The Scandal
スキャンダル
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Eighteenth-century Joseon: a noblewoman promises herself to her libertine cousin if he can seduce a widow sworn to chastity. Les Liaisons dangereuses, by way of Untold Scandal.
In eighteenth-century Joseon, Lady Cho, born Cho Yun, has a formidable mind and nowhere to use it. Her husband, Lord Yoo, is taking a young concubine, So-ok, to give him the heir she has not. Lady Cho proposes a wager to her cousin Cho Won, a writer and the most notorious libertine in the capital, who has wanted her since they were young. If he seduces Ahn Hui-yeon, a young widow sworn to lifelong chastity for a husband she never met, Lady Cho will at last sleep with him. If he fails, he must get So-ok pregnant.
Years earlier the cousins had planned to elope by ferry. Yun stayed, after finding her father weeping that she had been born a girl, and married Lord Yoo; Cho Won waited at the port until dawn. Now he approaches Hui-yeon through her grief rather than her vanity, and the game stops being one. Hui-yeon, who worships in secret with Catholics, comes to trust him, and he comes to want her. When she slips away from her in-laws to be with him, the household of the Left State Councillor believes she has died for her chastity, and her mother-in-law presses Lady Cho to petition the King for a memorial gate in her honour. The King orders Cho Won to find the body. Lady Cho's solution is that Hui-yeon should be persuaded to die in earnest.
Cho Won prepares to flee to Yanjing with Hui-yeon while letting Yun believe he will take her. Hui-yeon, disguised as a man, goes to Lady Cho to beg her to stop him lying to the King. Cho Won arrives, Yun makes him choose, and he says it is Yun he loves. Afterwards he finds Hui-yeon and tells her about the wager. She tells him her hatred will keep her alive. On a false report of her death the King grants the gate, then tells Cho Won in private that he knows the report is a lie and never wants to see him again. Cho Won frees his servants, sets out alone and tries to take his own life. He is not seen again.
Time passes. The freed servants, Chil-seong and Eun-sil, have a baby. Hui-yeon keeps her faith in hiding. So-ok is pregnant by In-ho, the Councillor's youngest son, and Lord Yoo pretends not to know. Lady Cho keeps her rank and her house, and sits alone at her desk, writing to Cho Won.
Starring
Son Ye-jinas Lady Cho
A brilliant noblewoman confined by her sex and a marriage built around an heir, who proposes the wager.
Lady Cho’s story
Lady Cho once meant to elope with her cousin Cho Won, and stayed when she found her father weeping that she had been born a girl. Now, with her husband taking a concubine for the heir she has not given him, she offers Cho Won the wager. When the widow he seduces is believed dead, she petitions the King for a memorial gate, says Hui-yeon should die in earnest and writes a false report of her death. Made to choose, Cho Won says it is her he loves; when he then goes after Hui-yeon, she tears her wardrobe apart. His last letter says the King wept. He never returns. With her rank and house intact, she sits alone at her desk, writing to him that she regrets not leaving with him.
Ji Chang-wookas Cho Won
Lady Cho's cousin, a writer and famous libertine who has loved her since youth and takes on her wager.
Cho Won’s story
When his cousin Yun married instead of eloping with him, Cho Won waited at the ferry until dawn. Now he takes her wager and approaches the widow Hui-yeon through her grief, and the game stops being one. Ordered by the King to find her body, he readies a boat to Yanjing for the two of them. Made to choose in Yun's house, he says it is Yun he loves. He finds Hui-yeon, tells her about the wager and asks her to live. The King sees through the false report of her death and never wants to see him again. He frees his servants and sets out alone. Asked by the boatman why he cannot go back, he answers, 'Return to whom?' He tries to take his own life and is not seen again.
Nanaas Ahn Hui-yeon
A young widow vowed to chastity for a husband she never met, who worships in secret as a Catholic.
Ahn Hui-yeon’s story
Cho Won reaches Hui-yeon through her grief for a husband she never met. She comes to trust him, then to love him, and slips away from her in-laws, who believe she has died for her chastity; the faith she keeps in secret has taught her that ending her life would be wrong, and she wants to live. When the King orders Cho Won to find her body, she begs him to leave with her, and, disguised as a man, pleads with Lady Cho to stop him lying to the King. There he says it is Lady Cho he loves. When he tells her about the wager, she says her hatred will keep her alive. Declared dead and honoured with a memorial gate, she keeps her faith in hiding, taken in at Cho Won's house by the woman who raised him.
Han Sun-hwaas Bun-hui
So-ok's mother, hungry for money and standing, who tries to bring Cho Won down with lewd drawings.
Kang Chan-heeas Kwon In-ho
The Left State Councillor's youngest son and Hui-yeon's brother-in-law, who begins a secret affair with So-ok.
Shin Youn-haas Lee So-ok
The young woman taken into Lord Yoo's house as a concubine to bear him an heir.
Why it matters
The Scandal moves Les Liaisons dangereuses, the French novel about aristocrats who seduce for sport, into Confucian Joseon, as the 2003 film Untold Scandal did, and the move gives the old game real walls. Lady Cho's cruelty grows out of a real confinement: a mind with no public use and a marriage whose purpose is an heir. The widow she chooses as a target is caught by an honour of the age, the memorial gate raised for a woman who died for her chastity, and the series shows a family and a court that would rather have the gate than the woman. The servants on the edges, who fall in love and are set free, end up the happiest people in it. What it leaves open is the question under the silk: whether desire played as a contest of power can turn back into love, and what it costs the people used as pieces.