5 Bad Lies In Episodes 13-14 Of “My Lovely Liar” That Revealed The Killer’s Identity

We’ve hit the penultimate week with “My Lovely Liar,” and things wrap up faster than expected. Killers are unveiled, surprise traps are sprung, and Mok Sol Hee (Kim So Hyun) swoops in to the rescue as Kim Do Ha’s (Hwang Minhyun) life starts to unravel. An ally surfaces when they least expect it, but so does an enemy, one that’s been by Do Ha’s side all along.

Warning: spoilers for episodes 13-14 below.

1. Jae Chan’s lie that Eom Ji was dating him

We left off on Choi Eom Ji’s (Song Ji Hyun) scumbag of a father denying that he had anything to do with Eom Ji’s death, but not being upset that she was gone. After all, he got a fat stack of money from the insurance company because of it. Instead, he points out Jo Jae Chan (Nam Hyeon Woo), saying that he pretty much stalked Eom Ji every day, and if anything, Do Ha should be looking at him as a suspect. Sol Hee registers that as the truth, and Do Ha goes nuts. When he grabs a hold of Jae Chan, the man sneers that Eom Ji was two-timing Do Ha with him five years ago. Sol Hee confirms that as a lie before Do Ha can lose it even further. But Do Ha isn’t able to get anything else out of Jae Chan, who uses Sol Hee as a hostage in order to escape.

Haha, Sol Hee looks so bored here.

She tells Do Ha that Jae Chan’s lying about harming her, but Do Ha can’t bring himself to take the risk so he lets Jae Chan go. He’s convinced that Jae Chan could be the killer, but Sol Hee isn’t so certain. Do Ha resolves to talk to Jo Deuk Chan (Yun Ji On), Jae Chan’s brother, on his own, which Sol Hee is also against. But Do Ha insists that it’ll be okay. After all, Deuk Chan has provided him with an alibi, supported his songwriting career, and assisted him in hiding his face all these years. He’s certain that his childhood friend will help him. Sol Hee meets up with her father afterwards, and it turns out that she inherited her ability from him! She muses that she envies Do Ha’s ability to trust completely when her first instinct is not to trust. She hopes Deuk Chan won’t let Do Ha down. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.

2. Do Ha’s mother’s lie that she didn’t know about the condition of the cop’s daughter

In the middle of all this, Do Ha’s mother’s election campaign is going better than ever. She’s leaning hard into the role of a woman who is certain of her son’s innocence, and it’s taking her places. On the other hand, the Hakcheon cop she paid off is sweating in fear that people are going to find out just how sloppy his investigation was five years ago on Yeon Mi’s orders. He ignored witnesses, didn’t bother to follow up on leads, and even hid the ring that was found with Eom Ji’s body just a few days earlier. All this just so Yeon Mi will continue to fund his daughter’s treatment. But things go awry when his daughter requires emergency surgery. Being in a comatose state for so long has done nothing for her, and doctors aren’t hopeful. The cop is devastated, especially when Jung Yeon Mi (Seo Jung Yeon) summons him and unveils that she’s going to get him a promotion for all his hard work.

The cop refuses, knowing that he’ll have to move if he’s promoted, and Yeon Mi carelessly lets slip that it shouldn’t matter when his daughter is going to die anyway. Very bad idea. The cop realizes that Yeon Mi knew that his daughter was going to die from the start and used her as a bargaining tool to get him to exonerate Do Ha. He’s furious and says he’s done being a cop on her payroll. Not only does he publicly out himself as having been bought by Yeon Mi, but he had secretly recorded their conversation and posts it online. Yeon Mi’s political life, built up over so many years, shatters. But the cop also reveals the ring he found with Eom Ji’s body. The only issue is, he says it’s Do Ha’s. And any favorable gains Do Ha made with the public vanish right away.

3. The ring owner’s lie on the reason he needed another one

If Yeon Mi hadn’t revealed herself as a manipulative narcissist, that ring would never have become evidence. But now that it has, Lee Gang Min (Seo Ji Hoon) finally has a lead he can investigate. He’s still suspicious as heck of Do Ha, and that worsens when Do Ha admits to him that Jae Chan and Deuk Chan fabricated an alibi for him out of loyalty. But Do Ha’s shaken too. He just went to see Deuk Chan to ask him about his brother’s whereabouts and what he knows, and Deuk Chan actually got pissed. He guilt-tripped Do Ha, asking him how he could even suspect them after all they’d done for him. Do Ha leaves disheartened.

Gang Min looks into the ring buried with Eom Ji. Do Ha had repeatedly stressed that he threw his couple ring in the sea after he and Eom Ji broke up, so why was a ring here? Gang Min finds that the ring was made a week after the original couple rings were made. The man who commissioned it had pretended to be Do Ha and said that he lost the original ring and needed another one commissioned. Yet, he had strangely ordered a different ring size. To Gang Min’s credit, he smells that something isn’t right here and goes straight to Sol Hee. As they both realize that this ring must belong to the real killer, urgent news arrives. Jae Chan has just walked into the police station and admitted that he killed Eom Ji.

4. Jae Chan’s lie that he was the killer

On one hand, Do Ha is relieved because Jae Chan fits the bill. Sketchy, eternally in debt, arrogant, willing to hold a knife to a woman’s throat, and he had an unrequited crush on Eom Ji. It all fits. But Sol Hee and Gang Min aren’t so certain. Jae Chan is too nonchalant about this. He’s just announced himself as a murderer – that carries a heavy sentence, especially in a high-profile case like this. But Jae Chan looks like he couldn’t care less.

Plus, his testimony is inconsistent. In his written statement, he says that he burnt Eom Ji’s clothes afterwards. But during oral questioning, he says he flung them in the ocean. And he keeps saying that the ring isn’t admissible as evidence anyway due to the lack of DNA on it, so he’ll be out in no time. Gang Min is suspicious and calls Sol Hee in to question Jae Chan. She has a suspicion and lies that Deuk Chan sent her to let him know that the plan has gone awry. Jae Chan falls for it, confirming Sol Hee’s worst fears: Deuk Chan is involved in this. He says that he didn’t kill Eom Ji but Deuk Chan put him up to turning himself in, saying that he’ll be exonerated anyway. It’s only when Sol Hee points out just how clearly he has no chance of walking away from this that Jae Chan snaps. And he reveals that Deuk Chan, not him, was Eom Ji’s killer.

5. Deuk Chan’s lie before Sol Hee

It’s funny because none of this would have come about so quickly had Deuk Chan not lied before Sol Hee weeks ago. It was the fake congratulations he gave her and Do Ha upon learning that they were dating that made her tag him with a red flag. That flag has only grown bigger as she witnessed him lie to Do Ha. Do Ha even hired her to eavesdrop on his conversation with Deuk Chan when he asked for Jae Chan’s location. Deuk Chan lied each time, and a tearful Do Ha can’t believe that his only friend would do this to him. When Jae Chan turned himself in, Do Ha demanded to know if Deuk Chan had known his brother was a murderer from the start, and Deuk Chan had admitted that he did. Do Ha thinks he’s gotten closure here, but Sol Hee’s found that he has it all wrong.

Do Ha’s attending a gala with Deuk Chan and a much more level-headed Sha On (Lee Si Woo), and he doesn’t see Sol Hee’s frantic calls. She races to Deuk Chan’s office. Jae Chan had said that Deuk Chan hides the evidence that he was Eom Ji’s killer in a safe there. She struggles with the combination until her gaze alights on a picture of Deuk Chan and Do Ha on his birthday. Suddenly, everything clicks for her. It wasn’t Eom Ji that Deuk Chan was in love with. It was Do Ha.

Deuk Chan appears like clockwork, asking Sol Hee to put down the box of evidence (why does he have a whole box of it?). He admits that he’s liked Do Ha for years and never meant for Eom Ji to die. Sol Hee turns to flee and walks right into Do Ha who has heard everything. The past five years come crashing down as he realizes that his best friend and only support through everything was the person behind his misfortune. Gang Min arrives too, but Deuk Chan flees, crashing into a barrier at high speed to try and take his life. But as Do Ha pulls him out of the wreckage, a car explodes near Sol Hee. And her ears start to ring.

It looks like everyone who was guessing that Deuk Chan was the killer was right! It’s just that the reasoning behind it doesn’t sit well. It would have been easier if he had killed Eom Ji due to being in love with her, but to do so because he was in love with Do Ha turns a gay man into a villain, which is just bad representation when there isn’t enough representation as is. There were other ways to do this. Deuk Chan could have been in love with Eom Ji and watching over Do Ha all these years could have been framed as him reveling in Do Ha’s closed-off life. So, it’s disappointing that this choice was made.

It looks like Sol Hee’s turn to face a crisis next week as the explosion seems to have impaired or wiped out her ability to hear lies. It’s good to see the focus turn back to her and what, if anything, will come of her relationship with her seriously dysfunctional mother, as well as why her father’s been lying about sending her pictures from across the world. Besides that, “My Lovely Liar” has almost wrapped things up, promising us a breezy finale next week. After all the chaos of the past few weeks, that sounds like a welcome change!

 

 cr: Soompi