The Red Sleeve

October 22, 2021

Crown Prince Yi San (Lee Junho) is brilliant, rigorous, and increasingly aware of court lady Seong Deok-im (Lee Se-young), who speaks her mind with an unguarded candour no one else at court allows themselves.

October 23, 2021

Deok-im understands that the Crown Prince's interest in her is serious. She also understands what it would cost her — her freedom, her identity, her own future.

November 5, 2021

The palace gardens at Changdeokgung are the setting for the drama's most delicate early scenes — a prince and a court lady discovering each other in a setting of formal beauty.

November 12, 2021

Deok-im's desire for a life that is her own — not defined by royal service or royal attention — is stated explicitly. Yi San must reckon with loving someone who does not want what he offers.

November 13, 2021

The royal procession to the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace in Suwon. The drama's largest outdoor sequence — the king and his entourage moving through the fortress complex his father built.

November 19, 2021

The political pressures around the Crown Prince — his position, his enemies, the factions competing to shape his future — are shown in full.

November 20, 2021

Yi San becomes King Jeongjo. His feelings for Deok-im do not change with the throne; his power to act on them does.

November 26, 2021

Changdeokgung Palace under Jeongjo's new reign. The drama shifts from the possibility of a love story to the cost of one.

November 27, 2021

Deok-im must finally choose — not between Yi San and freedom, but between the love she feels and the life she needs.

December 3, 2021

They find a way to be together that honours both of them. The drama's warmth and intelligence are at their peak here.

December 4, 2021

A second visit to the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace complex — this time carrying the weight of what has changed between them.

December 11, 2021

The Changdeokgung interior scenes in this episode represent the production's most painstaking historical reconstruction.

December 18, 2021

Yi San's grief — for a woman who chose him knowing what it would cost — is expressed with the restraint that has defined the drama throughout. Lee Junho's finest performance.

December 25, 2021

The finale. MBC's highest-rated drama in years at the time of broadcast. A historical romance about the price of love between a king who wants to give everything and a woman who knows the cost of accepting it.