We cannot believe that we recognized Kim Sung Oh (Park Jae Ho) as one of the actors from The Korean Odyssey but failed to recognize Lim Ji Yeon (Chu Sang Eun) from The Glory. Maybe we were a little dense, or maybe Lim Ji Yeon’s act of keeping her head down had the desired effect. She seems to have a knack for nailing the crazy characters, and she is capable of being the standout in any drama she is in. Even in The Glory, it was she who carried the show, with her character’s craziness far outweighing the effect of Song Hye Kyo’s understated performance. Even in Lies Hidden in My Garden, it is she and Kim Sung Oh who are bringing life to the narrative. The following is a recap of how they carry this episode on their shoulders.
Spoilers Alert
How Much Debt Does Sang Eun Have?
Episode 3 of Lies Hidden in My Garden starts with a flashback, where Sang Eun is going through some stuff of Yoon Beom, mostly cards, and it is clear that he either stole them or blackmailed people for them. According to Yoon Beom, it is not theft but the redistribution of wealth that is a necessity in this unequally created society.
At Yoon Beom’s funeral, when his older brother comes to visit Sang Eun, we once again realize why it is said that the nature of abuse is often cyclical. Yoon Beom was raised by his father’s brother after his parents passed away, and they never treated him well. He was often given leftovers and cold food, and when the time came for him to go to university, only his cousin was sent. Yet Yoon Beom had paid his family’s expenses by sponsoring his brother’s honeymoon and covering his aunt’s medical bills, among many others. But all this had never translated into any familial love for him. Maybe that is why Yoon Beom was so eager to be a father, so that he could finally do everything for his child that he wanted for himself. At the funeral, Sang Eun is angry with her in-laws because they have given her a pittance of consolation money, and she breaks down crying. The relationship between an abuser and a victim is often more layered than meets the eye. As much as Sang Eun hated him, she felt bad for him and his upbringing. There must have also been a point in time when she genuinely loved him, either before he got abusive and even for some time after that.
Sang Eun did not care about the child in her stomach, yet she was carrying him, even though she could have gotten an abortion on the sly without telling her husband. Until we come to know more, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to assume that she was doing it for her husband. But right now, Sang Eun has far more pressing problems to deal with. She comes to know that Yoon Beom took out a loan of 200 million won to invest somewhere that later turned out to be a scam. She also has bills piling up as the days go by, and she is in desperate need of money. This is why she tried to blackmail Park Jae Ho as a possible last resort. When he attends the memorial service, she asks to speak with him alone and reveals that she was the one who texted him. She also tells him that she knew that her husband was blackmailing him. But it is evident that she doesn’t know what he had over Jae Ho, and he realizes that. He tells Sang Eun that he will be waiting in case the day comes when she figures it out.
Sang Eun is furious, as she clearly has no card left to play against him, and she is pretty much destitute, with no money, a lot of debt, and a job that barely covers her living expenses. She needs some help soon, which is when she comes to know that Yoon Beom had taken out five insurance policies before he died. Right now, she cannot get the payout from them since one of the clauses says that if he commits suicide, his beneficiaries cannot claim the money. The amount is close to 520 million won, and it would not only solve all of Sang Eun’s problems but also give her a comfortable life. The only thing left for her to do is prove that Yoon Beom did not commit suicide. She must either prove the murder or show that it was an accident of some sort.
Does Jae Ho Confess The Truth To Joo Ran?
When Joo Ran goes to the memorial service of Yoon Beom with Jae Ho, she runs into Sang Eun in the restroom, where she spots her phone. This reminds Joo Ran of the selfie she saw on Jae Ho’s phone in episode 2 of Lies Hidden in My Garden, where the woman was holding the same phone. When Sang Eun greets the couple, she addresses Jae Ho and says the very thing she had texted him: “You know me, right.” It is not shown whether Joo Ran connected the dots, but she must have felt something. Later, she also spots Sang Eun talking to Jae Ho, and the two are standing a little too close to each other. We have a feeling that this episode showed us only a part of their whole conversation because whatever Jae Ho said was enough to make Sang Eun spit out in anger. We have to wait to see whether our assumption is correct or not. Sang Eun even tells Joo Ran that it was Jae Ho who killed Yoon Beom, and for someone who is already suspicious, this muddles her mind even more.
Back home, a restless Joo Ran tries to check their car to see where it may have gone. She is trying to confirm her suspicions since, on that day, she also came to know that Jae Ho had taken a prescription for sleeping pills. She suspects that they must have been for her. As Joo Ran is trying to find something, Jae Ho arrives, and Joo Ran is forced to lie to him and say that she is looking for her missing earring. The next day, Jae Ho finds her earring in her jewelry box, which means that she had never lost it. He had seen her typing something in the GPS of the car, and he knew what she was probably thinking. But instead of confronting her, he does something that has us convinced that his conspiracies run deep. He acts as if he found the earring, and when Joo Ran tells him that she never lost it, he brings up their past and why they moved from Seoul. Basically, he is trying to overwhelm her with guilt, and he capitalizes on their son’s problems in school to further that. Joo Ran is left speechless, and she knows that she cannot ask him any more questions.
In the meantime, she asks their neighbor, Hae Soo, whether she can check her CCTV. Hae Soo agrees, but she also wants to socialize, which Joo Ran is uncomfortable with, so she takes back the request. Later that night, when Hae Soo goes through the footage anyway, she finds their car leaving the driveway. Hae Soo is having trouble mixing with the neighbors. The story is that six years ago, a foul smell led to the discovery of a dead body in the house, and Hae Soo was found with it. However, nobody knew that she was the man’s wife. In the present day, after Seung Jae helps her in a particularly tough spot, she tells him that this was the house she had grown up in. It is surprising that nobody knew about her in the neighborhood she had spent her whole life in, which means that Jae Ho must have twisted the truth for Joo Ran.
Did Sang Eun Kill Yoon Beom?
As Sang Eun is wondering how to prove that Yoon Beom’s death was not a suicide, she remembers how she was with him in the car as he lay unconscious next to her. We are hesitant to assume that he was already dead at this point, but it is a possibility. Earlier in Lies Hidden In My Garden, the police revealed that Jae Ho had transferred 100 million won to a burner account of Yoon Beom. It doesn’t look like Sang Eun knew about that. But if Jae Ho had already given him the money, why would he need to kill him? Unless something else also happened, or from what it is looking like right now, Sang Eun was the one who did the job. She remembers how she had shifted him from the driver’s seat and driven the car somewhere.
If we are not mistaken, it looks like she had gone to the street where Jae Ho and Joo Ran lived. The only reason for that must have been if she witnessed some of Jae Ho and Yoon Beom’s last interactions or knew what was going on between them. At the end of episode 3 of Lies Hidden in My Garden, Sang Eun remembers that Yoon Beom said that he “punishes” others because they deserve it. Was that why she killed him or was that why she assumed he was killed? As she imagines her future self with her child living in the same place, Sang Eun is close to tears, probably thinking about the choices and punishments that have brought her to this point in her life and whether a better reality exists for her. As she walks back home, she finds Joo Ran waiting at her doorstep, probably to talk to her about everything that is going on.
Final Thoughts
This is a moment that we have been waiting to see: Joo Ran and Sang Eun join hands to get to the bottom of what their husbands were up to. In the precap, Jae Ho straight away asks Sang Eun why she killed her husband, which makes us think that he must have seen her with Yoon Beom when he went to meet him. On the other hand, Joo Ran realizes that she is being manipulated, and she is trying to come out of that by seeking help where she can. We believe it might take 2-3 episodes for the truths to start tumbling out, but Lies Hidden In My Garden has us hooked so far.
