by 
If you have been following my posts on the blog, you know that I almost always wait until the midway point, which is episode 8 for a drama with 16 episodes or episode 6 for a drama with 12 episodes, before I write a post about it.
But we are only four episodes into Lovely Runner, and I am absolutely in love with every single piece of this drama.
To be very fair, I knew I would be enraptured because I had to stop watching Strong Girl Nam Soon for a few weeks when I found out that Byeon Woo Seok was going to be a villain who probably would not have a good ending. And I was 100% right.
I love, love, love a good idol & fan drama, and several things in this drama remind me of Heavenly Idol, but Lovely Runner is by far superior in terms of the script and the acting.
And if like me you need all the pieces of the drama to come together to fully enjoy it, you’re going to be in heaven with this drama – The OST is by far one of the bestest I’ve listened to in recent times and you’re going to cry your eyes out.
So this drama literally starts with Ryu Seon Jae (Byeon Woo Seok) having to end his life for reasons that are unknown to us at the moment, and Im Sol (Kim Hye Yoon) travels back into the past to save him.
You May Also Like: 11 Swoony K-Dramas That Show The Beauty & Pain of First Love
After he surreptitiously and unknowingly foiled her attempt to take her own life after an accident that left her crippled, she decides to live for him and only him because he’s just starting out as an idol. You can imagine the shock when she learns that he killed himself.
So when she goes back into the past, she decides to do all that she can to save his life and make sure that she tries to prevent him from trying to commit suicide. I won’t talk more about the plot, of course, I am afraid I will inadvertently drop spoilers, but trust me when I say this is really good.
Firstly, I love that there are more and more dramas recently that highlight people living with disabilities because a couple of years ago, there were unfortunately very few dramas. But now we have Twinkling Watermelon, Tell Me You Love Me, and now this beautiful drama.
Secondly, this is a pairing I would never have anticipated or even imagined, so hats off to the casting directors who really did a great job with this one. My only wish is that Woo Seok gets a good ending because he solely deserves it after the fiasco and tragedy that has been 20th Century Girl and Strong Girl Nam Soon.
I saw our female lead last in the 2021 historical K-Drama Secret Royal Inspector & Joy, and her chemistry with Ok Taec Yeon was off the charts. She also has amazing chemistry with Byeon Woo Seok, even though this is a teen drama that, for all intents and purposes, will remain clean.
Another thing that really stands out about this drama is the unique twist on time travel. Whenever she speaks of future events, the entire world freezes. So rather than coming out and telling someone that they can’t do this or that because it would have a negative effect in the future, she has to be smart and find a way around it, which leads to many comical situations.
And something else that makes this all the more unique is that the future self who comes back to inhabit the younger self’s body is always gobsmacked by the latter’s utter shamelessness and naivety, which is rather interesting. She cringed a whole lot at her actions.
What I am getting to is that I’ve always wondered with time travel dramas, especially ones where a character somehow transports to their past, how their past self would interpret the period where they lost control of their body, and this drama deals with it very effectively.
Related: 10 Korean Dramas With Easy-To-Love Female Leads You’ll Root For
So what happens is that when she somehow travels back to the future, her past self interprets those months of not knowing anything that happened as being possessed. In fact, when the future self travels back to the past, she wakes up while a demon-cleansing ceremony is underway. This was actually very interesting to see.
So now we know that the biggest person that will stand between Im Sol and her goals is actually herself because her past self is very one-minded in that she has a massive crush on another bad boy, Tae Sung, who is very much a variable in the drama.
If you have read to this point you’re probably a little confused but I promise your confusion is caused by my poor writing skills, so please don’t let me discourage you from watching this drama.
At the moment, I have several predictions and theories about this drama, so the next paragraphs are going to be very spoiler-heavy. So if you’d rather not read those, then please check out some other posts on the blog. I promise that they’re all good.
Now, for my spoiler lovers, where do you think this drama is going? At the moment, we know at least that Sun Jae remembered her all along and that even their meeting on the bridge might have pushed him over the ledge to further insight him to commit suicide. But it all feels a little too simplistic because this is only episode 4, and if that is resolved in the next two episodes, the rest of the drama is going to be merely filler content.
Also, what do you think about her boyfriend, Kim Tae Sung (Song Geon Hee)? As I said earlier, he is one of the most shaky variables in the drama because, in her original timeline, she was rejected by him. But then her direct nature wins him over and he decides to date her, which is right at the moment when she’s transported back into the future, and her past self couldn’t be happier.
In the original timeline, there was a time when she was speaking to her best friend, Hyun Joo (played by Seo Hye Won), about him, and we learned that neither of them is aware of how he’s doing, so I wonder if the inclusion of him will have any significant bearing on her story.
Also See: 20 Best Korean Dramas With The Sweetest Love Triangles To Watch
Finally, I definitely think Sun Jae played a part in the accident that killed Im Sol. Ordinarily, it’s very clear from the very first episode that he might have been the one who saved her when she had the accident that took her legs.
But one thing I am very curious about is the level of his involvement in her accident. Because we learn later on that he had felt very sorry for her and had been struggling with depression and insomnia and had essentially carried her picture around, so there’s that.
What is very clear is that this drama is only getting started. The ratings are super high, and anticipation for Mondays and Tuesdays, which are the airing days, is through the roof. Personally, I wish I could go into the future to just see how it ends because I need him to have a happy ending for once.
Have you watched any time travel Korean dramas? Do you think you are going to watch Lovely Runner? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below, and we can talk for hours about this beautiful drama.
