I've no idea what happened. I was completely hooked after watching the first 2 episodes - it started with loads of action, tragedy, and steamy excitement! Once Ji Sook started living with Min Woo's family in the SJ home, things started to slow down a bit and got rather repetitive: the villain, Seok Hoon, would threaten or manipulate Ji Sook, Ji Sook would hate it, she'd try to get around him, but ultimately it would backfire, she'd get terrified, and then Seok Hoon got what he wanted anyways, which led him into using her again in his next ploy. It was a vicious cycle that I was willing to witness if it meant that it shaped Ji Sook into a stronger character able to endure such hardship, learn how to play the political game to then stand on her own, amass power, and take down Seok Hoon.

I watched the first 11 episodes with sincere patience in the hopes of witnessing this kind of development, but it still turned out to Ji Sook being terrified and just going along with the villain out of fear over and over again with minimal character development. I was thankful around episode 11 or 12 when it looked like Ji Sook was finally going to fight and I thought, "Yes! This will be her turning point - FINALLY - and she's going to destroy Seok Hoon and take vengeance!" But it fell flat. She fought for a little bit but then regressed and got scared again. All the while, it's implied that Ji Sook and Min Woo were "falling in love"...

But for a melodrama, I was expecting a steamier romance between the 2 MCs but I never really bought into their romance. They didn't appear to have chemistry and so that made it hard to believe their love/interest in each other. They just didn't do enough together to really justify their growing feelings. And they didn't seem to get emotionally involved with EACH OTHER to really illustrate their "growing" feelings for each other. It felt superficial.

In the end, the take down of Seok Hoon was okay but I had envisioned something more climactic. And the ending was dragged out over 3 episodes, but not much of anything happened during that time, so it didn't feel satisfying. Seok Hoon didn't get what was coming to him until the very end of the last episode which was super anticlimactic.
Also, involving Mi Yeon as a petty villain in the final stretches of the drama was really annoying and frustrating to me. She really loved her brother, Min Woo, but her chronic habit to be blind to her husband's (Seok Hoon) evil and treachery was baffling. According to how Mi Yeon and Seok Hoon were portrayed, she didn't really love her husband, she was in-love with the idea of someone loving her (and if her character was really supposed to love him, they did a poor job writing their relationship). My point is, Mi Yeon wanting to protect Min Woo, but also trying to terrorize Ji Sook makes no sense - she knew Min Woo "loved" Ji Sook and that Ji Sook was just trying to protect Min Woo so her malicious interference is contradictory. That was messy and just another "twist" planted with no real purpose. And then they killed off Mi Yeon, which I did NOT see coming. 0.o

And how could Min Woo's father, President Choi, and step-mother be so completely oblivious to what was going on the whole time?! They all lived in the same home and President Choi had to have many resources at his disposal as president of a huge conglomerate, there's just no way he's that dumb. That was just another plot convenience that got on my nerves by the very end.

Overall, I had high hopes for this drama, having over an 8 rating on MDL and such promising reviews and trailers. People seemed to really eat up this drama. But I don't see it. I wanted to enjoy it, but for me to overall enjoy it, the second half of the drama desperately needed to pack a bigger punch. Ji Sook needed to get smarter, amass more power of her own, and take down Seok Hoon (slowly would have been fine if it meant that we got to satisfyingly see his world crumble slowly). Ji Sook's lack of concrete character development as well as poor writing of the romance between Ji Sook and Min Woo are what ultimately bring this drama down. Even Seok Hoon, the villain, was not well flushed out - his desire for vengeance was rather superficial (all over the fact that President Choi smiled at his mother's funeral...really? That's it?).

So anyways, no, I would not recommend this melodrama - the ending, while having a "happy" epilogue in the very end for the 2 MC's, the journey to get there lacked the oomph to make it worth the emotional investment.