In Your Radiant Season: Episodes 1-2
by DaebakGrits
A new healing romance has arrived on our screens, and it’s giving Our Unwritten Seoul meets Find Me in Your Memory. Since I adored both of the aforementioned dramas and thoroughly enjoyed this premiere, I’m optimistic that this latest entry in the genre will continue its upward momentum and emerge as one of the year’s most memorable series.
Episodes 1-2
I had an inkling I would enjoy In Your Radiant Season the moment the watercolor, Miyazaki-esque opening credits began. But when the brightly animated intro gave way to the drama’s opening scenes, I found myself a bit puzzled. The initial character introductions didn’t match the synopsis I’d read before watching, but I quickly realized I just needed to trust the process. And this is very much the kind of drama that rewards you for doing exactly that.
You see, our story begins seven years in the past, when SUNWOO CHAN (Chae Jong-hyeop) was a gloomy science major at BIT — which is an acronym for “we can’t afford the rights to use MIT.” Contrastingly, SONG HA-RAN (Lee Sung-kyung) was quite the chatterbox, and she would cheerfully continue a one-sided conversation with her distracted boyfriend, who had her on speakerphone while he worked on his experiments.
Ha-ran was the Elsa Schiaparelli to Chan’s Einstein. Bright, artistic, and delightfully inclined to believe that the pen he gave her had helped her win a design contest, she lived in color and imagination. Chan, by contrast, navigated life in near-constant shadow, hoodie pulled low over his face. She reveled in the scent of earth before a rainstorm; he was quick to offer a precise scientific explanation for it. In short, if this couple were any more polar opposites, Avril Lavigne would have written a song about them.
Despite their mismatched personalities and the challenges of long distance, their relationship seemed to be working. So when Ha-ran got a four-day vacation, she jumped at the chance to make a quick trip to Boston to tell Chan she loved him — except she couldn’t wait, sending him a video message from the airport instead. When Chan watched her pre-recorded confession, he immediately slammed his laptop shut, checked his watch, and bolted across campus toward his laboratory. That’s when everything went tragically wrong.
The moment Chan cracked the lab door, an explosion hurled him through a window. From her taxi, Ha-ran saw the blast, heard the roar, and watched the smoke curl into the sky. By the time she arrived on campus, emergency crews were scrambling to extinguish the fire and contain the chaos. It was then that Ha-ran received a phone call from her sunbae, Chan’s older sister. Through tears, she told Ha-ran that Chan was…
…presumably not dead because, seven years later, he lands at Incheon Airport with his friend and coworker BEN (Njai Firas). He’s a changed man. Gone is the sullen scientist from his Boston Institute of Technology days. In his place is a cartoon designer at a prestigious animation studio, complete with a golden-retriever energy that makes him friends everywhere — even on an airplane. His shaggy, Beatles-era haircut perfectly matches his new vibe, and it almost feels as if he and Ha-ran have swapped roles.
While Chan has grown brighter and more outgoing, Ha-ran has become noticeably more reclusive and subdued. She’s developed a habit of ghosting her peers once work has been completed, and instead of joining coworkers for a meal, she’s conveniently “busy” and unreachable. Her colleagues mostly respond with lukewarm indifference to her behavior, but Ha-ran’s animated sister, SONG HA-YOUNG (Han Ji-hyun), and grandmother, the “Queen of Fashion,” KIM NA-NA (Lee Mi-sook), react to her disappearing act with a mixture of acceptance and reserved concern.
Ha-ran habitually retreats to her neighborhood café, sketching designs with the pen Chan gave her seven years ago. It’s there that she picks up a free ticket to the Radiant Season (cue: title sequence) art exhibit featuring pieces grouped by the four seasons. Chan, who is on a mission to do all the touristy things he missed upon returning to South Korea happens to attend the same exhibit. In the winter-themed room, he pauses in front of a painting depicting a solitary woman, her back facing the audience and surrounded by snow. Beside him, Ha-ran’s posture and isolation mimics the painting’s subject perfectly.
Chan catches a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye and mutters his disbelief, but when he turns to confirm Ha-ran’s identity, she’s left the exhibit. He gives chase, his steps quickening as he sees her walking unaware toward danger. He calls out her name, and over the music in her earbuds, she finally hears him and stops — just in time to avoid being crushed by some construction scaffolding. When she looks around for the person who saved her, Chan is gone.
The coincidental reunions between our OTP continue when it’s revealed that Chan’s main reason for returning to South Korea was for his company to collaborate with Nana Atelier on designs for their Korean character. Much to everyone’s surprise, Chan effortlessly charms the stoic and impeccably professional Na-na, and she agrees to work with him. However, Chan is unaware that Ha-ran is Na-na’s granddaughter and Nana Atelier’s chief designer, who will be assigned to the project.
Their reunion is beautifully dramatic. Chan’s walking down the softly grand, arched hallway bathed in natural light, when the monogrammed pen he once gave Ha-ran slowly rolls towards him. When he picks up the pen and reads Ha-ran’s name, he looks up — and there she is, walking towards him.He freezes, stunned by the sheer serendipity of the moment, but the dreaminess of their reunion is shattered by the revelation that she doesn’t recognize him. Like, she deadass has no idea who he is and treats him like a complete stranger, but even more perplexing is that he seems to have anticipated her reaction and doesn’t bring up their shared past. (What in the amnesia trope is going on here?!)
Still reeling from the awkwardness of his encounter with Ha-ran, Chan tries to rejoin the meeting, but he’s completely thrown off his game. Matters aren’t helped when Na-na comments that his character design bears a striking resemblance to Ha-ran. When Ha-young casually mentions her grandmother’s observation, Chan’s kneejerk reaction is to spill his coffee all over himself. Naturally, the mishap calls for a wardrobe change.
Conveniently, he’s at a fashion design company. Ha-ran brings him a fresh shirt, but because he didn’t hear her knock — thanks to the partial hearing loss from the explosion — she walks into the changing room and finds him bare-chested. Etched among his burn scars are the words memento mori. The privately personal significance of the phrase is ultimately what keeps Chan from fleeing back to the United States after his disastrous encounter with Ha-ran.
Meanwhile, someone is stalking Ha-ran and sending her photographic evidence of their creepy behavior, and Ha-ran is beginning to suspect Chan is the culprit. Thanks to a news report on her recent near-death-by-scaffolding, she saw the replay of the CCTV footage of the incident. Although Chan’s face was blurred on the news to protect his identity, she recognizes the now coffee stained shirt Chan wore both to the exhibition and to the meeting at Nana Atelier — because that’s her area of expertise. Now, she could have dismissed it as a coincidence, but luck intervenes. Chan left his shirt at Nana Atelier, and — presumably because he’s been living out of a suitcase and wearing clothes multiple times before washing — the museum exhibit ticket is still tucked in the breast pocket.
The museum (co)incident coupled with the fact that he knew her name before formally meeting him as Ha-ran’s guard up, so when she catches sight of him in the hotel lobby right as she’s about to reject the latest matchmaking attempt orchestrated by her grandmother (cameo by Yoon Park), Ha-ran abruptly bails on the blind date to confront him. “How do you know me?” she asks. Chan freezes, we flashback seven years, and — holy plot-twist, Batman!
Come to find out, Ha-ran’s real boyfriend was KANG HYEOK-CHAN (Kwon Do-hyung), Chan’s roommate and lab partner. We revisit some of the pre-explosion scenes with a fresh perspective, and it becomes clear that much of Chan’s knowledge about Ha-ran came from his proximity to Hyeok-chan. Hyeok-chan would often have Ha-ran on speakerphone while working in the lab, and he frequently left their chat conversations open on his unlocked laptop, which is how Chan ended up seeing Ha-ran’s love confession video. On the day of the explosion, Chan wasn’t rushing toward Ha-ran to meet her; he was running to Hyeok-chan to warn him that his girlfriend was on her way.
After the lab explosion, Chan was left not only with scars and hearing loss, but also with amnesia, erasing the last year of his life. The only memory that lingered was the image of Ha-ran confessing her love to “Chan” — not to him, but to Hyeok-chan. That memory haunted him because he’d always been alone, and the idea that someone — someone he had no other recollections of — would profess love for him seemed more like a hallucination conjured during his unconscious struggle in the hospital.
He returned briefly to South Korea for treatment, and one day, stuck in traffic, he spotted Ha-ran navigating the crowded pedestrian sidewalk. Impulsively, he got out of the taxi and followed her to a holiday market next to the Han River. Just as he was about to approach her, a fireworks display began. The noise overwhelmed him, but somehow triggered a breakthrough in his PTSD, unlocking his blocked memories. Shocked and overwhelmed, he fled without introducing himself and returned to the United States.
In the present, Ha-ran openly accuses Chan of being her stalker, leaving him genuinely perplexed. He explains that his presence at the art exhibit was purely coincidental and that he recognized her only because he had researched Nana Atelier’s employees before their meeting. While the last part is a lie, it’s plausible and far less trauma-coded than the truth. He also mentions that he’s a guest at the hotel where she had her blind date, finally putting to rest any lingering fears that he’s been following her.
But the real stalker hasn’t gone unnoticed. Chan spots a sketchy figure trailing Ha-ran after their conversation and calls out to her. Together, they pursue the figure — along with Ha-young, who installed a tracking app on Ha-ran’s phone, and Nana Atelier’s stoic Chief Operating Officer YEON TAE-SUK (Kwon Hyuk), who followed Ha-young when he saw her leave her house in a concerning rush. Chan and Ha-ran corner the stalker, a jealous former colleague who believes Ha-ran’s success was due to nepotism. When she throws a bottle of liquid at Ha-ran, Chan gallantly steps in to shield her from the chlorine-like substance, which he identifies to the police with his sense of smell and unused science degree.
When Ha-ran returns home, Na-na is irritated that she rejected her blind date, but Ha-young quickly diffuses the tension by revealing that Ha-ran had been out with another man. The implication that Ha-ran is having a “some” relationship quickly stops Na-na’s nagging — but not for the reasons K-dramas have conditioned you to expect.
You see, unlike her drama counterparts, Na-na isn’t itching for grandbabies. Instead, she’s concerned about Ha-ran’s long-term emotional stability and happiness. She believes the stability of a romantic relationship will provide comfort for Ha-ran, who has intentionally refused to form meaningful connections with people as a trauma response to having lost both her parents in a tragic truck-of-doom accident — and then Hyeok-chan in the explosion. While Ha-ran more or less functions well in her day-to-day life, she has a deep-rooted fear that she will lose someone else she loves. Her emotional state was once so bad that she stole all her family’s shoes and soaked them in the bathtub under the pretext that they needed washing. The reality is that she was afraid if her family left the house, something tragically bad would happen to them.
Although Ha-young lied about the nature of Ha-ran’s relationship with Chan, her intentions align with her grandmother’s. She’s simply more tactful, suggesting that Ha-ran thank Chan for his heroics with new clothes )to replace the jacket ruined by the stalker) and dinner. Unfortunately, at this point, both Chan and Ha-ran prefer to keep their relationship strictly professional.
But this wouldn’t be a K-drama if the universe didn’t keep reminding our characters that Seoul, with a population of approximately 9.6 billion, is extremely small. Come to find out, both Chan and Ha-ran are regulars at the same cafe owned by PARK MAN-JAE (Kang Seok-woo), so when Man-jae collapses from a variant angina, Chan rushes him to the hospital and Ha-ran and dogsits Genius, his adorable golden retriever, in the interim. Much to Ha-ran’s annoyance, once Man-jae is discharged from the hospital, Chan, growing weary of the posh hotel and eager to keep an eye on the café proprietor, takes up residence in one of Man-jae’s spare bedrooms.
In another case of “it’s a small Seoul after all,” it turns out that Man-jae and Na-na were childhood sweethearts, and all signs suggest they might rekindle their romance now that they’ve reunited. But rather than focusing on her own budding love life, Na-na is back to matchmaking. After spotting the doodles Ha-ran had once drawn of Chan’s name in her notebook — back when she suspected he might be her stalker — Na-na assumes Chan is the mysterious man Ha-young mentioned. And since Chan’s character design, which resembles Ha-ran, is clearly a cartoonized version of his ideal type, Na-na decides it’s time to escalate the situation so her granddaughter will emotionally heal faster.
Under the pretense of needing to discuss business over dinner, Na-na insists that both Ha-ran and Chan join her for a meal. But before the waiter can even bring the menus, she fakes a phone call and tells them to go ahead without her. Ha-ran’s first instinct is to leave, but when she notices the bandage covering the injury Chan sustained while protecting her, she remembers Ha-young’s advice. She offers to pay for his dinner as a way of thanking him for his bravery.
Then her grandmother texts, revealing that she saw Chan’s name doodled in Ha-ran’s sketchpad. Ha-ran realizes she’s once again caught in one of her grandmother’s matchmaking schemes. She apologizes to Chan and explains the situation, but, once again, her sister’s words come back to her. Instead of offering to correct Na-na’s misconception, she asks Chan for his permission to continue misleading her grandmother and avoid future surprise blind dates. Surprisingly, Chan casually agrees.
Just as it seems they’re about to move on to another topic, the restaurant’s speakers malfunction, and the resulting cacophony overwhelms Chan. He makes a hasty exit, but in his rush to escape the noise, he bumps into a waitress, and Ha-ran accidentally knocks over her sketchbook — cue: a pointed camera zoom on her pen rolling away — as she hurriedly follows him. To calm her worries, he explains that he’s deaf in one ear, and loud, chaotic environments can be disorienting for him.
When Ha-ran gives him a pitying look, he brushes it off with bravado, reminding her of his other merits: good looks, success, and plenty of other qualities. Still, his confidence doesn’t fully mask his embarrassment over the restaurant incident. As he starts to head back inside to deal with the aftermath, Ha-ran stops him and gently drapes her scarf around his neck, covering the food stain on his sweater.
During a meeting with Chan’s boss the next day, Ha-ran realizes her pen is missing. Her frantic search becomes a distraction, earning concerned glances from Na-na, Ha-young, and Chan. As soon as the meeting ends, she bolts to retrace her steps. Assuming she must have lost the pen at the restaurant, she’s disappointed to hear it’s not in their lost and found, but she’s allowed to look for it once they close.
Chan follows her to the restaurant, but once there, he makes the mistake of trying to diminish her concern. “It’s just a pen,” he says, and while his dismissiveness does not go over well with Ha-ran, Chan’s frustration is a bit understandable, as he knows that Ha-ran’s cherished memento from her deceased boyfriend is really an item Hyeok-chan tasked Chan with purchasing because he couldn’t be arsed to buy her a birthday gift himself. So yeah, given Ha-ran’s level of devotion, she was either viewing Hyeok-chan with rose tinted glasses and his premature death never presented the opportunity for her to see his true colors or Chan played substitute Hyeok-chan more frequently and intimately than we’ve, thus far, been shown.
Either way, Chan has his reasons for feeling indebted to Ha-ran. First, when he was at his darkest point and on the verge of unaliving himself, the incessant pinging of her messages on Hyeok-chan’s laptop startled him off his ledge. He read the messages, and because she credited her success to the pen he gave her and called him her savior, he found a desire to keep living. Later, after the explosion left him on the brink of death, the memory of her love confession seemed to save him a second time.
His tattoo, memento mori, is a constant reminder that life is unpredictable, and he should live without regrets. But there’s a problem: he isn’t living by that motto. He regrets standing by while Ha-ran isolated herself emotionally and clung to the memory of someone who may not even deserve her devotion.
Determined to change that, Chan resolves to be the disruption that helps her reclaim her happiness and will to live. He (literally) runs back to the restaurant, where Ha-ran’s frantic after-hours search has come up empty. Once he catches his breath (this bit amused me so much), he apologizes for his earlier thoughtlessness and proposes that, while he’s in South Korea for business over the next three months, they spend time together having fun — like they’re on a picnic.
Overall, I really enjoyed the premiere and am cautiously optimistic that my recapping slump is finally behind me. The cinematography is crisp and assured, and the themes of life and happiness set the stage for what promises to be a deeply satisfying healing journey for these characters. The twist at the start of Episode 2 (re: Chan x Hyeok-chan) genuinely left me shooketh, and the fact that we still don’t know the full extent of Chan’s substitution for Hyeok-chan has me completely hooked. The writers were smart not to lay all their cards on the table, instead using subjective, almost unreliable framing to withhold key details and keep viewers guessing.
Given that Hyeok-chan’s sister was aware of the relationship, it seems unlikely that Chan carried out a full-blown emotional affair with Ha-ran under Hyeok-chan’s identity — and through his messaging account — without his roommate knowing. Still, I strongly suspect there’s much more to be revealed as the story unfolds.
I also really enjoyed the secondary characters. Ha-young, in particular, is a lot of fun, and I suspect she’ll be getting her own romance with Tae-suk. The way he immediately picked up on her panic and ran after her — no questions asked — during the stalker incident spoke volumes. Combined with Ha-young’s playful teasing, calling him a robot, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before sparks fly between them. The only lingering question: will they get paired off before her grandmother?
And speaking of Na-na, Lee Min-sook looks absolutely stunning with blond hair, and I love her fresh take on the powerful CEO matriarch. She draws a firm line at the office, insisting her granddaughters address her formally, clearly wanting them to be recognized for their own abilities and achievements rather than their family connection. While she may have dropped the ball on getting Ha-ran the therapy she truly needs, I can hardly fault her. Ha-ran would probably avoid a therapist with the same determination she resists Na-na’s matchmaking attempts. Na-na’s heart, however, is in the right place, as shown by her approval of Chan. Her motivation isn’t about securing an heir — it’s about helping Ha-ran find her smile again. And if anyone can succeed at that, it’s someone like Chan, who crawled out of a dark place twice and embraced life with the same boundless energy as a golden-retriever.
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