Liar Game

With one day left before the round ends, Sunhwa and Joon chow down on fast food in the stakeout car like a couple of seasoned detectives. He even fixes the watch her father bought her before he ran away, which, aww. Sunhwa is in for a surprise when Joon admits he was only bluffing about having a surefire way to get the money, even though he’s confident a way will reveal itself. He’s not as happy when Sunhwa doubts him, and asks her where that doubt was when she actually needed it before storming off. He doesn’t return to the car, and with only a few minutes to spare before the round ends, Sunhwa grows desperate. She cries at Teacher Kim’s front gate, apologizing for what she did and begging him to forgive her. Inside, Teacher Kim counts down the seconds until the end… just as two men from the production team arrive to retrieve his winnings. Sunhwa begs Teacher Kim to help her, but he carelessly shoves her away and tsks that she must’ve lost her male protector. As the retrieval team counts the money inside, Teacher Kim sticks his head out the window to finish crushing Sunhwa’s soul. What neither of them know is that PD Dasom has yet to send in the REAL retrieval team… The truth is slow to dawn on Teacher Kim, even as the fake retrieval team members deliver the stolen $1 million to Sunhwa. Like magic, Joon appears: “You lost, Teacher Kim.” After Daniel reveals himself to have been one of the fake team members with a sly smile, Teacher Kim flies into a rage as he blames the real retrieval team for being late. But they claim they were right on time, even though Teacher Kim was told by phone that they’d be there an hour earlier—and for that, he also has Joon to thank. During the fake fire, Joon swapped the phone given to Kim by the Liar Game team with an identical one in order to give himself time to steal the money. Teacher Kim sinks to his knees as the production team officially announces Sunhwa’s victory. She thanks Joon for what he did as he adjusts her watch again… since he’d set it back an hour while pretending to fix it earlier, because making her believe that it was all over was the only way to make sure Teacher Kim would let his guard down. (So. Much. Win.) He holds her shoulders and looks into her eyes to prove that she couldn’t have done the job with her poor acting skills. Sunhwa has to catch her bearings again before she offers him his half, and they say goodbyes there—the agreement was that she’d walk away from the show after they won the round. In yet another reveal, Joon refuses to share his winnings with Daniel because he plans to give the money back to Sunhwa. Since he read the contract, he knows that when she leaves the show to keep her promise with him, she’ll have to forfeit her earnings. So when that happens, he’ll give her his share. I think even Daniel might be developing a crush on this big ol’ teddy bear. Debt collectors converge on Teacher Kim like a pack of dogs, and whatever PD Dasom had left of her soul dies as she orders the crew to film every minute of it. Meanwhile, Seung-hyun takes Joon for a ride in his pimped out starmobile so they can watch the feed live. Joon already knows that the debt collectors were Seung-hyun’s doing, but Seung-hyun is showing this to him for a reason. And that reason is to persuade Joon to join the show as an actual contestant. When Joon says no, Seunghyun instructs him to watch what happens next. Uh oh. So he does, just as Sunhwa can no longer stand idly by while Teacher Kim is forced to sign his organs away. The collectors tell her that he owes $250,000, which is exactly the amount in her briefcase… Joon lets out a long breath when Sunhwa caves and agrees to pay Teacher Kim’s debt. Seunghyun planned it this way, didn’t he? Through his shit eating grin, Seung-hyun claims that he did no such thing—he’s just the show’s host. But when Joon hands over his share to pay for her penalty fee, Seung-hyun asks if he’s doing it because of his mother, whose inability to look away from the suffering of others, like Sunhwa, mired her in debt. His trip into Joon’s psyche doesn’t end there, since he knows Joon's infamous corporate takedown was an act to avenge his mother. But what if he told Joon that the company he took down was just a front? That the CEO mysteriously died? Wouldn’t he want to know who was behind that? “Join the game,” Seung-hyun tells him. “If you win, you’ll find out the truth behind your mother’s death. You of all people will be able to find out whether I’m telling you a lie… or the truth.” Seung-hyun straightens his suit like a champion after Joon lets go of the lapels he’d been gripping, and switches into his emcee voice: “Will you choose to rescue Sunhwa and avenge your mother? The choice is yours, Lee Joon.”

Notes

Hope you like it;-)