4 Moments Where Hwang Minhyun’s Naivete Proved Dangerous In Episodes 11-12 Of “My Lovely Liar”

The moment we’ve been waiting for is here. Kim Do Ha’s (Hwang Minhyun) past has quite literally been unearthed, and things are about to get quite ugly in his life. Yet, for someone who lived behind a mask for the past five years, Do Ha has more than thrown off his yoke. He’s heading towards the opposite extreme. Keeping things locked inside him for five years has only made the truth fester as it waited, and he’s ready to scream it from the rooftops. But Do Ha’s naivete isn’t always a good thing. And this week, it bites him in the behind as he learns that not everyone is as forthright as he is prepared to be.

Warning: spoilers for episodes 11-12 below.

1. When he tried to tell everyone about his past

The rather unfortunate thing about “My Lovely Liar” is that it’s turned into the Kim Do Ha show. Given that Mok Sol Hee (Kim So Hyun) is the one with the interesting power, you’d think that she’d get more focus. However, Do Ha’s character has been given the mysterious past, traumatic backstory, and current ongoing conflict. Conversely, Sol Hee’s role the past few episodes has been more about supporting him than advancing her growth. It’s a real shame that Kim So Hyun doesn’t have as much to work with here as she did in “River Where the Moon Rises.” But I digress. This week’s focus remains on the consequences of Do Ha having come into himself at long last. The Do Ha underneath that mask is a pretty, kindhearted guy, who, as it turns out, has a penchant for being too kind.

His act of kindness in last week’s episode (accompanying an aspiring songwriter on the piano) resulted in said songwriter figuring out that he was Do Ha and announcing it to Do Ha’s new group of acquaintances. Luckily they’re pretty decent people and won’t blab to the press, but Do Ha takes things a step further and actually tries to tell them about how he was a murder suspect. Sol Hee looks terrified for him and lets out a sigh of relief when they’re interrupted. She ruefully tells him afterwards that she must have spoiled things by taking the truth of his past too well. She warns him that not everyone will feel the same way. After all, wasn’t that what Do Ha was afraid of in the first place? Do Ha’s eager to get this final weight off his shoulders, convinced that Choi Eom Ji (Song Ji Hyun) took her life and that he blamed himself for years for no reason. Only, Eom Ji’s body has just been found miles away in the mountains with blunt force trauma on the back of her head. She was killed, and Do Ha’s no longer a prior murder suspect. He’s a current one.

2. When his past forgiveness of Eom Ho comes back to haunt him

We haven’t seen the last of Choi Eom Ho (Kwon Dong Ho), and he’s about to sink even deeper into madness. Upon hearing that his sister’s corpse has been found, he spends a few minutes grieving her and grabs a knife. He doesn’t even think. He gets Do Ha’s address from a reporter who doesn’t seem to care if Do Ha dies so long as he gets a headline. He camps outside Do Ha’s place and smashes the hallway lights, so no one can see him. He stabs the first person to go near Do Ha’s door. Only, it’s not Do Ha. It’s the aspiring songwriter’s brother, a boyband member from the same agency as Sha On (Lee Si Woo), who desperately needs a hit song or faces the end of his career.

Eom Ho’s staggered that he just stabbed an innocent person, but forgets to care when he spots Do Ha and tries to stab the right one this time. Sol Hee calls the police and her ex, Lee Gang Min (Seo Ji Hoon), shows up to cart Eom Ho away. Gang Min still doesn’t trust Do Ha (who can blame him, given that he can’t hear lies), and he harshly points out that Do Ha’s foolishness in letting Eom Ho go nearly caused a tragedy here. The boyband member wasn’t hit anywhere fatal, but that was due to poor luck. Sol Hee could have been injured or killed if Eom Ho caught sight of her. Everyone around Do Ha is in danger because he keeps acting like everyone is as kind as he is.

3. When he was completely honest with the police and the press

Gang Min’s words end up proving true. The reporters have gotten wind of everything, and the next thing we know, Do Ha’s been excoriated in the news as a murder suspect who got someone innocent stabbed. Add the fact that the body’s been found with blunt force head trauma, and his name is mud. Do Ha faces the press head-on and admits that he was a murder suspect. He says that he’ll clear his name and asks for the public’s patience to wait for the truth to be revealed. But the public aren’t so keen on waiting. Do Ha’s mother faces the loss of her position as a provincial candidate and has to fight to get the chance to show her superiors that Do Ha’s charges aren’t true. But she doesn’t seem to believe in her son’s innocence because the first thing she does is to threaten the lead cop (the same cop she’s been paying off for five years) to ensure that Do Ha isn’t the culprit. After all, she’s been paying for the cop’s daughter’s treatment. Yikes.

Do Ha is summoned by said lead investigator and also faces this head-on, with no trauma whatsoever (that was fast but great news!). But he takes back his story from five years ago including his alibi, and he gives the cops the truth: he had no alibi and just wandered about by himself after breaking up with Eom Ji. He’s so happy to be telling the truth, but he just negated his alibi! That’s the third time he’s changed his story (after saying that he killed Eom Ji the first time). To Gang Min and any rational person, it just looks suspicious as heck. Oh, Do Ha.

4. When Jae Chan abused his trust after all his help

And things aren’t going well with the providers of said alibi. Jo Deuk Chan (Yun Ji On) was already planning on not working with Do Ha after he asked for space. But after news broke on Do Ha being a murder suspect, his company is suing Do Ha against Deuk Chan’s wishes. And his wife chooses right then to divorce him. And his brother, Jo Jae Chan (Nam Hyeon Woo), is back, begging for more money to fund his gambling habit and pay his debts. It’s not a good time to be him. He’s trying to get in contact with Do Ha, but Do Ha’s off in Hakcheon. Why? To find Eom Ji’s killer himself. And he’s been super conspicuous while doing so. The entire town recognizes him, for goodness sake. Do Ha learns that Eom Ji’s father had taken out a life insurance policy on her and kept showing up at the bank for years, demanding that they cash him out. As Eom Ji’s death was closed as a suicide, the bank wouldn’t pay up. But when her body was found, they had to. And Eom Ji’s father was a happy man that night. Yuck. 

Do Ha learns that he frequents a gambling den. The owner is one of Sol Hee’s former clients. She’s able to get in with Do Ha and finds none other than Jae Chan trying to lose even more money than he already has. It’s the same Jae Chan that Do Ha has been paying for years, and the same one who told Do Ha about Eom Ji’s father being suspicious in the first place. A lightbulb finally goes off in Do Ha’s head, and he asks whether Jae Chan ever had any interest in Ji Yoon. He denies it, and Sol Hee registers it as the truth. The episode ends with Do Ha demanding the truth from Eom Ji’s father on whether he killed her. But it seems unlikely.

Next week’s preview shows Do Ha finally starting to grow wary of Deuk Chan and enlisting Sol Hee’s help to determine whether his oldest friend could be lying to him. Deuk Chan certainly could be the culprit. He wasn’t genuine when congratulating Do Ha on dating Sol Hee for one. But Jae Chan is looking equally suspicious. Gang Min pointed out to Sol Hee that her ability may not work where the person has no recollection of a crime like if they’re drunk or on drugs. They won’t be lying because they don’t remember the truth. Given that the preview shows Jae Chan taking Sol Hee hostage with a knife to her neck, he’s looking pretty capable of murder. Which one of the brothers could it be? We’ll know on Monday!

 

cr: Soompi