4 Times Hwang Minhyun Shed The Past In Episodes 9-10 Of "My Lovely Liar"

“My Lovely Liar” eases into its second half, with the bulk of everyone’s secrets out in the open. Mok Sol Hee (Kim So Hyun) and Kim Do Ha (Hwang Minhyun) are prepared to put everything on the line to make this relationship work. Do Ha blossoms even more under Sol Hee’s support and starts to shed the shackles that kept him hidden for so long. But the past is determined to be unburied, and this week, things get dredged up that spell danger for our leads and those they love.

Warning: spoilers for episodes 9-10 below.

1. When he admitted the truth to Sol Hee

Sol Hee doesn’t need to know what happened to Choi Eom Ji (Song Ji Hyun). She trusts that Do Ha didn’t kill her, and that’s all that matters. But Do Ha’s been hoping to get this off his chest for a while, so the truth just spills out of him. He says that he and Eom Ji were high school sweethearts. Their relationship was ordinary, happy, and loving. But all of that changed when he got into a good university in Seoul and started attending there. Eom Ji started to demand that he return every week to see her, at the expense of his social life, study groups, extracurriculars, and group projects. Do Ha was left emotionally exhausted and tried to break up with her numerous times, but she kept threatening to end her life if he did. He was trapped in the relationship.

The night she died, he found out that she had been secretly taking his phone and sending death threats to any female classmate he spoke with. Yikes. He had enough and broke up with her on the beach he keeps flashing back to, her last known location. Eom Ji immediately cut her wrists and vowed to die. Do Ha blotted the wound, which was shallow, but couldn’t take it when she kept begging to still date him and he left. The next day, he was arrested for murder. Eom Ji’s body was never found. Sol Hee realizes that Do Ha still blames himself for Eom Ji’s death, which is why his assertions that he didn’t kill her kept registering as a lie. She tells him that none of this was his fault and vows to stand by him. And the weight of Do Ha’s biggest secret just eases from his heart.

2. When he finally stopped blaming himself

Outside of Jo Deuk Chan (Yun Ji On), Jo Jae Chan (Nam Hyeon Woo), Sha On (Lee Si Woo), and Do Ha’s mother, no one else knew about Do Ha’s past. And all four of those people seem to believe that he killed her. Deuk Chan provided an alibi, complete with fuzzy CCTV footage that put Do Ha at his place at the supposed time of Eom Ji’s death. But the footage is so blurry that it isn’t clear if it’s actually Do Ha in the video. And Do Ha initially plead guilty to the charges out of guilt that Eom Ji could have ended her life because he broke up with her. But Eom Ji’s brother, Choi Eom Ho (Kwon Dong Ho), doesn’t know that. And without Eom Ji’s body, he hasn’t gotten closure all these years.

Understandably, to him, it seems like Do Ha’s politician mother bought her son his freedom. So, Eom Ho goes nuts upon finding that songwriter Kim Do Ha is the man he’s been chasing, and he kidnaps Sha On in an attempt to make Do Ha come to him. It works. Do Ha never wanted anyone else involved in the bad blood between him and Eom Ho, so he runs straight over to the abandoned construction site Eom Ho’s waiting at. And Eom Ho punches the living daylights out of him. Do Ha simply takes it, finally telling Eom Ho the truth: that Eom Ji took her life because her dream was Do Ha. She didn’t have dreams of her own beyond clinging to Do Ha for the rest of her life. Eom Ho prepares to kill Do Ha anyway but is stopped by a surprising figure: Lee Gang Min (Seo Ji Hoon).

3. When he let Eom Ho go

Gang Min happens upon the Hakcheon beach case when it resurfaces in the news and is shocked to realize that the prime suspect is the same man Sol Hee’s in love with. He goes to her place to warn her and sees Do Ha speeding off to the construction site to meet Eom Ho. He follows and overhears their entire conversation. He saves Do Ha from being murdered and tackles Eom Ho to arrest him, but Do Ha stops Gang Min and lets Eom Ho go.

Gang Min doesn’t understand why Do Ha would let him go when he could come after him. Do Ha insists that the only person Eom Ho will ever kill is him and that other people are safe from him. But given that Eom Ho kidnapped and traumatized Sha On in order to get Do Ha’s location, he’s dead wrong there. Gang Min reveals that he knows the truth. Do Ha is a little shaken but holds his head high because he’s capable of admitting that he did nothing wrong. It was a doomed relationship. And he doesn’t know all of it.

A dejected Eom Ho returns to Hakcheon thinking back to his awful childhood with Eom Ji. Their father was an abusive drunk who stole all Eom Ji’s hard-earned college money right before she was going to college. Eom Ji was heartbroken, having lost all her dreams in a moment, but Eom Ho convinced her that she doesn’t need dreams. He told her to make Do Ha her dream and trust him to rescue her and give her a better life. Oh no. No wonder Eom Ji clung so hard to Do Ha. It’s clear that Eom Ho has realized that he was to blame for Eom Ji’s warped thinking.

4. When he played the piano at the Yeonseo festival

Everything seems to have wrapped up. Eom Ho won’t be a problem going forward. Sol Hee and Do Ha are officially dating and too cute. And Sha On is no longer throwing petulant fits. Do Ha and Sol Hee attend a neighborhood music festival, and Do Ha even goes on stage to assist a contestant when their keyboard player doesn’t show up. He plays the contestant’s self-composed song without his mask and looks so happy to be there. But the good times can’t last long.

A few die-hard Do Ha fans in the crowd seem to recognize him, despite there being only one barely-recognizable picture of him ever taken. Deuk Chan has informed Do Ha’s mother that he’s dating Sol Hee, and she hunts the down at the festival, only to leave when she sees her son looking happy for the first time in years. Deuk Chan seems to be hiding something. His wife is cheating on him, and his congratulations to Sol Hee and Do Ha for starting a relationship registers as a lie to her. But the worst part comes at the end, when Eom Ji’s body is found on a mountain far from the sea she supposedly ended her life in. There’s no question of it anymore. Someone in Do Ha’s circle killed Eom Ji. But who, and why?

This week’s episodes felt like the calm before the storm. Do Ha’s decision to let Eom Ho go might come back to bite him because the preview shows Eom Ho returning for blood after finding that his sister truly is dead. In a different show, Eom Ho would have been the hero, so there’s a part of me that roots for him to find the truth, but hopefully he stops taking his anger out on innocent people. Next week also shows the public learning that Do Ha was a murder suspect and seeing him without his mask. It all looks pretty catastrophic, so here’s hoping that the group of friends he’s amassed rally around him. Man’s about to go through the absolute wringer.

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Shalini_A is a long time Asian-drama addict. When not watching dramas, she fangirls over Ji Sung, and spins thrillers set in increasingly fantastic worlds. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and feel free to ask her anything!

Currently Watching:  “Longing For You,” “My Dearest,” and “My Lovely Liar.”
Looking Forward to: “Gyeongseong Creature,” “Ask The Stars,” “The Girl Downstairs,” “The Worst Evil,” “Queen of Tears,” “Vigilante,” “Daily Dose of Sunshine,” and Ji Sung’s next drama.