The fantasy romance K-drama No Tail to Tell opens with an unusual heroine. Instead of a warm-hearted mystical being longing to live among humans, we meet a nine-tailed fox who has already grown tired of them. Across its first two episodes, the drama sets up a story about fate, ambition, and the dangerous consequences of manipulating destiny.
With a mix of historical tragedy, modern ambition, and supernatural interference, Episodes 1 and 2 introduce a complicated love triangle, and a fox who may have finally met her match.
A Fox Who Lost Faith in Humanity
The story begins in the Joseon era.
Eun-ho, like other nine-tailed foxes, hopes to accumulate virtue through good deeds so she can one day become human. Her closest friend successfully achieves that dream and prepares to marry the man she loves. But on her friend’s wedding day, Eun-ho sees a vision of her future. Instead of happiness, she foresees a lifetime of suffering and hardship.
That moment changes everything.
If becoming human means enduring endless pain, what is the point? Eun-ho begins to see human lives as fragile and full of misery. She abandons her dream of humanity and decides instead to live for her own amusement.
The drama then jumps to the present day, where we see just how far she has fallen. A man lies tied up and bleeding in front of her, yet she barely reacts. The fox who once wanted to cultivate virtue has become emotionally detached and morally indifferent.
Nine Years Ago: Two Boys and a Shifting Future
The main storyline rewinds to nine years earlier.
Hyeon Woo-seok is a talented and wealthy high school football player on the verge of being scouted for the youth national team. Everything about his future looks bright and secure.
Then there is Kang Si-yeol.
Si-yeol is equally skilled but comes from poverty. He lives with his sick grandmother and secretly works part-time delivery jobs to survive, pretending he has a scholarship. While Woo-seok receives support and privilege, Si-yeol survives on grit and quiet determination.
Tension rises when Si-yeol begins to outshine Woo-seok. Because Woo-seok’s family financially supports the school, the coach punishes Si-yeol to protect Woo-seok’s opportunities. Despite the injustice, Si-yeol refuses to accept charity, even when Woo-seok tries to buy him new shoes.
Their relationship is complicated, part rivalry, part friendship, and part wounded pride.
Eun-ho’s Business: Selling Wishes at a Price
Meanwhile, Eun-ho has found a new way to entertain herself: granting wishes to the wealthy.
She charges outrageous fees and carefully avoids extremes. She refuses to do truly good deeds (which might turn her human) and avoids catastrophic evil (which could strip her powers). She walks a precise line, manipulating outcomes without fully committing to either side.
Her newest client is CEO Lee Yoon, a corrupt construction executive. He is violent, entitled, and ruthless, firing employees on impulse and bribing officials to secure redevelopment projects.
Eun-ho rigs a vote in his favor, accepting his money while maintaining emotional distance. To her, humans are toys. She manipulates them to pass the time.
During a shopping trip, she even boasts about being the last of her kind. She has spent centuries influencing human lives simply because she was bored. But when someone points out that she has never truly accomplished anything meaningful, she is visibly offended.
For someone who claims not to care about humanity, Eun-ho is surprisingly sensitive about her own worth.
A Collision of Fate
Eun-ho’s path crosses with Si-yeol when he accidentally bumps into her. Even after being knocked down by her supernatural strength, he worries more about her than himself. She remains cold and arrogant, but something about him lingers.
When she glimpses his future, she sees wealth and fame. At first, she assumes it belongs to Woo-seok. The future she sees, she insists, is inevitable and unchangeable.
But everything shifts in a single moment.
CEO Lee Yoon, drunk and reckless, hits Woo-seok with his car and drives away. Si-yeol tries to expose the truth, refusing to accept a false confession from Lee’s driver. Furious, Lee turns to Eun-ho and pays double her fee to erase Si-yeol’s memory of the accident.
When Eun-ho attempts to manipulate Si-yeol’s memory, she sees something impossible.
The future has changed.
The fame she once saw attached to Woo-seok now belongs to Si-yeol. Fate has switched. The “unchangeable” future has shifted because of her interference.
For the first time, Eun-ho loses control.
Her powers falter, and in a moment of weakness, her tails are revealed.
The Consequences of Interference
Episode 2 opens with Eun-ho realizing her abilities have weakened.
Lord Pagun, a supernatural authority figure, warns her that her latest actions have tipped the scale. Because of her manipulation, CEO Lee Yoon murdered his driver to silence him. By helping Lee avoid consequences, Eun-ho indirectly caused a human death.
This is the cost of playing with destiny.
Desperate to rebalance the scale and restore her powers, Eun-ho decides to perform a genuinely good deed. She convinces Si-yeol to wish for justice. Security footage resurfaces, exposing Lee’s crime. The driver’s body is discovered, and Lee is forced to confess.
Her powers partially return.
Before Si-yeol leaves to join the youth national team, now replacing the injured Woo-seok, Eun-ho gives him a suitcase, hinting that his future lies abroad. There is playful banter between them, and for the first time, Eun-ho shows signs of romantic embarrassment.
Years pass.
Success, Failure, and Resentment
In the present timeline, Si-yeol has become a global football star playing for a British team called Thames. He is disciplined, strict, and highly paid. His face dominates advertisements across South Korea.
But success has changed him.
He appears rigid, even arrogant. Teammates resent his intensity. Fame sits heavily on him.
Meanwhile, Woo-seok’s life has crumbled. Once the golden boy, he now struggles to make local teams and works part-time delivery jobs. The reversal of fortune is stark and painful.
Eun-ho, who stopped granting wishes for a while, finds herself running low on money. Seeing Si-yeol’s wealth, she assumes he will become her next client. However, when she approaches him, he does not remember her. He signs her shirt like she is just another fan and walks away.
Offended, she leaves her business card in the suitcase she once gave him.
When they finally speak again, she dramatically offers to grant his wishes. But Si-yeol refuses. He claims he already has everything he wants.
That confidence becomes the setup for the biggest twist yet.
Another Switch of Fate
After Si-yeol suggests that Eun-ho might help Woo-seok, something shocking happens.
The next morning, Woo-seok wakes up rich and famous.
Si-yeol wakes up as an ordinary, struggling player.
Their lives have switched once more.
Eun-ho calmly announces that she granted Woo-seok’s wish, but how she chooses to grant wishes is entirely up to her.
Fate, in this world, is not just fragile. It is negotiable.
And Eun-ho holds the contract.
Review: Strong Concept, Unsteady Execution
The first two episodes of No Tail to Tell introduce a fascinating premise. A morally ambiguous nine-tailed fox who manipulates fate for profit is a refreshing take on the typical fantasy romance heroine. Eun-ho is not immediately lovable. She is selfish, detached, and often cruel. Yet there are hints that her layers will slowly peel back.
The actress playing Eun-ho brings undeniable charm to the role. Even when the character behaves poorly, there is an underlying vulnerability that suggests growth is coming. Her internal conflict between power and humanity is the drama’s strongest foundation.
However, the storytelling feels uneven.
The timeline jumps are not always clear, and the multiple mini-conflicts dilute the main narrative tension. CEO Lee Yoon’s subplot takes up significant screen time but does not feel central enough to justify it. Similarly, Woo-seok’s character lacks emotional depth, making it harder to fully invest in his downfall.
Si-yeol’s characterization is also inconsistent. In the past, he is humble and principled. In the present, he appears strict and self-absorbed. While success can change a person, the transition feels abrupt rather than gradual.
The biggest issue lies in clarity. The drama relies on cliffhangers and teasers to explain motivations that should already be clear within the episode itself. Viewers should not need previews to understand major character decisions.
That said, the core dynamic between Eun-ho and Si-yeol holds promise. Their banter, her unexpected attraction, and the constant shifting of fate create an intriguing romantic tension. The idea that a fox who refuses to become human might fall in love with someone whose destiny she keeps rewriting is compelling.
At its heart, *No Tail to Tell* is about control, over fate, over ambition, and over one’s own heart. If the drama can streamline its storytelling and focus more tightly on its central relationships, it has the potential to evolve into something memorable.
For now, Episodes 1 and 2 offer a bold premise, strong performances, and messy but intriguing world-building. The question is whether the story can stabilize its own timeline before it loses viewers to the very chaos it created.
Next: No Tail to Tell Episodes 3-4
