Little Women · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 3 September 2022
S1E1 Episode 1
THE MOMENT Oh In-joo discovering the money - the exact instant the thriller mechanics engage and the tone shifts from domestic drama.
The premiere earns its 8.2 IMDb rating by grounding the fantasy-scale stakes in granular class detail: the sisters’ poverty is specific and unglamorous, and the discovery that changes their lives arrives not through luck but through a combination of coincidence and action. The episode’s economy keeps the story moving, delivering a lot of world-building without it feeling like exposition.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
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Little Women Season 1 Episode 1 aired September 3, 2022 on tvN as the premiere of Kim Hee-won and Jeong Seo-kyung’s 12-episode thriller - the director-writer team behind The World of the Married. The series earned a perfect 100-percent Rotten Tomatoes score from 6 critics averaging 8.5 out of 10, ranked first in its timeslot every week of its broadcast run, and received the APAN Drama of the Year award for 2023. The premiere earns its 8.2 IMDb episode rating by grounding the fantasy-scale stakes - 70 billion won, Korea’s wealthiest family, a conspiracy spanning decades - in granular class detail from the first scene: the three sisters’ poverty is specific and unglamorous, their different responses to it established in parallel as character rather than backstory. Oh In-joo’s discovery of the money arrives through a combination of accident and action rather than pure luck, which is the episode’s most important choice: the thriller mechanics engage without removing the sisters’ agency. Entertainment Weekly’s inclusion of the series among the top 21 Korean shows on Netflix in 2025 reflects a reputation that has grown beyond its original broadcast context.