Alliances
We begin episode 6 of Private Lives in the past with the moments after Joo-Eun’s escape from Edward Kim’s mansion. There, Edward hears exactly what happened to his dog out in the woods thanks to the mysterious biker. Edward’s not happy and with tears stinging his eyes, he contemplates whether someone is making a movie. Joo-Eun meanwhile hits rock bottom. Her lack of rent payments eventually see her kicked out of her apartment and forced back into her previous flat. Han-Son heads over and encourages her not to forget Jeong-Hwan. Instead, he starts singing to her from the other side of the door as she relives memories from the past. Eventually Joo-Eun faces him and the two start drinking and eating together. This continues back at the spy detective agency too, as Bok-Gi pitches an idea of the pair to work together. She wants to get back at Edward for what he’s put them both through. Given it’s Bok-Gi’s story, she drives a hard bargain but Joo-Eun eventually agrees to a 60/40 split on her plan. As we soon find out, the plan with Jeong-Hwan originally went awry as GK never handed over the file to UI. As Hanson reveals these details to her, Jeong-Hwan hides out at PC Graveyard. Detectives Kim and Kang arrive though, looking for Yoon-Seok. Only, Jeong-Hwan happens to be there instead. Donning his motorcycle helmet, Jeong-Hwan thwarts the police and hurries away. As they contemplate what this all means, the detectives notice the computers inside have been degaussed. After they leave, Jeong-Hwan sneaks back in again but this time finding Yoon-Seok there. It turns out the boy who died last time was actually his twin brother, Min-Seok. While they come to terms over what this means, Joo-Eun starts to question whether Jeong-Hwan is even dead too Hanson encourages her to drop this line of thinking, especially given there’s a big conglomerate involved. Meanwhile, a former employee at GK vision – Byung-Jun – leads a pep rally as he promises to win over votes in the upcoming elections. Following this though, Seok-Ho discusses this with him and in particular, whether President Choi’s death was really a suicide or not. That evening, Jae-Wook is driven into a parking lot where Jeong-Hwan happens to be watching from afar. He notices the motorcycle helmet in his mirror though and immediately becomes rattled. This inevitably leads Kim to ring Jeong-Hwan and tell him to come in. Only, Jeong-Hwan is cautious despite asking him for help. When Kim arrives back in his office, he asks Seok-Go for details on Jeong-Hwan’s case. Kim tells his colleague to chalk it up to an accidental death and hands over a stack of files for Seok-Go to go over. Only, he’s not so sure Jeong-Hwan is actually dead. On the back of this, Dae-Sang at the public affairs department receives a call from Seok-Go relating to the car accident. This sees the police come under fire as they’re forced to close the case as is – despite the obvious loose ends with Yoon-Seok and Jeong-Hwan. Detective Kim is reluctant but quells any doubts with his team by heading out for a dinner together. Their place of venue? In-Sook’s restaurant. Up on the roof, Joo-Eun is confronted by the thugs again until Hanson shows up. He recognizes the big man immediately and forces his subordinates to stand down. Eventually he agrees to succumb Joo-Eun to inherit Jeong-Hwan’s money. Their debt – at least for now – is settled. Joo-Eun arrives before Bok-Gi once more and asks about President Choi’s ledger. She believes Bok-Gi has it but upon confronting her, she passes the blame onto Edward. Getting nowhere, Joo-Eun eventually heads out to think things through at In-Sook’s restaurant. There, the officers sit at the table adjacent from her. They figure out that In-Sook and Joo-Eun know each other but aren’t quite sure how. Detective Kim takes the initiative and sits at Joo-Eun’s table, admitting that the case has been closed as an accidental death. She’s not happy that they haven’t found anything and asks them about the ledger and murder. Eventually she changes her mind though and eventually tells him to leave, as Kim is left with more questions than answers. In the morning Kim checks the news and bemoans that only 2 people died thanks to arsonist Jae-Wook’s incident. As he heads inside, Jeong-Hwan rocks up next to his former boss and reveals he’s living a different life now. Jeong-Hwan tells him he believes it’s UI’s interference and admits that he was the one helping Bok-Gi. He asks Kim to look into UI to see if there’s any substance to this claim – which Kim eventually agrees to do. As Kim is distracted by several businessmen arriving, Jeong-Hwan makes his exit and slips away. Sleeping in the PC Graveyard van, he and Yoon-Seok continue to look into the case together while the former refuses to trust anyone. As they search the computers, the duo watch Kim heading back to the hotel and heading up to the 20th floor. Thanks to some ingenuity and “documentary posing” the duo manage to get in the system and check the CCTV footage. What they find encourages Jeong-Hwan to head up himself to the 20th floor (which is still under construction apparently) to find out who he’s meeting there. It turns out Kim’s holding a private meeting with Edward Kim, confirming that the pair are working together.
The Episode Review
With a slower episode this time around, Private Lives has really been a topsy-turvy drama with varying quality. Given the dwindling ratings on this one, it’s clear that the show has lost a substantial amount of its original audience thanks to the slow-burn mystery elements. It’s a bit of a shame as episode 4 finally did bring a lot more clarity to events. Now though, it looks like we’re gearing up for a cat and mouse game between GK and UI against Jeong-Hwan and Joo-Eun. The latter team both working individually until an emotional reveal that they’re both together, I’d assume. For now though the show continues to deliver decent enough drama but whether that’s enough to keep viewers around the long-haul, remains to be seen.
