The truth, as they say, hurts. And there are lots of painful truths spilling out left and right this week. But what actually is truth? As our human lie detector is slowly learning, lies aren’t always as they appear on the surface — and sometimes the reason behind a lie is more important than the lie itself.
EPISODES 7-8
Sol-hee comes clean about her lie-detecting ability, fully expecting the knowledge to drive Do-ha away. (And no wonder she thinks that, because her mom drilled into her from childhood that no one will like her if they know.) In the moment, Do-ha doesn’t have a response. But as he recalls their previous encounters, the pieces fall into place — that’s how she always knew to defend him from false accusations.
To Sol-hee’s surprise, Do-ha shows up at the tarot café first thing in the morning to help clean up the mess her mother made. When she tentatively reminds him about her secret, he just shrugs: “So what?” He adds later that he wouldn’t believe such a claim from anyone else, but because it’s Sol-hee, it makes sense.
Things take an awkward turn when Do-ha and Sol-hee end up at a restaurant seated right next to Kang-min and his cop partner. It doesn’t take long for Kang-min to deduce the two aren’t actually dating (yet), since Do-ha has unknowingly ordered a dish she can’t eat. Once Kang-min leaves and Sol-hee explains the situation, Do-ha makes a point of memorizing her food sensitivities right then and there so it won’t happen again.
There’s a cute little running joke throughout this episode where Do-ha freely tells people he’s Kim Do-ha, and then smiles in satisfaction when they assume he’s joking. It starts with Sol-hee’s bodyguard, BAEK CHI-HOON (Ha Jong-woo), who thinks Do-ha is a fellow Sha-on fan, and extends to the local shopkeepers, one of whom has just named Do-ha as his favorite composer.
His and Sol-hee’s growing friendship with said shopkeepers leads Do-ha to defend baker SO BO-RO (Jo Jin-se) when the latter is accused of selling bug-infested bread. Do-ha doesn’t need Sol-hee’s lie detection to know Baker So is innocent. So when a rude customer starts flinging insults, Do-ha buys out the entire stock of bread. Only once Do-ha is alone does he stop to wonder how in the world he’s going to eat it all.
Together, Do-ha and Sol-hee trace the accusations to a local realtor, who’s scheming to buy the bakery for a low price to give to his son (the same rude customer from before). Baker So’s confidence is restored, as is his business, and he gets his revenge for the psychological distress by dousing the entire realtor office in flour.
Unfortunately, I spoke too soon last week when I said Sha-on came to terms with Do-ha’s rejection. She’s still roaming the neighborhood looking for him, and when Chi-hoon takes her to the tarot café to shield her from fans, she takes advantage of the opportunity to try and scare Sol-hee off. Unabashedly admitting she intentionally used Do-ha’s trauma against him (I have no words), she tells Sol-hee straight up that he killed someone.
Sol-hee tries not to jump to conclusions before hearing it from Do-ha himself, framing the accusation as “a weird rumor I heard.” In response, Do-ha says he was indeed a murder suspect — but that he didn’t do it. Sol-hee’s relieved smile fades as her lie alarm rings. Still, she gives him another chance the next day, hoping she heard wrong. Again, he says, “I didn’t kill her.” Again, the bell rings.
Late that night, she calls him, drunk. The shrimp doesn’t taste as good when he’s not there to peel it, she sighs. Despite the rift between them, he still comes to drive her home. He can tell she’s sticking to “safe” conversation to avoid hearing him lie again, and when she tries to deny she’s scared of him, he astutely observes that she can’t hear her own lies.
Do-ha returns to his Seoul apartment and confronts Sha-on again, making it clear he’s 1) angry and hurt, and 2) not interested in her — so she’d better leave Sol-hee alone. Deuk-chan, more worried than ever, finally tells Do-ha that the missing girl’s brother, CHOI EOM-HO (Kwon Dong-ho), has found them. He hadn’t wanted to ruin Do-ha’s peaceful new life with the threat of danger. Both conversations give Do-ha a crucial but heartbreaking revelation: Sha-on and Deuk-chan are protecting him, but they also secretly think he’s guilty.
Speaking of secrets, while on a job at the cancer center, Sol-hee runs into Kang-min. Finally, the truth comes out: He had stomach cancer (his treatment was successful), and didn’t want to burden her with his suffering. Now Sol-hee understands that his lies were well-intentioned, if misguided, and Kang-min realizes that she feels worse not having known about his illness than if he’d told her.
He wants to try again, but all Sol-hee can think of is Do-ha. Kang-min is sweet and understanding about it, saying that he’ll be here if they don’t work out. (It kind of sounds like he’s saying when they don’t work out, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.)
Kang-min’s observation that Sol-hee can’t hear the reasons behind people’s lies is the push she needs to seek Do-ha out. Fortunately, she calls Do-ha for the unit number, because Eom-ho is disguised as a security guard. Recognizing Eom-ho’s voice over the phone, Do-ha runs outside. Sol-hee finds him before Eom-ho does, and they end up hiding behind a wall, holding onto each other for dear life. Once Eom-ho leaves, Do-ha offers to tell Sol-hee his whole story, but she says there’s no need — she believes him.
The more I see of Deuk-chan, the more I’m convinced he has good intentions but has made some questionable (at best) decisions that will come back to bite him. He seems to have built J Entertainment from the ground up, considering his inner circle still get tripped up about using formal speech in work contexts. And his conversation with Do-ha’s mother (who wants to send Do-ha to Germany ASAP for the sake of her own political advancement) makes me wonder if she had a hand in helping both him and Do-ha start over after the ex-girlfriend incident.
I can understand why he’s terrified of Do-ha’s past coming to light, both because of what could happen to Do-ha and because it could cost him everything he’s worked for. I just hope that, if it comes down to it, he’ll choose Do-ha over the company’s image.
As for Do-ha, I find the complexity of his “lie” fascinating. Another glimpse of that night on the beach shows us that his response to his ex’s threat of suicide was to tell her to go ahead. Which, yes, is a horrible thing to say. But so is manipulating someone with that sort of threat in the first place. And it doesn’t make him guilty of murder.
Deep down, I think Do-ha knows it wasn’t his fault. That’s why he’s so disappointed when people he trusts don’t believe him, and why he keeps saying he didn’t kill her, even after learning Sol-hee’s secret. But he’s also convinced himself that he’s responsible for her death, which is why his words ring false. And that’s what makes Sol-hee’s declaration at the end so important: she’s choosing to believe in the person, not the words — in the essence of his character, not just the things he believes about himself.