes. We see them grow from strangers to friends, from friends to lovers, and from lovers to Jeong-in trying to be a mother to Ji-ho’s son. We see them struggle with Jeong-in’s ex-boyfriend, who’s an entitled dickhead who refuses to leave them alone, not because of his love for Jeong-in, but because he can’t stand the fact that someone else is better for her. We see them fight against a world that isn’t accepting of their relationship for various reasons. But true love always prevails, and it’s a beautiful sight to behold.

While we don’t get to see a much of it, I think my favorite aspect of the show is the relationship between Jeong-in and Eun-u, Ji-ho’s son. The way she embraces him, and in turn showing Ji-ho she’s serious about them, is so heartfelt and warm. It is so well done that I felt like I was watching real people. The ending of episode 13 made water pour down my tear ducts. It healed my soul. So, so good.

One Spring Night falls short of perfection in a couple of ways. The first is the soundtrack. The music in this show is fantastic and perfectly compliments the scenes it’s used in. However, they appear to have only licensed a handful of songs for the entire show, which means you frequently end up hearing the exact same song multiple times throughout an episode, which already gets a little annoying pretty early on in the show. Licensing about 15 minutes of music for 16 hours of television is baffling to me. Then there are the side plots, most of which are fine, but the one between the two fathers is simply boring, and they spend far too much time on it.

What shocked me the most is the storyline about Jeong-in’s father, who knowingly keeps pushing one of Jeong-in’s sisters into the arms of a man who has physically assaulted her multiple times. He’s by far my least favorite character in the show, and I really don’t understand why he’s written this way. It’s pathetic. Yes, your son-in-law is a dentist. He also repeatedly beat up and threatened your daughter. Fuck off. Parents who don’t want happiness for their kids are the worst.

While these flaws keep One Spring Night from being the masterpiece I hoped it would be, I would still wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone looking for an accurate depiction of an adult relationship in a drama show for once. The first spoken sentence in the show is "talk about finding love in the mundane”, and that perfectly encapsulates One Spring Night. This is a story about two normal people who are just trying to love each other against all odds, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.