The Secret Life of My Secretary is a fluffy office rom-com and while it touches upon the theme of discrimination of contract employees, that is not the essence of the story, at least for me. I recently re-watched the story and liked it better than my recollection of the first watch. What I liked about the show most was all the actors bringing their best to embibe the characters that could otherwise have come off as cookie cutter - chaebols, secretary, childhood bestie VP etc - with unique quirks, personalities and vulnerabilities that did not feel forced while watching.
The leads - Do Min Ik and Jung Gal Hee have a typical boss-employee relationship like is expected of this genre with exploitation of the power dynamic by the hero. However, despite everything on paper that would have made Do Min Ik a very annoying character to watch, Kim Youngkwang's portrayal puts an emotional strain to even his more cold behaviour making him stand apart in the crowd of other such drama characters.
Similarly, Jung Gal Hee portrayed by Jin Ki Joo is the typical hard working - providing for her family - poor - female lead, but her inner world of thoughts on why she makes the decisions she does including her betrayal of her boss makes you pity her naivety as well as root for her. She feels like a fleshed out person despite all the cliches enthrusted onto her.
As for the second lead couple, the stand out star of the drama - Kim Jaekyung as Veronica Park made it memorable. Everyone who has seen the show will agree that the character of Veronica is what makes the show stand apart and fun to watch. She is a rare gem in the world of 2FL roles. Jaekyung manages to make an outlandish chaebol not annoying with her heartfelt portrayal of a confident, ridiculous but also mature Veronica.
Koo Ja Sung as Ki Dae Joo served as a source of warmth for Do Min Ik and was a good supporting character who had his own storyline which was more involved in the contract employee plotline. Admittedly, he did not stand out as much as the other three leads though.
Amongst the other supporting casts, Choi Tae Hwan as the Driver caught my attention the most. A more of a throwaway role with limited screentime, he still convinced me of his pathos as well as loyalty and brought the emotions into the otherwise obligatory social commentary plotline that most rom coms try to do.
Another limited role that had me intrigued was the role of Jung Ae Ri as Do Min Ik's mother. Even though their relationship was dysfunctional and bordered on abusive, it was interesting to watch as usually these roles are either white or black, but she remained gray till the very end. And that made me understand why Min Ik still stuck to her and wanted her validation so badly, as even though they had a fake mother-son relationship, there was a subtle strength built over the years of association for both of them.
When I rewatched the series and paid attention to the characters and their individual arcs, the show was much more fun to watch as a whole than just trying to follow the plot. The smaller beats and the sum of its parts are bigger than the whole show at a glance, and made me upmark my initial rating. The actual plotline of the secretary disguising as a chaebol and the prospognasia were more cliche, however the fallout was handled much better than other dramas - the guilt, the betrayal, the forgiveness, made these cliches still feel like a real part of these people that might exist in some fictional drama land.