Nineteen to Twenty Episodes 11-13 Review: Netflix’s newest Korean reality dating show, also known as 19 to 20 (열아홉 스물) and Yeolahob Seumul, is created by Kim Jae-won, Park Su-ji, and Kim Jung-hyun. The MCs of the show are Super Junior Kyuhyun aka Cho Kyu-hyun (Single’s Inferno), Kim Ji-eun (One Dollar Lawyer), AKMU’s Lee Suhyun, and Jeong Sewoon. The show initially included 8 participants, Moon Se-yeon, Lim Jung-yun, Jeong Seo-yeong, Choi Seo-hyeon, Oh Sang-won, No Hee-ji, Lee Ji-min and Choi Ye-rin, who were later joined by Jeong Ji-woo and Kim Pyeong-seok as well, making them a huge group of 10 young adults.
Exploring the switch from being a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, to finally attaining that milestone in one life’s, the latest Netflix show unravels a series of firsts experienced by the 10 participants on their journey together. Switching from School 19 to House 20 definitely has its perks, primarily freedom, but the same lifting of restrictions has also led to tensions being in the air.
Nineteen to Twenty Episodes 11-13 Review Contains Spoilers
Nineteen to Twenty Episodes 11-13 Recap
Nineteen to Twenty Episode 11
After the heart-wrenching mix-ups and complications, the new day helps settle down things for the young adults. Many pairs make up with each other, including Ye-rin and Ji-min, while Jung-yun firmly establishes not wanting to push Ji-woo to like him if she’s already made up her mind about Se-yeon. In the midst of all that angst, yet again, Pyeong-seok and Hee-ji stand their ground and head out on another self-planned date as the former shows off his cute and reliable driving skills.
Meanwhile, a love pentagon brews on the other side with Seo-hyeon, Seo-yeong, Jung-yun and Sang-won embarking on their friendly indoor climbing adventures. Tension builds up along the way as Seo-hyeon grows more conscious of her unrequited feelings for Jung-yun, while Sang-won acknowledges the growing distance between her and himself. And to remind you again, Seo-yeong had also previously expressed her feelings for Sang-won.
Flipping the page over, an accident follows and disrupts Hee-ji and Pyeong-seok’s date. Prior to what seemed like hell breaking loose to the latter, Pyeong-seok’s guard was up the whole time during this escapade as his inner conflict pushed him to question whether Hee-ji likes him or not.
Nineteen to Twenty Episode 12
Sang-won’s growing impatience pushes him to openly speak to Seo-hyeon. The same conversation also brings up the incident when Seo-yeong spoke about her feelings for him during their ‘Dream Date’. What he didn’t know at the time was that Seo-yeong had been in the inner dressing room all this time and had overheard everything he said about her to Seo-hyeon, a friend who relied on her guidance. Once the dramatic plot twist is revealed, the MCs’ reaction syncs well with how probably you would’ve reacted too in the situation.
It wasn’t a planned conspiracy against either of them, but the situation just brought about this scenario, leading Seo-young to feel hurt about how Sang-won had addressed her feelings and words, and in turn worded them badly to Seo-hyeon even though he had no ill intentions. Eventually, they talk it out and resolve the issue then and there, and as always Seo-yeong emerges as a mature contestant who can handle herself and her feelings in the moment.
New dream dates are announced, and this time everyone is contesting to get ahead and win the opportunity. Three pairs come forward – Ji-min and Hye-rin, Pyeong-seok and Hee-ji, and Ji-woo and Jung-yun. Eager to take the chance to either travel to Jeju or enjoy a night of glamping, the three pairs settle the issue with a match of rock, paper and scissors, resulting in Ji-min and Hye-rin taking the lead and choosing to go to Jeju, while Jung-yun and Ji-woo win their spot for glamping as the runner-ups.
On the other hand, Se-yeon confronts his feelings and struggles to accept that he’s basically been watching Ji-woo and Jung-yun come closer to each other while he looks in from the outside.
Also read: Heartbeat Episode 12 Recap and Review: Flowery Romance, Urge Control and Blood Dungeons!
Nineteen to Twenty Episode 13
It’s time to set the record straight. And things work out eventually, quite unexpectedly for some, if you’ve been keeping up with this series since the beginning. One of the unlikeliest pairs end up becoming our first official couple as Ji-min musters up the courage to ask out Hye-rin while awaiting the sunrise, standing beside the bounty waves of water.
Then comes the second expected couple everyone has been rooting for since time immemorial. MCs equally and hilariously voice out their thoughts that match with ours when Hee-ji beats Pyeong-seok at his own game and asks him out instead. And finally, the long time coming couple many of us have been pushing for also make it to the finish line despite the endless complications pit on their way there.
Ji-woo and Jung-yun hold hands as the third and final couple of the lot. Other than these romantic resolutions, some also finally get closure. Seo-hyeon speaks her heart out to Sang-won and confirms that she’s been feeling pressured to respond to his confessions and that she’s actually been feeling something else all this while. She confesses her true unrequited feelings to Jung-yun as well, and both of them handle the situation with an open mind, and as friends.
Nineteen to Twenty Episodes Finale Review
By the end of the season, it’s evident that certain couples are headed straight for the endline, and Hee-ji and Pyeong-seok are especially at the top of that list. The last three episodes specifically present emotional parallels between their old moments at the school together and their newfound bond in House 20. With such visuals, the creators seem to be paving the way for the final couple reveals.
While there’s something heartwarming about falling in love, there’s also a heartbreaking narrative attached to unrequited feelings. What I’ve really liked and respected about this series is that it in no way tries to infantilise the transition of these former teenagers into young adults; it gives them the space to speak for themselves, even though it’s primarily caught up in the threads of the overall dating show format.
At the same time, these feelings of young love don’t let anything go overboard, rather their portrayal is kept mellow and soft as opposed to how many adult dating shows available on the same OTT platform present them as.
When the contestants cry out of anguish, a sense of relatability tags along with those expressions. Although everything is still being televised like any other reality TV series, the amount of gossip and heat associated with other such shows is absent from this one. Ironically, those shows posit their main characters as adults who are probably not the best example of grown-ups to look up to.
Yet somehow 19 to 20 addresses how these particular ten contestants feel distant from the idea of being adults (even if briefly) through the conversation these participants share with each other since it’s only been a few days of them having bid farewell to their teenage years. Some of them have especially come out of this with a more mature outlook than others. Even overall, the group collectively seems to be a rather patient bunch as they’re always seen discussing their issues with each other and don’t hold on to presumptions or grudges for longer than is needed.
Simultaneously, the same slowed-down and calm pace can also be tiring and monotonous for some viewers, but like Jeong Se-woon said it best, the same process allows the audience to feel included in the narrative as if we’re one of them, which can’t be said for many other reality TV series following this format. While the show could’ve focussed more on the “coming-of-age” part of their lives, it particularly centred most of its conversations around how they attained maturity through the romantic context.
Unfortunately, the show gets carried away by this same idea till the end, and, ties up the concept of “self discovery” essentially with romantic feelings. While that’s evidently a part of most of our lives, there’s also more to that story of transitioning from teenage to adulthood than what is contained in thoughts of infatuation or such attachments, which are especially being enforced under an overt concept that pressures them to pair up with someone as they near in on the finish line.
None of the pairs openly speak about how things are going to work out once they move out of the House 20. It’s only in Hee-ji and Pyeong-seok’s talks that we find an inkling of that vulnerability and anxiety about the future of having to make a long distance relationship work, but even that’s quickly hushed down due to their innocent fears at the time.
I feel that if the show had included some interesting quests or missions along the way for them to find out their strengths on their own, the pacing issue would’ve also been balanced out well and not restricted their respective arcs to the question of who they were going to end up with. Alas, the marshmallow-like soft first season of young love is over, and despite its many setbacks, it still offers one of the more heartwarming premises than any other unnecessarily hyper-sexualised media out there.
All 13 episodes of Nineteen to Twenty are now streaming on Netflix.
Also read: All Our Reviews of 19 to 20 Episodes So Far