Lies Hidden in My Garden: Episodes 5-6

by quirkycase

Lies, murder, and familial tension come to a head this week as our lead women unravel the mystery swirling around their husbands. They may be searching for answers together, but that doesn’t mean they’re on the same side. And now that the truth is coming to light, they’ll each have choices to make about how far they’ll go to protect what matters to them.

 
EPISODES 5-6

This week, we open on Sang-eun and her nightmares involving Yoon-beom and Jae-ho. While Joo-ran’s struggles have been psychological and interpersonal, Sang-eun’s are much more tangible. She’s about to be evicted with nowhere to go, she’s anemic due to her pregnancy, and her mother’s condition has been getting worse. Then, of course, there’s Yoon-beom’s murder which we finally see in full. Sang-eun laced an energy drink she’d bought him on the way to her mother’s that day. Once he was asleep, she’d driven to the reservoir and pushed the car into the water. Ironically, although she did it to survive, her guilt makes her believe she deserves to die for her crime.

Most of her problems could be solved by pinning the murder on Jae-ho, but that plan isn’t going so well. The police are convinced Jae-ho wasn’t at the reservoir that night, and the meeting with Grasshopper doesn’t give her anything to use against him. Joo-ran goes with her, and thanks to her wads of cash, they get him to talk. Jae-ho isn’t a client of theirs – the girls are treated on the downlow at his hospital. He tried to hook Jae-ho by having Soo-min step in front of his car and get hit (hence the photo of them together), but Jae-ho was unfazed. After that, Grasshopper backed off, sensing Jae-ho wasn’t one to be messed with.

It’s good news for Joo-ran, but now she’s angry for doubting Jae-ho and blames it on Sang-eun who rightly points out the hypocrisy. Joo-ran is the one who went to the funeral and sought her out, searching for answers. She hits too close to home and gets slapped by Joo-ran when she ventures, “You can’t trust yourself, can you?”

Even without suspicions of murder and involvement in underage prostitution, Joo-ran’s family has a lot of tension to resolve. Joo-ran and Seung-jae have a frank conversation, and it’s clear his mom’s condition isn’t the only thing bothering him. What’s really making him angry is her tendency to shrink herself. “Mom, why are you always so weak?” he asks. If she truly heard banging and smelled something, say it outright and stand by it.

Joo-ran tries to right things with Jae-ho and apologizes for suspecting him. In return, he finally admits he did leave that night and went to his parents. His mom hasn’t been well, which he’s kept from Joo-ran. He blames her “sensitivity” for his lies, acting like he had no choice. He pulls out the antidepressants she threw away, disappointed she’s not trying harder. Despite his anger, he suggests they forget all this and move on.

Seung-jae overhears this conversation and storms out of the house. He runs into Hae-soo, someone he believes will actually be honest with him, and sits for a chat. Seung-jae confides in her the age-old worry that one day he’ll turn into his parents.

The family is poised to move on, but then Joo-ran spots a little plastic flower (like the ones adorning Soo-min’s phone case) on the kitchen floor. She once again marches out to the garden and begins to dig. That’s where Jae-ho finds her, but this time, she refuses to back down, even when he pulls the guilt card.

He can no longer avoid it, so Jae-ho finally breaks down and starts talking. Yes, she did find a dead body that day in the garden, and it was Soo-min. Seung-jae comes outside to see Joo-ran screaming and hitting Jae-ho. He refuses to go inside, despite Jae-ho trying to drag him in, and instead makes a shocking confession: he killed Soo-min. (Could this family get any messier? Spoiler: It can.)

Here’s the rundown of events. After Soo-min walked in front of his car, Jae-ho coldly told her that people like her didn’t deserve to be born. To get back at him, she approached and befriended Seung-jae. Once she’d gotten him to invite her over to the house, she showed him a positive pregnancy test and claimed Jae-ho was the father. Seung-jae then pushed her down the stairs, accidentally killing her.

Jae-ho found them when he came home and hid her body in Seung-jae’s closet until he could bury her. The night he moved her body – the same night Yoon-beom was murdered – he put sedatives in both Joo-ran’s tea (knew it!) and Seung-jae’s milk. According to Jae-ho, he’d never been involved with Soo-min. He’d merely confronted her that one time because he was worried about how the hospital’s business with her pimp would affect their upcoming merger.

Joo-ran has a very different reaction from Jae-ho and wants Seung-jae to confess so he isn’t destroyed by guilt. Jae-ho counters that his son isn’t weak like her. Geez. Then, he basically threatens that their family is over if she tells the truth. So now everyone is miserable and angry.

Meanwhile, Sang-eun’s situation worsens when her mom checks herself into a nursing home and refuses to go home. She’s been self-harming and might be more lucid than Sang-eun believed. She casually makes comments about how, no matter how bad the man is, you shouldn’t murder the father of your baby. Whoa, so mom knows and both murderous secrets are out.

Soo-min’s body is discovered Sang-eun and Joo-ran are called in (separately) for questioning; Sang-eun is taken to an interrogation room while Joo-ran gets to answer questions in the lobby. Their stories match about looking for Soo-min, meeting Grasshopper, and Sang-eun having found Soo-min’s phone in Yoon-beom’s possession. Given that Yoon-beom had the phone and both bodies were found at the reservoir, the police now believe he killed Soo-min and then himself. For now, Sang-eun keeps quiet about the fact that Yoon-beom stole the phone from Jae-ho, so Joo-ran’s family is in the clear.

After all the recent turmoil, Seung-jae runs away to that apartment he secretly rented. But he’s not running away from both parents. Hae-soo brings Joo-ran to the apartment (she’s the one who drove Seung-jae there), and Seung-jae tells her it’s their new place. Then, we get the second twist: Jae-ho did murder Soo-min, and Seung-jae witnessed it.

This flashback is in black and white like all the others in this drama – the first version about Seung-jae killing Soo-min was in color – so I’m inclined to believe this is the real version. Seung-jae saw Soo-min lying on the floor, bleeding and barely able to move. Naturally, he was terrified and not sure what to do. He went to school like normal but feigned illness to come right back home. When he returned, he saw Jae-ho strangling Soo-min in the yard before burying her body. Joo-ran immediately believes him and blames herself – if she’d only trusted herself more when she’d heard that banging upstairs, she could’ve saved Soo-min.

I’m not usually a huge fan of red herrings and fake outs, but given the drama’s themes of reality and deception, it feels fitting. Each person has their own reality that holds pieces of the truth, but the full picture only takes shape once the lies and secrets have been parsed.

Elsewhere, Sang-eun receives Yoon-beom’s personal effects from the police. She finds photos of Joo-ran’s house on his phone and matches one of the yard to a photo on Soo-min’s phone. She puts the pieces together, recalling from Yoon-beom’s notes that the phone’s last location was in Joo-ran’s neighborhood. She sees the final text Yoon-beom sent with the photo attached, asking for more hush money. Now, she has something to go on. In this week’s final scene, Sang-eun arrives at Joo-ran and Jae-ho’s house and enters the gate.

And now Sang-eun has just walked into the lion’s den. As the drama has demonstrated time and time again, Sang-eun’s desperation and lack of resources make her vulnerable. If Jae-ho is the only one in that house, I’m worried for Sang-eun’s safety. Because unless there’s some other twist to come, it’s confirmed that Jae-ho is indeed dangerous trash. In fact, he’s even worse than I’d assumed. Not only did he murder a teenage girl, but he’s using his own kid as a shield. I’m not sure if he made Seung-jae take the blame or if Seung-jae did that of his own accord to try to protect his mom and pacify his dad. Seung-jae has proven surprisingly resourceful and level-headed for his age, secretly securing an escape plan for him and his mom. (The only sticking point is how did he manage to rent an apartment on his own?) I’m not sure what Joo-ran’s next move is, but I don’t think she’ll be proactively protecting her husband anymore.

 
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