Crash Course in Romance is a (mostly) light-hearted and charming romantic comedy that resolves its plot with off-screen character development.

Crash Course in Romance follows Nam Haeng-seon (Jeon Do-yeon), a single mother and business owner with a high school daughter and an autistic brother. Haeng-seon has her hands full but she also lives in Gangnam academy district; “Korea’s private education mecca” where most of the mums are obsessed with their kids’ education and college chances. When her daughter Nam Hae-yi (Roh Yoon-seo) asks to be enrolled in a training academy, she realizes how much she has neglected her studies and chooses to do better.

Choi Chi-yeol (Jung Kyung-ho) is a star academy tutor with a reputation as the best math tutor -- mothers camp outside his academy in a straight file, hoping to get their child a good viewing spot for his tutoring sessions.

Haeng-seon is a struggling mom with too much going on but surrounded by the love of family members while Chi-yeol drowns himself in work, is plagued by insomnia, can barely keep food down and only has his trusty teacher's assistant, Ji Dong-hui (Shin Jae-ha)as his friend and confidant. In the typical Kdrama rom-com style, both leads meet comically and have a huge misunderstanding.

A lot is going on in this drama - Haeng-seon's struggle to be better for her daughter, Chi-yeol grappling with his feelings for Haeng-seon who he believes to be a married woman, the high school rivalry between highschoolers Hae-yi and Su-ah (Kang Na Eon), the high school love triangle between Hae-yi, Seong-Jae (Lee Chae-min) and Geon-hu (Lee Min-jae), the cutthroat education system in Korea and the vicious and abusive lengths the mums will go to keep their kids on top. On top of that, someone is murdering people close to Chi-yeol. There are a lot of subplots to keep track of and Crash Course in Romance juggles them pretty well until the penultimate episode when some of those plot points come crashing down.



In episode 15, things come to a head when the murderer is discovered; Chi-yeol is depressed by the discovery and keeps blaming himself. Haeng-seon, the dutiful and supportive girlfriend tells him "Today is the last day you'll blame yourself okay?" and boy does he take her word for it. We never hear of the murders again, zilch, wiped from memory, never happened. Not even a casual mention, someone getting startled by a sudden sound, a wistful or regretful look. Nothing. Not even closure with the police officers who we had seen almost every episode.

Even Hae-yi who went through a traumatic event never talks about it. To make it even more jarring, another obstacle is introduced in episode 15, resolved mid-finale and never spoken of again. All the terrible characters of the story (and there were several!) have a coming-to-terms-with-their-evilness arc that we never see on screen. The story just skips straight to them doing better.

Also, Chi-yeol was a witness to probably the most eventful and traumatic day in the lives of the Nam family but that character crossroad is never acknowledged by any of the characters and it makes me wonder — what was the point?

Anyway (as Haeng-seon would say), as is expected of romcoms, the series finale wrapped up the story with a cat print wrapper and a cute pink bow. Everything works out and everyone is happy— the end.

While the tidying up of the plot leaves a few things to be desired, Crash Course in Romance remains a charming mostly feel-good drama with spectacular performances from the cast and costume choices that embody the characters. Haeng-seon is a warm homey character that dresses up in jeans, print tops and cute cardigans, Hae-yi’s outfits are very chill and gen z while Chi-yeol walks around in casual but obviously expensive clothing. Oh Eui-Shik delivers a believable performance of autism and the chemistry is great between each pair of characters. The performances also made it easy to root for the characters when they were going through a tough time and smile at your screen during their adorable moments.

While Crash Course in Romance is not strictly a romantic comedy, it has romance aplenty and is still a wholesome watch.