“Four Hands, Two Sonatas” Opens Strongly As “Flex x Cop 2” Hits New Season High

The weekend K-drama ratings race has gained a new contender. tvN’s “Four Hands, Two Sonatas” premiered on August 29 with a 3.4 percent nationwide rating, while SBS’s “Flex x Cop 2” returned from its midseason break with a new Season 2 record.

“Four Hands, Two Sonatas” immediately took first place in its time slot among all cable channels, giving the new drama a promising starting point.

The series stars Song Kang and Lee Jun Young as Kang Pio and Choi Jeong Yo, two musicians whose relationship begins with rivalry before developing into a complicated story of friendship, competition and personal growth.

The characters first meet as children while competing in a piano competition. Their lives subsequently move in very different directions. Kang Pio enters a prestigious arts high school and becomes an award-winning pianist, while Choi Jeong Yo abandons the piano and begins working to repay his father’s debts.

The drama follows their eventual reunion and the changes that occur as they move toward adulthood and professional careers.

Meanwhile, “Flex x Cop 2” returned for the second half of its run with a new all-time high of 7.9 percent. Ahn Bo Hyun’s action-comedy detective drama has continued the story of wealthy heir Jin Yi Soo, whose privileged background and unconventional methods make him an unusual police investigator.

MBC’s “A Bona Fide Killer” remained ahead of “Flex x Cop 2” in their shared time slot, recording 9.9 percent and becoming the most-watched miniseries of Saturday. KBS2’s “Love on the Menu” remained the overall Saturday ratings leader with 14.8 percent.

The interesting development came the following night, when “Four Hands, Two Sonatas” jumped dramatically to 5.9 percent for its second episode, while “Love on the Menu” reached a new high of 16.6 percent.

That early jump suggests the new piano drama may have considerable room to grow.

What fans can expect next: “Four Hands, Two Sonatas” airs every Saturday and Sunday at 9:10 p.m. KST, while the weekend ratings battle continues among the major broadcasters.