REVIEW: ‘The First Night With The Duke’ Episodes 1-2

The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 let you know from the jump that it will be a chaotic, fun ride. Starring 2PM’s Taecyeon and Girls’ Generation’s Seohyun, this fantasy drama propels us into the world of K’s favorite web novel in isekai fashion. While the first episode does start a little bumpy by getting the audience caught up to speed on the characters from the web novel, the rest of The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 is hilarious, thanks to Seohyun’s penchant for comedic timing and embrace of K’s eccentric energy.

The beginning of Episode 1 opens with a summary of events from the web novel K is about to get sucked into. Narrated by Seohyun, we’re introduced to the quintessential characters. At the novel’s center is the heroine, Jo Eun-ae (Kwon Han-sol), who has had a rough life. Things change after a fateful encounter with the cool and deadly Duke Yi Beun (Taecyeon), who falls head over heels for the downtrodden woman.

Of course, this moment is witnessed by the villainess of the novel, Do Hwa-seon (Ji Hye-won), the daughter of a high-ranking official who is quite literally the worst. All she wants is to marry Yi Beun, and she is willing to destroy everything and everyone to get what she wants. Unfortunately, this means Eun-ae is the target of her ire. But Eun-ae is the perfect heroine in that she is kind and thoughtful, and she triggers the protective instinct in the novel’s men. This leads to a romantic triangle between her, Yi Beun, and Yi Beun’s only friend, Jung Su-gyeom (Seo Bum-June).

This summary of events leads to us finally meeting the character K, the real heroine of The First Night With The Duke. Clad in a rather ill-suited shaggy wig, Seohyun embodies K’s initially quiet, almost gloomy, energy. Her apartment is unkempt, her appearance sad, and she is the biggest fan of this web novel. However, as stories in this particular genre go, there needs to be a transition point from reality to fiction. This manifests itself in a dramatic slip and fall in the apartment, which is arguably the least creative transition, but hey, it’s a staple of the genre.

Do Hwa-seon is the catalyst for K stepping into her Main Character Energy era.

Now transported into the novel’s world, K takes over the body of Cha Sun-chaek, a noblewoman who is more of an observant background character. To reduce the confusion, I’ll refer to K mostly as Sun-chaek from this point onward. With knowledge of every character in the novel’s world, Sun-chaek should have the upper hand. However, throughout The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2, we realize this is not entirely the case because, as soon as Sun-chaek runs into Hwa-seon for the first time, she enters main character mode.

Hwa-seon is a straight-up mean girl from the get-go. Thanks to the direction from Lee Woong-hee and Ji Hye-won’s performance, she is easily the character to hate right out of the gate. And, with Sun-chaek equipped with all the information from the novel, she is caught between struggling not to become a target of Hwa-seon’s rage, but also her desire to do the right thing when she sees the bratty woman target the weak. While her first encounter shows Sun-chaek biting her tongue, the second one at the tea house with Hwa-seon and her girl gang unleashes the chaos gremlin within.

A pivotal setting is at the root of The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 – the teahouse. Run by Eun-ae and her adopted father, the events that are supposed to take place at the teashouse are what trigger Eun-ae in the novel to meet her fated match. However, this is not going to happen. Instead, through Sun-chaek’s attempts to keep Hwa-seon from picking on Eun-ae, the young woman ends up on the path of the titular Duke, and it takes an amazingly vibrant and hilarious cocktail-making montage to seal the deal.

It is this montage that immediately informs the audience of two things. This KDrama is willing to get silly in the most delightful way, and Seohyun has zero problems making a fool of herself onscreen. Her Sun-chaek is the master of the cocktail, coming up with all sorts of concoctions with everyone’s head spinning. It’s a fever dream that can only lead to mistakes happening, and they do. For Sun-chaek, she wakes up the next day with no memory next to the amiable Duke.

The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 show that Cha Sun-chaek can’t help but fail.

As Duke Yi Beun, Taecyeon embodies a cold, steely aura, supporting the rumours surrounding the character. How he is framed in shots emphasizes the character’s shadowy activities. Still, as Yi Beun heads toward the tea house, he looks longingly at where the loud activities are in the light. With just his gaze, Taecyeon conveys the wants of a character longing to leave the shadows and darkness for at least a little while. This desire manifests itself in his encounter with Sun-chaek.

It’s clear across The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 that Sun-chaek is a force to be reckoned with. At least, now that the character has been taken over by K. In flashbacks revealed in Episode 2, we see easily how she won over the heart of the Duke by just being drunkenly honest and forceful in her approach. This honesty and this validation from her melt the man’s heart, which again, is such main character energy. Whatever wallflower life K was leading before entering the world of the novel is no more now that she is Sun-chaek.

But she’s not prepared for that or the consequences. Instead, Sun-chaek panics, knowing that the story is not going as it should. Throughout Episode 2, accompanied by her attendant, Bong Wool-yi (Oh Se-eun), she tries to escape the Duke’s attention. After all, Eun-ae is supposed to marry the Duke. It results in a fun cat-and-mouse game, where the Duke consistently thwarts Sun-chaek’s attempts to escape him, particularly after he has declared he wants to marry her.

The various methods Sun-chaek deploys to trick him are some of Episode 2’s best moments. From donning disguises to getting herself dirty and disgusting in a field to even escaping to a Buddhist temple, these moments give us a peek inside Sun-chaek’s creativity and ingenuity. But, with each attempt thwarted by the Duke, it is clear that he is a good reader of people, or at least, in situations like this, when they are trying to escape him. For Sun-chaek, there’s really no escape.

Taecyeon’s Yi Beun is a worthy match to Sun-chaek’s chaotic energy.

Escaping fate is nigh impossible, and if the novel plot is being followed, then it means that Sun-chaek is going to be thrown into a love triangle as well. This ultimately gets set up in Episode 2’s final moments after a dramatic encounter in the woods with Jung Su-gyeom saving Sun-chaek from bandits. He asks her out on a date under the guise of participating in a club he’s made. This moment gets interrupted by Yi Beun, though, setting up the stakes for what is sure to be an exciting round of upcoming episodes.

Though a bit exposition-heavy to start, the exposition is necessary for getting viewers up to speed as K is before she takes Sun-chaek’s place in the novel world. Of course, there is a decent amount of time spent highlighting Sun-chaek’s modernity, poking fun at the casual way she speaks and the like, but these are standard moments in the genre that are to be expected.

As an introduction to the series, The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 are fun and exciting. Knowing how things are supposed to go and seeing what happens when Sun-chaek takes centerstage makes for many moments of entertainment, sometimes at her expense. Seohyun is having a blast leaning into the sillier aspects of her character, making the more over-the-top moments more believable in the process. As a main character, Sun-chaek/K is already incredibly relatable, and I can’t wait to see how she manages to escape her predicament.

The bar is set pretty high with The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2. While exposition-heavy, the exposition establishes audience expectations before diving in. With Seohyun’s Sun-chaek at the helm, with an all-too-relatable sense of chaotic energy and panic, she may end up my favorite main character of the season. I can’t wait to see what will happen next.

The First Night With The Duke Episodes 1-2 are streaming now exclusively on Viki, with new episodes dropping on Wednesdays and Thursdays.