Ron Does Stuff

As much as I love Drag Race, it really does get to you when you’re watching three editions of the show one after another — Drag Race Mexico, Drag Race France, and Drag Race Philippines. You kind of want a palate cleanser in between courses, so to speak.

What better way to cleanse my Drag Race palate than with a K-Drama, which is literally across the world from Drag Race, or at least Drag Race Mexico and Drag Race France. So come and watch My Lovely Liar with me!

Why’d I choose My Lovely Liar? Well, I’ve been meaning to watch it ever since it was announced because of Hwang Minhyun. Let’s not lie to ourselves, that man is good-looking.

I actually did enjoy his performance in Alchemy of Souls, even if I eventually gave up on the show by the 15th episode. Maybe this time it’ll be different!

The show opens with a scene from 2018 and what I assume are gang members. The head of the gang is trying to find out which one of his members is a traitor and in typical gang fashion, tries to torture the truth out of them. They’re about to be thrown off a building until the arrival of the female lead — the Liar Hunter.

It’s not really explained how she can tell if a person is lying or not, but I am assuming that this gets explained in later episodes — apparently I am five episodes behind. Either way, she does her thing with the suspected gang members and clears them all. Of course, the gang member who was disrespectful to her at the start turns out to be the traitor and also guilty of being a so-so actor. Come on man, you could have acted out being fake crippled a bit better!

Anyways, she does her job, gets paid, and is on the way back to watch the 2018 World Cup game and along the way she passes by a dude walking alone in the dark wearing a football jersey. She thinks it’s a football fan in the countryside but you in danger girl. That’s a K-drama villain if there ever was one. They don’t show the guy’s face but I’d know that profile anywhere. Obviously Minhyun isn’t the villain in this show but why is he carrying around a bloodied shirt?

Anyway, the day after the female lead — they still haven’t said her name! — ends up the victim of her own good intentions because the gang leader didn’t end up killing the traitor and now he’s after her. She leaves her car at the motel she stayed in for the night and gets on a bus to Seoul where the first meeting between the two of them happens. It ain’t exactly a meet-cute!

It turns out that Minhyun and his girlfriend broke up, with the girl threatening to take her life. Was she successful? Was that bloodied shirt her bloodied shirt? We don’t get an answer to that just yet but the girlfriend’s brother is demanding Minhyun get off the bus. When he declines, the brother accuses him of cheating on his girlfriend with a girl from Seoul. All of this is delaying the Liar Hunter’s escape from the gang member, so to keep things moving along she just says that she’s the girlfriend from Seoul so that the bus can leave.

To be quite frank the whole sequence of events leading to the boarding of the bus wasn’t shot well enough for me to suspend my disbelief? That car was driving way too slow when it was chasing the Liar Hunter. Are you telling me that a beat up and bloody guy running into a bus station wouldn’t cause a commotion? But then they have Minhyun looking into the camera and you know what? Disbelief suspended!

We then have a time jump to the present year and now it looks like the Liar Hunter has successfully parlayed her skills into a great business. She’s being driven around in a Maserati! I am no car expert at all but Google Lens tells me the car might be a Maserati GranSport SQ4, whose price ranges from $98,400 to $142,890. A LOT OF MONEY.

This time around, the client is a noona with her younger boytoy. She’s straight to the point now, asking the guy if he’s satisfied sexually (he is!) and whether he’s just with the woman for her money (he’s not!). BUT THEN. The noona introduces her boytoy to the maid and he makes the fatal mistake of saying the two of them have never met before when they have. The situation devolves from there. The maid is pregnant and the baby is the boytoy’s. The drama. And the Liar Hunter also has a bodyguard now because the boytoy was about to lay her hands on her but the bodyguard intervenes! Will he be the second lead? We shall see!

As they leave the ~scene of the crime~, we also find out that Liar Hunter is just renting her designer clothes. Is the car a rental too? Why aren’t you charging people up the wazoo for this skill? The world is burning up, milk these people for all you can!

Anyway, it’s on this car ride home that we get an explanation for her powers. Her mom literally prayed to multiple goods to give her child a skill that would help her earn a living. It’s during the flashback to her childhood that we finally learn Liar Hunter’s name is Sol Hee. She does charge people up the wazoo, but she isn’t big on designer outfits. Also, her power only works if she hear’s the people’s voices.

It’s also on the drive that we find out that Minhyun’s character is named Do Ha because why else would Sol Hee’s driver mention a mysterious songwriter that she immediately dismisses as an attention seeker? It’s the K-drama formula!

We then get another Maserati, this time a Maserati MC20. The price for that particular model starts at $217,000. Are these Maseratis part of a product placement deal? Anyways, Do Ha is driving this Maserati and for some reason he doesn’t want his face to be seen. Is it because the ones asking are policemen (#ACAB)? Anyways, the police stop causes him to miss the award show, which was almost realistic depending on whether this was an idol awards show. Come on you guys, nobody is wearing a ball gown if it’s like MMA or MAMA, unless they’re a presenter.

Do Ha wins the Best Composer award and the idol he writes for, Syaon, sprints up the stage to accept the award for him since he’s not there. Girl are you going to make a love confession in front of all these people are you crazy? You’re an idol and also you’re not the female lead of this drama you’ll only get your heart broken.

Thankfully, she doesn’t do it, so we smoothly head on over to the after party where other singers and people I assume are record executives are talking about how they can get Do Ha to write a song for them. Because he’s so mysterious, there’s a nice Regina George rumors segment that happens that I was entertained by.

The fact that Minhyun also looked like this had me getting the vapors too.

They even got him to put some of his Alchemy of Souls fight training to good use because this fight scene was actually good!

And then we get a scene of him speaking in English and I am clutching my pearls? What is this? Anyways, he lives in a palatial home just like any respectable K-drama lead but I am also happy that Sol Hee isn’t below him economically. I love me a romance where the characters have different economic standing but not right now.

Back at the after party, an idol group is asking Syaon if it’s possible for them to work with Do Ha too and I have to tell the scriptwriter that that’s not the trend in the idol industry right now. It’s all about being self-produced!

I do like the fictional Dispatch reporters following Syaon so they can get a scoop on the elusive Do Ha. They don’t immediately show whether they successfully follow her to Do Ha’s home, but they do show that Syaon is on a misguided attempt to be the female lead of this show. She’s asking Do Ha to take off her gown and girl.

Anyways, nothing happens BUT because the Dispatch guys are downstairs and Syaon has a gown that looks like it’s been unzipped, it’s a perfect recipe to start a rumor.

While that’s happening downstairs, we get a small insight as to why Do Ha has an anxiety disorder. It seems like all the way back in 2018, his girlfriend did try to take her life, and she did it right in front of him. I think? The flashback wasn’t clear!

The day after, we get a look at Sol Hee’s nosy business neighbors before we finally go in to her “tarot” business. There’s a whole spy-like authentication thing that goes on before any prospective clients meet her, which tells me that Sol Hee is making bank. There’s a whole secret room and everything.

We don’t get to see what Sol Hee’s client is asking for, but we do get to see why Do Ha is as anxious as he is. Turns out his girlfriend did die and he was accused of murdering her. Now he gets anxiety attacks when there’s photographers because he did have to go through that press gauntlet at the time. So does this mean Do Ha isn’t his real name? Because people would remember a murder case in 2018! Could Google it even!

Anyways, just as I thought, the media are all over Do Ha’s not because he may have been invovled in a murder, but because of possible dating rumors with Syaon. Thankfully, the agency president already has a separate location for Do Ha to hide out from the media while they wait for the rumors to die down.

We then get a slightly confusing sequence of a woman being chased down and attacked in a dark alley by someone who the production wants us to think is Do Ha, but of course that couldn’t possibly be him since this is a rom-com and Minhyun is the male lead. Who is this new guy then?

Anyways, Do Ha and Sol Hee have an encounter in a convenience store but Sol Hee doesn’t know that he’s the same guy she met in 2018. Instead, she mistakes him as a sexual predator — the guy chasing that woman down the alley — and escapes from him to her home. Which is the same apartment complex that Do Ha is moving into to avoid reporters. Dun dun dun!

The next day, Sol Hee attends a shop owners association meeting thing and the fact that she can hear everyone lying and the faces she pulls makes me crack a smile. But things get really serious really quickly because Sol Hee’s…receptionist? gets attacked by the sexual predator. Thankfully, she manages to escape!

Do Ha, however, is about to have the worst night of his life because the rest of the shop owners descend on him thinking he’s the predator. You really can’t blame them because why are you wearing the same outfit as the predator was wearing? Don’t you check the notices?

The shop owners are about to unmaks Do Ha but then! Sol Hee intervenes because she heard him deny that he’s the predator and of course she can tell that he’s telling the truth. And that’s when Do Ha realizes this was the girl from five years ago that stood up for him.

I think this was a great first episode! I’ll try to catch up by the end of this week but I really can’t promise seeing as there are three Drag Race shows I’m also watching.