Lies Hidden in My Garden: Episodes 1-2 (First Impressions)

by quirkycase

Welcome to the eerie world of Lies Hidden in My Garden where something always lurks under the surface. Kim Tae-hee and Im Ji-yeon star as two very different yet equally desperate women struggling to break free of their respective prisons. With tight writing, strong performances, and cinematic flair, it looks like we’re in for a well-crafted mystery/thriller.

Editor’s note: Weekly drama coverage will continue.
 
EPISODES 1-2

From the opening deceptively cheery theme that then distorts like a lie, I knew this was going to be my jam. The tone is enigmatic and ominous without being overdone. The storytelling is so assured and focused, making every moment feel important. I love the focus on minutiae and sensory phenomena – sounds, images, smells – and the grounding role they play here, almost like proof of reality.

I haven’t read the original novel, but the drama does have a novel-like structure. Each episode is divided into perspective and day, which works well since the story isn’t told entirely linearly and could get confusing. It also allows the drama to play with style a bit to suit the perspective. For instance, there’s a notable bluer palette for most of Joo-ran’s scenes that gives off a surreal, eerie vibe. And for scenes (often Sang-eun’s) evoking more visceral horror, the palette leans warmer and darker.

Overall, this is a very cinematic drama with high quality filming and production. Everything from the sound effects and background music to the strong imagery and use of Dutch angles to give an off kilter feel works together to create something with a strong sense of atmosphere. There’s this less-is-more style that highlights salient details to show rather than tell us who these people are and what they want.

The opening scene sets the tone well. In a dream sequence, MOON JOO-RAN (Kim Tae-hee) walks alone in a hazy forest. A boy in a ram’s mask stands immobile and stares at her before turning and walking away. As Joo-ran runs after him, the scene shifts to inside a large house. Joo-ran slowly ascends creaky stairs and hears an menacing, loud banging. Frightened, she opens a door and watches herself enter an apartment. The other her calls out, “Unnie,” and then gasps in shock and horror at what she sees. Joo-ran wakes up.

September 18: Joo-ran

It’s clear from the onset that Joo-ran is depressed (she does take medication). She stays in her upscale home most days, alone with the shades drawn like she’s hiding from the world. Her only contact appears to be with her family. She seems to have a good relationship with her husband PARK JAE-HO (Kim Sung-oh), a well-known hospital director who is attentive, affectionate, and considerate of her mental health struggles.

They recently moved from Seoul to try to give Joo-ran a fresh start, but their teenage son SEUNG-JAE (Cha Sung-je) is not adjusting well. His mother’s depression – and seeing her attack a man with a wooden beam in front of a crowd (all wearing animal masks, for some reason) – has impacted him. He’s also showing signs of depression and even told his teacher that he wants to die, but his father gets defensive when the teacher tries to talk to him about it.

Father and son tiptoe around Joo-ran at home, trying to keep her from becoming upset, which makes for a very tense and stifling environment. Whenever her unnie’s death anniversary comes around, Joo-ran becomes particularly sensitive and prone to potential hallucinations. For a while she heard a banging (like in her dream) and now, she’s fixated on a nasty smell coming from outside (the garden, perhaps?). Even their neighbors have commented on it.

Jae-ho assures her the smell is just their natural fertilizer, but Joo-ran remembers the stench of death from when she found her sister dead in her apartment. Still, she trusts his reality more than hers and accepts his explanation. But it looks like Jae-ho is keeping some secrets. That night, he gets shifty while on a phone call that makes it sound like he’s being blackmailed.

The next day, Joo-ran can’t get that stench out of her head, especially when her new cheery neighbor OH HAE-SOO (Jung Woon-sun) – who is rumored to have killed her husband – comments that it smells like something is rotting in Joo-ran’s yard. Joo-ran can no longer ignore it and starts to dig.

September 18: Sang-eun

A security guard runs upstairs and knocks on an apartment door after getting yet another noise complaint. He encourages CHU SANG-EUN (Im Ji-yeon) to report her husband’s abuse already, but she just assures him they’ll quiet down. Inside, her husband KIM YOON-BEOM (Choi Jae-rim) has the gall to yell at her for not eating enough and potentially harming their baby (she’s five months pregnant). After making a threatening call to Jae-ho, he viciously beats his wife again when she comes home with the wrong groceries.

Although Sang-eun hasn’t reported Yoon-beom, she has been collecting evidence. She documents her bruises and even secretly records video and voice files to use as evidence. Her work friend is helping her prepare to meet a divorce lawyer.

The next day, Yoon-beom picks Sang-eun up from work to take her to her mother’s for the night. But first, he makes a stop at Joo-ran and Jae-ho’s fancy neighborhood.

September 20: Sang-eun

In the middle of a stormy night, Sang-eun returns to her mother’s home and takes a shower. She then lies beside her mother (who seems to have Alzheimer’s) and cries. It feels very suspicious and foreboding, especially when a call comes the next morning. Her husband Yoon-beom is dead.

September 19: Joo-ran and Sang-eun

We jump back to the side trip Yoon-beom and Sang-eun took on the way to her mother’s. As luck would have it, he arrives just as Joo-ran unearths what looks like a decomposing human hand in her garden. She’s reluctant to open the front gate, as anyone would be in that situation, but she recognizes Yoon-beom as someone who has worked with her husband in the past. He forces his way into her yard and leaves a large suitcase full of who knows what. While he’s inside making Joo-ran increasingly uncomfortable with his invasive behavior, Sang-eun spies in her husband’s glove compartment and finds a bejeweled phone.

Once they leave, Joo-ran calls Jae-ho in a panic, so he comes home to check out the garden. Just like Joo-ran, what he sees is a dead human hand. But when he comes back inside, he lies that it’s a dirty glove workers left behind that rotted the soil. It’s hard to tell if he’s gaslighting her out of concern for her mental health or something more nefarious. The whole blackmail business isn’t helping him look well-intentioned.

That night, Joo-ran wakes alone – Jae-hoo is nowhere to be found. Elsewhere, Sang-eun gets out of Yoon-beom’s parked car, switches to the driver’s side, and leaves. The next morning, Jae-ho says he fell asleep in the study and didn’t go meet Yoon-beom like he’d planned, but the mud on his boots and car tells a different story.

Meanwhile, Sang-eun gets the call that her husband is dead. She identifies his body in the morgue while his sister weeps. Then, she goes alone to a restaurant and eats like she’s been starving for a year. When Yoon-beom’s brother calls, Sang-eun casually tells him his brother is dead while stuffing her face, and then she hangs up on him.

Coincidentally, this is also the day of Joo-ran’s unnie’s death anniversary. When they arrive home from the memorial service, the police are waiting to question Jae-ho. Sang-eun told them she last saw Yoon-beom when he left to meet Jae-ho for business, which the cops find odd since he was fired a month ago.

Both women ruminate on their husbands’ lies: Yoon-beom not saying he had been fired and that they owe multiple rent payments, and Jae-ho saying he didn’t leave last night. Joo-ran’s suspicions get the best of her, and she checks the CCTV. The videos from the previous night have been erased.

Sang-eun does her own digging and peruses that bejeweled phone. After getting a strange call from someone listed as “Grasshopper” about customers, she finds videos and photos of men with this one young woman (likely the phone’s owner). In one of those photos is Jae-ho. Taking up the mantle of blackmailer, Sang-eun texts the photo to Jae-ho, smiling for the first time. We end on Joo-ran’s face as she sees the text while Jae-ho is in the shower.

I’m already all in. I love the juxtaposition of Joo-ran and Sang-eun, one caught in a psychological hell and the other caught in a situational hell. I can’t tell yet what kind of relationship they’ll have, but I’m curious to see them interact. Everything in this drama is ambiguous in a good way, making it hard to predict where we’ll go. If the storytelling and filming continues being this deft, we might just have a great drama on our hands.

 
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