Episode 11 of Dear X is the first time we see Ah-Jin not in control of her life’s story. The show so far has always seen her have the upper hand, but it looks like we’re getting a different kind of arc for her. I guess we’ve been empathetic towards her character just because of the actress and the fact that she is our main lead (and we love an unhinged woman), but there has to be some kind of consequence for all the truly evil things she’s done so far. With only one episode left, I wonder how things will end, but one thing is for sure: everything has to hit a really bad low before we’re finally given a high. At least now we have a real villain, and we know that Ah-Jin isn’t the worst of them all, I guess? Is this supposed to be a gray area that reminds us that it’s always men who end up being the real villains? I might be taking things too far, oops. With that said, though, let’s jump straight into the penultimate episode.
Spoiler Alert
When Does Ah-Jin Start Hallucinating?
Episode 10 of Dear X ended with Sung-Hee attacking Ah-Jin in her mansion, and ultimately getting slashed across the face while Ah-Jin got away with a minor scratch near her collarbone. From the way Do-Hyuk was watching the scene unfold, it was pretty clear he was the one who let her in, seemingly as revenge after Ah-Jin told Jae-Oh to dig up any information he could find about what happened to Do-Hyuk’s ex-wife. After Ah-Jin fought off Sung-Hee, though, Do-Hyuk came up to her and comforted her, and she played along, pretending to be reeling in shock even though she’d been giggling her head off over Sung-Hee’s new scar just a few seconds ago.
Next thing we know, she’s in the hospital, and curiously, it’s Jun-Seo by her bedside comforting her. We’ll come back to this later; for now, what Ah-Jin’s other boy toy has uncovered is far more interesting. Do-Hyuk had told Ah-Jin that Sung-Hee had been declared a schizophrenic, meaning he could see to it that she’d be committed to a mental hospital, i.e., they’d never have to see her face again. When Jae-Oh reads about this and looks into Haemil Hospital, where she’s been sent, he also discovers that it’s the same institution Do-Hyuk’s ex-wife was sent to, and that Do-Hyuk had purchased the hospital a few years ago. All the pieces start falling into place, and Jae-Oh’s suddenly very concerned for Ah-Jin’s safety.
Meanwhile, Jun-Seo’s out shopping with his mum, and he practically spoils her, buying her luxury bag after luxury bag, seemingly in a good mood, even though Ah-Jin’s no longer in his life (something his mum is obviously happy about). Suddenly, he runs into a man who calls himself a producer and asks to speak with him about one of his books, “Co-Offender Y.” Turns out, he’s noticed the similarity between the story in the book and the allegations Sung-Hee had made online about Ah-Jin being a psychopath, and now he wants to know if Jun-Seo based the novel on a true story. Also, when he brings up the fact that Sung-Hee had stabbed Ah-Jin, Jun-Seo seems surprised, which seems odd given we’d seen him by Ah-Jin’s side in the hospital earlier. Regardless, Jun-Seo refuses to help the “producer” and walks away. Unfortunately, gossip pieces about her being a psychopath resurface on the internet anyway.
Back in her mansion, something’s clearly wrong with Ah-Jin. She seems to hallucinate on one occasion that the staff are gossiping about how she deserved to be stabbed because of all the people she’s hurt, and when she takes a sip of the tea she’d asked for, it’s almost like she’s suddenly teleported. She finds herself at a table sipping on whiskey, not knowing what time of day it is. When she goes out into the hall, she sees that the servants are terrified of her, and they’re busy cleaning up debris. She also finds that the doors to the off-limits third-floor study have been broken open, and she finds a bunch of portraits of Do-Hyuk with his ex-wife in there. When the housekeeper tries to ask if she should take her to the hospital, Ah-Jin just tries to claim she had too much to drink and says never to bring up hospitals again. Is it possible she’s being drugged through the tea?
When Jae-Oh drops by the set of the movie Ah-Jin’s acting in the next day, she can’t seem to remember that she called him and told him she was worried. Naturally, this gets him worried too. He tells her all about Haemil Hospital and how she can’t trust Do-Hyuk. She finally accepts his help, but she’s clearly shaken. That night, she has another freak-out, but this time she’s more conscious of it, but she still wakes up to find that she punched the bathroom mirror, and now her hands are bleeding. Do-Hyuk’s around this time, and he starts pretending to be concerned. He tells her she should rely on him more, and she tries to smile and tells him that she already does.
How Does Jae-Oh Try to Help Ah-Jin?
Jae-Oh tries to meet up with Jun-Seo and convince him that Ah-Jin’s in danger, but the man is unconvinced, telling him that he’s got no evidence and is just jealous that she’s happy with Do-Hyuk. He’s definitely projecting. Things do get worse for Ah-Jin, though, after she learns that the script has been changed on the day of the shoot: now it’s basically a reenactment of her father’s death, except this time she’s the one holding the baseball bat. She even hallucinates her father’s face onto her scene partner and has to snap out of it. While the first few takes see her struggling to swing her bat, when she finally psyches herself up, she ends up basically battering her scene partner’s skull, and when she looks up, Do-Hyuk is on set, applauding her performance (he’s the only one; everyone else is horrified).
This leads to a second wave of tabloid articles about how Ah-Jin is clearly a psychopath (I mean, are they wrong?), and she marches up to the director, demanding an answer. Turns out, the change to the script was demanded by their investor, Saturn, the company her husband owns. It’s only now that she truly accepts he’s out to get her. When she goes to his rooftop pool to confront him, he reveals that it was him in the hospital at the start of the episode, not Jun-Seo (which is why Jun-Seo seemed surprised when he learned about the stabbing). He apparently hypnotized her so she would think he was Jun-Seo and tell him everything she was thinking about; that’s when she revealed that she felt like everything bad that was happening to her was punishment for when she let her mother die back when she was a child.
Do-Hyuk reveals that he was the one who put out the articles and that he can make all of it go away. He only has one condition: she has to do everything he says and live her life the way he wants her to. He really does want her to rely on him completely. That’s the only way she’ll be entertaining to him, apparently. He taunts her about how his ex-wife broke too quickly, and he hopes to get a little more mileage out of her, before pushing her into the water and walking off, laughing. He calls Jun-Seo and tells him to pick Ah-Jin up, and he does end up coming, despite everything that’s happened between them. Ah-Jin has a mini breakdown again and ends up ranting about how humiliating this all is and how she can’t afford to be thrown away. She walks off, mumbling about how she’ll replace Do-Hyuk, leaving Jun-Seo shaken at the sight of what she’s become.
In the ending of Dear X episode 11, Ah-Jin seems to be pretending she has no memory of the events of the previous day, both with her husband over lunch and at the set when she shows up for the final day of shooting. Jae-Oh confronts the man with the cross tattoo and tells him that he’s going to come for Do-Hyuk next, which prompts him to give the order to have him killed. As the episode reaches its climax, we see Ah-Jin shooting a rooftop scene where she’s beating a woman to death with a baseball bat. In parallel, we see Jae-Oh fighting a bunch of Do-Hyuk’s goons on a rooftop, but he’s not doing too well. In the final scene, we see Ah-Jin tossing the bat aside and Jae-Oh being thrown off the roof. This doesn’t give us a certain answer of whether he’s dead or not, but somebody has to be sacrificed, and in this case, it’s likely going to be the nicest of the lot. But, we’ll cling to hope till we finish the final episode.
