The First Night with the Duke: Episodes 1-2

by DaebakGrits

Full of tropes and nods to the romantic plotlines that we love, The First Night with the Duke answers the question we’ve all asked ourselves: What would happen if I was dropped into the plot of my favorite story? And it’s as fun and squeeful as you’d imagine.

 
EPISODES 1-2

I’m a sucker for an isekai story (looking at you guilty pleasure drama The King: Eternal Monarch), and I’m particularly fond of the subgenre featuring characters from the “real” world who get sucked into their favorite fictional universes. You know, the subgenre that has oversaturated the webtoon market but has somehow avoided being adapted into a K-drama…until now. Surprisingly, despite my voracious consumption of webtoons with plots similar to The First Night with the Duke, this story in particular alluded me, and once the drama adaptation was announced, I intentionally avoided it so I could watch the plot unfold without any preconceived opinions.

However, even without any knowledge of the source material, The First Night with the Duke follows a very familiar formula that begins with a brief — like, briefer than a Calvin Klein underwear ad — introduction to our leading lady (Seohyun) before she’s transported to an alternate world. She’s a hermit-like college student and extremely passionate about her favorite trope-filled web novel. Seriously, this web novel has everything: a fictional Joseon dynasty setting, a love quadrangle with a Cinderella-like romance at its center, a villainous noblewoman fueled by jealousy, and dramatically dangerous rescues of the damsel in distress. (Mmmmmm…my catnip.)

Given the depressing state of our leading lady’s bedroom, though, it’s safe to assume that she’s retreated from the outside world, and this fictional universe has become the only ray of sunshine in her life. So, as you can imagine, she doesn’t take it well when the author of her favorite form of escapism posts that they will be suspending the story — permanently. She immediately begins venting her frustrations in the comments section, and in her despair, she lashes out at the author, claiming that she could write a better story. As she stomps around her room, she slips on a stray bottle and hits her head on the dirty floor — just as the author responds to her hate message: “If you’re that good, you try writing a story.” And with those words of foreshadowing lingering in the metaverse, our leading lady is transported magically — or via a head trauma induced coma (TBD) — to the world of her beloved web novel.

She wakes up as CHA SEON-CHAEK, a character so insignificant to the plot that, upon hearing her new name, she doesn’t immediately realize she’s been transplanted into her favorite fictional universe. It takes her a moment to recognize the name and figure out she’s the rarely mentioned and inconsequential-to-the-plot daughter of Chief State Minister CHA HO-YEOL (Seo Hyun-chul). Luckily for Seon-chaek, her new family is as weird as they are rich and influential, because they quickly accept her odd behaviors and misuse of jondaemal as simply part of her quirky personality. Even better, though, as a wealthy minor character, she doesn’t have to be caught up in the drama and intrigue of the story. She can just sit back, live that pampered princess life, and eat popcorn while she watches from the sidelines as all her favorite characters meet and fall in love. (Or so she thinks…)

Turning off her inner fangirl proves extremely difficult for Seon-chaek, especially when she’s the biggest stan of the novel’s leading lady JO EUN-AE (Kwon Han-sol), and it pains her to quietly watch from the sidelines while her favorite character is bullied by the novel’s ultimate mean girl DO HWA-SEON (Ji Hye-won). So even though Seon-chaek vows to bite her tongue and do nothing that will interfere with the novel’s plot, all that restraint goes out the window the night she and the other nobel ladies attend a high society event at Eun-ae’s house.

Hwa-seon, in true evil b***h fashion, makes snide remarks about Eun-ae’s hostess abilities, intentionally breaks a cup while Eun-ae is pouring her drink, and gossips behind Eun-ae’s back, spreading false rumors that Eun-ae has an inappropriate relationship with her adoptive father. Unable to simply be a fly on the wall, Seon-chaek steps in to diffuse the situation with her flashy bartending skills that gets everyone — including herself — drunker than a squirrel after ingesting fermented pears. With everyone at the party merrily intoxicated, Seon-chaek steps outside for some fresh air — and a front row seat for the show that’s about to begin.

You see, tonight is the night Eun-ae stumbles, nearly falls into a stream, and is rescued by the story’s misunderstood hero, YI BEON (Taecyeon), a prince with a reputation — thanks to rumors he spread himself — for killing men who look him in the eye and making nuns out of the women who spend a night in his bed. There’s just one little problem, Seon-chaek’s intoxicated state makes her careless, uninhibited, and clumsy enough that she almost falls into the stream — key word being almost.

Yes, that’s right. Seon-chaek accidentally steals Eun-ae’s meet-cute, and thanks to her high blood alcohol level, Seon-chaek is unable to fully process the ramifications of her actions — or stop herself from making the situation worse. In Yi Beon’s presence, she has another fangirl moment and waxes poetically about his character, revealing she knows that he’s a softie underneath his meticulously cultivated dark prince persona. Yi Beon, who is initially baffled by her courageousness — what with all the beheading rumors and such — is quickly charmed by her ability to see through his facade. Not to mention, the drunken kiss she brazenly planted on his lips.

One thing leads to another, and, well, suffice it to say this drama’s title is very literal in its meaning. When it says “first night,” it means first night (**eyebrow wiggles**). But, of course, this wouldn’t be a K-drama without Seon-chaek waking up the morning after her night of drinking with a hangover and no recollection of doing the midnight Hokey Pokey with Yi Beon. (Gurrrrrl, how do you forget that? **gestures enthusiastically at Taecyeon’s back muscles**)

Horrified that she’s potentially ruined her favorite romance story, Seon-chaek wants nothing more than to put the one-night-stand she can’t remember behind her and get the novel’s plot back on track, but she’s really made a massive mess of things. Eun-ae and Yi Beon did not meet as planned. Eun-ae now wants to be Seon-chaek’s bestie, and even though Seon-chaek knows it’s in everyone’s best interest that she retreat back into the supporting cast, she also can’t say no to her favorite heroine. Meanwhile Hwa-seon, who knows that Seon-chaek spent the night with Yi Beon, vows to make Seon-chaek’s life miserable. So much for Seon-chaek’s plan to blend into the background and avoid trouble, amiright?

However, the biggest issue plaguing Seon-chaek at the moment is Yi Beon, who is very insistent — under the added threat of charging her and her family with treason, no less — that Seon-chaek will marry him and make their first night together one of many. Apparently, in this fictional universe, brooding princes with washboard abs and cute smiles can remain virginal despite an abundance of interested women throwing themselves at him. So even though Seon-chaek can’t remember “seducing” Yi Beon, their night together meant something special to him. Unfortunately for Yi Beon, though, Seon-chaek’s adoration of him and his “sweet smile” is not enough for her to fall into his arms and completely ruin the story she loves — no matter what she might have written in that nasty comment to the author.

She’s determined to fix things, and step one of that process is to avoid marrying Yi Beon. Step two is ensuring that he meets Eun-ae and falls in love with the correct woman. So in order to buy herself some time to get the story back on track, she asks Yi Beon to delay his formal marriage proposal by three days so she can announce their engagement to her family herself. In reality, though, Seon-chaek does everything within her power to try to either run away from or repel Yi Beon. But every whacky tactic she implements — and she tries a lot of them — fails spectacularly. Not even digging around in the dirt and using her own poop as fertilizer (or so she claims) was enough to discourage Yi Beon’s interest.

The man is that smitten, but one does have to wonder — especially after the poop thing — if his interest in Seon-chaek is at least partially do with him trying to appear less threatening to the KING SULJONG (Joo Seok-tae), who questions Yi Beon’s loyalty. Yi Beon definitely used his still-to-be-finalized marriage as an excuse to avoid joining the envoy the king was sending to China, so it stands to reason that Yi Beon might, at the very least, be killing two birds with one marriage proposal.

After multiple failed attempts to get rid of Yi Beon during her three-day grace period, Seon-chaek decides her only remaining option to avoid marrying the male lead is to run away in the middle of the night. Unsurprisingly, traipsing through the woods after sunset proves to be a bit dangerous, and Seon-cahek finds herself in need of rescuing from a pair of lecherous men. Enter: JUNG SOO-GYEOM (Seo Beom-joon), the novel’s second male lead.

Soo-gyeom is the sunshine to Yi Beon’s shadows, but these polar opposites are actually two halves of the same bromance. Their close friendship, however, was put to the test in the novel’s original plot, as they both loved Eun-ae, but now that Seon-chaek has entered the chat, it’s possible that the pairings could change. That’s, of course, assuming Soo-gyeom doesn’t develop an interest in Seon-chaek, too, given their shared interest in alcohol and mixology. He was impressed by her bartending at Eun-ae’s event, and invites Seon-chaek to join the Seonmun Club — a drinking club disguised as an astrology club — that he founded.

Whether his intentions were romantic or purely due to their mutual hobby are to be determined because Yi Beon choses that moment to show up and metaphorically mark his territory. And what better way to claim Seon-chaek as his woman than to announce his intentions to marry her in front of her three brothers, who coincidentally happen to be passing by at that moment. In her frantic rush to cover Yi Beon’s mouth and four pairs of ears at the same time with only her two hands, Seon-chaek somehow injures herself, and the first chapter of our story ends on a classic trope: with our leading lady fainting into a very worried Yi Beon’s arms.

Overall, I found this a very enjoyable premiere, and despite there being a lot of plot filler (e.g. the time dedicated to Seon-chaek’s various plans to avoid marriage), the story didn’t drag. In fact, time flew by while I watched these episodes, which was actually rather unfortunate for me because I watched them while I was on my lunch break, which I loath to rush. These episodes were tropey, self-aware, and just a whole lot of fun.

That said, I do have one complaint: the drastic differences in Seon-chaek’s personality before and after she entered the novel’s universe. I’m struggling to reconcile the messy and depressed university student with the confident spirit who deftly navigates sticky social situations, bartends like she’s has experience being the emcee of her university’s departmental parties, and is (according to Yi Beon’s account) sexually aggressive. The swap in personality was almost instantaneous when she opened her eyes in the novel’s universe, and the change is too drastic for me to attribute it wholly to the voyeuristic freedom and excitement that she would experience upon being dropped into her favorite fictional world. Perhaps this is who she was before she became depressed and found solace in a romance story?

It’s very common for webtoons that fall into this isekai subgenre to gloss over the details of their heroine’s past life — unless her real-world knowledge and skills are useful to her survival in the world she’s transplanted into — but the lack of backstory and personal details was more noticeable in this format. So, going forward, I hope we get a few flashbacks to Seon-chaek’s real-world life to help bridge the gap between the two drastically different sides of her personality. Then again, give me a few more entertaining episodes like these, and maybe I’ll willingly forget we ever saw Seon-chaek’s gloomy alt-universe persona.

 
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