The first thing I thought when I watched the first two episodes of Idol I was, Omg! This is “Suspicious Partner but with reversed genders, and the male lead’s an idol.” Okay, when I put it that way, it definitely sounds like a stretch, but you know exactly what I mean. Idol I already feels like a promising show, with its great cast but also exciting storytelling. I can’t wait for the romance, because I know it’s coming soon. Honestly, between this and the weekend’s Pro Bono, I would definitely choose this nostalgic, old-school drama that feels both unrealistic and really fun at the same time. The show will definitely draw more attention pretty soon, but I do worry it might falter later on as time passes. But, for the moment, I’m keeping my hopes up because of Sooyoung and Kim Jae-Young. Also crazy how she’s the idol and they missed the opportunity to make her the idol on the show, but I guess this is a more “fangirl” scenario, and that gets more eyeballs. Anyway, with that said, I’m going to jump straight into the first two episodes of Idol I.
Spoiler Alert
What Happened In Se-Na’s Childhood?
Before I get into the events that unfold in the episodes as a whole, let’s take a moment to look at the past and how, in typical fashion, this show is using the “met in childhood” trope but still doesn’t feel boring. Se-Na keeps flashing back to a moment when she’s on a bridge, and a boy, slightly older than her, puts a cap on her head after singing for her. This is an important scene in the show, which will keep reappearing throughout. But this means Se-Na is a fan of Ra-Ik specifically because they have a past connection. Turns out he saved her life that day, because she was so tired of being bullied (a sins of the father situation), she’d made her mind up to take her own life until the singing boy saved her. Additionally, the show also hints at the bully possibly being the prosecutor involved in this case, so we’ll find out how true that is later.
What Happens to Woo-Seong?
Episode 1 begins with Se-Na, a renowned attorney in South Korea, showing us how she’s a stoic lawyer by day who doesn’t even waste time for her boss vs. a fangirl at home, doing everything in her power to fight for the reputation of her favorite dude, Do Ra-Ik of “Gold Boys.” Se-Na is clearly one of the best attorneys in the country, but that also makes her almost hated by everyone she works with, and admired by others. At home, though, she wears glasses and plays the same song over and over again on loop so that Ra-Ik can stay at the top of the charts. She’s also got a neighbor/friend, a young dude named Chung-Jae, who is always buzzing like a bee around her. But hey, at least he’s helpful in that he gets videos, evidence, and a bunch of other things she needs.
On the other hand, it feels like Ra-Ik is one of those annoying shallow idols at first glance. I was almost expecting exactly this, a comic character with no depth and just a lot of hate for the world, but it turns out he’s not actually like that, which is great. The show doesn’t shy away from showing both the positives and negatives of the idol industry. This includes “sasaeng,” aka stalker culture, as well as idols being treated as “perfect god-like” figures rather than just humans. Ra-Ik’s now trying out a solo career after 12 years with his band, but he isn’t doing too well. Still, his team is trying to do its best to keep him afloat (and themselves, eh?). His manager even gets on his knees to get him to cooperate, and it works.
But, while travelling to a fan meeting, Ra-Ik seems really anxious, and this is because he’s had messages from a stalker, and they’re quite threatening. It freaks him out, but things get even darker when a stalker shows up at the fan meeting and throws a piece of paper at him, cutting his face but also leaving him completely broken. It seems this isn’t enough torture for the guy, because when he gets home, two stalkers are hiding in his house, which makes him (obviously) cuss them out in anger. The video goes viral overnight, and the bossman of the company shows up asking for answers. Ra-Ik’s quite nonchalant about it, but he knows that despite everything, his boss is right.
Meanwhile, Se-Na tries to get a pass to his next performance, but to no avail. She promises to pay a reseller 500,000 won before getting the ticket, and another 500,000 at the concert. It’s to catch him red-handed, of course, but he gets running, and it happens to be at the same time Ra-Ik arrives at the venue. Now, they’re both in black hoodies, and Se-Na mistakes Ra-Ik for being the reseller. However, instead of yelling at her, he covers her mouth with his hand to keep her from screaming and softly lets her go when he can escape to safety. It’s a dreamy moment for sure.
But that’s as far as dream scenarios go, because one of Ra-Ik’s bandmates is really not happy that the dude showed up late to his own fan meeting. He’s clearly frustrated by the fact that Ra-Ik got a solo, but he didn’t, so he blabbers some stuff, including talking about how fans don’t love Ra-Ik but pity him because of his sob story. Something about a mother who worked at a bar, but we’ll find out more later. In the middle of this, though, one of the other members ends up in the hospital. This too becomes big news, and a lot of people are now blaming Ra-Ik. But Se-Na doesn’t believe it at all. Finally, Woo-Seong, the kindest of the band members and the only one who genuinely likes Ra-Ik, shows up at his house. They have some drinks together, and Ra-Ik wakes up the next day alone. But he’s shocked when he walks into the living room and finds Woo-Seong’s lifeless body lying there in a pool of blood.
Does Se-Na Take On The Case?
In episode 2, Se-Na considers taking on Ra-Ik’s case, because she’s certain he’s innocent, but in the first meeting, when she sees him cussing out everybody in a fit of rage, her perspective changes a little, and she lets a man take over the case in quite a daze, for now. But when she gets home, she recalls another memory of how she saw the Gold Boys for the first time ever, and it makes her feel like she’s made a mistake, all while Ra-Ik is getting grilled by a manipulative detective. Finally, Se-Na decides to take on the role of attorney. She has only one question for Ra-Ik. She asks him if he did it, and when he replies no 100 times, she believes him, because she knows he can’t act well. When she’s at the house, trying to find evidence of her own, the prosecutor, Byeong-Kyun, tells her that this is an easy case and she shouldn’t make it hard for him, but she refuses to back down, and we love it. This is also the guy I said was implied to be the bully. Don’t know if she was just imagining it, though.
Se-Na goes to the stalkers next and tries to find out what happened that night before Ra-Ik arrived. They insist that they only went inside because someone told them how to. We hear the whole break-in story, and it’s enough to have me worried about whether some real-life sasaeng fans will end up getting ideas from this. I really hope not. But maybe this was some sort of distraction, because someone else did break in as well? We’ll have to wait to find out.
At the end of Idol I episode 2, Se-Na buys Ra-Ik some time by defending his case through the “sasaeng” entry. The prosecutor’s sole reasoning is that Ra-Ik was alone in the house and no one else knew the passcode, but Se-Na knows that the fans figured it out, and this means anyone else could’ve too. When he’s ultimately free to go, Ra-Ik doesn’t have anyone to call because he doesn’t trust anybody. Se-Na and Chung-Jae drive him home, but on the way, he sees a digital display of his graffiti with the word “murderer” on it. It makes him really upset, and then he can’t enter his house because all he can think about is Woo-Seong and his time there. Finally, he steps out for a drink and ends up unconscious, only to wake up the next day in Se-Na’s house. I’m guessing he called her before he fainted? Maybe she was following him. Whatever it is, the show is super interesting, so I can’t wait to see what comes next.
