Introduction
Firstly, I don’t like dramas with cheating/infidelity, so I don’t watch them. However, I was intrigued by the synopsis of The Affair Was Just the Beginning on MyDramaList, which I put here. Before I started it, I thought I was getting a scandalous story about cheating and family drama. But soon I discovered that the affair is practically the least interesting thing that happens!
What starts as a simple marital betrayal quickly turns into a deliciously messy web of secrets, lies, accidents, cover-ups, and people making one questionable decision after another. And just when you think you finally understand what’s going on… another twist comes along and makes you question everything you just watched.
The title is an oxymoron figure of speech. The drama is a profound chaos, imperfection, and complication. However, in my opinion, the drama is very enjoyable, brilliantly made, and deserves great praise.
Drama Info
Drama title: The Affair Was Just the Beginning (Native title: 지금 불륜이 문제가 아닙니다)
Alternative title: Jigeum Bullyuni Munjega Anibnida, The Affair Is Not the Problem Right Now
Genres: Thriller, Crime, Drama, Family
Aired: 31 Jul, 2026 - 4 Sep, 2026
Episodes: 8 | Duration: 45 min.
Director: Lee Chang Hee (이창희)
Screenwriters: Jeong Eun Kyeong (정은경) and Park Soo Rin (박수린)
Where to watch: Viki
Trailer
Synopsis
Gyeong Hui is an influencer and business owner who is adored for the lovely image of her family. Her interior business is thriving, and she is trying to get closer to Su Jeong, the owner of a skin‑care clinic next door, because she realizes Su Jeong could help her secure an investment that would take her business to the next level.
One day, after hearing rumors that her husband Jae Hyeong is having an affair, she follows him — only to be shocked when she discovers him handling a dead body. His explanation is even more devastating. “Are you saying my daughter Ye Ji hurt someone? So the affair isn’t the only problem?”
To protect their success and their family, Gyeong Hui and Jae Hyeong bury the body in the garden of their mansion to cover up the accident. However, later that night, they receive a message: “I recorded everything you did yesterday.”
Source: MyDramaList
Characters
Main Characters
Kim Hye Soo (김혜수) as Park Gyeong Hui
Cho Yeo Jung (조여정) as An Su Jeong
Kim Ji Hoon (김지훈) as Im Jae Hong
Kim Jae Chul (김재철) as An Su Jeong
Supporting Characters
Im Ye Ji (Jeon Si Hyun) – Gyeong Hui and Jae Hong’s daughter
Ju Min Seo (Do Yeong Seo) – Su Jeong and Bo Seong’s daughter
Interview with the Screenwriters
When researching this drama, I came across an article on the interview with the screenwriters. Here are some interesting points taken from the article. The full interview can be read in The Chosun Daily.
- The original script dates back 10 years. Originally, it was a feature film screenplay, not an 8-episode drama.
- The script was Jeong Eun Kyeong’s debut.
- The dark comedy theme was rare back then in Korea, and people questioned the script as not being Korean.
- Park Gyeong Hui’s occupation evolved from a civic activist, an announcer, a politician, and finally to an influencer.
- The original film screenplay title was ‘The Perfect Neighbor,’ but the studio thought it was boring, and the studio rep actually came up with the current title idea.
The screenwriters: Jeong Eun Kyeong and Park Soo Rin
What I Liked About this Drama
The Title
The long title is actually the initial hook. The catchy The Affair Was Just the Beginning grabs attention (“The affair was just the beginning?”), sets expectations (“Then what comes after that?”), and convinces viewers to stop ignoring it and check out the synopsis or the trailer to get the initial vibe.
The affair really is the least of everyone’s problems. What starts as a cheating-husband story gradually becomes a dark comedy about marriage, social status, family image, guilt, and how far people will go to protect themselves.
The Dark Comedy
Dark comedies are rare because they require a high-stakes balancing act between tragedy and humor, making them incredibly difficult to write, finance, and market successfully. While traditional comedies look for laughs in everyday absurdities, dark comedies find humor in inherently uncomfortable, taboo, or painful subjects, which in this case, is a marital affair.
As a dark comedy, The Affair Was Just the Beginning thrives on a snowball effect of a ‘simple’ affair premise of increasingly absurd, chaotic, and unhinged decisions made by its main characters. The show hooks the audience with a familiar, soapy K-drama premise—a suspected infidelity. The dark comedy kicks in the exact moment the Female Lead confronts her husband, only to find him panicking over a dead body. The immediate realization that “an affair is the least of their problems” sets a hilariously twisted tone. The situations become so absurd that you sometimes laugh even though what is happening is actually quite serious.
Watching how one family’s panicked cover-up accidentally ruins the other family’s completely unrelated schemes creates massive, ironic situational comedy.
The Clever Multiple Perspectives
With only 8 episodes, the writing is surprisingly tight with clever multiple points of view from different characters. The plot sometimes goes back and shows events from another character’s point of view, revealing that what you thought happened isn’t necessarily the whole story.
Surprisingly, It Delivers Deep Themes and Valuable Messages
Themes
Fake Social Media Lives: It takes a shot at the whole influencer culture, showing how the picture-perfect lives people post online are often just a cover for a total disaster behind the scenes.
The Snowball Effect: The affair is just the beginning. Once that initial secret starts cracking, it unleashes a whole wave of other problems, from blackmail to hidden crimes.
Panicked Damage Control: It uses dark humor to show the absolute absurdity of what happens when people scramble to hide their tracks, usually making their problems way worse in the process.
Totally Out-of-Touch Families: It highlights how clueless the characters are about the people they live with, proving that spouses and kids can easily live double lives right under each other’s noses.
Messages
Lies always catch up to you: You can’t just sweep a massive mistake under the rug. Eventually, it’s going to come back and tear your whole world down.
Control is just an illusion: The moment you try to manage a web of lies, you’ve already lost. Things will spin out of control faster than you can keep up.
At its core, this story is all about how one messy secret can completely wreck a person’s life. It starts off as a basic cheating scandal but quickly turns into a wild, chaotic domino effect where absolutely everything goes off the rails.
Everyone is a Grey Character
Nobody, not even the children, is a purely good character. The main characters use curated public personas to hide deep secrets, manipulation, and escalating chaos.
Park Gyeong Hui presents a flawless image of family life and wealth online. Underneath, she harbors strong personal and professional ambitions. Her character shows how fragile a picture-perfect life can be when hidden desires surface.
The charming Im Jae Hong‘s social maneuvering and attempts to help others unintentionally pull the couple deeper into a dangerous web of crime and betrayal.
An Su Jeong appears sweet, innocent, and friendly. However, she hides a massive betrayal behind her warm smile. Her hidden involvement in an affair triggers the chaotic events that prove the cheating was only the opening act of the story.
The custody battle with Ju Bo Seong, Su Jeong’s ex-husband, and hidden motives add tension and further complicate the escalating criminal fallout.
Moral corruption in the story extends across the next generation, with irresponsible children such as Im Ye Ji and Ju Min Seo actively engaging in manipulation and ‘crime’ rather than acting as innocent victims. The narrative demonstrates that the parents successfully passed down their worst traits, creating an environment where the youth mirror the vanity, lies, and self-interest of the adults.
Excellent Seasoned Acting with Great Chemistry
Kim Hye Soo (I didn’t know she was 56 when the show was airing!) marks her 40th acting anniversary by showing the dark, desperate panic hiding underneath her character’s perfect online image. She balances cold survival tactics with moments of high-strung comedy.
Kim Ji Hoon handles the rapid plot twists well, shifting from calm domesticity to complete confusion as secrets unravel.
Cho Yeo Jung manages her acting style based on whose memory or point of view is shown. One scene can feel like her deep passion to one character and pure terror for another.
Kim Jae Chul brings a grounded, quietly intense energy to the series, serving as a stark contrast to the flamboyant chaos of the other characters.
Good chemistry among the cast. The four leads are particularly strong, and the teenage actresses also hold their own.
Do Yeong Seo captures the lonely, observant nature of a child caught in the crossfire of an ugly divorce between her parents.
Jeon Si Hyun portrays a high-strung, stressed teenager with great emotional range, transitioning seamlessly from a typical rebellious teen to a terrified kid trapped in an adult-sized disaster.
The Expected Ending of a Dark Comedy
A dark comedy usually ends with a cynical, ironic, or unresolved conclusion rather than a traditional happy resolution. So does The Affair Was Just the Beginning. True to its black comedy roots, the show does not opt for a neat, morally righteous ending. Instead, it concludes with a biting, ironic commentary on social media obsession, showing how far people will go to maintain their perfect public image even after everything has fallen apart.
Viewers are drawn to dark comedy endings because they offer a psychological release and a level of honesty that traditional happy endings rarely provide. Instead of wrapping life’s messiness in a neat bow, these endings validate the chaotic and sometimes unfair nature of reality.
If you want to know how it ends, full of spoilers, you can check the Spoilers Section at the end of the article.
My Rating
I used my rating system with additional scores of:
- + 1.0 for the dark comedy
- + 0.5 for the tight script and ending
- + 1.0 for the acting of the leading characters, and the child actresses
- + 1.0 for the production value
Total rating 9.5/10.
Conclusion
What I really enjoyed about The Affair Was Just the Beginning is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s dark, it’s absurd, and sometimes I found myself laughing at situations where I probably shouldn’t have been laughing at all. The characters keep digging themselves into deeper and deeper holes, and instead of stopping, they somehow find a shovel and keep digging.
And that’s probably the biggest strength of this drama: the characters keep digging their own holes, and they keep you watching. Every episode gives you another piece of the puzzle, while also making you wonder whether these people could possibly make one normal decision for once.
Is it realistic? Not always. Is it perfectly neat and logical? Definitely not. But is it entertaining? Absolutely!
Spoilers
Whose dead body is mentioned in the synopsis?
Na Sol, a private detective hired by Su Jeong during the custody battle with Bo Seong.
Who killed the victim?
Choi Sang Cheol, a lawyer hired by Bo Seong for the custody battle.
Why was Jae Hyeong found with the dead body?
He thought Ye Ji killed the victim during her joyride with Min Seo driving his sports car. But in reality, Min Seo was the one who drove the car. Moreover, the victim was not dead after the hit, but was later killed by Sang Cheol.
What is the ending? [short answer]
Typical of a dark comedy, ‘happy’ but unresolved. See “The Expected Ending of a Dark Comedy” in the Review Section above.
How does it end? [long answer]
Although not directly the killers, the families are involved in the deaths of Na Sol, Na Do, and Choi Sang Cheol. To avoid the police and the public probing into the deaths of those three, Park Gyeong Hui deliberately exposes her husband’s affair with Su Jeong publicly. Gyeong Hui stepped down from her company and streaming service, Su Jeong’s clinic closed down, and Jae Hong’s acting career suffered. Only Bo Seong’s dermatology clinic survives, but the women blackmail him for his involvement in the bizarre case, and he has to pay ₩15M to each of them.
The police eventually find evidence connecting Sang Cheol to Na Sol’s death. But because so many pieces of the story have been manipulated, they come to the wrong overall conclusion. They essentially decide that Sang Cheol was responsible for all the deaths and that the families involved were not the real culprits. The case ends up being closed without the truth about the families’ involvement coming out.
