Spooky Romance Hits New Record as Yang Se-jong Shocks Fans

tvN's supernatural romance drama Spooky Romance delivered its most powerful episode yet on Sunday, July 27, sending ratings soaring to a series-best 5.8 percent nationwide average — and peaking at 6.5 percent — after a jaw-dropping finale left viewers desperate over hero prosecutor Ma Kang-wook's uncertain fate.

Episode 4 wrapped with one of the season's most talked-about moments: Yang Se-jong's Kang-wook, who had spent 30 days overcoming his fear of ghosts to protect Cheon Yeo-ri (Park Eun-bin), got struck by a speeding car while rushing to save her from a kidnapper. As Yeo-ri broke down in tears, a figure with Kang-wook's face appeared beside her — leaving viewers desperate to know whether the man they had spent four episodes rooting for was alive or a ghost.

A Love Built One Phone Call at a Time

The episode's emotional backbone began with a quieter thread. After their accidental skin contact in Episode 3 — a fleeting touch that transferred Yeo-ri's curse to Kang-wook — the prosecutor found himself suddenly able to see, and be terrorized by, the same ghosts that have haunted Yeo-ri her entire life.

Yeo-ri laid out the rules simply: stop all physical contact, and after roughly a month, the ability to see ghosts would disappear. She delivered the news with undisguised guilt, apologizing for dragging a complete stranger into her world. Kang-wook, in turn, apologized for every moment he had misjudged her — a heartfelt exchange that began slowly dismantling the walls between them.

But living with ghosts proved far harder than the theory. Kang-wook tried everything — religious rituals, binge-watching horror films, deep breathing — but none of it dampened the terror of nightly supernatural visits. Eventually, he went back to Yeo-ri, not for a cure but for guidance. She answered every call, walking him through the hard-earned coping strategies she had developed over years of living alone with the dead.

Day by day, the prosecutor who had once flinched at ghost stories became steadier, more observant, less afraid. The drama depicted his transformation not as some heroic awakening but as a deeply human adaptation — built on patience, late-night calls, and growing trust in someone who truly understood. For viewers, those 30 days, compressed into a single montage, carried the full emotional weight of what might have been a slow-burn romance stretched across an entire season.

The Sacrifice That Broke the Internet

With Kang-wook finally free of ghosts and quietly grateful, he made one last emotional appeal: he reached out his hand and asked to see Yeo-ri again. She refused. Having already cost him one month of terror, she could not risk pulling him back into danger. Her parting words — "Even if we meet by chance, pretend you don't know me" — landed like a gut punch, and the scene immediately began circulating on Korean social media as one of the most bittersweet moments of the year.

Then came the gut punch. Villain Park Seung-jae (Kim Do-wan) kidnapped Yeo-ri, dragging her into his car and speeding away. Kang-wook didn't hesitate. He ran into the road, threw himself in the car's path, and paid the price. The screen cut to darkness — and then to a weeping Yeo-ri holding a figure who wore Kang-wook's face, but left audiences questioning whether they were embracing a man or a spirit.

The ambiguity was perfectly calibrated. The show's production team, led by director Lee Min-soo and writer Choi Jeong-mi, have consistently demonstrated a willingness to play with genre expectations, mixing K-drama romantic convention with genuine supernatural tension. Episode 4's final image — Park Eun-bin's Yeo-ri sobbing in the arms of someone who may or may not still be alive — encapsulates exactly that balance.

Record Numbers Across All Metrics

According to Nielsen Korea, Spooky Romance Episode 4 recorded a nationwide paid-platform average viewership of 5.8 percent, peaking at 6.5 percent — both series bests, surpassing the previous record of 5.3 percent set in Episode 2. Metropolitan-area ratings matched the achievement, averaging 5.7 percent and peaking at 6.3 percent.

More significantly, the drama ranked first across all broadcast channels — including terrestrial networks — in the 2049 demographic, tvN's core target audience, for both nationwide and metropolitan figures. For a cable drama to top terrestrial networks in prime time with this demographic represents a genuine achievement and a vote of confidence in Park Eun-bin and Yang Se-jong's on-screen chemistry.

The upward ratings trajectory across four consecutive episodes suggests the show is still building its audience rather than peaking. With a major cliffhanger now in place and secondary storyline threads — including Ong Seong-wu's CL Group heir Kang Min-hwan, who has developed an interest in Yeo-ri — just warming up, the drama appears to have significant headroom to grow.

Fan Reaction: A Weekend Drama Dominates the Conversation

By Sunday evening, reactions to Episode 4's ending flooded Korean online communities, from fan cafés to X (formerly Twitter). The phrase meaning "Is Ma Kang-wook a ghost?" trended within hours of broadcast. Fans who had spent weeks shipping Yeo-ri and Kang-wook reacted to the cliffhanger with a mix of panic, heartbreak, and dark humor.

Many viewers highlighted Yang Se-jong's physical performance in the rescue sequence — the urgency, the split-second decision, the moment of impact — as proof of his considerable range. He has built a reputation as a dependable leading man in Korean drama, but Spooky Romance appears to be expanding his audience. Park Eun-bin, meanwhile, is working double duty: her Yeo-ri spends as much time managing the logic of ghost etiquette as she does navigating a slow-developing romance, and she handles both with the precision fans have come to expect following her career-defining turn in Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

Volvo, which is providing vehicle placements for the drama — Park Eun-bin's character drives an S90, while Yang Se-jong's drives an XC60 — confirmed expanded marketing efforts following the ratings surge, with both models positioned to benefit from the drama's momentum.

Spooky Romance Episode 5 airs Saturday, August 1, at 9:10 p.m. KST on tvN.