“Lies Hidden In My Garden” marks Kim Tae Hee’s much-anticipated return to dramas and Lim Ji Yeon’s fast re-emergence after her hotly mentioned function in “The Glory.” In a world with an abundance of true crime podcasts, thrillers, and homicide mysteries, the present deftly distinguishes itself with not one however two unreliable narrators, an eerily naked rating, and a way of unease in each shot. Here’s the whole lot I cherished concerning the latest drama to hit the display!

Warning: spoilers for episodes 1-2 under.

1. Two unreliable narrators: Joo Ran

The present is instructed from two factors of view. The first particular person is Moon Joo Ran (Kim Tae Hee), a housewife who lives a privileged life in a gated neighborhood along with her physician husband Park Jae Ho (Kim Sung Oh) and teenage son Park Seung Jae (Cha Sung Jae). We’re instantly launched into the truth that one thing isn’t fairly proper with Joo Ran or along with her life. She cleans all day and sleeps for the remainder of it. Her desires are a troubled sequence that mimics Bluebeard’s room, that includes her son in a fox masks and a door inside her consciousness that holds reminiscences of her sister’s loss of life. And she appears to have carried out one thing unusual in Seoul that resulted within the household having to maneuver to a gated neighborhood.

Her household life is strained. Her son is academically gifted however appears to need nothing to do with Joo Ran, whereas her husband appears to care deeply for her but in addition gaslights her on the drop of a hat. When Joo Ran insists that there’s an odd odor within the backyard, her husband passes it off as fertilizer quite a few occasions, convincing her that it’s in her head till she occurs to listen to a neighbor say the identical factor about her house. It’s price noting that Joo Ran doesn’t appear to completely belief her husband both as a result of she investigates the odor herself after pretending that she believes him. But given her precarious psychological state, it’s troublesome to inform whether or not she could be trusted. And the identical goes for our different narrator.

2. The different unreliable narrator: Sang Eun

Choo Sang Eun (Lim Ji Yeon) has a markedly totally different life to Joo Ran’s. She’s often abused by her scumbag husband Kim Yoon Beom (Choi Jae Rim). Everyone of their residence advanced is aware of about it however can do nothing to assist her. For her half, Sang Eun is secretly gathering proof to make use of in opposition to her husband, understanding that courts often favor males and wanting him jailed. She’s additionally faking a being pregnant for causes we don’t know. She hears Yoon Beom on the telephone making threatening calls to somebody and watches warily as he even takes her to the blackmailee’s house and acts subtly threatening towards the person’s spouse. Unbeknownst to Sang Eun, that is Joo Ran.

But that very evening, when Sang Eun spends the evening at her mom’s (a dementia affected person) house, she receives phrase that her husband has been discovered lifeless. And her first response is to lastly eat the whole lot she needs. What’s fascinating is that each girls are unreliable narrators, however Sang Eun has full confidence in what she sees and hears regardless of the years of abuse she’s suffered. Meanwhile, Joo Ran clearly doesn’t even belief herself. And each girls’s troubles appear to stem from the boys of their life.

2. All the suspicious males

Yoon Beom simply outs himself as a villain from the beginning. In addition to abusing his spouse, he’s additionally been mendacity to her for the previous couple of months. It’s solely after his loss of life that Sang Eun finds out that he was kicked out of his job and withdrew their rental deposit as a result of he urgently wanted cash. She finds his hustle: establishing males with minors and blackmailing them with the pictures. One of these pictures was of Jae Ho kneeling beside a minor. Whether he’s really responsible of constructing advances towards minors or whether or not Yoon Beom was utilizing an image that could possibly be misinterpreted in order to extort him is unclear.

What is obvious is that Yoon Beom ordered Jae Ho to point out up at a fishing spot in the midst of the evening with 500 million received (roughly $384,000). When Jae Ho ghosted him, he confirmed up at Jae Ho’s house and poked round their home regardless of Joo Ran demanding that he depart. But Jae Ho is equally sketchy.

He gaslights Joo Ran at each flip. First, he tells her that there’s no odor coming from the backyard. When she finds a literal corpse there, he tells her that it was a glove full of fertilizer. He additionally lies that he by no means went out to fulfill Yoon Beom when Joo Ran woke as much as discover him gone from their bed room and dust on the tires. Finally, there’s an odd recurring scene concerning their son, the place Joo Ran appears to be satisfied that Seung Jae is lactose-intolerant, however Jae Ho retains giving him milk and cookies as a research snack. Joo Ran virtually appears to suspect there being one thing in Seung Jae’s milk. Nothing is what it appears.

3. Every girl for herself

It’s fascinating that Joo Ran’s first impulse upon discovering a lifeless physique in her backyard is to sit down and await Jae Ho to return house so she will be able to show that she was proper. She doesn’t even name the cops. There’s a guardedness to each her and Sang Eun that would make them allies or enemies as each strive to determine what their husbands have been as much as.

Upon discovering the doubtless comprising image of Jae Ho that Yoon Beom had on his second telephone (which seems to be a lady’s telephone), Sang Eun’s first impulse isn’t to warn Joo Ran however to proceed the blackmail. With the largest burden in her life lastly gone, Sang Eun’s going all out to do as she needs. The solely query is whether or not soft-spoken Joo Ran goes to be collateral or whether or not she’ll go equally feral to guard her household.

4. The unsettling cinematography and lack of a rating

This present has been hitting it out of the park in directing, coloring, and enhancing. Joo Ran’s scenes are a bluish white, with huge photographs emphasizing the stark vacancy of her house and her life. Sang Eun’s are a bit of extra yellow-toned and largely happen exterior in busy, cluttered areas like her life. There’s a jarring sense of unease to all of Joo Ran’s scenes, with languorous, sluggish photographs at occasions and fast cuts at others to reveal when her thoughts can’t push apart all of the questions she has any longer. The lack of an underpinning rating within the drama solely solidifies its quiet, harmful really feel like a suburban housewife horror story.

With two glorious first episodes, “Lies Hidden in My Garden” is off to a robust begin. Given the present’s shorten run of eight episodes, we’ll possible be getting solutions to some burning questions actually quickly. Like what’s up with Joo Ran believing that her son is lactose illiberal? What did Joo Ran do in Seoul for them to have to maneuver right here? How is Joo Ran’s sister’s loss of life linked to all this, if in any respect? And who killed Yoon Beom? One factor’s for certain—I’m actually wanting ahead to discovering out.

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Shalini_A is a very long time Asian-drama addict. When not watching dramas, she fangirls over Ji Sung, and spins thrillers set in more and more unbelievable worlds. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and be at liberty to ask her something!

Currently Watching:  “My Perfect Stranger,” “See You in My 19th Life,” “Delightfully Deceitful,” “Lies Hidden in My Garden,” “Numbers,” and “King the Land”
Looking Forward to: “Gyeongseong Creature,” “Ask The Stars,” “The Girl Downstairs,” “The Worst Evil,” “Queen of Tears,” “Vigilante,” “Demon,” “Daily Dose of Sunshine,” and Ji Sung’s subsequent drama.

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