Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol> Hum... I think if I have to choose between a highschool student and a doctor for our heroine, I chose the doctor who didn't let her think he was dead...

For me :

Extraordinary You : Danoh never had feelings for Baek-Hyung and always was very clear and direct about it. BK was written as a jerk but in shadow he was too and it was his choice. Sae-Mi was the same as him. She was a bully in stage but was a great friend in shadow. Haru was Danoh's choice.

Judge vs Judge : it was one of the best love triangle in a Kdrama. They respected each other feelings and talked about it.

Moonlight Drawn by Clouds : the second lead never was important for me. In my mind, Kwak Dong-Yeon was the second lead as best friend and bodygard, and not Jung Ji-Young. The FL didn't share anything special with his character.

WWWSK: "Sung-yeon, the walking, talking embodiment of wet socks" - what a fitting description. What a loathing I had for him. But at least he was good as a catalyst for Mi-so and Young-joon.

Her Private Life: I had completely forgotten that there was an SML and had to rummage through my memories to even remember Eun-gi.

Hm I have to disagree on Her Private Life here - for me it was an almost SLS - I don't remember Eun-gi behaving like he owned her, they were close their whole life and he was in love with her, but he didn't push himself onto her. And I was really happy when he ended up with that other girl, that was great.
On another note, that brother in WWWSK was creepy as hell.

Ohhhhhh see I thought you meant "Dramas that don't even have a SL at all, so SLS isn't possible (unless you ship a minor crackship)" lmao

The examples all seem be about the 2nd MALE lead. Kdramaland doesn't seem to have many 2FLs that should have gotten the guy.

Then don't forget the many shows that are so far away from SLS that you might not even think of them... Just no possibly romantic 2ML in sight, or he's with the 2FL.
Queen In-hyun's Man
Faith
Girl K
My Mister
Queen's Classroom
Alhambra
Business Proposal
Crazy Love

My Roomate is a Gumiho,You Are My Spring,The Tale of Nokdu,Dinner Mate,Dali and Gamjatang....

Cdramas are good in making second leads you will totally loathe so they never have a chance (Fu Pei in Put your head on my shoulders) but they also manage to give them a redeption arc and love life of their own.

Regarding kdramas I would put Seo Ji Hye's character in Jealousy Incarnate here. She clearly wasn't someone I'll hate, in fact I really liked her. But it was clear as day that the male lead was never interested. Good enough for her she didn't try that hard and even backed off at the right time. I didn't worry about her at all, rather she remained an enjoyable character to see on her own.

Really wished they made Eun-gi be Deok-mi's little/twin brother and not... that.

Just want to say I'm so glad somebody agrees with me about Eun-gi in Her Private Life. I almost rage-quit the show over him and unfortunately I now watch anything starring Ahn Bo-hyun with trepidation 😬.

Second leads with significant age gaps (Shopping King Louis, Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol)

Second leads who are family (The King’s Affection) or like family (Her Private Life)

Second leads who are the male leads' best friends (Record of Youth Byeon Woo-seok, Our Beloved Summer Kim Sung-cheol) to whom I scream, "She is your Best. Friend's. Girlfriend."

Special mention for Idol: the Coup, where not only is there no SLS, there isn't an OTP either. This was my biggest worry about that drama, as the opening credits made it look like the story of the group was going to be pushed into the background by a love triangle, and the opposite happened. I guess you could call it switch-and-bait, or just underselling your show.

I agree with all of these--and will add one below--but there's one second lead I want to defend just a bit. I don't agree that Eun-gi thought he owned Deok-mi. I didn't root for them to be together and she was clearly annoyed with his clinginess for a while there, but I couldn't help but feel a little bad for him. He was basically relying on a kdrama trope (knowing each other as children and falling in love somewhere along the way) as proof their love was fated. I never got the sense he felt he was owed her love or that she was obligated to feel the same way; my sense was that his feelings were very strong, had existed for a long time, and it was very painful for him to imagine that the love he thought was real would never not be one-sided. He was in love and being stupid, but I never saw him as brutish or controlling. So I gave him a pass.

The second leads I truly loathed? Both the male and the female ones in "The Princess Hours." Their constant scheming and whining were intolerable, and they were an early example of a central kdrama trope I loathe: the one that says that if someone you like doesn't like you back, all you have to do is sabotage their relationship with someone they *do* actually like and then they'll fall in love with you. If someone's not into you, they're not suddenly going to think you're hot if you engineer their heartbreak over losing someone they love! This thinking still pops up in various kdramas and it always drives me crazy.

Everything with Hyun Bin or Gong Yoo in it

Tamra the Island

@daebakgrits I for one will never tire of you writing about Secretary Kim and to call him a wet sock is an insult to wet socks 🧦.

Ugh, the Polar Bear ex-bf in Witch’s Romance. What a waste of space and a waste of our time while we waited for him to go away. We could have had so much more Park Seo Joon-Yoon Hyun Min bromance antics 😒

I'm one of those people who rarely gets SLS. So this post isn't for me. But the moment I saw the title I wanted to say Jealousy Incarnate. Probably because most beanies loved Go Kyung Pyo's character. I hated him.

Totally agree with WWWSK and her private life!! If Kim jae wook is your lead, I won't be looking anywhere else:p.
For me, I would also like to add a poem a day. I know the majority of beanies loved Minho but I never warmed upto him. For me it was always dr. Ye and I'm happy that boyoung chose him, though apparently that was not the original planned ending.

In another Miss Oh, Han Tae Jin dumps the FL the day before their wedding with the reason being that he did not like the way she ate. Then later after his real problem was cleared up, he tried to come back to reclaim her. His efforts to get her back /revenge made him pretty unlikeable.

Omo the hair in that last pic 🤣

Healer and Hometown Cha Cha Cha come to mind as dramas with no second leads.

I rarely get SLS, so the SML has to be some kind of special to trigger it.

There it is again, Business Proposal! Dude was the worst.

Master's Sun and Sassy Go-Go are two of my favorite dramas where the second lead syndrome wasn't a thing. I really, really liked the second leads in those shows but they never stood a chance. And instead of going all mopey and clingy they accepted the truth and moved on with their life.

Wonderful article except for a triggering mild PTSD in me for a moment with the inclusion of DO DO SOL SOL LA LA SOL. What the writer did to the audience in the final episodes was simply cruel.

I never really saw Yoon Sang-hyun’s character SHOPPING KING LOUIE as a regular second lead in the first place. It is true that he is motivated by his attraction to Ko Bok-sil, Nam Ji-hyun’s character his his function is not to be a romantic rival to Louie but rather to be her guru and fairy godfather, teaching her and helping her to adapt to a new life in her new urban setting. At this same time, he too is learning important things about life and above about valuing someone like Bok-sil which he really going to need because his own (much prettier and cuter) version of Bok-sil shows up towards the end of Episode 16 in the form of Wang Mong-sil (cameo appearance by Chae Soo-bin). This is why we never get second lead syndrome for him because he is not functioning like a normal second lead but, as it turns out, his time with Bok-sil was the completely necessary prologue to his own love story. If there had been a sequel to SHOPPING KING LOUIE that is the story we would have seen.

@daebakgrits, I’m just lovin’ the fact that you used “y’all” and “bless his heart” in the same paragraph! Now, remind me, what was the topic?

awww. Ahn Bo Hyun. Sorry, I will choose him if the second lead is Ahn Bo Hyun... My baby.... moreover not a big fan of Kim Jae Wok as an actor.

Oh, heartbreak, The KIng’s Affection. There was no way Hyun made sense for Dam-yi but he was crazy lovable (can’t say the same for all the second leads here).

Just Between Lovers. Kang-doo and Moon-soo were obvious end game. The architect was no competition.

I don't get SLS much - at least not enough to wish the FL would end up with the SML, though there are times when I wish I can clone the FL so both MLs can be with her.

I love it when the second leads have their own lovelines so I don't have to be suspicious of them causing emotional turmoil to the main relationship or have to feel bad for them or feel like they're just the awkward third wheel.

I still feel betrayed by DDSSLLS (It was my happy pill for weeks and weeks and I had faith in the drama even with the age reveal), but I'm glad the doctor and ex-wife worked things out and gave each other a second chance.