What does it really mean to trust someone? And what might drive a person to betray the trust of someone they care about? My Lovely Liar chooses an *interesting* way to explore these questions, for sure, but I recommend bracing yourself, because I can’t help thinking there had to be a better way.
EPISODES 13-14
Eom-ji’s father gleefully tells Do-ha that he didn’t kill his daughter — but he sure hoped someone would, so he could collect insurance. His claim registers as truth, as does his tip that Jae-chan used to follow Eom-ji around like a stalker. Jae-chan takes off. When Do-ha finally catches him, he deadpans, “Okay fine — I killed her.” And then LAUGHS. Sol-hee arrives a step too late to catch whether he’s lying, and he threatens her with a knife so he can escape. (Sol-hee assures Do-ha that Jae-chan isn’t serious about hurting her, but Do-ha isn’t taking any chances.)
Do-ha wants to believe Deuk-chan couldn’t have known what Jae-chan did, so he insists on confronting his friend without Sol-hee listening in. Deuk-chan is visibly upset by the news, though he seems most upset about the thought of losing Do-ha’s trust after all he and Jae-chan have done for him.
“Trust” is the name of the game this week. According to Sol-hee’s dad, trust needs to be 100% or it’s useless, but Sol-hee confesses to Do-ha that she’s never trusted anyone completely, because she was constantly being hurt by one lie or another. This comes after he helps her scour her entire apartment to find her escaped pet turtle (A.K.A. her only confidant), and he promises to be her first fully trustworthy person.
Meanwhile, Kang-min’s investigation continues. Following Eom-ho’s notes, he learns that a witness saw someone wearing Do-ha’s jersey return to Eom-ji after Do-ha left her on the beach. Then Jin-hyuk caves, confesses, and turns over the ring he found with Eom-ji’s corpse. It can’t legally be used as evidence now, but it gives Kang-min another thread to pull. And pull he does until he discovers it’s a copy — someone had a third ring made to match Do-ha and Eom-ji’s couple rings.
Kang-min goes straight to Do-ha and Sol-hee with his findings. After a quick lie-detector test on Do-ha, he levels with them: to convict Jae-chan, they need more evidence. The trouble is, Jae-chan has been caught by Sol-hee’s gang boss friend… but his minions were bribed into letting Jae-chan go. By none other than Deuk-chan.
Do-ha and Sol-hee call Deuk-chan, trying not to jump to conclusions. He claims he’s home alone, but it doesn’t take Sol-hee’s powers to figure out he’s lying. Jae-chan is hiding out at his place. Desperate for the truth, Do-ha hires Sol-hee to set up one of her lie-detection stings at the jazz bar.
At first, Deuk-chan continues to lie that he has no idea where Jae-chan is. But when Do-ha gets emotional, Deuk-chan decides enough time has passed for him to safely tell the truth. Jae-chan is turning himself in for Eom-ji’s murder as they speak. Seeing the betrayal on Do-ha’s face, Deuk-chan adds, truthfully, that Jae-chan once asked who he’d save if Do-ha and Jae-chan were both drowning — and that he’d choose Do-ha, without fail, every time. But Jae-chan is still his brother.
Since Jin-hyuk has exposed his own crime of accepting bribes, the murder case is turned over to Kang-min’s unit. Do-ha’s mother watches her political career go down the drain, unable to grasp why she’s being punished for fabricating evidence when her son was innocent all along. She has the gall to accuse Do-ha of confusing her with his testimony, but he throws it right back: she should have trusted him from the start.
Sol-hee and her friends throw Do-ha a surprise party, prompting him to cry tears of joy and launch into a heartfelt thank you speech that ends with a kiss for Sol-hee. But Do-ha can’t shake a sense of incompleteness. And he’s not the only one: the more Kang-min questions Jae-chan, the more robotic his answers sound. Plus, they just don’t add up.
So Kang-min asks Sol-hee for a favor. He gets her in to speak to Jae-chan, and she pretends to be in on his and Deuk-chan’s plan to try and get answers out of him. It takes some prodding, but eventually he cracks: Deuk-chan was behind it all, and promised that if Jae-chan confessed in his place, he’d soon be released for lack of evidence.
As for Deuk-chan himself, he’s been working on overdrive trying to save J Entertainment. Aiming for extra PR points, he convinces both Sha-on and Do-ha to join him for a ceremony where he announces the company’s vision for the future: he’s stepping down and appointing Do-ha as CEO instead. Do-ha politely declines.
Sol-hee, meanwhile, searches Deuk-chan’s office for evidence. There, she finds a photo of him staring happily at Do-ha… and everything clicks. Deuk-chan is in love with Do-ha. The extra ring is his. When Sol-hee confronts Deuk-chan, he breaks down. He’d planned to turn himself in long ago, but kept delaying it because of his feelings for Do-ha. He promises to do it now and begs her not to let Do-ha know, but it’s too late. Do-ha has overheard everything.
Deuk-chan is too overcome with emotions to get an explanation out. He flees, narrowly escaping arrest at the hands of Kang-min, and leads them on a high-speed car chase. Then he unbuckles his seat belt and deliberately crashes into a construction site. Kang-min drags him out and administers CPR, and then the car explodes, leaving an odd, ominous ringing in Sol-hee’s ears.
Well that… took a turn. Or several. I’d suspected Deuk-chan might have feelings for Do-ha and that he might be the killer. But I really could have done without the car chase/crash scene and all that it entailed. And without the implication that Deuk-chan (as the only confirmed LGBTQ+ character, no less) was a manipulative villain all along who let the person he supposedly loved carry his guilt and public condemnation for years because… he loved him and didn’t want him to know?
I’m trying to reserve final judgment until next week (because, as this show likes to point out, the truth is usually more complicated than it appears), but I’d have preferred a scenario where Eom-ji’s death was an accident and Deuk-chan, genuinely believing Do-ha did it, covered it up to protect him. It would even fit right in with the theme of trust and the fatal error Do-ha’s mom committed in assuming the worst of her son instead of listening to him.
I have to give props to Yoon Ji-on for that last confrontation scene with Sol-hee, though, because even as Deuk-chan was confirming my worst fears about the direction his character was heading, I still felt bad for him. Maybe he’s just that good of a manipulator, or maybe I’m just upset because Deuk-chan and Do-ha both deserved better than this, but this week left me with a profound sense of sadness — and not exactly for the reasons the show was aiming for, either. There were some great ingredients here, but I really wish they’d been combined differently.