K-drama midseason recap: Nevertheless – Netflix romance explores youthful uncertainty and LGBT feelings
- The confusing romances in Nevertheless continue as characters keep coming to the wrong conclusions about each other’s actions or behaviour
- On a positive note, Lee Ho-jung and Yoon Seo-a’s budding relationship makes Nevertheless the latest Korean drama of 2021 to feature an LGBT pairing
This article contains spoilers.
Life can be very confusing when we’re young. Much of our emotional growth happens in that sensitive period after we’ve left high school, as we enter the world of adults and are at our most vulnerable.
Korean romantic drama Nevertheless is about young art students experiencing exactly this first brush with adult freedom. Their goal is to express themselves creatively, but their professor (Seo Jae-hee), aware how callow they still are, urges them to go out and experience life first.
Halfway through the series, the professor realises she has got more than she bargained for as she walks through the classroom. After perusing the disappointing projects of her students, it’s clear they have been distracted by their confusing extracurricular romances.
Most distracted of all is Yoo Na-bi (Han So-hee), a talented young artist who is struggling in her relationship with the rich, popular and aloof Park Jae-eon (Song Kang), also a brilliant artist. Early on she resisted her attraction to him, partly because she was still reeling from a bad relationship with an older lover but also because the debonair Jae-eon has developed a reputation around campus as a playboy.