There is a lot to love about She Would Never Know. So much to love that at times I found myself frustrated that I had to see its glaring flaws. I wanted to give this a glowing review. I wanted to give this a score in the 9's. With some of the content and story lines found here, I wanted this to be an exemplary show and benchmark for Romance in the Kdrama world. This is honestly a story about how we all hate ourselves and how love fights to save us. It holds many lenses to society from family pressures, homophobia, divorce, ageism, success, to of course social strata and wealth. But to do this it employs a roster of characters that work outside of the main plot, and thus causes the story to constantly lose focus on its characters and main drive.

SWNK sells itself as an office romance, and even its poster plasters two sets of couples photo-shopped into this setting. In the beginning this is what the show delivers. You meet our female lead Song Ah (Won Jin Ah) a career driven, kind but hard, character who has garnered the respect of everyone that surrounds her, and her 1st year trainee Hyun Seung (Rowoon) a dashingly charismatic and handsome bright eyed follower. She is oblivious to his lovelorn stares and he is hopelessly lost in a secret love that consumes his every movement and thought.

Enter a third face from the poster, Jae Shin (Lee Hyun Wook) the BM (Business Manager? Never told to us through subtitles) or Head manager of the team they all work. He is revered as the greatest manager of the entire company, his team the strongest performers, and is best friends to the grandson of the conglomerate family that owns all their livelihoods. In the first episode our towering main male lead Hyun Seung discovers that his secret crush (FL Song Ah) is secretly having a relationship with Jae Shin, and his heart breaks.

But, his broken heart turns to anger when, by the episode's end, he discovers, through his sister's bridal shop, that BM Jae Shin is actually engaged to be married in a few months time to the granddaughter of the company they work for, (Our 4th face from the poster Hyo Joo (Lee Joo Bin)). And this is were our introduction to this world ends, and so does the first episode.

Everything seems inline with the MDL description, the poster matches this story delivered, and we come to love and hate the characters easily in the first go.

But then we get to the second episode and people are confessing hidden feelings already, the secret love affairs are laid bare to those involved, and almost the entire set-up from the first episode is resolved. What does remain is finished up by the third episode and what, you thought, was another love triangle you were going to have to sit through, is torn apart with our main lead Song Ah, building as much respect from you as a viewer, as she commands from those around her in the drama. She is broken behind closed doors, but steady and decisive in public to those that both confess their love for her, and those that confess their lies to her.

Within the first 1/3 of the series every character is on a different path and the push and pull of romances becomes peaceful. BM Jae Shin is completely severed from our main leads, and yet we keep spending time with him. We get his whole backstory, flashbacks and all, we meet his family, we learn everything as to why he is the way he is and how his life managed to get to this point, and you begin to wonder, Why?

Why am I still learning about him? Why does his character even matter at this point? Why am I spending so much time with him? You then realize you are spending just as much time with Hyun Seung's sisters and their lives. You are having entire stories of them making friends, falling in love, and working on rocky marriages. You are spending time with the grandson and director of the company, on his journey to find love, and discover the truths of his friendships. You are having an entire story in another town focused on the mother of our female lead, that seems just weird to have its own locations, extras, and characters.

And that is when you, or at least me, realized you have to switch gears. As much as the first episode set it up as a romance, as much as the poster and cast list claim this, and as much time that we do spend with out 2 main leads trying to fall in love and be in a relationship, this is NOT A ROMANCE.

This is an ensemble drama about these characters and the trials of their lives and their loves. It is a very different beast, than what it is trying to squeeze itself into. People want romances, they sell well and have a large audience, and so this story packages itself as such to garner views. But it really wants to explore many types of love, loss, and stages of life from many viewpoints and different characters.

When you switch to this mindset, you realize you want our main couple to get less screen-time. It isn't that you dislike them, I loved them, and it isn't that their romance isn't worth watching, it very much is, but it is that all these other characters and stories have a lot to say, some of them much much more to say, and the characters are just as interesting. If the drama is going to bring them up and have us deal with them anyway, then why not dig in and give us some real depth because they are worth it.

Of note, one of the strongest subplots revolves around one of Hyun Seung's sisters and her failing marriage. There was a sense of dread with this story line, as South Korea's open homophobia is well documented, and this single story could have made me really hate this drama. But it end up shining here, a beacon of what Kdrama's could give us, and yes, it brought tears to my eyes.

Unfortunately the series does cave-in to the whole Kdrama time jump for the last episodes which are set three years after the rest of the series. If you have read any of my other reviews, you will know my strong feelings on this now very over-used plot device. Here the series handles it a little better than most, BUT it still is an unneeded venture. All the characters are in the story lines they were in before the jump, something unrealistic considering some of the plots in play as its been 3 years of stale-mate. It does work more for the main 2 leads and their tale, but they were at a certain point before the jump, and well basically spend the last 2 episodes trying to get back to that same point.

Maybe if the story would have been told better over the time frame such as half set in 1 timeline, and the second half in the other. Or if there were three divisions of time. The start of it all, the middle and Europe, and then the end and each given equal weight. I actually would have enjoyed more of the reversal in roles we got at the end, and would have enjoyed watching the characters fight against themselves, but as it was delivered, it is just superfluous and dead weight.

Thus, in the end, the series doesn't fully work. It can't decide what it wants to be. A love story of two people and just stick to them and their tale while trimming all the fat around them to bare necessity. Or if it wants to be an ensemble drama which would require trimming the main couple and giving a bit more to the side stories. It doesn't trust itself enough to write their tale in the here and now and not need to give us tropes and plot devices that viewers have come to expect and rely on. And it leaves some subplots and side characters unfinished. Did Song Ah discover why the mascara was drying out? Did anyone find out why Jae Shin was asking for stock reports no one wanted? Are Hyun Seung's parents alive and how wealthy is his family? Did the chef come to simply break up the marriage and is evil? What happened to the other manager and his plot and backhanded dealing? Will he continue to work at the company with what Hyun Seuyng knows about him now that their families are intertwined? The list goes on.

But what it does deliver is fantastic. The acting strong. The characters painted with detail. Rowoon, shows that if he truly wants to dedicate himself to the craft of acting he could really end up something special. And many of the stories you do get to experience are worth their screen time. As such, I can't give it the marks of 8 and 9s that I want. Yes, personally I loved what was here. But I also can't be blind to what it lacked and what didn't work. 7.5/B/3 3/4-stars. It shows its flaws but remains strong and will likely be enjoyed.