Dear X is shaping up to be quite the exciting TV show at the end of the year for K-drama fans. The Kim You-Jung starrer presents her in a completely different light but also has me wondering if psychopaths are trending in South Korea, considering how we just had another drama where the leading lady was a psychopath too (Genie, Make A Wish). Dear Dear X dropped 4 episodes in its first week, but is now going to follow the regular 2-episodes-per-week formula. The first 4 episodes were quite heavy to handle and really gave us the backstory of the main characters of the show and how they’re entangled. But, if you were wondering what Hwang In-Yeop’s role would be, you’ll be happy to know that he’s finally here in all his glory. The actor plays a fellow actor to Ah-Jin in the show, and is going to become just another one of Ah-Jin’s pawns. How that’ll turn out, only time will tell, but it looks like this man has his own demons. With that said, let’s jump straight into episodes 5 and 6.
Spoiler Alert
Why Does Le-Na Hate Ah-Jin?
Dear X episode 5 begins with In-Gang, a famous actor, and Ah-Jin going onto the BIFF red carpet together. In-Gang only helps her out of the car before walking away as if they don’t know each other. But when he notices her trip, he goes back to help her and asks her to hold onto him till they get to the stage. This marks the beginning of Ah-Jin’s interaction with this senior actor, as well as her rivalry with his girlfriend, Le-Na. Now, I say girlfriend, but she’s just somebody he’s with, probably because of work. This is the night he chooses to break up with her because she’s been going out drinking a lot, and their personalities don’t vibe anymore. But Le-Na takes it personally that he helped Ah-Jin and even pretends to sanitize his hands. The next thing you know, Le-Na is mistreating Ah-Jin at work, making her redo a scene in the rain 15 times. But, eventually, it’s when the CEO of Longstar Entertainment shows up and tells Le-Na that she can make her DUI public any time that she apologizes and holds back a little bit. But she’s not done with Ah-Jin yet. I’m not sure if Ah-Jin remembers this, or if it was just for us to remember that they’ve come across each other before, but she was the actress who was at the police station the day Ah-Jin was arrested for her dad’s murder.
As Ah-Jin and her manager, Hyang-I, are watching the scene between Le-Na and the CEO unfold, Hyang-I starts telling Ah-Jin about how Longstar has “shackle files” on all of their stars to get them to behave through blackmail if they have to. This seemingly causes Ah-Jin to start plotting. Meanwhile, Jun-Seo’s back, and he’s an established author whose books are selling really well, but he goes by the name Seok-Ha. He’s been tracking Ah-Jin closely, and one day, he decides to meet with his publicity manager at a cafe where he knows Ah-Jin is having a shoot. She sees him, and Le-Na notices the connection between them, having it confirmed later when Jun-Seo’s mother shows up out of nowhere and nags him for still following Ah-Jin around (but really to ask him for money). This sets her cogs turning, and Le-Na ends up asking her manager to get her in touch with this author to do promo together. When they do meet up, they don’t really get along well, and Le-Na suspects it’s because he has feelings for Ah-Jin and that they share more of a past than she anticipated.
On that particular day, the Longstar building is empty by 6 PM, and the power’s out because of some maintenance. Ah-Jin already knows this is a setup, but she decides to head to the CEO’s office to look for the shackle file. But Le-Na beats her to it and grabs both files, threatening to expose her secrets to the public unless she bows and scrapes before her. When Ah-Jin refuses, Le-Na starts brutally smacking her around with the file, but Jun-Seo, who’s still in the parking basement, sees it happening and steps out of his car, causing Le-Na to stop and pretend they were acting out a scene. She also invites Jun-Seo to the Longstar anniversary party on Christmas Eve, claiming she wants to make her ex jealous. However, when everyone gets there on the day and the celebratory video starts to play, intercut with scenes from interviews and other movies, there’s a video of Le-Na’s assault on Ah-Jin.
The CEO tries to cover for Le-Na and pass it off as a fantastic performance, too, even calling it uncannily realistic. The roles are now reversed, but Ah-Jin says Le-Na doesn’t have to beg; she just has to stay out of her way, or else she’ll release the footage to the public. Turns out Ah-Jin had told Hyang-I to get a video of the situation after working out that Le-Na had told her to pass on the information about the shackle files. She’s promised Hyang-I that she’s not like Le-Na and that she wants Hyang-I on her side. Unfortunately, the night doesn’t end smoothly, as Detective Park, whose career went down the drain after he tried and failed to have Ah-Jin arrested for the murder of her father, shows up dressed as a waiter and threatens to ruin her life. Le-Na’s noticed this too, and she passes on a picture of the man to a cousin of hers who works as a journalist. When Jun-Seo gets home that night, he sees Ah-Jin waiting for him and just collapses into her arms for a hug.
How Does Ah-Jin Manipulate In-Gang Into Falling In Love With Her?
At the anniversary party, we’d seen In-Gang resort to pills when he seemed to get really shaky. We later find out that he suffers from depression, panic disorder, and possibly alcoholism, and it all stems from an incident early in his career that he decides to tell Ah-Jin about one day. In-Gang had been an idol back in the day, but the star of their group was Ji-Hyeok, but one day In-Gang watched him eat a macaroon that had nuts in it, and he didn’t say anything, even knowing he was allergic. Ji-Hyeok’s hospitalization let In-Gang take over and host an event, which got him noticed by the broadcasters, leading to him eventually becoming the massive star he is today. But the guilt of it has been eating away at him, especially with all the congratulatory texts he gets from Ji-Hyeok. He tells Ah-Jin all this because he knew what she was up to with the video at the anniversary party and enjoyed her handiwork, but he takes the opportunity to tell her to be careful.
Unfortunately, the next thing Ah-Jin knows, Detective Park is calling her up and blackmailing her to go to a club’s VIP room, where she sees a bunch of coked-up, washed-out stars and rushes out, but In-Gang has seen her here. He’s disappointed in her and says he doesn’t want to talk to her again after she refuses to tell him who called her there. This definitely puts a damper on her plans to try and date him, as she’d revealed to Jun-Seo just recently.
To deal with this Detective Park crisis, Jae-Oh comes in, though unknowingly. The last we saw of the young man, he’d been arrested for the murder of his father, but he got out after serving 4 years and started working doing delivery runs and background checks with an old acquaintance, potentially from prison. He gets tasked with eavesdropping on Park, but when he finds out Detective Park’s talking to a journalist (Le-Na’s cousin) about Ah-Jin murdering her father, he runs off to find out who his client is, and discovers it’s Jun-Seo. The two old not-quite-friends meet up and strategize to protect Ah-Jin, and eventually get their hands on evidence detailing how Park’s daughter did drugs in the US, throwing it in his face and scaring him off from working with the journalist. Almost as a reward, the next time he comes to Jun-Seo’s place, Ah-Jin’s there, and the two are delighted to be reunited. Jae-Oh’s not had a lot to look forward to since he got out; he can’t even see his little brother, who lives with his aunt and uncle, because his aunt tells him his little brother doesn’t deserve to have to deal with the man who killed his father.
After In-Gang spurned her the first time, Ah-Jin arranged affairs so she first bumped into his grandmother at a temple and then at her apartment, where the old lady invited her in because she’d cooked too much food for her daughter’s (In-Gang’s mom’s) memorial. In-Gang was raised single-handedly by his grandmother, so Ah-Jin knew this was a relationship she’d have to exploit, but when he turns up, he’s furious, and he drags her out of the flat, with it ending in a shouting match where she calls him a coward for refusing to believe it was all a coincidence. In-Gang gets a talking to from his grandmother too.
Later, he goes to visit Ji-Hyeok, which all his former bandmates had been asking him to do for a long time. Ji-Hyeok reveals that he’d known all along that the macaroons had nuts in them and that he’d known In-Gang knew too. He just felt suffocated being an idol and felt like this was his only escape, so he let it happen. His intention was to free In-Gang from any guilt that he will felt from back then, but the star instead becomes furious and leaps at him, punching him in the jaw. When he finds out Ji-Hyeok only reached out and opened up after Ah-Jin spoke to him, he’s even more mad. He asks his manager to both stop him from ever having to work with Ah-Jin again and make a public announcement that he’s broken up with Le-Na. He eventually changes his mind about the former, though, and he asks her out to dinner.
At the end of Dear X episode 6, Ah-Jin has one last trick up her sleeve, getting Jae-Oh involved and asking him to do whatever he can to crash his bike into In-Gang’s car and make him late for their date. He does this in dashing style, and In–Gang ends up more than an hour late, showing up after the restaurant’s already closed. He’s amazed that she’s still waiting for him, and she replies that she couldn’t stand the thought of missing him. She also makes the romantic gesture of wrapping him in her scarf after she notices he’s lightly dressed, and by this point he’s head over heels for her, and they lean in and kiss each other, technically before they’ve even had a first date! But this episode ends on a bittersweet note. Jun-Seo had gone out to grab drinks with Le-Na, seemingly just to keep her company and maybe find out what she was up to. When he got drunk and heard the guys outside the bar perving on a cardboard cutout of Ah-Jin, he’d gone out and started brawling with them, but he ended up unresponsive on the road, with Le-Na screaming for help. The way he had his eyes open and unblinking is really scary, there’s no way the show will just kill him off, but there’s a chance he’ll end up in a coma and complicate the story. We’ll have to wait till next week to find out.
