The Scandal (2026): Full Cast, Plot & Premiere Details — Netflix's New Korean Drama

PREMIERE DOSSIER · PERIOD ROMANCE

The Scandal

A dangerous wager, a chaste widow, and Joseon's most notorious playboy — Netflix's take on Dangerous Liaisons arrives September 18.

By [Your Name] Netflix · All 8 episodes Premieres Sept 18, 2026

Some love triangles are about who ends up together. This one is about who ends up destroyed. The Scandal drops its full eight-episode season on Netflix on September 18, and it's arriving with one of the more loaded pedigrees of the year: a story that has already survived an 18th-century French novel, a beloved 2003 film, and now a Joseon-era television reinvention with three of Korean drama's most reliable leads at the center.

The setup is deceptively simple. Lady Cho (Son Ye-jin) is sharper and more capable than the world around her has any interest in acknowledging, boxed in by every rule a noblewoman of her era is expected to live by. Rather than accept the boundary, she turns it into a game — proposing a wager to her old confidant Cho Won (Ji Chang-wook), a man whose reputation as Joseon's most accomplished seducer isn't remotely exaggerated. The target of that wager is Hui-yeon (Nana), a young widow who has spent years guarding a vow of chastity that Cho Won is now tasked with breaking.

PREMIERES

Sept 18, 2026

EPISODES

8, all at once

PLATFORM

Netflix

BASED ON

Untold Scandal (2003)

The wager begins between two people who know each other far too well.

Who's Playing Whom

THE THREE AT THE CENTER OF THE GAME

Son Ye-jin as Lady Cho

A noblewoman whose talent and cunning far outpace the role she's allowed to play — and the architect of the whole wager.

Ji Chang-wook as Cho Won

Lady Cho's childhood confidant turned Joseon's most notorious playboy, pulled back into her orbit by a letter he can't ignore.

Nana as Hui-yeon

A young widow committed to a life of chastity — and the target neither of the other two expects to complicate things this much.

Director Jung Ji-woo has described all three leads as carrying a wide gap between the self others see and the self they hide — and that gap is where the whole story lives.

Why It's Worth the Watch

Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted more times than almost any other story about manipulation dressed up as romance, and every version lives or dies on the chemistry of its trio. This one is betting on a cast with nothing left to prove — Son Ye-jin returning to period melodrama for the first time in years, Ji Chang-wook leaning into a morally messier role than his usual leading-man territory, and Nana carrying the story's emotional center as the one person who didn't ask to be part of the game.

With all eight episodes dropping in a single day, this is built for a weekend binge rather than a weekly wait — which also means recap coverage can move fast once it's out. Once the season premieres, an episode-by-episode breakdown becomes possible with real scenes, real dialogue beats, and real screenshots instead of premiere-week speculation.

The wager's intended target — and the one whose feelings were never part of the plan.

← Made in Korea S2 recap Full episode recap — coming Sept 18 →