Early Access: Lie After Lie E2

E2. I realize that you do need to keep a slightly blurry lens on, with this show. It's a little rough around the edges, and sometimes logic gets stretched. But, if you're able to do that, there's a cracky feel about this one that feels quite delicious.

First, the things that make me feel like this show leans a touch low rent. Sometimes the color grading leans a little stark, I feel, and stuff sometimes looks oversaturated. For example, Woo Joo looks like she's wearing a terrible face of makeup, even though she's only supposed to be 9 years old. I feel like if the color grading had been managed better, she wouldn't have looked like a kid who tried to copy her grandaunt's garish makeup look.

Secondly, some details feel carelessly managed. For example, the way Eun Soo's got a square of bandage loosely taped to her hair, after sustaining a head injury that caused her to pass out, is ridiculous.

However, putting those aside, I'm really digging the overall pacing and vibe of this story. Eun Soo is definitely the underdogs of underdogs - and I have a huge soft spot for underdogs. I am rooting so hard, for Eun Soo. She's been framed for murder, had her daughter forced out of her hands, and now, is being told that her daughter's dead. I can't blame her for losing it, and deciding that it's better to just end it all, and take Chairman Kim with her.

Chairman Kim is appallingly manipulative and cold. The way she'd told Eun Soo, all weepy-eyed, that she wanted to take care of her granddaughter because the baby was her only blood relative left, had been so convincingly sincere. It's shocking to realize that she'd deliberately put on a show, in order to get the baby out of Eun Soo's hands. This woman will go to great lengths in order to get what she wants, that's for sure.

The labyrinth that Eun Soo has to fight her way through this episode, in order to find her daughter, is exhausting. From bulldozing her way through Chairman Kim's guards in order to gain an audience, to sustaining an head injury when she gets unceremoniously thrown against the house gate pillar, to looking for information on Secretary Yoon, to staking out his restaurant, to trailing him to the hospital, to lying in wait for Chairman Kim at the cemetery, Eun Soo bears forces herself to go through it all.

This definitely makes me feel sorry for her, but I'm glad that Show doesn't drag this arc out further, and allows her to find her daughter by episode's end. While I feel strongly for Eun Soo, it's not a sustainable arc with which to draw audience attention, since we already know from Show's premise that her daughter isn't dead, and she does find her.

I was a little startled to realize that Ji Min is divorced, not widowed. From how loving he and his wife had appeared last episode, I'd assumed that he would be single now, only because she'd died. But it seems that she'd had an affair, AND left their daughter in a dangerous situation on her own at home, possibly for the sake of the man she was having an affair with. It's no wonder Ji Min tears up her picture and doesn't like to talk about her.

I'm curious to find out more about what happened, to cause the disintegration of what appeared to be a happy marriage. Also, it's been years since I've seen Im Joo Eun in anything, so I'm hoping that Show will give her a meaty narrative arc, rather than just Ji Min's ex-wife who conveniently had an affair, thus allowing Ji Min to be single when Eun Soo meets him.

I must say that Ji Min seems like a really good dad. It sounds like he's made a career choice to cover cultural stories instead of more time-sensitive investigative stories, in order to make time for his daughter. Plus, there's the way he personally takes Woo Joo to school every day and picks her up as well, brings her snacks at night, and makes time to take her to the park. He sounds like a dream dad so far, and I already like him a lot.

His sharp observations, which he voices in his passive-aggressive oh-so-casual way, are also becoming a highlight of my watch. He doesn't buy into the koolaid that Chairman Kim is selling, and he makes only a thinly veiled attempt to smooth things over. I can't wait for him to start sniffing around Eun Soo's case again, coz I think Chairman Kim will find that it's not so easy to shut him up and throw him off the case after all.