Is a person inherently bad? Or is it their circumstances that lead them to evil? New thriller drama “Dear X,” starring Kim You Jung and Kim Young Dae, addresses this topic in a very intriguing and exhilarating way. People say when life gives you lemons, you can make lemonade. However, when those lemons are deathly rotten, would you still drink from it knowing it could poison you? When left with no other choice but to kill or be killed, some people are willing to do anything to survive. Let’s dive in and see all that this new show has in store for us!
Warning: spoilers from episodes 1-4 ahead!
Baek Ah Jin (Kim You Jung), one of the most popular actresses in South Korea, may have the beauty of an angel and the world at her feet, but as a child, her life was nothing short of hell. Neglected by a despicable father and abused by an alcoholic mother, Ah Jin learned from a very young age that she had no one in this world but herself. So even after her father coldly murders her mother, she is far from safe from the world’s cruelty. That’s when she meets Yoon Joon Seo (Kim Young Dae), a sweet but naive boy who has lived a sheltered life under his greedy mother, who is probably as vicious as Ah Jin’s father but can hide it a little better.
Fast forward a few years, and we see that Ah Jin and Joon Seo have grown to become regular high school students, or so it seems. While Ah Jin is the picture-perfect model student on the surface, underneath her brilliant smile lies a systematic and cold-hearted manipulator, a total sociopath who only sees people as means to an end. On the other hand, Joon Seo appears as the same timid and good guy he was as a child; however, he shares a complex and somehow dependent relationship with Ah Jin after he was traumatized by watching his mother trying to drown Ah Jin to death.
They have formed a deep relationship that goes beyond any common friendship, and throughout the years, they have carefully crafted plans to take down Ah Jin’s enemies, whom she marks as “X.” But despite Ah Jin always showing a tendency to be calculative and cold towards people in general, she isn’t arbitrary when it comes to messing somebody up. For example, it is only when Sim Sung Hee (Kim Yi Kyung) starts to bully her out of jealousy that Ah Jin decides to mark her as her new “X.”
Digging into Sung Hee’s life, Ah Jin uncovers the love affair of the girl’s father and cleverly frames her as a thief, practically ruining her school life for good. This gives away an important lesson on Ah Jin and how far she is willing to go to get her payback. She doesn’t go eye for an eye; she goes after the entire head.
But Ah Jin doesn’t only know how to make enemies; she can also find some accomplices. This is the case with the unlikely alliance she makes with Kim Jae Oh (Kim Do Hoon), a guy who seems to be a tough cookie but who is secretly enduring constant abuse by his father. At first, both Ah Jin and Jae Oh appear as mere business partners, but as things escalate between them, he slowly shifts his attitude towards her. Sadly, his life turns awry when he unintentionally murders his father during one of the man’s fits of rage. However, before he turns himself in, he contacts Ah Jin and what she says to him resonates so deeply in his mind that he begins to idolize her, even when he is already in jail.
In this first part of the story, we see a clear picture of the tone and vibes we can expect from this show. The tension is recurrent, the thriller is peak and stimulating without being too extreme, and every scene seems to develop so smoothly that even a one hour episode feels like 20 minutes long, keeping you hooked every second of it. In terms of the plot and its characters, not even one of them appears to be sane. Ah Jin might be twisted, but all of her actions are the result of the extremely unfair and precarious circumstances she has survived through her life. In Joon Seo’s case, his deep trauma and lack of family bonds make him the perfect puppet for Ah Jin, and he is more than willing to do so.
But the worst is yet to come for Ah Jin. When she is about to get into her dream college and achieve her lifelong wish to become a lawyer, her father literally crushes her chances by stealing her tuition money. This is when she unleashes her darkest thoughts and decides who will be her next “X.” And this time, she will need someone other than Joon Seo to accomplish her plan.
That’s when former baseball star Choi Jung Ho (Kim Ji Hun) enters the picture in the most ill-fated way, to the point you wish they had never met. However, somehow this show makes you root for this morally grey female lead. Even if you know she is doing the wrong thing, she seems to have a very valid reason to do it. In a sense, the moment she decides to stop being a victim and becomes a villain, that’s when her character development happens, although in a very questionable way.
Once Ah Jin decides she has no other way to get rid of her wretched father but to kill him, she starts to scheme using every tool and person around her to make it happen. Of course, she has to make it look like she was never involved, even if she has to put her body on the line. In that critical moment, Ah Jin has a clear goal: to become untouchable. And you can’t help but feel chills run through your spine watching such a masterclass of acting. The way Kim You Jung can portray both an emotionless sociopath, completely void of feelings, and quickly swift to a maniac full of raw and vivid passion is awe-inspiring.
Nonetheless, her plans backfire when Jung Ho’s agent intervenes and pulls some strings in order to make Ah Jin the culprit behind the murder. Which is, in fact, true. She is the one who orchestrated everything, but still, it’s very interesting how Ah Jin has to face the power play that is so common in this sort of situation. Even when Joon Seo tries to take the fall and admits he is the culprit, Ah Jin can only be fully exonerated until she signs a contract with an influential agency, the same one that manages A-list actress Lena (Lee Yul Eum), who somehow will end up entangled in Ah Jin’s web of manipulation.
Still, being at the very top comes with a cost, and the one Ah Jin has to pay is Joon Seo. The intoxicating, bizarre, and complicated bond that they share might have helped her at some point in her life, but at that moment, it becomes a leverage that she isn’t willing to take. Joon Seo, aware of what this might mean for him, can only plead and beg to no avail before she discards him as well, completely unfazed by his emotions. Because, despite everything, she always tries to maintain her impeccable image. After all, she has worked very hard to build a persona that will appear perfect to the world. However, what Ah Jin doesn’t know yet is that the higher you are, the harder it feels to fall.
Will the decision to abandon the person who once meant her lifeline be the same to come back and haunt her down to the hellish hole she once rose from? That’s what we will discover in the upcoming episodes of this show. So hang on tight because “Dear X” is barely beginning!
Watch the premiere episodes of “Dear X” here:
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Andy zar is an avid drama watcher, from K-dramas to C-dramas, she believes any weekend is a good weekend to enjoy 12 hours of binge-watching dramas. She loves romance, web comics, and K-pop. Her favorite groups are EXO, TWICE, Red Velvet, and BOL4.
Currently watching: “Last Summer,” “Dear X”
Plans to watch: “Spirit Fingers”
