With Oh Soo Jae (Seo Hyun Jin) temporarily in the clear, “Why Her?” returns this week with a more contemplative pair of episodes as the battleground shifts to accommodating changing alliances, new players, and an ever-increasing trove of secrets. Chairman Choi Tae Guk (Heo Joon Ho) takes a slight backseat as the shady chaebols and assemblymen he supports begin fighting amongst each other, and Soo Jae gets to spend some well-deserved time on romance. Yet, doom continues to weigh heavy in the air, and as secrets start to spill out, no one will be left unscathed.
Here are the five most shocking secrets from this week’s episodes!
Warning: spoilers for episodes 9-10 below.
Choi Tae Guk seems almost invincible at times. He has one of the country’s most powerful chaebols in his pocket and a soon-to-be President sitting there as well. It’s a wonder then why Choi Tae Guk has never sought the spotlight himself. He seems content to sit within his law firm, manipulating these powerful players and pretending to act as their lackey, all of which gives them as much dirt on him as it does vice versa. For someone who spent his youth studying all day and working his way up from becoming Chief Prosecutor to running the biggest law firm in the country, Choi Tae Guk could clearly aspire to something beyond puppet master. But he can never leave that role. And it isn’t because he has any dirty secrets, but because his son does.
Choi Joo Wan (Ji Seung Hyun) is the biggest thorn in Choi Tae Guk’s side because his life is full of the sort of messes that require multiple people to clean up. They’re the sort of messes that give people ammunition. Case in point: disgraced professor Seo Joo Myung (Kim Young Pil) barges into the law firm to beg Choi Tae Guk for a job. When Choi Tae Guk refuses, all the professor has to do is name drop “what happened 10 years ago,” and Choi Tae Guk suddenly agrees to give him a job. Joo Wan and whatever happened 10 years ago involving a dead man and drugs are Choi Tae Guk’s biggest weaknesses. And as we dig deeper into that period in the past, it seems that it isn’t the only ugly secret Joo Wan and his father are hiding.
Viewers have suspected for some time now that Choi Tae Guk’s granddaughter Choi Jae Yi (Han Joo Hyun) is Soo Jae’s child. Soo Jae’s previous conversation with Joo Wan’s soon-to-be ex-wife seemed to confirm that, but this week “Why Her?” goes one step ahead by having the ex-wife ask Choi Tae Guk who Jae Yi’s birth mother is. If Jae Yi’s mother is in fact Soo Jae, then Choi Tae Guk and Joo Wan have committed an act so depraved that they deserve to be stuck playing “Squid Game” every day of their lives forever.
This means that they made Soo Jae have her child, told her that the child was dead, and just left her in a hospital in the States to suffer. They made her come back to work while she was mourning her child while they knew that Jae Yi was alive. It’s a plan of such evil that it’s a wonder that Choi Tae Guk can be as shameless as to look Soo Jae in the eyes like he’s done nothing wrong. But crimes perpetuated upon women are sadly nothing new, and this isn’t the only such crime that Choi Tae Guk is involved in.
We finally have a name for the woman that Yoon Se Pil (Choi Young Joon) and Director Baek Jin Ki (Kim Chang Wan) of the law school keep hanging around: Kang Eun Seo (Han Sun Hwa). Soo Jae knows that Yoon Se Pil wants to destroy Choi Tae Guk and his cronies as much as she does, but she doesn’t know why. She also knows that Director Baek is tied to Choi Tae Guk in some way but isn’t sure of the connection. It isn’t until Yoon Se Pil mentions that Director Baek used to have a daughter, whom Yoon Se Pil was supposed to marry, that things fall into place a little.
The first clue is when Hansu Group CEO Han Seong Beom (Lee Kyung Young) mentions that he recently sold one of his villas, and Yoon Se Pil buys it. The second is when we see a blurry montage of Eun Seo seemingly fleeing from something only to be hit by a car. Yoon Se Pil bitterly vows to Director Baek that some evidence will be left in that house and that he’ll find it even if he has to take the place apart brick by brick.
Whatever happened to Eun Seo promises to be horrifying though if her present condition is anything to do by. She’s barely cognizant of who’s around her, spends her days listlessly painting, and gets spooked when people speak to her. Perhaps this is connected to whatever happened with Joo Wan 10 years ago and also tied to Jae Yi. Given that all these incidents seem to have occurred around the same time, there is a likelihood that they’re linked. And there’s even more hiding in the past that could be tied to this.
Gong Chan (Hwang In Yeop) has a nasty enough surprise when the newest visit to the legal clinic is his stepmother. She recognizes him by his voice and starts screaming that he’s Kim Dong Gu. No one else at the clinic takes her seriously, but Gong Chan is seriously shaken. Worse, the next day, news comes out of a collapse at a construction area where the Hansu Group CEO recklessly plowed against with digging on land with known issues. The soil collapses, burying nine construction workers and revealing a long-buried corpse.
Gong Chan recognizes the corpse immediately from the bracelet around her wrist. It’s Jeon Na Jung (Hwang Ji Ah), his stepsister, the girl he was accused of murdering, the one whose corpse was never found, and where another man was later arrested for the murder. And Gong Chan goes ballistic.
Next to Soo Jae’s daughter, this was one of the biggest secrets waiting to come out, and it sure does. This week, Gong Chan and Soo Jae admit their feelings (more, Soo Jae doing that latter part) and seal them with a kiss. In a massively dangerous move, she starts living in Gong Chan’s building, feigning the excuse that hers is being “renovated.” They and everyone else know the real reason why. It seems the entire legal aid clinic is aware of Chan’s crush on Soo Jae so they’re all okay with it. Except for Nam Choon Poong (Lee Jin Hyuk), the voice of reason here, who points out how bizarre this entire relationship dynamic is (where is the lie though). As Jo Kang Ja (Kim Jae Hwa) says, it really is the romance clinic not the legal clinic.
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Post-kiss, Soo Jae tells Gong Chan that the closer they grow, the more he’ll see all the sides of her that she finds shameful. That’s actually a very insightful way to put it because the reason many relationships can end is when people start seeing the embarrassing sides to someone they only ever saw good sides to. Soo Jae says that there’s something that she’s waiting on telling him and that she hopes he can understand it and not dislike her afterwards. Gong Chan echoes the sentiment, telling her not to leave him afterwards.
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To give Gong Chan credit, the second he realizes that he needs to tell her because he can’t keep it locked away anymore, he quite literally begs for five minutes. But Soo Jae brushes him off every chance she gets. It’s not a great indicator for a long-lasting relationship if the other party isn’t willing to make time for you. Plus she saw him crying and just walked away without so much as a “what’s wrong?” And once Soo Jae inquisitively snoops through the investigative room Gong Chan keeps under lock and key and finds the truth, she does the exact opposite of what she asked Gong Chan to do: she runs. The secret’s out now, and so apparently is Soo Jae. Poor Gong Chan.
Next week shows Gong Chan attempting to explain and being given the cold shoulder (which is quite unfair, really). On the other hand, Choi Yoon Sang (Bae In Hyuk) has changed his hair in a surefire sign of a change in personality. He’s playing a dangerous game, trying to be double-agent and white knight to Soo Jae. In many ways, he’s very similar to her: hardheaded, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and protective of his people. But Soo Jae is clearly not interested in him, and the way he keeps trying to force their meetings is discomforting and pushy.
“Why Her?” seems to be pivoting toward the past week and spilling more detail on all these secrets while Gong Chan and Soo Jae’s relationship flounders. But they’ll need to regroup and fast because everything really is tied together. Soo Jae and crew are going to need all the help they can get to stand up against Choi Tae Guk and his team of evil!
Source: Soompi