[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Why Her?" Episode 4

By William Schwartz on 2022/06/15 at 21:12 PST

Ji-yeong has been arrested for the murder of her sister So-yeong. Chan's fellow students suspect their alleged mentor Soo-jae of this nefarious deed, since it came following their own investigation that rather unconvincingly came up with Ji-yeong as a plausible suspect. Chan remains overly dogged in his defense of Soo-jae's moral purity. But the more outstanding question is what new evidence could possibly have been so convincing to arrest Ji-yeong without a warrant.

"Why Her?" is a bit pokey with its pacing here in that regard, mainly because even though we know Soo-jae and the students are going to take on Ji-yeong's case, it takes half an hour for that relationship to actually be formalized. Until then we get the tantalizing circumstantial evidence showing that Ji-yeong was in the building, and also that she wrote in a diary about how much she wanted to kill So-yeong. Both are well-explained by the episode's conclusion, though it remains ambiguous whether the story has much more use for Ji-yeong at all.

That's because despite seeming to take place in a law school, time and again Soo-jae just ends up going back to her old firm, threatening her former co-workers and receiving threats in turn. It's clear at this point that Soo-jae has some unsettling backstory with First Son Choi (played by Ji Seung-hyun). Whether his father Chairman Choi is aware of this backstory is ambiguous. All we know is that Soo-jae considers working on First Son Choi's divorce to be a huge red line.

Chan's almost puppy dog like devotion to Soo-jae works a lot better than it should in this context. In one of her hunts for information, Soo-jae surreptitiously meets CEO Yoon (played by Choi Young-joon), and this encounter is misinterpreted by some not terribly intelligent characters as being a romantic liason. Chan just loyally commiserates in private, though, and Soo-jae gets his hopes up anyway despite knowing that she really shouldn't.

There's a nice distinction between the professional and the personal in the script, which proves engaging even as it defies analysis since there are so many hidden motivations. Director Park Soo-jin-II does an excellent job making the words screenwriter Kim Ji-eun-III write come up so convincingly on-screen, with all of these aspects being buoyed by strong performances. There's no mystery at play as to how "Why Her?" has shot up to ratings of 10.1% in just four episodes, despite the concept seeming so lackluster on paper.

Review by William Schwartz

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"Why Her?" is directed by Park Soo-jin-II, written by Kim Ji-eun-III, and features Seo Hyun-jin, Hwang In-youp, Huh Joon-ho, Bae In-hyuk, Ji Seung-hyun, Lee Joo-woo. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/06/03~Now airing, Fri, Sat 22:00 on Coupang Play, SBS.

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