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Liar Game: Episode 10

This is a really dense episode, packed with character revelations and plot twists that are actually revelatory and truthfully twisty, and even though it calls for every ounce of attention you can dedicate to it, it doesn’t fail to reward you for time well spent. So much happens this hour that it’s near impossible to sum it all up here, suffice to say that the time to reunite our dearest and most craziest of villains with his missing marbles has come and gone, along with any shot he might’ve had at redemption. He’s positively unhinged now, as opposed to just being functionally certifiable before. Don’t think there’s a difference? Wait and see.

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Bye Bye Sea – “내 맘이 말을 해 (My Heart Speaks)” [ Download ]

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EPISODE 10: “Smuggling Game II”

Faced with a possible traitor amongst them, Woo-jin turns to Dal-goo to ask why he did it, before revealing that he never thought Do-young was psychic and suspected he had an accomplice from the beginning. He just didn’t know whether it was Dal-goo or Jaime.

And he never expected Do-young to pick Dal-goo, but it became increasingly clear he was the culprit as the game wore on. Woo-jin even figured out that Dal-goo and Do-young must’ve been sending each other hand signals through the windows, which is why he sent Da-jung with a note only she could read.

However, she was the one who withdrew the full one hundred thousand dollars when Woo-jin told her to only take an extra five grand. “I got angry at Kang Do-young for making us deceive one another,” Da-jung explains solemnly.

“What I don’t understand is the reason,” Woo-jin continues. “What offer did you get from Kang Do-young?” Jaime thinks it all comes down to money, but Da-jung refuses to believe it: “You wouldn’t do that, Ajusshi… right?”

Dal-goo can only drop to his knees and say he’s sorry.

Flashback to Dal-goo’s inspection with Do-young. There’s a part of the exchange we didn’t see, after Do-young made his claim that every person has a price. He knew that Dal-goo’s price was to get Da-jung out of her current situation, with enough money to pay off her father’s debts so she could live happily with him.

Do-young knew that Dal-goo didn’t want Da-jung to get hurt, and that he no longer trusted Woo-jin with her safety. “You don’t want her to keep playing either, right?” Do-young asked. “Wouldn’t it be better if she won her prize money and forfeited?”

While Jaime curses Dal-goo in the present, Da-jung kneels by his side and puts a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. She knows he did it for her, and Dal-goo can’t help but cry.

Surprisingly, it’s Jaime who comes to Dal-goo’s defense by blaming Do-young for sewing discord. Tears fall down Dal-goo’s face as he says he was tricked by Do-young, and Woo-jin putting a stop to his self-blame leads to a super sweet moment when Dal-goo buries his face in Woo-jin’s chest and sobs. All the while, Woo-jin pats his back comfortingly. “We’re finally a team,” Woo-jin comments. “Now, it’s time for battle.”

His strategy? They’ll use all their bank cards at once to withdraw all the East’s funds and use the East’s own team members to smuggle the money across.

In order to win the trust of the three East citizens who aren’t Do-young, they’ll promise to share the prize money (since they’d be winning instead of the East) and seal the deal by handing over their bank cards. But since they only need three cards for the three East citizens, Jaime gets to keep hers since she doesn’t do things for free.

As for who to send to convince the East team of their plan, Woo-jin says it has to be someone they’ll trust. Cue everyone looking at Da-jung, who’s modest enough to be all, Who, me?

There’s already unrest in the East’s camp thanks to Da-jung’s call to arms, but they all go quiet once Do-young enters. They probably suspect some truth in Da-jung’s claim about Do-young receiving help when Do-young defers playing inspector in the next round and instead volunteers one of his teammates to go.

…Which gives Da-jung the perfect opportunity to make the offer to all three members of the East nation. She even sweetens the pot by offering her bank card with any prize money she’d make by winning the round, even if it means she won’t see any of that money herself. She’s fine with sacrificing it if it means gaining the East’s cooperation, since they’d still move onto the final round with the ten million dollar prize.

She makes the same offer to Bulldog and Actor Gu, with instructions for how they’re to smuggle the money as well as what signal to make if Do-young catches on.

Of course Do-young notices Bulldog miming signals through the window to the West the instant he tries it. He may not know what they’re for yet, but suspects something amiss.

When Do-young volunteers to play inspector, the West team worries that he might’ve already caught onto their plan. Woo-jin is confident that he hasn’t (yet), and volunteers to be his team’s smuggler. He thinks he’s got a way to shake Do-young up.

Woo-jin uses all their bank cards to withdraw everything in the East’s bank, and hides the giant stash in a conveniently sized air vent.

He greets Do-young more enthusiastically than ever before, claiming that he was busy experimenting with whether he could control his microexpressions in the bathroom mirror. It was difficult, he even admits.

Even with ample practice, Woo-jin believes that a person can’t control their microexpressions completely even if they make themselves empty vessels to do so. After all, no one can fully shed their human qualities, even if they’re lacking in humanity.

He seems to know that Do-young told Da-jung about his role in her father’s financial downfall and questions Do-young’s use of that method, to which Do-young shrugs, “As long as it’s fun.”

So Woo-jin asks another question—did Do-young eliminate Guru Pippi from the President Game because he didn’t like the reading she gave him? The one about him being the kind to eat his own parents? “By chance, are you an orphan?” Woo-jin ventures.

Do-young’s expression remains static as he replies, “This isn’t fun.” Woo-jin pounces on the opportunity to get under his skin by asking if Do-young grew up in a neighborhood called Walden Two, and whether there’s any credence to the rumors that children were forced into sick psychological experiments.

Woo-jin: “I thought it was a ridiculous, nonsensical rumor at first. But I wonder if there’s some truth to it when I see you acting like an amused ten-year-old child watching people deceive one another.”

Do-young, who has been trying to keep himself composed this whole lecture, finally(!!) loses his temper as he slams his fist on the table.

But it’s Woo-jin’s turn to smirk as he notes, “What? I thought you were an empty shell, but now you seem human.” Do-young goes for the button to call Woo-jin out for carrying the max amount, and Woo-jin gladly opens his briefcase for him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kang Do-young,” Woo-jin says, like it’s their first time. He also won this round.

In the control room, Director Jang asks PD Lee if there’s any credence to what Woo-jin said about Do-young being an orphan. PD Lee says she doesn’t know, but thinks it’s just Woo-jin’s way of getting to him. Orrr does she?

Do-young returns to his team’s camp in a rage, decimating nearby inanimate objects. He then turns to his teammates and tells them to handle the next round—he’s going to rest.

Da-jung wants to use the time to have the East smuggle the stashed cash from the air vent, but Do-young already seems to suspect something when Actor Gu returns his bank card.

“If, by chance, all three of you betray me, what would happen if no one reports it? Should I burn these?” Do-young asks, before he holds a lighter dangerously close to all three bank cards as a warning. PD Lee issues her own warning to make Do-young stop, and though he does, he can’t help but giggle madly to himself after. Ruh roh.

Actor Gu is the first one to carry a fistful of cash from the air vent in the East over to the West. He launders the cash through the West’s machine somehow (I literally don’t know how), so that he’s able to stash that cash in the West’s air vent.

Sung-joon is next, and slowly but surely the West’s vent is filled with the East’s money. They’ve got over half of it transferred, though they worry what’ll happen if Do-young were to snap out of his (extra) crazy spell to participate in the next round.

After Bulldog smuggles the remaining air vent sum to the West and gets passed by Inspector Da-jung, he returns to find Do-young and the others waiting. Sung-joon and Actor Gu look pensively silent as Do-young asks Bulldog why he gave him Dal-goo’s bank card instead of his own.

Bulldog panics and fishes for his other card, only to see that the one he’s holding is Dal-goo’s card. Do-young just said he had the wrong card to catch Bulldog’s treachery, and it worked.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he asks the three of them, as he holds up all the bank cards—the ones they were given at the beginning, and the ones the West team gave them as a bribe. He’s already shaken down Sung-joon and Actor Gu, then.

Bulldog has to think fast before Do-young melts the cards, and makes up a lie(?) that the cards no longer matter now that they’ve safely stored the money. The others catch on and go along with it, earning a stay of execution on their bank cards.

They think they’re safe since Do-young can’t return the cash they smuggled to the West, only for Do-young to ask, “Why would I bring it back? Jaime will help me.” Does that mean Jaime’s been a traitor all along?

The West team wonders if their comrades in the East were caught, or if they’ve been betrayed. There’s no way of knowing which it is, but when Do-young is announced as the East’s inspector, Jaime volunteers to be the smuggler.

She’s cleared of traitorous suspicions during her inspection with Do-young, who shows her that he’s got all the bank cards given to the East team. Jaime all but screams in frustration, even though she can’t understand why Do-young is making a fuss when he could’ve kept the money even if his team lost.

“Games are only fun if you win,” Do-young says in an especially lifeless monotone (even for him). “I’ve never lost a battle.” So he gives Jaime a choice: she can return the smuggled money back to his camp for two bank cards, equaling double the amount she’d get if her team won.

Jaime doesn’t seem to want to betray her team, but the deal Do-young’s offering is a hard one to refuse. We don’t see the moment of decision, only the muted video of Do-young slamming his hands down on the table when he “loses.”

The West team thinks they’ve won the round, and even resident grumpycat Woo-jin manages a smile when he commends Da-jung on a job well done this round.

Too bad the good cheer doesn’t last, since Woo-jin has to only look at the East team’s long faces to know something’s gone wrong. He immediately turns to the monitor, where Do-young is slumped in his chair, barely able to contain his hysterical laughter.

The others don’t know what Woo-jin does before Jaime returns, but Woo-jin gets all the proof he needs when Jaime claims that Do-young was still too lost in his own insanity to put up a good fight.

And maybe that’s true, since Do-young does seem a bit more cuckoo than usual as he threatens to wipe the bank cards with a magnet (that he somehow fashioned from the speaker he broke).

Well, he did promise them a magic trick, and that’s what he delivers as he renders the cards useless with a maniacal grin and even more uncontrollable laughter.

For the last turn, Jaime volunteers to be her team’s smuggler so she can move the lump sum of cash from one air vent to the other per Do-young’s orders.

She demands her payment when she meets him, and Do-young is all too happy to give her the two bank cards he promised along with a bonus card. Hahaha. Those are the wiped cards, aren’t they?

Jaime doesn’t know that, so she’s more than happy to join Do-young in posing together for the camera wearing cheeky grins. The fact that Jaime has betrayed them again comes as a shock to everyone but Woo-jin, who’d already guessed as much.

Do-young uses the inspection room microphone to sardonically tell everyone that they worked hard—but none more than Da-jung, who he commends for bartering her prize money for a chance to win. Even though she lost anyway.

The round goes to Do-young, but even PD Lee is surprised that he couldn’t even be bothered to throw Jaime a bone by giving her just one functioning bank card.

Just then, something on the monitor catches PD Lee’s eye. She sends a camera crew to the border hallway just as Do-young’s leaving, only for him to realize that he’s not what they came to film as he turns around…

…And sees the whole sum Jaime was supposed to steal from him sitting behind the glass doors to the West. Jaime walks out to face him defiantly from the other side of the glass. She double-crossed Do-young? Brilliant!

Do-young looks genuinely surprised, while all the other contestants suddenly find themselves cheering for Jaime instead of scorning her. Only Woo-jin and Sung-joon think of something they’ve all forgotten as Do-young’s shoulders begin to shake with laughter.

His smile disappears in an instant when he lashes out at the partition separating him from Jaime: “Did you think it would end like this?” Cue the announcement that his team still has three rounds left before the game ends, which has Do-young happily skipping back to the East.

With only moments to spare, Woo-jin plasters a hastily-written sign saying “Commit treason” for the East team to see. Sung-joon is the first to understand, and runs to block the door before Do-young can enter.

It’s a battle of strength when it comes to the door, but luckily Sung-joon gets backup in the form of his teammates, who’ve decided to throw their possible victory to the wind as long as Do-young loses.

After his team fails one out of three rounds due to mutiny, Do-young returns to the hallway to find Jaime perched on the pile of money just to rub it in his face. He mentions how surprised he was that she didn’t betray her team, only for her to reply that she was just as surprised as he was.

Flash back to Woo-jin confronting Jaime about her would-be betrayal after Do-young made his offer. Being faced with her possible crime hadn’t chastened her, but Da-jung was the one who stopped the situation from escalating by letting Jaime leave of her own free will.

“Only you can stop your own betrayal,” Da-jung had told her. “So make a choice about what kind of person you want to be when you walk out that door.” Her words got through, since Jaime didn’t betray them after all.

The contestants are brought back to the soundstage after the mutiny succeeds in preventing the East from using its last three rounds, and the totals are tallied. As far as total money earned, Woo-jin’s team has the (much) higher number.

“It’s all thanks to Jaime,” Da-jung says, prompting Jaime to mutter under her breath that she might start to like Da-jung at this rate. (Cuuute.) But Do-young calmly contests that he’s still the winner, since he won the most prize money from collecting all their cards.

He waves this evidence at Da-jung while simultaneously calling her out for failing to keep her promise—she won no money in the round, so she has no money to share.

But Da-jung, unafraid, looks him straight in the eyes as she tells him how pathetic he is (in much nicer words). “You said you never fight a losing battle. You said that money moves people, right? You have all that money, but where is everyone standing? Why aren’t they moving toward that money?”

*MIC. DROP.*

At least Do-young acknowledges how much Da-jung has matured before he starts feeding his cards into the machine… but they’re all invalid. Do-young starts to look just a wee bit panicked as Woo-jin reveals that he had their cards reissued before they handed them out, so that they’d keep their real cards while Do-young got the fakes.

No one knew this but Woo-jin, who now apologizes for fooling the East team by giving them blank cards—but he had a feeling this would happen, so he wanted to be prepared. Now that the game is over, he hands them the real versions to make good on their promise. Aww.

Afterward, Do-young and Woo-jin meet outside to discuss the ticking time bomb Do-young is sure he placed in Da-jung’s mind when he mentioned Woo-jin’s ties to her father’s debt. He makes a this-would-be-cool-if-it-were-meta reference to Chekov’s gun (the principle that everything in a narrative must have a purpose—literally, if you have a gun hanging on the wall in one scene/chapter then it better go off before the story ends) by reminding Woo-jin that what he told Da-jung is a gun that’s bound to go off.

Instead of being scared, Woo-jin warns Do-young to be careful, because that loaded gun will blow his brains out.

Team Woo-jin stops their car to let Jaime in with her heavy suitcase of money so she won’t have to haul it alone, and though she complains about it, Jaime begrudgingly accepts their generosity. They bond, as do the three men who stood up to Do-young’s tyranny.

Dal-goo thinks he’s leaving Woo-jin and Da-jung to their own devices, when really Woo-jin just wants to use her computer to check the USB Sung-joon gave him.

In the file, Woo-jin reads that a subsidiary company of the one Do-young worked had plans to take over L Company before its collapse. Past that, all Do-young’s records are falsified, save for the one showing that he was adopted to the U.S. twenty years ago…

…And suddenly, Woo-jin is looking at a picture of his own mother. Do-young grew up in the orphanage his mother ran before he was adopted. Holy crap.

Woo-jin hurriedly snaps the laptop shut before Da-jung can take a good peek at the screen, but she’s got something on her mind—why would Do-young tell her that Woo-jin was responsible for her father’s debt? Did he want to win that badly?

It takes Woo-jin a second to realize that this is what Do-young meant when he said he put a ticking time bomb in her head. “Da-jung-ah,” he calls her fondly, “I’ll come to your cafe tomorrow night.” He wants to talk to her then about himself… and Do-young.

Sung-joon is accompanied by ominous lighting and orchestra strings (noooo!) as he enters an elevator later that evening. He answers a call from Do-young, who asks if he’s heard of Pandora’s box and what happens to those who open it.

Suddenly, Sung-joon’s elevator malfunctions, and he finds himself trapped in his own coffin as the car he’s in hurtles down the shaft before crashing far below.

PD Lee is confused and upset when Director Jang wants to air soundbites of the conversation she had with Da-jung’s father—one she thought was private, when it was secretly being recorded.

Da-jung is caught completely unaware when she hears her father’s voice on the broadcast… only to then hear his secret confession that she’d inadvertently stopped him from hanging himself with his own necktie.

As she reels in horror, Woo-jin reaches the door of the cafe to have that talk he promised her…

…But he’s too late. The broadcast reveals that what Do-young told her was true—Woo-jin was responsible for L Company’s collapse, and thus her father’s debt.

Woo-jin chooses not to enter as he answers a call from Do-young. “Who are you?” Woo-jin growls. “What do you have to do with me and my mother?”

Do-young clucks his tongue at Woo-jin for failing to remember that moment at the orphanage.

“You saw the true face of your angelic mother,” Do-young grits out, his expression going from leering to dead serious in the blink of an eye. “That’s why… you erased it from your memory.”

 
COMMENTS

Just when I thought the episode had gone above and beyond the call of duty when it came to making one point, it was really setting up for about a dozen more. At first it seemed to be about Team Woo-jin triumphing over Do-young, only for it to really harken back to Da-jung’s Disney princess worldview trumping Do-young’s psychopathically skewed perception of humanity, leading to a sidebar on the bonds of friendship, the pitfalls of revenge, the depths to which determined madmen can stoop to, and the heartbreak that inevitably comes when someone finds out their guardian angel may have/sort of/kind of had a hand in ruining their life.

I know that Woo-jin’s involvement in L Company’s fall will be explored in the show’s final week (*sob*) and that it may be hard for Da-jung to think through this issue rationally for a while, but I do hope she gives it a very good shot. Because while I see how this can be a damning reveal—especially in the way Da-jung heard about it—I don’t want the blame game to be drowned in a puddle of tears next week. Woo-jin did a bad thing in razing a company and probably ruined a whole lot of lives, true, but him being unintentionally and tangentially responsible for Dad’s debt when he wasn’t even using his own money but borrowed money to invest isn’t the same as Woo-jin holding a smoking gun over the corpse of Da-jung’s father. Or so I hope, because if I needed my smelling salts after Woo-jin called her “Da-jung-ah,” just think of the damage a whole scene could do.

Watching Do-young give into his insanity was more frightening than I thought it’d be, though I realized somewhere along the way that the reason I felt so unsettled during his mad scenes was because I actually care about what happens to him. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m advocating forgiveness or reconciliation for him, only that he’s not the kind of villain I can view through a dispassionate and detached lens. I actually can’t quite figure out what it is, only that I felt a twinge in my chest when Do-young started to panic with the invalid bank cards. It was something-like-but-not-necessarily pity, which came on unannounced because Do-young does NOT deserve it.

And yet I felt it. I don’t know what that says about me, only that there’s something sad about the idea that Do-young was once a normal child who endured something sinister. Just how sinister is yet to be revealed, though the pieces of the puzzle are starting to form a coherent picture. If Woo-jin’s mother had something to do with Do-young’s stolen childhood, and if everything up to this moment has been an act of very, very elaborate revenge on Do-young’s part, then I’ll have to prepare my mind before it gets blown to smithereens next week. In the meantime, R.I.P. Sung-joon. Yours was the kind of death that will live on forever in our nightmares. *pours one out*

 
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Thank you for the recap! SO many twists and turns in this ep. The hugs, awww, I loved them. NDJ, HWJ, Jamie, the Three Musketeers, the OST, everything was just so intense. I really loved this ep.

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@ Shalini and GB,
Some of our wishes came true. Jamie stayed loyal to her team (with the help of HWJ and NDJ convincing her, I believe), and NDJ showed me (because I didn't really see that in her before), that she could really be a winning and worthy opponent. I loved her speech about the mental victory. DY thought he had money, yet he was alone, and the other contestants were all on the same side. This time, NDJ moved many hearts (Jamie and the 3 Musketeers). Could I/dare I say, (a little) more so than money?

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@ Ivoire
Yes, our wishes and guesses and the guesses of other Beanies actually did show up as right.

NDJ, the one who appeared stupid to some, is more smart-thinking than we might have given her credit for and is full of resolve when it comes to her ideal of how everyone can get to win, together.

DY whom some would not want to classify an all out villain has been shown to be somewhat a victim too, perhaps to the extent that he no longer can keep up the facade of being mentally sound. From the recaps, the fact that he would carry out crimes of such magnitude just as long as they were fun, seems to come from a boy who did not grow up.

The connection that Beanies guessed at between DY and HWJ's mum in the orphanage has panned out too. And the guess(es) in the comments below are entirely probably. Perhaps HWJ's mum had a hand in knowingly(?) sending some orphans to Walden 2?

I did really like the challenge in DJ's eyes and her conviction that money did not move those players. She's too modest to gloat over the fact that she did move them, just by being her naive, trusting self and not changing despite being betrayed or provoked. That's the best part. She did not have to do anything to manipulate or change the behaviour of others. She just was herself and she let others choose to be better than they expected and to own that decision. DY should take a leaf from her on managing people.

However now I fear for the rest of the group. Those who betray DY, he will punish, just as he promised to reward those who were loyal.

Poor Sung Joon,... terrible though his death is, I wonder how it was managed. DY's minion would have had to fiddle with controls or attach something to make the lift malfunction and that would have taken some time. How could he have managed to exit the lift just as Sung Joon came? He would need to know exactly when Sung Joon would arrive so that the lift would crash at that time.

So now we wait, impatiently, for the next and final episodes.

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Hi GB~ PART 1

I will go down your post by using #s.

#1: (Your very 1st sentence), I agree.

#2: It did not occur to me before (and it just did right now), that NDJ might also have an EQ or EI (Emotional Intelligence) higher than her peers, at least in that game and in this dramaverse (universe of the drama). Based on your background, I am sure you are familiar with EI. I 1st learned about it when I came across this book: http://www.danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/
I find it interesting that on that page, there are blog posts about "The Chemistry of Connection," and "Let's Not Underrate Emotional Intelligence," which I personally find apply greatly to NDJ, our heroine.

I starting to see even more, how quite well written the characters are in this drama, b/c while I was raving in epis. 7-8 and 9 about Jamie (and her arc), I see better who the other characters are, and the roles they come to play in due time. Important info would not have been found without CSJ's skills as a hacker, even though his health had to suffer (can he PLEASE not be dead, please?), and the smuggling would not have been successful without BD and actor Gu (and CSJ), who not only worked together, but also held hands on the stage, even when everything seemed lost for them.

I think you and the other beanies know how I feel about DG (and KDY, I still love him as a villain, who is extremely smart and can read people, to an extent), and HWJ is our hero, so he definitely would have had an important role to play as well. Even Beeper Guru was important, b/c her warnings (about KDY) are still with us, and we are waiting to see to what extent she might have been right (she was probably right, methinks). My point is that, of course every character in this drama has been important (maybe not always to the same degree), but I didn't clearly see how before.

Stepping back, I can now reflect on what NDJ's arc has been in this drama, and I am sure I will find out more next week, with the final 2 epis. Having watched up to ep.10, I love how clear it has become why NDJ and HWJ complement each other, and I can see why many (wor)ship them as a (potential) couple. He is very logical, pragmatic, firm (when she might not be), and he is constantly thinking about how to execute a plan (or come up with one). She has a lot of heart, always tries to see the good in people, still extends a hand to those who betray and hurt her, and she believes in "WE" and not in "I," (people have to remind her that the "I" is important as well).

We see HWJ learn from her, as he chose (quickly) to forgive DG, and as he (even) comforted him, hugging him, and patting his back, and letting DG put snots on his nice jacket, LOL. I really honestly LOVED that (bromance) moment. NDJ and HWJ do make a good team. I was glad to see that what didn't (really) work in the President Game (total trust), worked here. Remember my questions (then) about why the other guys did not...

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@ GB, PART 2~
Sorry, this was my last sentence (which was truncated): (I am still on your #2, btw);
"Remember my questions (then) about why the other guys did not trust HWJ yet?"

I thought it was interesting to see that NDJ had given KDY the benefit of the doubt, wanting to believe that he was still a good person, until he revealed to her (in a twisted way), HWJ's role in her father's misfortunes. Though KDY was (somewhat) right, it was that moment/incident that got some anger out
of NDJ (and we had never seen her angry), and the moment I believe when she gave up having faith in KDY having a heart somewhere, in his body (his insides are "empty," so who knows?)

I do feel that the sentiments of many viewers and beanies about NDJ not being bright were warranted at the beginning of the drama. NDJ did not even seem to be street smart, always believing people's words, to the point of putting her life in danger (ep.2). So it is also nice to see that even though her core might be the same, she seems to be starting to get a few things. I did like that she was the only one who "chose" to believe Jamie's lack of betrayal, in ep.9 b/c in order for Jamie to prove that she can be trustworthy, at least one person needs to actually try and trust her (again), and in the end, NDJ was the one who changed Jamie's heart, in a way that was even clear to Jamie herself (as she admitted it), and as Jamie confessed that she might start liking NDJ (if NDJ kept being nice to her).

And I agree with this, "and is full of resolve when it comes to her ideal of how everyone can get to win, together." I also realize that I love that NDJ is emotionally intelligent, without actually trying to be so. I mean, she didn't take classes on that, she didn't go to any seminars/workshops on "how to make people hold hands and sing Kumbaya" (LOL, shoutout to Shalini. I want to see how often I can use that word in my posts with you 2 guys :-) ). Yet she managed to do just that in the end, having all the contestants on the same team/side (minus DKY, of course). Through her (steady) character, she appealed to her fellow contestants.

#3: Well said. About this, "the fact that he would carry out crimes of such magnitude just as long as they were fun," what crimes were you referring to? HWJ's mom dying? Or (all) that he did during the Smuggling game? Or...?

#4: If HWJ's mom had a hand in WTP (Walden Two Project), I am very curious to find out how that came about, and how come HWJ never knew about it. That would be a great twist as well, b/c then we get to see how HWJ would handle that news. This is where this drama being 16 epis. long would have been interesting (as well as having a stronger romantic arc [that we could see]), so we would get to see NDJ help HWJ get through that, and witness some hugs between the two some of the beanies have been clamoring for *side glances at Shalini* :-) Also, what would then be the larger repercussions and...

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Hey Ivoire! :D

“I also realize that I love that NDJ is emotionally intelligent, without actually trying to be so. I mean, she didn’t take classes on that, she didn’t go to any seminars/workshops on “how to make people hold hands and sing Kumbaya” (LOL, shoutout to Shalini. I want to see how often I can use that word in my posts with you 2 guys )”
That was incredibly well put! HWJ and NDJ definitely have an EQ versus IQ going on and the more time they spend around each other, the more the two merge as they rub off on each other. And Kumbaya is honestly going to become the catchphrase of this show xD I feel like we’ve a lot more moments like that coming, what with NDJ and HWJ in fine form (while KDY goes full force crazy)

“This is where this drama being 16 epis. long would have been interesting (as well as having a stronger romantic arc [that we could see]), so we would get to see NDJ help HWJ get through that, and witness some hugs between the two some of the beanies have been clamoring for *side glances at Shalini* Also, what would then be the larger repercussions and also, what would then be the larger repercussions and meanings behind HWJ’s mom’s actions back then?”
Umm…yes please :3 To all of that xD And the fallout would be huge if it turned out that HWJ’s mom was behind the Walden Two Project. For one, it would mean that HWJ is also likely a project of the same social, and psychological trauma that KDY went through, the difference is that he managed to erase it from his memory (hence hwy he told NDJ that he never really remembered his time at the orphanage). I can’t even imagine the incredible pain and shock this man is going to experience, should his mom be behind everything. I mean, he technically killed someone to avenge her. How’s he supposed to deal with that the rest of his life? (This is technically where NDJ comes in and…*spins fantasies of domestic bliss*)
“Remember how he said that he would give money to his supporters (the 1st time), and then he betrayed them? Yes, in the end, he did give them some money however, with KDY, it seems challenging to know when he is telling the truth, and when he is bluffing. Though I guess his threats (at least), can be taken seriously.
Hmm, I believe the money was definitely to ensure that they’d remain with him on during this round, and perhaps he may have even given the others their share of the spoils had Actor Gu not fouled things up by taking HWJ on and failing spectacularly. It was an element that KDY hadn’t predicted, which pissed him off and resulted in him beginning his ‘reign of terror’ over the others. From that moment on, they’d no chance of gaining any money from KDY. HWJ noted earlier that only KDY kept coming out, meaning that he must have taken the other’s cards. Thus, it was pretty easy for a rather angry NDJ to infer that he had no intention of rewarding them at all. Hope that helps!

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part 2 in response to your comment below:
“About the elevator, someone on viki said you can’t do that to modern elevators (fiddle with controls), is it true? I think it took a team of people to create that incident, tbh. A team of minions who communicated with each other. We have never seen them, but I don’t know how else that could have be done.”
I think so as well, KDY seems to have quite a few lackeys around the place. In fact, I’m still sort of curious as to where the one from ep 9 went (do you remember seeing one that DG saw as he was leaving DJ’s place with HWJ?) I found it strange that the show didn’t reveal just exactly what was happening there.
“Let’s just wrap this baby, and I will be over at Shalini’s (Shalini, where do you live?), hugging her, and consoling her b/c her beloved drama is over. I wish I had KDY’s magic powers, so I could get LSY to come and console Shalini instead ”

XD I sort of know what you mean. This show really has taken over my life as well. When I’m not watching it, I’m either screencapping or searching up BTS, or stalking the facebook page/LSY fansites (which is ridiculous and I really should stop xD) And I live in Canada! Hamilton to be precise xD Not sure how far that is from the West Coast (that’s where you live right? :3 ) Or was that the East Coast (forgive my wavering memory :S) I appear to have HWJ’s problem with selective memory as well xD (that is I remember all things pertaining to him xD)
“1-When BD went in to be inspected, he was obvious with NDJ. A viewer on viki wrote, “Way to make it obvious, dumb ganpae.” Have you ever seen that word, “ganpae? 2-Did actor Gu say that, if they forfeit, they would have just enough money to pay the penalty, and the money they (all 3) previously spent? So, they would have no money left over? Why would the 3 Musketeers withdraw (B/c they don’t think they can win)? Do they have to [withdraw]? 3-Did KDY send pix of NDJ and her dad to JVN? How did they get those? Did that televised broadcast have KDY’s hand in it?”
Ganpae means gangster xD And BD and Actor Gu are honestly even worse actors than NDJ (during her first act in ep 9) they really did make things obvious, though I think KDY was expecting the like from HWJ. As HWJ’s team won this round, all of KDY’s team has to take part in the Reinstatement Game, where only one person gets to move on to the final round. Actor Gu, CSJ, and BD just weren’t confident enough that they could beat KDY. Well, at first anyway, before they decided to fight along with NDJ (Kumbaya!) The televised broadcast was Dir. Jang’s work if I’m not mistaken. Even PD Lee drew the line at airing the recorded conversation but he steamrolled ahead, breaking DJ’s, HWJ (and my) hearts xD

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@ GB, PART 3~
My truncated sentence: "Also, what would then be the larger repercussions and meanings behind HWJ's mom's actions back then?"

#5: I agree with everything you said here (and I realize that I have said some of the same things, in a way), and I especially like this, "She did not have to do anything to manipulate or change the behaviour of others. She just was herself and she let others choose to be better than they expected and to own that decision." I think HWJ might be learning from her :-) What do you think?

#6: (those 2 sentences): the thing though, is that hadn't Jamie been loyal (until then) to KDY in the Presidential Game, when KDY betrayed her? Isn't that (a big part of) why NDJ said that KDY would not keep his word about taking care of the other contestants? Remember how he said that he would give money to his supporters (the 1st time), and then he betrayed them? Yes, in the end, he did give them some money however, with KDY, it seems challenging to know when he is telling the truth, and when he is bluffing. Though I guess his threats (at least), can be taken seriously.

#7: I was also curious about that incident, WRT CSJ. It was too perfect. I know this is Kdramaland, but still. And I know that KDY had people on the LG show followed (at times), so he knew what was going on, and when. And he would choose to react, to act or not, as we have seen. About the elevator, someone on viki said you can't do that to modern elevators (fiddle with controls), is it true? I think it took a team of people to create that incident, tbh. A team of minions who communicated with each other. We have never seen them, but I don't know how else that could have be done.

About this, "So now we wait, impatiently, for the next and final episodes." I am in the minority (of one, maybe) who is very patiently waiting. And I will also be glad when this drama is over, as it has (kind of) taken over my life. I will rewatch it, and discuss it some more with Shalini (I know that for sure, LOL! B/c for one, I still have questions about the past and this weeks' episodes). I also don't want an extension. Let's just wrap this baby, and I will be over at Shalini's (Shalini, where do you live?), hugging her, and consoling her b/c her beloved drama is over. I wish I had KDY's magic powers, so I could get LSY to come and console Shalini instead :-)

Some of my questions: 1-When BD went in to be inspected, he was obvious with NDJ. A viewer on viki wrote, "Way to make it obvious, dumb ganpae." Have you ever seen that word, "ganpae? 2-Did actor Gu say that, if they forfeit, they would have just enough money to pay the penalty, and the money they (all 3) previously spent? So, they would have no money left over? Why would the 3 Musketeers withdraw (B/c they don’t think they can win)? Do they have to [withdraw]? 3-Did KDY send pix of NDJ and her dad to JVN? How did they get those? Did that televised broadcast have KDY’s hand in it?

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Hi Ivoire,
I saw your question to Shalini under *1.1.2.1.1 Ivoire November 20th, 2014 at 11:54 AM* about ending the names of people with -ah or -ie. Instead of posting there, which might mess up your conversation, I'm adding my 2 cents here.

When I was playing around with learning a bit of Korean, I gathered that it is only when we consider someone a close friend/sweetheart or a family member do we add the -ah. It shows we have gone beyond the standard politeness of acquaintances and can be informal and more relaxed with each other. (Even in my culture we do that to be informal, although I am not Korean).

When the ending is -ie, it shows that, that person is the subject of the conversation. So "Do_Young-ie" means they are speaking about Do Young. There may be more meaning(s) to that ending too but I'll let the true blue Koreans explain :)

WRT to italics....
Testing_if_italics_work. _Just_for_fun._ :) If this appears as garbage the test failed :D

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@ Ivoire
Can you explain what you mean about the arc in NDJ's character?

Do you mean she began by appearing too naive (to the point of stupidity), grew to become a little more savvy (lying in the lay off game to enable everyone to gain) but still retaining her original purpose, and then moving on to not blindly trusting everyone including KDY? All this and at the same time, never losing her vision of what she wanted for everyone?

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@ GB~

Thank you so much for your responses, and for adding to my conversation with Shalini about "-ah" and "-ie." That actually reminded of Angel Eyes, where PDJ/LSY would call GHS's character: 1--Yoon Soo-wan (her name), or 2--Soo-n-ah (almost of all the time), and her dad would call her: 1--Soo-n-ah or 2--Wan-ah (as I remember it). Now that you mentioned it, there was never an "-ie" ending with her name, probably since they were talking to her, and not about her. (I just learned sth.) Do you have any idea as to why DG continues to call KDY "Do-Young-ie?" Isn't that affectionate? I thought he didn't like KDY?

Those stayed with me, b/c I absolutely LOVED how PDJ/LSY would pronounce her name, even when he would get angry or upset. There was always some feelings/emotions when he said her name. And then, when he would say her name softly, Oh man!!!! I was a puddle of goo, every time, LOL! (I am exaggerating a little). He would say it softly, and with a lot of tenderness, which was nice to hear in a Kdrama, where the males (Alpha males) often tend to be aggressive (towards the heroine), and we are supposed to believe they are being loving (topic for another day). I always watch Kdramas with headphones, and as a former singer (in choirs) and a linguist, I am very sensitive to how people sound, and to their voices in general (as I have told you before).

LSY's voice acting, and his voice in general in AE (Angel Eyes) was just awesome. Many love his voice in this drama, I was more moved by his voice in AE, he was so good with it and his voice was nuanced, based on the scenes and on the context. @ Shalini is funny. She too LOVES LSY's voice. She said on her blog that his voice should be illegal, LOL!!!!! (But I totally understand her :-) ) I seriously love her fangirling, I totally get her, when she does it :-)

About NDJ's arc, I was actually thinking about other things, however, you have just added to my thoughts. So I will be back later to explain. I am currently doing an evening shift, being with the children. So please check back later, and also, FYI, I will add to my thoughts in ep.9, so please feel free to check there too, until the next recaps next week, like we have done in the past couple of weeks or so :-)

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@ GB~
Quick question: if HWJ is the (1st) one who said, "DJ-ah," does that indicate that he is the one who wants (both of them) to be closer (1st)? That would be a fairly big departure from his behavior and from the way he has been presented to us, so far. Wouldn't it? That is why I am so curious about why he said it, and about WHY he said it now (in that scene)?
Does my question make sense? I am not sure, though I know what I am trying to say. Please let me know...

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To add to what GB was spot on about below, the –ie can also be a bit demeaning if used when talking about someone who ranks far higher than you in society. Same goes for the –ah, if the person addressing you that way isn’t someone you’re close to. But when they’re as strong as silent as HWJ, that sort of –ah is given a far more intimate dimension, which according to the reactions over here turned everyone into a puddle of jelly xD
And seeing as their's no reply button below your comment 1.1.1.3.3 Ivoire November 20th, 2014 at 8:01 PM I'll reply here xD

Yes. YES! To EVERYTHING you said about AE, PDJ and LSY xD And thanks for getting my fangirling! :D Oh gosh, Liar Game resurrected a desire to watch AE (which I’d skimmed through before, not finding it particularly compelling) and watching it all over again made me fall even harder for LSY. He’s so incredibly gentle in and tender in there and kept flashing that beautiful dimple to the point where I just wanted to drop everything and swim in it xD (That beautiful smile he kept flashing towards SooWan should be illegal too now that I think of it xD) And whoa! You’re a linguist AND a singer? That is super, super cool. I wish I could carry a tune, but I end up giving myself a headache. What I love about LSY’s acting is that it’s so realistic. Most K-drama actors have a tendency to show exactly what is going through their character’s head in every corner of their face. Sometimes it’s amusing to see, but during scenes with high conflict and tension or a face-off with a baddie, it’s rather unrealistic to see them go from expression to expression with the other person noticing anything. LSY manages to convey just the right amount of feeling through his eyes and voice, without making things blatant. And I’ll stop here otherwise this’ll go on for a hundred more pages xD

“if HWJ is the (1st) one who said, “DJ-ah,” does that indicate that he is the one who wants (both of them) to be closer (1st)? That would be a fairly big departure from his behavior and from the way he has been presented to us, so far. Wouldn’t it? That is why I am so curious about why he said it, and about WHY he said it now (in that scene)?”

Hmm…having thought long and hard about HWJ these past few weeks, it’s easier to see why he did it when looking at the past. HWJ and DJ have definitely been through a lot in the past few episodes (enough for them to be on familial terms) but oddly enough, they always referred to each other formally using WooJin-sshi, or Da-Jung-sshi. This is even more odd if you go back to ep 2, right after he pinky-promises never to betray her and walk away, she runs after him asking why he’s speaking informally to her (that is dropping all the “-yo”s and the “imnida”s that characterize polite Korean speech) and he responds that she did the same upon their meeting. So they were informal with each other in every way but names. What prompted the change for HWJ could be an accumulation of everything that’s...

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part 2: as my comment as truncated xD

...So they were informal with each other in every way but names. What prompted the change for HWJ could be an accumulation of everything that’s happened these past two episodes and NDJ demonstrating such enormous growth while remaining essentially the same trusting girl she’s always been. But what definitely seals the deal for him is when she asks him outright about what KDY said rather than ponder it in silence and brood (the way so many other drama leads are wont to do). He sees that she demonstrated incredible trust in him, even in the face of KDY’s mind tricks and finally openly softens. The “DaJung-ah” is almost a ‘thank-you’ here, because he’s trying to reassure her and show affection at the same time. (*squeals*)

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Re: the -ah / -ie question

Calling people by their names in Korean is governed by a very complex set of social conventions and rules, but very generally, you use -ah (or -yah if the name ends in a vowel; -ah is for names that end in consonants) to call someone or get their attention. HOWEVER, you can't go around calling just anyone that way; it's considered banmal (check out the Glossary on banmal if you don't know what that is: http://www.dramabeans.com/2010/07/glossary-banmal/), and so can only be used to people younger/below you. There are exceptions to this, but they're few and far in between, and I wouldn't recommend messing around with them until you're really sure what the consequences are, since it can be incredibly rude. But if you listen in dramas, you'll see that often parents, grandparents, older sibs, and close older friends use this to talk to their kids/sib/friend/whatever, and friends of the same age use it to each other, as well. It implies a certain amount of intimacy (emotional, not necessarily physical), which is why it's used to such effect in this episode with Woo-jin and Da-jung.

The particle -ie does, in fact, denote the subject of the sentence and/or clause...sometimes. It also has another use, which in English is basically the equivalent of turning a name into a nickname. (I.e. calling Nick "Nicky") It also denotes a certain amount of intimacy, and you'll often hear grandmas/moms/dads/etc using it to talk about their kids, etc. But it's not a strictly superior-to-inferior thing; sometimes you'll hear kids refer to a beloved aunt/uncle/grandma/whatever as "So-and-so-ie Grandma" or "So-and-so-ie Uncle".

That's a very simplified explanation of the meanings of -ah/-yah and -ie, but if you listen carefully as you watch dramas, you'll see those dynamics play out between the characters and perhaps start to grasp some of the nuances. Hope that helps.

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@ Ivoire and Shalini
About the -ah and -ie ending to names.... Yes I feel Shalini is spot on and I could not have said it better.

He appreciated that she was still loyal and trusting after hearing what DY said and wanted to show it by dropping the formality, reducing the distance between them. That's why it is so appropriate at this time.

And also Ivoire is probably right in that he might soften the heartbreak by using -ah (the equivalent of a diminutive of a name, showing familiarity or affection) since what he had to explain would be painful. He was preparing her in a way, for bad news.

About their relationship arc: HWJ and NDJ have gone through a lot. It had mainly been him giving (advice, little rebukes, being the decision maker) and her receiving. He was the one who helped/led and she was the needy one and the loyal, trusting follower. Now they are coming to a more even footing or maybe even a little reversal in their relationship.

She has shown that she is able to stand up to Do Young on her own and she is not afraid to keep asking questions. HWJ now finds himself in a disadvantaged position as being the one to have something he is not proud of, to reveal. He is the one in need now, ... of her understanding and maybe forgiveness.

This is what I like in a relationship arc. Both parties get to make mistakes, to give, to receive, to help each other up and to grow. Even with 2 more episodes, it will be enough if they have started on this path towards a healthy and happy relationship.

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@ Ivoire

WRT to your comment "#3: Well said. About this, “the fact that he would carry out crimes of such magnitude just as long as they were fun,” what crimes were you referring to? HWJ’s mom dying? Or (all) that he did during the Smuggling game? Or…?"

I was just being lazy and lumping all the bad things he did under 'crimes'. As I said a couple of episodes ago, he is evil and a villain but not likely to be caught committing a crime, although now with Sung Joon, he has totally crossed the line.

And your comment, "#5: I agree with everything you said here (and I realize that I have said some of the same things, in a way), and I especially like this, “She did not have to do anything to manipulate or change the behaviour of others. She just was herself and she let others choose to be better than they expected and to own that decision.” I think HWJ might be learning from her :-) What do you think?"

Well, he appears to be supportive of her realising her ideal of cooperative game playing and prize sharing. He is letting her give away her prize money and he himself also keeps his word to let the others have their winnings. His stepping back and watching and letting the other players decide what to do might be construed as being a bit more like how Da Jung trusts people to choose for the unselfish good. At the same time he was watching to see who was going to betray, so it's hard to say.

What Da Jung does by just being herself will be harder for him though, since just being himself and not managing others is not necessarily enough to get others to trust him. They know he is way above them in intelligence and that he can also manipulate them if he wishes.

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Hey Ivoire, you fortuneteller you! We had our Kumbaya moment! Watching CSJ, BD and Actor Gu holding the door and "committing treason" I jumped for joy, thinking of you. Woohoo! And we were totally right about their perhaps being some resentment towards HWJ's mom on KDY's part and something fishy going on at the orphanage. If you don't mind, I actually quoted your comment from the episode 8 recap on my blog. Didn't not expect that twist to come true!
Should I reply to your comments from the previous recap over here, or would it be easier if I replied over on that page? :D
Considering that I'm now a puddle of goo thanks to that "DaJung-ah" and certainly in no condition to write a phsyics test (thanks of much for remembering that on the episode 9 recap!), I'll be scouring for the next episode's preview.
Honestly, so sad and excited for the final two episodes!

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@ Shalini, PART 3~

I was really glad to see that the 3 Musketeers stuck to their guns, despite their fears, their bad acting, and how obvious they were about a "Betrayal Game" going on. As HWJ told them, "it must have been hard, taking in (and putting up with) KDY's dictator's ways, and threats." And HWJ was right, we saw it in their behaviors towards KDY. That was another reason to rejoice, it was a small feat I would take.

About this, "And we were totally right about their perhaps being some resentment towards HWJ’s mom on KDY’s part and something fishy going on at the orphanage."
Yes!!!! I guess our speculations were right WRT HWJ's mom. I am still wondering if she was a "true angel," who was deceived herself WRT the children's fate once they left her orphanage, or if, as KDY suggested, "her true colors" are different, and HWJ conveniently erased that side of his mom in his memories.

A part of me hopes for my 1st speculation, though as a beanie commented here, having HWJ's mom's hands in Walden Two Project makes her flawed, with more gray areas (as a character), and interesting in a way. It also means that HWJ's idea and memory of his mom will come crashing down, (ruh rooh). Now having just written that, I don't wish that for HWJ. I like my 1st speculation more, with KDY being awfully wrong as to what he thinks happened with HWJ's mom. Wouldn't it be sth if, next week (Wed. or Thursd.) we are back on this blog, in the next recaps, realizing that our guesses were right? :-) We should TOTALLY high five each other then :-)

About this, "Considering that I’m now a puddle of goo thanks to that “DaJung-ah,” I have a question: the fact that HWJ called her like that, what does that EXACTLY mean and what does that implies (many things, I am assuming)? 1-That they are getting close, relationship-wise (and not necessarily romantically), since they have spend some time together, and a lot of it under pressure? 2-That HWJ likes her? (and she does too? Based on her reactions)? 3-That he knows he has bad news for her, and so he wants to soften her heartbreak, when she will hear it? (You know, the way I wrote "honey" and "Sweetie" earlier, and then kind of crashed a dream of LSY thinking of you, LOL!)

I am asking those questions, b/c whenever I hear a "ah" or "ie" added after a name (btw, did you notice in ep.9 that DG called KDY "Dong-young-ie" again? I think he did), I always try to get the full grasp of what that implies or means. I think I fully understand when I hear parents calling their children that way. It is that term of endearment many of us might have from our parents. Someone on DB tried to explain to me that it would be like a "Robert" being called "Bobbie," while others said that there were more meanings and layers to the use of "-ah" and --ie" (and probably other endings in Korean 1st names).

How did you (objectively, if that is possible :-) ) understand him calling her like that?

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@ Shalini, Hi~ *Waves both hands at you* PART 1:

DID you take your Physics test? Are you going to? If so, when? Or is it a take home kind of test, that you just have to turn in by a certain time? PLEASE!!!! Do NOT make me worry about you, and please do well, OK :-) I know LSY is HOT and all (so you say :-) ) but honey, he can wait. I don't want to burst your bubbles, but Sweetie, LSY does not even know that the likes of you and I breathe on this planet. Oh, did I just say that? *Goes over and picks Shalini off the floor, gives her a hug, and pats her on the back, the way HWJ did to DG in this ep.* I didn't mean any harm by that, @ Shalini. I am sure LSY will personally come towards you, and give you a hug when he eventually meets at one of his fanmeetings. If you do not already live in Korea, you might have to fly there (or to Japan), so you could meet him. Unless he has enough fangirls in the US, who knows, he might come. I just hope to be there to witness the moment, and pick you off the floor, after said hug and exchange, in case you know, you might not be able to talk, since the cat would have had your tongue, :-) (Man would I LOVE to witness such a moment).

Also, I looked on your blog for a section where I could read more about you, and possibly leave you a message. Should I just do that on the page about your ep.10 recap? Please let me know. Thanks! Oh, I just left you a post on your blog, FYI. WRT your post below, thank you for mentioning me in your thread on ep. 10. No, I do not mind at all that you mentioned me. I am glad that my writing, and discussing this drama with you (and other beanies), have helped (or contributed) to your analysis of the episodes. It is an additional way to feel that my time spent on the LG’s recaps, and my time spent thinking about the drama, asking questions and dissecting it, have not been in vain, since those get you thinking some more, and those can be added in your writing. Thank you also, for giving credit where it is due. I appreciate that.

About this, "Should I reply to your comments from the previous recap over here, or would it be easier if I replied over on that page?" Please do respond on the recap for ep.9, I think it will be less confusing that way. And I could scroll back up, if I need to reread sth Heads wrote, or one of the comments one of the beanies wrote about ep.9. I still have some questions WRT that ep., so I feel better keeping our comments in the appropriate episode's recap, and we can just let each other know where we wrote that comment, OK? Thank you for asking :-)

About this, "Hey Ivoire, you fortuneteller you! We had our Kumbaya moment!"
You know what? You read my mind, literally! I took some notes when I was watching this ep., and I literally wrote that comment. This was what I wrote (I wish I knew how to italicize, the way I have seen other beanies do it here. Do you know how, using a PC? What keys do I use, please?) So I wrote this, in my notes:

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@ Shalini, PART 2: (starting with my notes)

"Shalini, we got our “Kumbaya Phase,” BD, actor Gu and CSJ were actually holding hands on the stage (though we didn’t hear them singing 'Kumbaya' :-) I will take the holding of the hands though). We got more than we expected, we just wanted Jamie to join hands with her team (and not betray them), and we ended up having the members of the other team as well."

I just could not believe it!!!! I could not believe what I was seeing. I was so E-L-A-T-E-D!!! And this ep. was so intense, as Heads, and the other beanies have commented. I rejoiced (since last ep. really), b/c CSJ had started a not very quiet mutiny, constantly challenging his teammates as to whether they should wholeheartedly trust KDY and give him so much power.

At 1st, I thought that CSJ just wanted to stay loyal to NDJ, but no. He really saw the West team as an enemy, and he wanted to follow the rules. When in ep. 10, I saw that CSJ had found out things that were not nice about KDY, and that he wanted to stop digging around, I understood why he seemed to have been on edge since ep.9. That TOTALLY made sense, knowing what he knew (and we still don't know the whole thing, but CSJ does, and that is why he was *killed.* I still hope he is not dead). So I think that in a small way, maybe CSJ started to plant that spirit of doubt in BD and actor Gu's minds, don't you think? And NDJ added to that, with her lashing out at KDY.

I am smiling as I am writing this, "Watching CSJ, BD and Actor Gu holding the door and “committing treason” I jumped for joy, thinking of you. Woohoo!"
I am glad you thought about me, b/c I thought about you as well. I personally felt that the drama (or better yet this ep.) gave me MORE than I had asked for: I simply wanted for Jamie to show that she had a conscience (for once), and that under her drive and (great) ambition, she still had a heart, she could care. She had shown that, when she defended NDJ against BD in an earlier ep., and she showed it again.

I have also always been thinking about NDJ's "we are better WINNING TOGETHER, than ONE PERSON STANDING ALONE, AT THE FINISHING LINE." I keep feeling that it is one of the recurring themes in this drama. NDJ has been saying that from the very beginning, and she even challenged KDY with that notion in the Layoff Games. This drama has been constant with its themes, and so I am always curious of (and I try to pay attention to) the ways in which that is applied in the drama. It is one of the ways that NDJ can beat KDY at his own game, showing that his theories are not necessarily true, not for everyone on the planet. And she was right, in this ep.

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Hey Ivoire! :D *Waves back madly*
I’m all done the Physics Test of doom, worst part is I’ve an economics midterm on the very day of the last episode, how mental is that? *preps like crazy in advance* And aww! Thanks for worry about me <3 And as weird as this is going to sound, thanks a bunch for the reality check xD The daydreams I’ve been having of LSY are no joke, I honestly need a break from his perfection for a little while, since I’ve been seeing, hearing and honestly breathing LSY for the past month.
“I am sure LSY will personally come towards you, and give you a hug when he eventually meets at one of his fanmeetings. If you do not already live in Korea, you might have to fly there (or to Japan), so you could meet him. Unless he has enough fangirls in the US, who knows, he might come. I just hope to be there to witness the moment, and pick you off the floor, after said hug and exchange, in case you know, you might not be able to talk, since the cat would have had your tongue, (Man would I LOVE to witness such a moment).”
And that’s probably going to feature in another daydream xD The bad thing about wanting to be an author is you spend way too much time in your own head :P And thanks for commenting on my blog and letting me use your great ideas! :D I have a feeling I’m going to end up quoting you on the final two episodes as well! xD I’ll definitely comment back on the ep 9 recap in a few hours! Sorry about the slowness, these final weeks are hectic (ah university life)
“You know what? You read my mind, literally! I took some notes when I was watching this ep., and I literally wrote that comment. “Shalini, we got our “Kumbaya Phase,” BD, actor Gu and CSJ were actually holding hands on the stage (though we didn’t hear them singing ‘Kumbaya’ ”
YEAH!! Can’t wait for more of the Kumbaya phase, though dark tides appear to be coming. Have you seen the preview for episode 11 yet?
“I saw that CSJ had found out things that were not nice about KDY, and that he wanted to stop digging around, I understood why he seemed to have been on edge since ep.9. That TOTALLY made sense, knowing what he knew (and we still don’t know the whole thing, but CSJ does, and that is why he was *killed.* I still hope he is not dead). So I think that in a small way, maybe CSJ started to plant that spirit of doubt in BD and actor Gu’s minds, don’t you think? And NDJ added to that, with her lashing out at KDY.”
I absolutely agree, his nervousness was super palpable. Poor puppy really does appear to be dead though. The ep 11 preview shows only BD, Actor Gu and KDY taking part in the reinstatement game (which appears to be a form of Russian roulette).

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The final round appears to involve each contestant having a gun for some reason as well and KDY is shown there, so I’m assuming he wins the reinstatement game (well there was little chance of Actor Gu, and BD ever beating him so no surprises there). I’m just a little sad that our Three Musketeers didn’t get to fight back the way they’d planned on doing.
“I simply wanted for Jamie to show that she had a conscience (for once), and that under her drive and (great) ambition, she still had a heart, she could care. She had shown that, when she defended NDJ against BD in an earlier ep., and she showed it again.”
Jamie’s officially part of the crew now. I loved when DG said he adored her and when Actor Gu said she was at her most attractive when betraying xD
“I have also always been thinking about NDJ’s “we are better WINNING TOGETHER, than ONE PERSON STANDING ALONE, AT THE FINISHING LINE.” I keep feeling that it is one of the recurring themes in this drama. It is one of the ways that NDJ can beat KDY at his own game, showing that his theories are not necessarily true, not for everyone on the planet. And she was right, in this ep.”
I really hope her motto stays firm. In the final few seconds of the ep 11 preview, you hear KDY asking NDJ if she really still plans on following HWJ, after which she says “there’s no way that’s going to happen.” As you can imagine I’m on tenderhooks, waiting and hoping that this is just a false alarm, just the ep 9 preview was (seeing that the big reveal in the Inspection room turned out to be one of DJ’s finest moments yet rather than her not trusting HWJ).

But oh gosh you're going to love this. Guess what else the ep 11 preview shows? THE PAINTING IS BACK!!!! *dances in joy* HWJ clutches his head in pain staring at it, and says "this is..." Oh gosh what on earth is it? I honestly can't wait to find out. My theory is that the painting is one of the memory triggers they use in hypnosis and the like. Then, DY had a dual purpose in inviting DJ to his place (with the $15000 wine). Firstly, to get those pictures of her and secondly to get HWJ racing off (to protect his girl *delusional fangirl alert*) to his place, see the painting. Seeing it again in episode 11 would then serve to bring back HWJ's repressed memories? Or something xD I'd love to hear what you think the painting's purpose is going to be!!!

I've a few things I was wondering about as well

#1: Do you think HWJ and KDY could be brothers?
Could their be a blood tie in addition to them possibly being a part of a psychological experiment? I don't see any of the other kids (there must have been many) from that orphanage hunting each other down. And KDY didn't go after anyone but HWJ either. So why HWJ alone? Or was it that all the other candidates selected for Liar Game were all part of the Walden Two experiment? (Now that, would be horrifying)
My second question is: do you think NDJ could be connected to HWJ and KDY as well. This show really...

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@ Ivoire part 3

This show really capitalizes on the small moments, hidden parts of a scene. So far we've seen every single side detail play out in full force from JDG's hidden screen during his first election to the painting. NDJ did mention a sense of familiarity when she entered the orphanage. HWJ put it off as part of her natural empathy, but what if there was something more? (please don't let them be brother and sister :( ) Do you think this is possible as well? Because the one hole in KDY's orchestration of getting HWJ to join the game was this NDJ-HWJ connection. What do you think? :D

And, what kind of ending do you think awaits each character as of now? I'm inclined to think that KDY will get a taste of justice, and NDJ and HWJ will prevail somehow (and get together xD), because though this show has given us humanity at its very lowest, it always seems to make sure that some force of good triumphs even if temporarily. I'd love to see your answer, and we should totally try comparing our endings as of ep 10, to our endings as of ep 11 xD

And lastly, what shows do you think you'll be watching once Liar Game is over? I've begun following Pinocchio (which is honestly adorable) and Pride and Prejudice (which needs to grow on me a little). Can't wait to hear from you again :D
It feels great to be able to discuss such a great show like this!
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Hi Shalini *Waves!!!!!!!* :-)

I just wanted to let you know that I have not gotten a chance to respond to comments here and in ep.9 recap. I had to prepare for a trip, however, as I told GB below, I will try and comment before Sunday night. I should be able to post a few comments at some point today (so before 12:am). And I will go back to ep.9 recap as well, b/c I have not been able to properly comment there, since posting the comments I posted on Wednesday. So please, continue to check back. Thank you much! :-)

And thank you also for your many comments, which I read quickly, and I loved (all) them. Feel free to comment in ep.9, when you get a chance. Maybe you could take a break from studying for your Economics test/exam? (or several mini-breaks, and add to your posts there, one at a time?) Maybe other beanies left you or GB some comments as well :-)

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Hello GB~ Sorry this is so late. The weekend got away from me.

I am responding to this, and I thought I would just respond at the very bottom (of my post), and then we could go from there, answering the other posts and reading from each other. I hope I am making sense:
1.1.1.3.2 Growingbeautifully November 20th, 2014 at 5:31 PM

@ Ivoire
Can you explain what you mean about the arc in NDJ’s character?

Do you mean she began by appearing too naive (to the point of stupidity), grew to become a little more savvy (lying in the lay off game to enable everyone to gain) but still retaining her original purpose, and then moving on to not blindly trusting everyone including KDY? All this and at the same time, never losing her vision of what she wanted for everyone?

I would like to mention that my comments about NDJ started in my 1st post response to yous, here: 1.1.1.1 Ivoire November 20th, 2014 at 1:12 PM

So, when I mentioned NDJ's arc, for some reason (maybe b/c I saw it that way at the time), I was thinking that NDJ had changed A LOT since ep.1. So yesterday afternoon, as I was writing my thoughts on NDJ's arc, I realized that to me, she had changed some, yet in many ways, some of the changes I thought were new, might have actually been with her all along.

At the beginning, not only did NDJ appear extremely naive, she also seemed to never get angry. And it made me wonder if it would be healthy to be like that, and to go through life living in such a manner. I do agree with you, that she did become a little more savvy, as time went on (though really all she was doing was what HWJ asked her to do).

WRT this, "then moving on to not blindly trusting everyone including KDY?," I feel that up to ep.10, NDJ was still willing to kind of "blindly" wanting to trust everyone, "including KDY." She is the one who wants to believe Jamie, when Jamie tries to say that she did not betray the team. She also wanted to believe that KDY would be a good person, until he revealed what he knew about HWJ. At 1st, I thought NDJ was merely a doormat (at the beginning of the drama), as she waited for the old lady for 6 hours (in ep.1), and as she waited for HWJ, until a couple of guys became dangerously flirtatious with her.

However, she was also the same person who stood up to KDY, not wanting to go to his place, and saying that she did not want to be bound by a slave contract, if that was what her contract to LG was. She also early on voiced her desire to see all the contestants trusting each other, and doing all they could, to win the game together, as opposed to what KDY wanted, which was for the contestants to fight and betray each other. Though she had to be reminded that her wish was not realistic, she kept voicing it. In the smuggling game, HWJ used that idea (and some financial incentives) to bring the East team to the West. When NDJ stood up to KDY, and when she voiced her wish, it was of her own volition, and not b/c HWJ had asked her...

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@ GB~ PART 2:

My truncated last sentence: "When NDJ stood up to KDY, and when she voiced her wish, it was of her own volition, and not b/c HWJ had asked her to do so."

So, to answer your question GB, I think that the arc to me in NDJ's character has to do with how, over the episodes, she has allowed herself to feel other emotions, such as anger, and she has had the courage to show them. when she got angry about finding out that they had a mole, she went above the amount HWJ asked her to take, and she took double that (which she said she did b/c she was so angry). That move surprised KDY. She called KDY "a bad person" to his face, and for the 1st time (I think), we saw her yell. She has shown over the episodes how much bolder she has been becoming. And I don't think I saw that in her in the 1st 2 epis.

She has also had the courage to stand up to KDY, which when I 1st saw her in the 1st couple of epis. I didn't think she could do. She seemed very timid, and maybe easily intimated? She has shown 5 times (at least), in the drama how much stronger she has been becoming: 1-not wanting to go to KDY's house, 2-wanting the players to unite, 3-telling KDY that she will continue the game on her own, without HWJ [ep.5, I think]) 4-calling KDY a bad person and yelling in front of him, 5-telling KDY he is doing a mental victory in this ep.

And as I reread your comments GB, I saw this, which echoes well what I have been trying to say, "She has shown that she is able to stand up to Do Young on her own and she is not afraid to keep asking questions" which you said here, "1.1.1.3.8 Growingbeautifully November 20th, 2014 at 11:10 PM"

So GB, even though you said this, "He was the one who helped/led and she was the needy one and the loyal, trusting follower," which showed that NDJ depended a lot on HWJ (and I agree with that statement), she also had an independent streak which showed itself. Even though HWJ helped her (and he helped her a lot), NDJ would at times voice ideas of her own, ideas which HWJ at times approved of. And those acts showed us that with some guidance, NDJ could stand on her own two feet.

When she pays the loan sharks for her teacher, she knows she is in (more) trouble financially, and she also knows that she will do her best to repay it. We don't see her run away from her responsibilities. She doesn't always think through all her actions (before acting), but once she has done them, she does not back away.

NDJ's core (character) stayed the same, demonstrated by her generosity several times, her willingness to give others another chance and believe/trust them, and her apparent simplicity. Yet, I have seen her go from blindly trusting everyone, to paying people's bills (twice), to getting angry and in so doing, inciting others to revolt (ep.9 and 10).
GB, I struggled to explain how I saw NDJ's arc in her character, so I hope that I was coherent in the last 2 posts (and not running in circles too...

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@ GB~ PART 3, Of the same message:

GB, I struggled to explain how I saw NDJ's arc in her character, so I hope that I was coherent in the last 2 posts (and not running in circles too much, which I felt at times I was doing) :-)

I felt that I knew and I could see what I meant about the arc on NDJ's character, however, I really struggled when it came to putting it down on the page. I felt that I might have been repetitive at times (though I was just trying to illustrate my points), and I had a hard time conveying what I had in my head.

One last thing (or maybe two) about NDJ's character: having reflected on how she managed to change Jamie's mind about whether to betray her team or not (what she said to Jamie, and how she said it), I am very impressed by NDJ's maturity and strength in that moment. I think that in the world, we tend to be told that "being strong" means that you bark a lot, and intimidate others, and you get your way (all the time). I love that NDJ takes actions, yet she doesn't back away from the consequences, even when she is afraid, and does not feel confident about the results of said actions.

HWJ (kind of) manipulated DG in returning the money to NDJ, in that reverse psychology talk he had with him, outside his apartment. It was a calculated move, and it worked, and we know that HWJ meant well. NDJ's speech to Jamie ("Fine! [yes, it is your card]. Go and do what you want, however decide in so doing what kind of person you want to be,") made Jamie think twice about her decision, and she ended up doing the right thing, for everyone involved. NDJ's speech, however, was not a calculated one. She gave Jamie freedom to choose, and she reminded everyone in the room that KDY was always intent on dividing them (she really sees through KDY, when it comes to that). I just rewatched that scene, and I am struck by the fact that there is an appeal that NDJ has (and you touched on that), that the other contestants don't have, and KSE has really embodied who NDJ is. She was well cast for this role.

HWJ did not think of saying sth like that, NDJ did. That was very mature, and it worked. So, as part of her arc growth, NDJ has also been growing in the esteem HWJ has of her. When he 1st meets her (the 1st few epis.), he doesn't think much of her, and he is the one directing her most of the time. As time goes on, he notices that she is growing, making suggestions, being bolder in her actions (willing to lie and manipulate people, getting angry, etc...), and I think in times, he comes to appreciate her more, and maybe (as some have suggested), falls for her (though I personally don't see it yet).

I thought it was interesting that KDY told NDJ in this ep. " Although it is a bit much to say this, Ms. NDJ, you have developed quite a lot of nerve." And the way he said it, indicated that he would not have said sth like that to her much earlier. So for me, I find that even some of the characters in this drama inform me...

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@ GB~ Last paragraph:

I thought it was interesting that KDY told NDJ in this ep. " Although it is a bit much to say this, Ms. NDJ, you have developed quite a lot of nerve." And the way he said it, indicated that he would not have said sth like that to her earlier. So for me, I find that even the characters in the drama inform me of how much NDJ has grown.

I hope that I have answered the question about my views on NDJ's arc, and done so in a cohesive and coherent manner :-)

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@ GB, (truncated sentence):
I struggled to explain how I saw NDJ's arc in her character, so I hope that I was coherent in the last 2 posts (and not running in circles too much, which I felt at times I was doing) :-)

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Sorry, the above message was supposed to be under this one:
1.2.1 Ivoire November 23rd, 2014 at 11:16 AM

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Thanks Ivoire! You've done a thorough job of bringing NDJ's arc together. So on the one hand it seems that she has changed since Episode 1 but on the other hand, she probably had that strength of character all along but just did not show it yet? Perhaps it took the provocation of DY to get her to finally get angry and retort "Do you want to win so much!" (which he does, he does, against WJ) and stand firm on her belief in WJ and in her greater vision.

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@ Ivoire response to the rest of your comments on NDJ.

Thanks again and Yes, you have been coherent and I agree with your take on NDJ. Now we need to see if WJ picks up a thing or two from her and instead of deliberately getting people to do things, gives them the chance to make decisions that they can be proud of.

What makes a relationship great in all areas is that all parties in it have a chance to give and grow together, that they are better persons as a result of that relationship. That is the test of a healthy ~ship what ever ship that might be....and of course I want that too for our virtual people in our shows.

Perhaps DY never did have a chance to have a healthy relationship? So sad...

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@ GB~ PART 1

About this, "Thanks Ivoire! You’ve done a thorough job of bringing NDJ’s arc together. So on the one hand it seems that she has changed since Episode 1 but on the other hand, she probably had that strength of character all along but just did not show it yet?"

Yes, to what you just said. At 1st, I thought she wasn't really changing, or she was just one way at the beginning, and for a while. But then, when you look carefully, and you pay attention to when she behaves differently than the naive, simple NDJ we kept thinking she was (and some of us thought she would [only] be like that for a [long?] while), and how often she behaves differently than what we would have expected of her, you realize that her change has been incremental, but it didn't ALL come from HWJ (or from her interactions with him). Some of it was in her (inherent and belonged to her), and as the drama went on, those changes came out. Maybe she was not put in situations before where she felt the need, desire to act that way/differently?

Also, HWJ challenges her, tells "no, it won't work" when necessary (and tells her why), but he also sees what she has and when it can be of use (approaching CSJ to find out he is not Betrayer X, lying to other players in Layoff game, but they all won, bringing East team to the West, and fooling KDY to reveal the mole). So in that sense, he also "lets her be who she is." He doesn't squash her spirit or tries to remake her, which I was careful to look for, b/c as you probably know, or might have noticed, that also happens in Kdramas, and it is sold as "L-0-V-E" *Topic for another day.*

So through her, I also wanted to see what kind of person and man HWJ was, and would be. B/c we also learn about who HWJ is, through her, and through his interactions with other people, don't you think? And if they are going to have a love line (that they start or hint at this week), I REALLY didn't want sweet and kind (and strong) NDJ to end up with someone who would try to (completely) change her, and squash her, and telling her that he "loved" her.

I really want her to have someone who would be devoted to her, and who would adore her. I feel that she deserves that, personally, b/c I think that she would love him, and adore him. She seems to be that kind of person/woman. And I want HWJ to be protective of her, but not in an overbearing way. One can be protective of someone, and not be overbearing. I would want that for her. And for HWJ to continue to treasure her wonderful qualities, and nurture those, and help her grow.

Tbh, I think that he would benefit tremendously from doing so. Most men who find a good woman, and who know how to treasure her and adore her (and nurture her), usually end up beneftting from being loving (and nurturing) themselves. Most men also grow a lot (as a person) by being that way. Just my 2 cents, as always :-)

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@ GB~ PART 2:

About this, "Perhaps it took the provocation of DY to get her to finally get angry and retort “Do you want to win so much!” (which he does, he does, against WJ) and stand firm on her belief in WJ and in her greater vision." Yes, maybe. And remember that she can also be sensitive (as in read him, to an extent) to what KDY says and does (meaning his intentions).

I love everything you say here (your 2nd post): 1.2.2.1 Growingbeautifully November 23rd, 2014 at 5:00 PM

So well said, once again, especially the parts about relationships. And yes, I do hope that HWJ will let NDJ decide for herself, though I also hope that she will get accurate info, since the context is a little complicated/complex. It will be hard to take and digest the news, but I don't want them to become enemies. And as you know, many people are clamoring for romance, so...

For that to happen (by the time the drama ends), she can't totally give up on him, or many of us will have to look for fanfictions, to see how people spinned their story into a romantic one, LOL *sideglances at Shalini :-) * And if the romance is not hinted at/doesn't happen, I will DEFINITELY HAVE to fly to Hamilton, b/c Shalini will be crushed and devastated, and I don't know if we want that :-)

About this, "Perhaps DY never did have a chance to have a healthy relationship? So sad…" Very good question, and very good guess...

I really loved this, "What makes a relationship great in all areas is that all parties in it have a chance to give and grow together, that they are better persons as a result of that relationship. That is the test of a healthy ~ship"

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:) back at you!

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PART 1: @ GB and @ Shalini, WRT the use of "-ah and -ie" (and what it meant that HWJ called NDJ, DJ-ah)

Thank you again (so much) for taking the time to explain that. I will eventually print your explanations and put them in a binder that I will create, WRT the language aspect I am learning, while watching Kdramas.

I really liked the additional information Shalini gave us here, "To add to what GB was spot on about below, the –ie can also be a bit demeaning if used when talking about someone who ranks far higher than you in society. Same goes for the –ah, if the person addressing you that way isn’t someone you’re close to. But when they’re as strong as silent as HWJ, that sort of –ah is given a far more intimate dimension, which according to the reactions over here turned everyone into a puddle of jelly :-) "
b/c I didn't know (or didn't remember maybe), that aspect of using "-ah or -ie." It would make sense then, that DG was probably bringing KDY('s level) down (in the conversation), when he would say "KDY-ie."

And that would make sense to me, b/c DG has been having strong (negative) reactions about KDY, and (the same reactions) in the presence of KDY (during the interview, after the Presidential Game). Having seen that, it was hard for me to understand why DG would affectionately call KDY, except he wasn't, and all I could assume, was that he was. Shalini's explanations definitely helped.

@ Shalini, about this, "HWJ and DJ have definitely been through a lot in the past few episodes (enough for them to be on familial terms) but oddly enough, they always referred to each other formally using WooJin-sshi, or Da-Jung-sshi."
See, that was not odd to me (all along), b/c I kind of assumed that HWJ and NDJ WANTED to keep that polite form of speaking. They wanted to keep some distance, the way you could know a colleague [same level colleague] or a professor maybe (and have hung out with them quite a bit, or worked on projects with them), AND yet you both choose to speak formerly to each other. Isn't it said that in Korea, though the parents can speak informally to their children, the children usually speak formally to their parents, their WHOLE lives (I am assuming)? In this instance, things might be a little different (the parents ex. I gave), however HWJ and NDJ being polite with each other did not come across as odd to me.

About this (Shalini), "and he responds that she did the same upon their meeting," do you remember what meeting HWJ was referring to? Was it their very 1st meeting, when he came out of jail? (I actually didn't watch that ep. fully subbed, and I have not rewatched it yet). I did not know they were even being informal with each other. This is a reason why sometimes I think I should watch the dramas subbed in French, b/c when the informal speech is used, they usually indicate it, since French has the "tu" and "vous" forms, and the corresponding verb forms to let the viewers know what form of...

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@ GB and @ Shalini, PART 2 of this post on the use of "-ah and -ie" by HWJ (and its meanings):

@ Shalini, I really liked the 2nd part of your post, which you posted here, *1.1.1.3.6 Shalini November 20th, 2014 at 9:22 PM*
It added so much meaning to that scene (and yes! Some more fangirling from you :-) )

I also really loved what GB said here, *1.1.1.3.8 Growingbeautifully November 20th, 2014 at 11:10 PM* about this,
"He appreciated that she was still loyal and trusting after hearing what DY said and wanted to show it by dropping the formality, reducing the distance between them. That’s why it is so appropriate at this time.
And also Ivoire is probably right in that he might soften the heartbreak by using -ah (the equivalent of a diminutive of a name, showing familiarity or affection) since what he had to explain would be painful. He was preparing her in a way, for bad news."

That made sense to me, and it reminded me of the fact that I had experienced the same thing with my dad calling me by a familiar and affectionate name, when he had to share really bad news, such as the death of a (very close) family member. I could really feel that my dad was preparing me for the blow to come, and at the same time, I could also feel him being protective of my emotions, as if he was (literally) bringing me under his wing, in what would feel like an emotional embrace. I hope I made sense here :-)

And this also helped, "He was the one who helped/led and she was the needy one and the loyal, trusting follower. Now they are coming to a more even footing or maybe even a little reversal in their relationship," and this "HWJ now finds himself in a disadvantaged position as being the one to have something he is not proud of, to reveal. He is the one in need now, … of her understanding and maybe forgiveness."

@ estel~

I hope that you will see this response, which comes late. Thank you for your comment, which I found to be extremely helpful. I also visited your blog (I briefly read the 1st page), and I liked what you said about the reasons for creating the blog.
I really loved what you said here, "It implies a certain amount of intimacy (emotional, not necessarily physical), which is why it’s used to such effect in this episode with Woo-jin and Da-jung."
I am aware that I loose a lot in translation, however, when I watch a drama, I try as much as I can to understand and grasp the nuances. One reason why I appreciate blogs about dramas, such as this one.

And @ GB, I agree with this, “This is what I like in a relationship arc. Both parties get to make mistakes, to give, to receive, to help each other up and to grow. Even with 2 more episodes, it will be enough if they have started on this path towards a healthy and happy relationship.” So well said, GB.

@ GB, I really liked all that you said here, * 1.1.1.3.9 Growingbeautifully November 21st, 2014 at 5:43 AM* Well said, once again!

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Oh Ivoire!

Same to you! Same to you! I like what you are saying here and elsewhere. All the questions, thoughts and discussions are helpful, because we are real people making sense of real life, even in the 'unreal' storytelling of a drama.

We may never meet a Do Young-ie, Woo Jin or Da Jung, but trying to know what might have made them what they are, helps us to understand others who are different from us.

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@ GB~ Thank you, and I agree...

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@ GB and @ Shalini~

This was truncated, and I didn't realize it, sorry:

About this (Shalini), "and he responds that she did the same upon their meeting," do you remember what meeting HWJ was referring to? Was it their very 1st meeting, when he came out of jail? (I actually didn't watch that ep. fully subbed, and I have not rewatched it yet). I did not know they were even being informal with each other. This is a reason why sometimes I think I should watch the dramas subbed in French, b/c when the informal speech is used, they usually indicate it, since French has the "tu" and "vous" forms, and the corresponding verb forms to let the viewers know what form of speech is being used.

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It's from this post:

1.3 Ivoire November 23rd, 2014 at 1:55 PM

PART 1: @ GB and @ Shalini, WRT the use of “-ah and -ie” (and what it meant that HWJ called NDJ, DJ-ah)

Thank you again (so much) for taking the time to explain that. I will eventually print your explanations and put them in a binder that I will create, WRT the language aspect I am learning, while watching Kdramas.

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@ Shalini~ (I am hoping that you will see my responses to you here).

Sorry for the late responses, the weekend got away from me, unfortunately. I am still going to try and respond to your comments :-) I will try to focus on the posts I have not responded to:

I am responding to this (and I will be going by paragraphs) #, *1.1.1.2.1 Shalini November 20th, 2014 at 8:50 PM*

# 1 & 2: Loved what you said here, especially this, "And Kumbaya is honestly going to become the catchphrase of this show xD I feel like we’ve a lot more moments like that coming, what with NDJ and HWJ in fine form (while KDY goes full force crazy)"
If "Kumbaya" is not the catchphrase of the show, it could be the catchphrase of the ep. :-) By the way, what did you mean by this, "what with NDJ and HWJ in fine form?"

#3 & 4: LOL @ this, "This is technically where NDJ comes in and…*spins fantasies of domestic bliss*)"
So, when am I reading your fan-fic about this couple then? :-)
I am not sure about HWJ's mom being behind the WTP, as much as I suspect that she might (just) have been involved in it. To what extent, I am not sure. I guess we will find out the truth in less than 24 and 48 hours, right? :-) And if his mom was involved in it, yes, that will be painful to deal with.

About HWJ being a part of the experiment, WOW!!!! Yes, he would have blocked it, however I don't know that I believe that his mom would have knowingly let him be a part of it. Also, remember that the experiment seems to have taken place in the US, b/c that is why KDY's address about the US (WRT the WTP) is a fake one. We've never had the sense that HWJ lived in the US in his life. So... That seems a little far fetched to me, but I could be wrong. There seems to be sth that HWJ DOES NOT remember, as KDY keeps pointing out. One of the many questions, is whether KDY remembers/focuses on the right information or not. And also if his memory of those events is twisted (or not).

About # 5 & 6 (the last 2 #s): Thank you for explaining that. And yes, that was helpful :-)

Now I am responding to this, *1.1.1.2.2 Shalini November 20th, 2014 at 8:51 PM*

#1 & 2: Yes, I remember seeing that suspicious guy in ep.9, and I wondered if the ep. would tell/show us who that guy was, and what he was about. But we didn't get an answer. About this, "I found it strange that the show didn’t reveal just exactly what was happening there." E-X-A-C-T-L-Y!

#3 & 4: Yes, I live on the West Coast. I am on DB's time zone. I would come see you this coming week, except that I have Thanksgiving to help prepare for, sorry :-( Could I take a raincheck on that? :-) I will definitely look up where Hamilton is :-)

About this, "This show really has taken over my life as well," and this, "(which is ridiculous and I really should stop:-) " with all that you do WRT to this show and to LSY, I am (honestly and humbly) asking, "when do you find the time to study?" You must be a...

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@ Shalini~
I am still responding to this, *1.1.1.2.2 Shalini November 20th, 2014 at 8:51 PM*

About this, "This show really has taken over my life as well," and this, "(which is ridiculous and I really should stop:-) " with all that you do WRT to this show and to LSY, I am (honestly and humbly) asking, "when do you find the time to study?" You must be a genius then, (the HWJ kind, not the KDY kind, I hope :-) ). WOW!!! I am honestly (very) impressed, really!
LOL at this comment, "I appear to have HWJ’s problem with selective memory as well xD (that is I remember all things pertaining to him xD)"

#5 and 6: Thanks for explaining "Ganpae." Tbh, between NDJ, BD, and actor Gu, I think that NDJ was the worst offender, with her acting in ep.9. She was so obvious, even I was smh, thinking that she was giving away the fact that her case had no money. Though yes, BD and actor Gu were also obvious. And I agree with this, "though I think KDY was expecting the like from HWJ."

I agree with you that the televised broadcast must have been Dir. Jang's idea. However, I was wondering, where did he get pix of NDJ with her dad from? Remember, we saw her dad blocked on those pixs? Do you think the contestants had to submit personal photos before joining the game? Hence NDJ (voluntarily) gave those? For some reason, I have a hard time believing that. Heck, at the beginning, NDJ wasn't even sure she wanted to participate in the game. She was going to forfeit, remember? That was also the painful part for me, tbh: seeing NDJ's pixs with her dad made it more real, more personal. Just hearing her dad's voice on the broadcast was one thing, but seeing/showing the pixs made it feel very exploitative, which Dir. Jang knew, and didn't care about *Sigh*

@ Shalini~ Now I am responding to this: *1.1.1.3.5 Shalini November 20th, 2014 at 9:21 PM*

#1: Already responded to it in a previous post, today :-)

#2: About this, "And thanks for getting my fangirling!" I TOTALLY get your fangirling about LSY, TRUST me I do :-) You even found time to watch AE again? WOW!!!! Do you maybe have a time machine (where you store time), that you think you could maybe share with me? Or help me get one? B/c I honestly do not know how you do it. You didn't find AE compelling? I actually liked it a lot, up to ep.14, before it became a weepfest, and not of the good kind *SMH.*

What I was hoping with AE, was a different narrative after ep.14 (when YSW found out the "truth"), and to continue on the path of being a different kind of melodrama. AE did not need to be your typical K. melodrama. There was enough in the set-up, and enough characters in the drama to make it different. The beginning was different. Yes it was melo, but a light kind of melo, not one that dragged you down, not at 1st. And then after ep.14, I felt that the writer lost her touch, and she changed the characters (the leads).

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LOL! I don't know how Shalini does it, but I only take a peek at bits of AE from time to time and rarely. to catch the romance but omit the makjang! :D

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@ Shalini,

PART 2 of this: 1.4.1 Ivoire November 23rd, 2014 at 5:08 PM

I would have done something different with it, b/c it was all there, and she could have given it a different slant and make it epic, in the process. I don't know if you go on Soompi, but on August 15 (LSY's bday), there was a link to a 40mns video posted, and I wrote about 21mns of text for that video. It is a really nice video. Did you ever see it?

I have to go back to real life. I will be back later with more comments/responses, b/c I am not done (yet).

@ GB,

About this, "LOL! I don’t know how Shalini does it" She is 19, maybe that is how and why :-) Though, tbh, I too, do put in a LOT of time in, when I watch a drama. I know I have, for this one, for sure!!!!! :-) I think I would have written a thesis on some of the themes, and on some of the characters, by the time this drama is over :-)
Shalini is living through this drama, and I get that. It takes one to know one, I have been there, so I know the signs :-) (We still think you are great Shalini :-) and <3 )

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@Ivoire
I was re-reading what you wrote above under PART 2 of: 1.4.1 Ivoire November 23rd, 2014 at 5:08 PM

In Episode 1 the photos of NDJ and her father were already broadcast, so yes, I believe she had to submit some human interest pics for the show.

WRT to what you said in : "I would have done something different with it, b/c it was all there, and she could have given it a different slant and make it epic, in the process. I don’t know if you go on Soompi, but on August 15 (LSY’s bday), there was a link to a 40mns video posted, and I wrote about 21mns of text for that video. It is a really nice video. Did you ever see it?"

1) What is the 'it' you are referring to in "I would have done something different with it" ?
2) I cannot find the Soompi video, what was it about? Any tags I can use to find it?

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Hey Ivoire! Sorry about the late replies! The economics test of doom is actually tomorrow. I’ve been slaving away like crazy to free up enough space to watch the penultimate episode and the final episode (and get my thoughts on them down) over the course of these three days to point where I’m functioning on very little sleep. xD
“I kind of assumed that HWJ and NDJ WANTED to keep that polite form of speaking. They wanted to keep some distance, the way you could know a colleague [same level colleague] or a professor maybe (and have hung out with them quite a bit, or worked on projects with them)”
Yeah I thought so too, then I went back and watched the earlier episodes, and noticed that HWJ actually started off by referring to DJ as “mongchong-ah” or idiot. The change to a more formal address occurred during episode 4, which was a little odd to see as I’d have assumed they’d get closer rather than farther apart.
“do you remember what meeting HWJ was referring to? Was it their very 1st meeting, when he came out of jail?”
Yup! I’m pretty sure he was, as she started speaking informally since that moment at the bus stop. And are you French? I’ve been studying French for nearly 10 years but for some reason I an’t get the hang of it, the way I picked up Korean O.o It really is true that the more you hear a language, the faster you pick it up.
“By the way, what did you mean by this, “what with NDJ and HWJ in fine form?”
I just sort of meant that they were at their best, in HWJ’s case he’s armed with more cards, more pieces of the picture than he had before, and NDJ’s arguably at her peak in terms of her arc in the story.
“So, when am I reading your fan-fic about this couple then? ”
xD My fanfic may not be necessary soon, once this second season comes about xD
“I am not sure about HWJ’s mom being behind the WTP, as much as I suspect that she might (just) have been involved in it. To what extent, I am not sure. I guess we will find out the truth in less than 24 and 48 hours, right? And if his mom was involved in it, yes, that will be painful to deal with.”
Having the seen the 11th episode (and still no answers on that front) I agree. There’s no way they can stuff in her involvement in the experiment in just one hour. Or can they? As Dir. Jang said: “This is Liar Game. Don’t forget that”.
“About HWJ being a part of the experiment, WOW!!!! Yes, he would have blocked it, however I don’t know that I believe that his mom would have knowingly let him be a part of it. Also, remember that the experiment seems to have taken place in the US, b/c that is why KDY’s address about the US (WRT the WTP) is a fake one.”
I can’t wait until you see ep 11 to discuss this with you!!

“I found it strange that the show didn’t reveal just exactly what was happening there.” E-X-A-C-T-L-Y!”
I really hope we see what happened there, or if it’s just a red herring as ep 11 still has no answers on that front.

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@ Ivoire part 2
“ I would come see you this coming week, except that I have Thanksgiving to help prepare for, sorry Could I take a raincheck on that? I will definitely look up where Hamilton is ”
That would be fantastic if it’s not too far for you! xD I keep forgetting that Thanksgiving is in November in the US xD It’s in early October in Canada for some reason :P
“with all that you do WRT to this show and to LSY, I am (honestly and humbly) asking, “when do you find the time to study?””
Oh gosh, I don’t even know. I’m one of those people who like to prepare weeks in advance, so I just mass prepare notes and graphs and stack them up in case of a test. My love for LSY has resulted in my failing to do this properly for the past few weeks, so mad rush there xD But I’m almost done cramming for this final econ exam xD The final episode of Liar Game is the pot of gold at the end of this mad journey to the end of the rainbow.
“You even found time to watch AE again? WOW!!!! Do you maybe have a time machine (where you store time), that you think you could maybe share with me? Or help me get one? B/c I honestly do not know how you do it. You didn’t find AE compelling? I actually liked it a lot, up to ep.14, before it became a weepfest, and not of the good kind *SMH.*”
Yup! I downloaded all 15.4GB, watched it, and wept buckets. I agree that it was really beautiful until ep 14, with this sweeping sense of romanticism, and beauty (and the best soundtrack I’ve heard in a while). And GHS was actually quite likable as SooWan, while LSY (*squeals*) I have no words xD I adored PDJ. But things really did go downhill after ep 14. It would’ve been best if the drama had just been 16 episodes. I will never for the life of me understand why SW even needed to go running for a year. I like to pretend that part never happened xD I almost feel bad for the writer, as there was clearly a lot of love that went into producing this story and you can see that the issue of ratings and trying to appeal more to viewers resulted in those 5 episodes that were painful to sit through. The writer could have tied things up neatly. Instead, she had to drag things out, and we got a tearfest until the final episode, where the cuteness somewhat smoothed things over.
“I would have done something different with it, b/c it was all there, and she could have given it a different slant and make it epic, in the process. I don’t know if you go on Soompi, but on August 15 (LSY’s bday), there was a link to a 40mns video posted, and I wrote about 21mns of text for that video. It is a really nice video. Did you ever see it?”
Whoa I am hunting this down. Do you have a link? Is it on the AE thread or the LSY thread? I would honestly love to see it!

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“I too, do put in a LOT of time in, when I watch a drama. I know I have, for this one, for sure!!!!! I think I would have written a thesis on some of the themes, and on some of the characters, by the time this drama is over ”
I honestly feel like you've invested more time into this drama than anyone else here! xD And I totally agree with the thesis bit! My fingers honestly speed across the keys when writing about these characters, but give me Jane Eyre, and I blank out instantly.
“Shalini is living through this drama, and I get that. It takes one to know one, I have been there, so I know the signs (We still think you are great Shalini and <3 )”
I think you’re awesome too! <3 And by golly are you right, I’m definitely living through this. I’ll probably only be getting 3 hours of sleep tonight thanks to it, but who cares? It’s the final episode xD (*Rationality flies away in the face of a second season and HWJ-NDJ loveline)
Can't wait to see you on the ep 11 recap!

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@ GB~

I am finally just getting to read the responses on this recap (yes, it has been a long day). So, to try and make it easy for us, I am starting a new section, and so I am responding to your comment here:

1.4.1.2.1 Growingbeautifully November 25th, 2014 at 5:46 AM

About this, "In Episode 1 the photos of NDJ and her father were already broadcast, so yes, I believe she had to submit some human interest pics for the show." Ah OK, thank you! *Makes a note to rewatch the drama* I have been wanting to rewatch the 1st four epis. of the drama, but I haven't gotten a chance to do it yet :-)

Your 3rd #: Your 1st question: 1) What is the ‘it’ you are referring to in “I would have done something different with it” ?
I would have done sth different with he plot,that was what I meant by "it." I felt that the writer went the (ver) typical melodrama Kdrama route, when she didn't have too. She didn't start the drama that way. She started it endearing, cute, funny (KHN was sooo good in his epis.), moving and yes heartwrenching. However, she managed to have all those elements constantly in the episodes. The beginning (the 1st 14 epis. or so) were pretty good, some episodes better than others, however she managed to keep them somewhat balanced.

After ep. 14, I felt that the writer changed who YSW and PDJ were (as characters), and to me, she made them less compelling. She went full weepfest, made YSW pathetic and really irritating (when she didn't need to be), she killed Dr. Yoon (when he didn't need to died), and she wrote in a separation that didn't need to last as long as it lasted. By the end, many wondered what PDJ saw in YSW, really (fate?) Yeah, but fate could have been written and explored differently. There is a lot I can say about AE, I wrote over 15 pages on it. That could bea discussion for another day d(if we can find the time). I am not saying that I am a perfect writer, or that I even know how to write, however, I felft that with AE, the writer had so many lines she could ahve develpoed, and so many characters she didn't bother to mevelop more or well (the PHJ-Teddy love line was one. And they didn't need to kiss, since PHJ [the actress ] playing her was only 19), but that relationship was not well written. Ep. 19 was a filler ep. that should have been handled differently/presented differently. yes, PDJ and YSW should have gotten married (and then consummate their marriage), in real life, not in the "waht if" scenario the writer created. The kiss in ep. 13 would ahve a great kiss as a prelude to htheir honeymoon night, for example. People wrote so much about that kiss on Soompi. So much to say about this drama, b/c it had the potential for a truly epic love story, and she had capable actors (all of them), so the drama could ahve been better.

2--About this, "2) I cannot find the Soompi video, what was it about? Any tags I can use to find it?" I don't think tags would help. The link to the video is mentioned...

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@ GB~ PART 2:

2--About this, "2) I cannot find the Soompi video, what was it about? Any tags I can use to find it?"

I don't think tags would help. The link to the video is mentioned on the Angel Eyes page on Soompi, on Friday, August 15, 2014. So you would need to go back to that page, to find the link posted by "ghsforever." Many of us contributed texts, images, etc... that she put together ina a really beautiful video that she posted and sent a copy to LSY (his management agency) and to GHS (through LSY, so they would have a reason to see each other, according to her). The link leads you to Vimeo, where she posted the video.

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My poor Sung-Joon!! It's always my favorites.

I didn't really follow the card twist. I thought they got their cards replaced but instead they got working originals and fake cards back? I really missed something.

I don't think it was too big a surprise that he was from the orphanage. I do sigh that Walden Two had to be in the US. But I'm enjoying this show immensely and I wish that there had been a few more episodes. I think his 'mask' cracked a bit quickly but it's necessarily with the episide limits. Yeah for everyone starting to get bold!!

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At Walden Two being in the US... I think it's because Walden Two, the actual book (yes, it really exists and its about behaviorism, though the utopia- creators did not an intentionally mean for a cruel experiment, like the one in this drama) was written by an American, B.F. Skinner.

So they just put it in America, since its creator lived there.

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Yes, I get that. It's just...why Walden Two? They could have used a different experiment. Unless there's something in the manga about this (I haven't read it). I just get frustrated with the images of adoptions to the US.

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*Shrugs*

Probably because that's the most well-known fictional book revolving around behavioral experiments and the extent of the experiment as described in the book most similarly matches the one described in the drama.

Either the scriptwriter or the manga creator got an inspiration from that book and just wanted to "credit" it somehow. Put in a bit of meta.

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doo young is not a character in the original liar game manga so there's none of his background there whatsoever. to emphasize, there is not walden two, etc. in the liar game manga.

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@ liar game,

But LG, the Kdrama is an adaptation of the manga, right? Not a complete remake of the manga or the J. Dorama. That is what those who have watched the doramas, and the movies, and read the manga have been saying. So it would make sense that the scriptwriter for this drama took some creative license and added things like KDY being a part of the Walden Two Project, I would think...

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I think Do-young acts as the (magnificent and creepy) stand-in for the Yokoya character.

I've only read the manga, so I don't know what the jdrama version is, but the way this version has incorporated the original characters has been seamless and unex[ectedly original.

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wow this book looks interesting, I have been interested in psychological subject since I was in 6th grade. thats why i love this drama

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Maybe Sung Joon will survive and be in the hospital in a coma.

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Oh, i would love that if it is true, but I also think I'd be a bit disappointed. It's just such concrete proof of Do Young's complete insanity that he chose to go so far as to kill someone just because they investigated his past. I would love the show even more if it actually went there and I think it will. It's shown quite well how dark it's willing to get and I don't think they'll stop now.

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I find Sungjoon's murder a strange act on Doyoung's part. Wasn't his plan from the beginning for WooJin to discover his role in DoYoung's past? Or perhaps he wanted to be the one in control of how much Woojin knew to play him like a puppet?

One thing I can say for sure is Shin SungRok plays an excellent villian. He's definitely more memorable than the Japanese version's Yokoya.

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I think Do Young wanted Woo Jin to find out his mother's truth, not go digging into Do Young's past.

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@ Sorks,

I think what KDY told HWJ in ep.2 was that if HWJ joined the LG, if he stayed, and IF HWJ won, he (HWJ) would find out the truth behind his mother's death. KDY does not play a game to lose, and he has been reminding HWJ that he needs to stay till the end AND beat KDY. I don't know if KDY was expecting HWJ to just sit around and do nothing while he played the game (i.e. not investigate KDY). He (KDY), had to have known better. And I agree with you, KDY always wants to be in control of everything around him.

@ shinayame,

Until a few minutes ago, I REALLY wanted CSJ to be alive, and to recover from his fall, b/c I wanted him to have a portion of the prize money, pay his debts, live well (or better than he did in the past), and move on with his life, since he will probably not be with NDJ. After reading your comment though, I feel the way you do, in that I would like the drama to go there, and confirm that CSJ effectively died.

I think it would shock the other contestants, and might incite HWJ even more to find out the truth about DKY and either stop him, or bring him down. It would show how dangerous (and vicious) KDY can be (to the other contestants), and my hope is that the rest of the contestants would become even more of a team. HWJ already told them about the other contestants disappearing, so hopefully they would remember that, and work with HWJ and NDJ, even if they (the other players) end up not going into the final round. Thank you for making me think, and for making me change my mind about this.

On a different note, I wish HWJ had told NDJ that evening (then and there) what he wanted to tell her the next day, (though yeah, this is a Kdrama, I know). He "had" to wait, so NDJ would find out in a horrible way, and so that the ending of the ep. would be more dramatic. Maybe HWJ needed to rehearse what he would say to NDJ? And how he would say it to her?
Why was KDY so bent on having NDJ out of the game? So he could go one on one with HWJ? (He asked DG to take NDJ out of the game). I was not clear on that. Does KDY care that NDJ would be owing money to LG if she forfeited? (maybe... No?)

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Hey Ivoire,
Woo Jin probably needed time to take in the fact that Do Young used to live at the orphanage, since he didn't know how his mother and Do Young were connected before he saw the picture. He might have wanted to deal with the shock and get everything straight in hs head before telling Da Jung everything. Also, they were both probably tired from the long day and it was late, so it wasn't the right time.
Da Jung has become a thorn in Do Young's side, that's true, but I think he offered to get her out of the game just as a way of manipulating Dal Goo into playing against his team because he knew how protective Dal Goo is of Da Jung.

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Hey shinayame~

Thank you so much for explaining! Your explanations totally make sense, btw. I have a few more questions for you, if I may (please feel free to answer the ones you might be able to guess the answers to):

1-What was the point of what DY did with the cards? Demagnatize them? Did he demagnetize the 3 Musketeers cards? If so, then they had to use KDY's card every time they went out? Wouldn't the 3 Musketeers get new cards? (eventually?) Also, I was confused b/c didn’t Dir. Jang say in last ep. (9) that if they lost their cards, they couldn’t get new ones. I thought I heard that. That was not true? (I need to rewatch the beginning of ep.9, I think). I was sure I heard that, for some reason. But maybe not, since so many cards were reissued in the end.

2—About 1hr in(to the ep.), who is PD Lee saying they should notify? KDY or NDJ before airing the footage? Do you remember that?

3--Why was Dir. Jang asking if PD Lee was coming back to her senses? (She didn’t have them before?) Was it b/c she was trying to protect NDJ (by not having the footage being aired,and making excuses?) and she would not have done it in the past?
4--Why did KDY need to enter back to his room (when he found out Jamie had the money on the West side), when he had the 3 Musketeers cards? Couldn’t he just continue to be the inspector? (when the other 3 were blocking the door).
5--I wonder if it was smart (of DY) to have DG know and guess the right amount of money so many times, as an inspector. That too was a giveaway and that helped HWJ figure things out, didn't it? This was DG we are talking about, not the sharpest tool in the box, and Jamie and NDJ might know as well that he is not that smart.
6--Bulldog said (about his teammates), "they just have bones" and he said (and implied) that he "had strengh, strength?" (about 28 mns in). Do you know what he meant by that?
7--HWJ, said to KDY, "(be careful as well or something like that) Since I have come to just below your chin” (about 52mns in), when KDY made the comment about Anton Chekhov and the gun. He was warning him as well. Do you think that was a way of saying, "I am on to you as well?" I was pondering that.

Thank you again, @ shinayame. I really appreciate you helping me understand the drama better.

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Hi Ivoire.
I'll try to answer some of your questions.
1. DY was just playing with them and that team got their new cards. I think the purpose of this scene was to show how getting new cards was possible.
2. I think PD Lee wanted to tell NDJ first so that she wouldn't be shocked by the news.
4. This wasn't shown clearly, but you can only go in the inspector room through the door on the opponent side. Contestants usually go to other side's bank, take out money to smuggle, and go in the inspection room. When you go out your side's door, you can't go back in. This prevents contestants from smuggling anytime they want.
5. If I remember correctly, Dal Goo only stopped a specific amount besides $100,000 once. So, it wasn't completely obvious that he was cheating somehow. Of course, WJ noticed it.

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Hey, so I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.
1) If the cards were ruined, they couldn't use them to withdraw the money they had earned before, which meant that the only way to get any of their money would be through Do Young's card, which effectively put them under his thumb again. He did ask for the cards to be replaced after that. Director Jang did say that lost cards couldn't be replaced, but I think he meant it more in the sense that if you misplaced it, you wouldn't get another one. If it was damaged in some way, it could be reissued.
2) I think I remember what you're talking about, and I think PD Lee wanted to tell Da Jung in advance about releasing the footage since she didn't know about her father's suicide attempt. She probably wanted to warn her beforehand, which is a nice illustration of that soft side of PD Lee.
3) I think you're right about this, although I wasn't really paying attention during this part, so I'll have to watch it once I get home from work today. Is it okay if answer this then? I'll have to do the same for 4) and 6).
5) Do Young probably thought that if he evened the odds by giving the West team the same advantages, his trick would go unnoticed for longer. We know that Woo Jin suspected a trick almost immediately, but he may have caught on to the trick much sooner if only Do Young was the one guessing correctly.
7) In my subs, Woo Jin said "the gun is under your chin" So, he meant that Do Young's attempt to sabotage the relationship between Woo Jin and Da Jung would backfire and instead lead to his downfall. Atleast, that's what I took it to mean.
We'll have to wait until next week to know how Da Jung will take the news and whether the bomb that Do Young planted will hurt Woo Jin and Da Jung, but I am hopeful that Da Jung will stay true to who she is by realising that her father's debt was an unintended effect of Woo Jin's con. I hope that she'll realise that what he did was to avenge his mother and most probably he wasn't even thinking about anyone else during that time.

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@ Ivoire
On question #7
"HWJ, said to KDY, “(be careful as well or something like that) Since I have come to just below your chin” (about 52mns in), when KDY made the comment about Anton Chekhov and the gun. He was warning him as well. Do you think that was a way of saying, “I am on to you as well?” I was pondering that."

The subtitles I had: The gun in the first episode will go off in the third episode. Then HWJ says, that the gun is under Do Young's chin, so KDY had better be careful.

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Hey guys~ (last 3 responses to me),
Thank you so much for your answers. I am currently busy with some children, and so I will be back later to read, and comment if needed :-)
I LOVE how we help each other understand this drama better :-)

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@ shinayame, united, and GB~ PART 1:

I am finally able to be back! I am hoping that you guys will see this response. I know that GB definitely will :-) Since you guys have answered some of the same questions, I will just go by the questions, instead of answering individually, and at times addressing the same question or topic twice.

1--WRT what Dir. Jang said, I rewatched that portion of ep.9 (which is about 24-25mns into the ep.). Dir. Jang says that the money would be counted at the end of the game, and that the cards would be needed in order to be able to have access to the prize money. Dir. Jang then adds, "Please note that if the card is lost, you cannot receive the prize money." Dir. Jang did not say anything about what would happen if a card is damaged, which kind of makes me wonder: if you said the card was damaged, you could get a new one, but if you said it was lost, you don't? (It sounds like that, doesn't it?)

So apparently, he never said anything about how and when the card(s) can be reissued (under what conditions), unless any of you guys rewatched that scene, and saw or heard something I didn't. Please feel free to correct me . The scenes explaining the game are at 20mns in to about 26mns in, FYI. We only find out about bank cards being reissued during and after the game, when all the players are on the stage. When some of the commenters say that this drama doesn't explain/lay out the rules well, I find myself agreeing. I guess some of it (not explaining all the rules beforehand) might keep some of the mystery until the end of the episode, however, I do wish they would be more clear when they finally reveal what rule(s) were used or bent .

And that also made me wonder how many cards HWJ had reissued, 6 instead of 3? B/c I think each contestant needs a bank card to withdraw money, or maybe, the contestants on the West team each shared their prize money with one on the East team, minus Jamie, of course. So then BD, actor Gu and CSJ might have used the card 1st (given to them by HWJ), then hand the card over to its owner. Am I right? That would make sense to me.
Oh, and I also understand (now) that the 3 Musketeers ended up not really needing their own bank cards during the whole game.

2--@ United and @ shinayame, thank you for explaining. I also agree with @ shinayame that it did show the soft side of PD Lee, which we also briefly saw in ep. 3 (beginning), when she told NDJ that she would help, so that at least her father would contact her (NDJ). That conversation happened about 3mns into the ep. This happened during the conversation PD Lee had with NDJ, right after NDJ gave her prize money to her former teacher. Do you guys remember that?

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Hi Ivoire. I think what else Director Jang meant by "lost" is losing your card to someone else. I'm not sure if contestants can get their cards back or not after just losing it. I don't think the card reissuing wasn't ever mentioned by him, but Do-Young using the magnet on the 3 musketeers' cards showed the possibility of reissuing damaged cards and made sure WJ's strategy didn't just come out of nowhere. I don't think the j-drama, which usually provided better explanations, didn't reveal this rule at the beginning either.

WJ only reissued 3 cards(his own, DJ, and DG), kept them, and gave the damaged ones to the 3 musketeers just in case DY would take them away somehow. At the end game, the 3 East team members received those reissued cards while Jaime still had hers. This show didn't explicitly tell us how they split their prize money. I think only the losing team got money(besides Jaime) or the West team split the remaining money(excluding personal accounts) from the bank on their side(I remember DJ mentioning this to Sung Joon and actor Gu in the interrogation room).

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@ shinayame, united, and GB~ PART 2 (of my answer):

3--WRT this question, I didn't get an answer from any of you. And @ shinayame wanted to get home to watch the ep. again, to see what the scene was about (or maybe she just wanted to watch that scene, I think). @ shinayame also wanted to rewatch some scenes for the questions 4 and 6. I don't know if s/he was able to do so. Guys, please feel free to post some further answers any time (if you still wish to do that). I will be checking ep.10 and ep.9 recap's comments often.

I asked that question b/c I felt that Dir. Jang was implying that PD Lee didn't use to be that kind of a person, someone who would care (that much?) about a contestant, or a person used for a broadcast, maybe? I just rewatched that scene, and PD Lee really does try to stop the footage (her conversation with NDJ's dad) from being aired. She 1st makes excuses to Dir. Jang, as to why they can't (or shouldn't) use that footage. When Dir. Jang persists, he asks her, "And what about you, why are you trying to act normal? B/c you saw KDY acting crazy in there [I am assuming during the game, when KDY lost it a few times, and maybe when he would give these crazy looks], are you thinking that you should come back to your senses?"

As I typed that, I am now thinking that Dir. Jang might have meant that PD Lee was reconsidering airing that footage, which she was. And maybe it was not something she would have done in the past. That would make sense to me. PD Lee knows NDJ a little better, she feels some sympathy for her circumstances, and she does not want to add to her plight, by using her (or her dad) for the sake of the game show's ratings (and for the sake of JVN, for that matter). That is how I am going to read it.

4--@ united, thank you for explaining.

5--@ shinayame and @ united: your answers make sense. @ united, the reason why I said that it was obvious that DG was cheating was b/c DG was gloating a little too much, imho. He would say that he could "smell" the money and its amount, he would come back to the West team quarters dancing, and then ask to go back again. My thing is still that, yeah, DG could guess correctly once, or twice. But guessing correctly as many times as he did, and his behavior when he did, made even me suspicious. So, if I (who is not as smart as HWJ) became suspicious of DG, how much more HWJ?

6--I think I might be able to figure out the answer to this question. I just rewatched the scene (as I said, about 28mns in, when BD, actor Gu and CSJ are down the stairs). They are talking about the amount of money actor Gu and CSJ have smuggled, and BD says, "What can these guys, who just have bones left, do? For a man, it's strength, strength." and then when he goes, BD takes the rest of the money (1/2 of the WHOLE amount), puts it in the tablecloth, and then he painfully walks to the other side.

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@ united, shinayame and GB~ PART 3 (of my answer):

6--(My last sentence for this question, which I couldn't include in the previous post, b/c my comment would have been truncated)
"So I think he (BD) meant that actor Gu and CSJ were weak (they only had bones), BUT he WAS a (real) MAN, b/c he had strength, strength," (which he proved, btw). It was interesting to me that BD felt the need to say "strength" twice, as if to strongly convey that yes, he was the strongest one :-) (BD can be funny).

7--Thank you guys for explaining my question #7. And your answers helped. I also just reread Heads' explanations, and that helped a lot as well. I think we were all on the right track.

@ shinayame

About this, "We’ll have to wait until next week to know how Da Jung will take the news and whether the bomb that Do Young planted will hurt Woo Jin and Da Jung, but I am hopeful that Da Jung will stay true to who she is by realizing that her father’s debt was an unintended effect of Woo Jin’s con. I hope that she’ll realize that what he did was to avenge his mother and most probably he wasn’t even thinking about anyone else during that time."
VERY. WELL. SAID! And I have the same wishes.

@ united, I just saw this: 2.2.1.2.8 united November 21st, 2014 at 1:17 PM

Thank you for mentioning the bank cards again, b/c I was going to ask how many cards (total) HWJ had during the game, and you answered that question. My reasoning is that (and I could be wrong), that Jamie kept all of her money (since she didn't want to share), NDJ might have given a lot more than she needed (as Heads explained, which I will have to reread, b/c I didn't understand it well, when I read it), and HWJ and DG shared their earnings with 2 other East team members. I am assuming that they must have stood (2 persons at a time) at the ATM or money place) and done their transactions there, or the staff did it for them, since all their conversations were recorded, and heard by the PD and staff (or producers).

We do know, when we see them (all 7 of them), that they are all happy, so I am assuming that the money must have been appropriately and justly shared (among 6 of the contestants).

I have 2 last questions:

1--Did CSJ call BD and actor Gu “idiots” b/c they said they wanted to forfeit? (That was what I thought). This was when they were drinking, outside.

2--(At 7mns 52secs in), HWJ says: “If anyone could have done that, I would have tried earlier,” when he explains how he caught DG. Do you guys think he meant, "if I could have predicted the amount accurately (each time), I would have tried that earlier?"

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@ Ivoire
I had a hard time finding the right 'Reply' button to your post LOL!!!

Dir Jang's comment to PD Lee on coming back to her senses. My take on it is that she was in the first episodes rather cold and professional (to the point of being unfeeling?) in shooting the debt collectors at the Teacher's house. But in Ep 10, she is trying to get Da Jung's father to make contact with Da Jung (out of humanitarian reasons) instead of using that opportunity (to be professional) to play up a sob story to gain even higher ratings etc. So Jang forced the airing of the footage which he felt she should have done herself.

Dir Jang on the cards being lost. Yes, lost can mean stolen by another person or just lost (which is unlikely in that controlled environment) so if you have no card to show, you cannot get another one and you cannot get your money. Damaged cards can be shown so that a new one can be reissued, but it is strange that the station does not confiscate the damaged cards. I guess they purposely left that loophole for the game players to abuse/use.

I feel that this is the way with the show in not explaining everything or only giving us the info at the end. It could be that the rules are clear to the writer but they want to have the leeway to change some stuff if necessary so they don't tell us in advance, just in case they make a change.

On your last but 1 question, on the meeting of the 3 musketeers at the end... (my guess is...) Actor Gu and BD were toying with the idea of forfeiting the game after being played by Do Young (stress of betrayal etc?), but Sung Joon out of loyalty to Da Jung had expected/wanted to continue to the end to support Da Jung's dream of all winning together and ensuring that Do Young did not have a clear playing field. He called them idiots for even thinking of forfeiting (maybe it was cowardly?)

On your qn about “If anyone could have done that, I would have tried earlier,” my subs say "If anyone could do that, they would've already" - yes it is referring to knowing the amount of $ to guess. The hand signals were necessary in order to guess right. He is probably saying that if anyone could have guessed the amount just by looking at a person, it should have been Woo Jin himself, but as he could not, the hand signals were necessary.

Cheerio! I'll look at Ep 9 to see if you posted there too! :)

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@ GB,

Yeah, you have to scroll waaaaay back up to find the "reply" icon, so you can post your comment :-) I usually have 3 or 4 tabs opened when I am commenting on DB, that way I don't have to scroll up and down every single time. Every tab(page) is opened to a section I need to read, or respond to (so typing), and I just alternate between the tabs, and I refresh the pages, to find out if there are new posts (that I might need to respond to).

I have not gotten a chance to respond here, or in ep.9 recap. Had to prepare for a trip. I will try and do it before Sunday night however (so between the time I post this, and Sunday night). So please, keep on checking here and on ep.9 recap. Thank you! :-)

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@ Ivoire
Scrolled all the way up indeed!

I too am preparing for my trip but can still be online quite a bit. Will be checking here, Ep 9 and email too. BTW hope you see my questions above at "1.4.1.2.1 Growingbeautifully November 25th, 2014 at 5:46 AM". Catch you later!

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Maybe because there actually have been real world efforts to create "Walden Two" communities in the U.S.? More than any other place in the world.

The fact that there are real people who consider this as utopia... is the thing that I find nightmare fuel-inducing creepy.

I'm crossing my fingers, I am desperately hoping that in the coming episodes with Ha Ji Won's mother niceness wasn't entirely fake; making her in a two-faced villain seems like such a cop-out, considering the tantalizing possibilities of what she could be. For example, she could be a person with the greatest of intentions ("I want to make a better world"), but use entirely the wrong means. But anyway, there's also that question that his mother posed at the end, about whether it was so wrong too trust people. Could it be linked to the Walden Two project? Was she scammed as revenge for what she did to those children and was Do Young in any way linked to her death (which would explain how he knew her last words before she died)? Whatever the case, I hope everything comes to a full circle and we understand who she was more.

Another possibility is that she put her trust in the research organization--perhaps she thought the results of the experiment would go to some greater good, and she put her trust instead of investigating the actual means they would achieve it? The mystery of this have been plaguing me--I can't wait to see the answers to them next week. (Please, please let there be answers).

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DAEBAK!!!!

Sooo freaking intense. What am I ever gonna do when this ends :'(
Ha Woo Jinaahh...dun leave me soo soon!!!

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Loved this episode so much! Even though I didn't get the real/fake cards thing, can anyone explain? Also, I thought the West had to deposit the money into their account for them to win?

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First and foremost, the three musketeers did not need their cards at all during their revolt. Neither did they need DaJung's, WooJin's or DalGoo's.

So, the sequence is as such:

1. WooJin devises the plan. Somewhere away from his team mate's eyes, he nullifies his, DaJung and DalGoo's cards (using a magnet or whatever). He gets working replacements from the staff while, I assume, keeping the nullified cards. He gives the nullified cards to DaJung. The working cards are kept with him.

2. DaJung goes in as inspector for 3 consecutive rounds and begins her campaigning, giving away those nullified cards.

3. WooJin enters as smuggler and withdraws all of his team's money from the east (DoYoung's team) and hides it in the east's air vent. He provokes DoYoung and knocks him off kilter in a major way, to ensure that he stays in a funk and thus sends the others as smugglers instead.

4. The three musketeers carry the cash over to the west (WooJin's team). They deposit the money in WooJin's ATM (therefore making the money officially the west's). They withdraw the money and hide it in the vent in case DoYoung enters as smuggler in between them and sees the sudden improvement in the west's financial state (?) Or he does some funny business. They take the empty case (that they were supposed to smuggle their money with) and walk off to the inspector's room, where they're sent off with a "pass"

5. ... ... blah blah blah, see recap... ...

6. DoYoung thought he had the winner's valid cards (remember, WooJin had them nullified. The real working replacements are with him). DoYoung tries to withdraw money and fails.

The end.

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Oh wow, thanks, the invalid card thing finally makes sense to me. I couldn't get the sequence of events straight in my head.

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basically when they asked for a reissue of cards, the old ones will become invalid (fake).

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I think I got confused with the cards because A) it looked like the staff took one set of cards but we didn't see (or I don't remember) them giving the set back and B) diexbtvthat mean they were using the fake cards at one point? How is that possible?

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I too felt slightly unconvinced by the fake card thing, because we didn't see the staff give them back the old void cards, and if you're replacing the cards, why would you give back the old ones? Just give them the new ones. Unless they gave them back the old ones precisely in the hope/knowledge that they could be used in this kind of trick.

As to using the cards, I remember wondering why Woo Jin took all of the money out of the opposing team's bank machine himself in one go, but when he explained the fake card thing, it made sense. At that point in time, he already had the old cards. When he took the working cards from his team-mates to withdraw the cash, he used that opportunity to make the switch, replacing their working cards with the old cards, which means that they passed non-working cards to the other team, without knowing it. And because he'd taken out all the money already, they didn't have to use their cards in the machine at all after that, so they wouldn't realize that they were non-functional.

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Thanks for explaining how the fake cards weren't used.

But yeah the second set of cards being returned didn't really make sense to me. I prefer 'twists' that I can figure out but that seems like it was missing information.

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Basically when Dajung went to persuade the 3 others from the East (Actor Gu and friends) she said she would pass the West cards (Woojin, Dajung and Dalgoo's cards) to gain the trust of the East 3, but she brought the spoilt cards with her already coz Woojin gave her the spoilt ones. No one except Woojin knows that they are spoilt. And when the East 3 are looting the money from the air van of the East (after Woojin withdrew all the money from West bank - the West bank is in East territory - and put it in East air van) to the West, they use their own East cards to "cash in" the money (which is considered as East money coz it is in East territory and not the West bank there) and withdraw, to make it West property (since once the money is out of the bank it is considered as opposing country's money during the game?) I suppose. And since the money is in West territory, it is considered as West money, which is divided after the game and banked into the West accounts, and thus Woojin and friends still need their bank card to withdraw the money. That's why Doyoung said Dajung doesn't have any cards to withdraw and thus broke her promise of giving the East 3 money, and then Woojin revealed that the cards Doyoung confiscated from the East 3 are spoilt and thus, West having the real working cards can withdraw the money and split it w the East 3. Something along these lines if I'm not mistaken. :) and therefore the the East 3 are only safeguarding the West cards and not using them.

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thank you so much, your explanation was very useful ^.^

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The drama might not have shown, but Woojin prolly asked the staff if he can keep the spoilt cards even if they can't be used, as momento of sorts, and so at one point Woojin was carrying 6 cards, two of each member's.

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I think the j-drama showed him asking for the damaged cards back. Or maybe it didn't? I can't remember corrrectly, but it showed how he damaged them.

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In a drama world of unbelievable circumstances, the reissuing cards still seems more unbelievable.

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@houstontwin

+1.

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why does reissuing cards seem unbelievable? if your card gets damaged, you need to get it replaced. there's no rule against taking back the damaged cards. WJ smartly used this to his advantage. I wished they showed a flashback to show him getting them back instead of just mentioning it.

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It was also said that any money that is in the West land (whether or not in the bank) would belong to the west and after the game the producers will divide the sum and bank into the west members' banks.

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I will confess to going to opening a bottle of wine solely for the purpose of getting me through episode.

Thank you for your work, Heads! (and you 'sow' discord. Not 'sew').

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love this episode too! thx so much for the recap, Heads! But as Heads pointed out, I do kinda feel a bit sorry for DY - perhaps because he was not only an orphan at one point but also a victim of a sick psychological experiment that led him to becoming one of the scariest villains in K-drama ever, but i think one's upbringing doesn't have to make a person bad, though it can contribute to it. I'm just saying the guy can maybe choose to be good provided he got a lot of mental help. So i'm not excusing him for what he did to SJ (who btw i'm going to miss badly…love that kid. It's so tragic how he went. How did DY know about him hacking into his files/background info?) and perhaps many others who were once contestants in this show. DY need to pay for his crimes and go to the Mental Hospital to get better.

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@ Lizzie,

About this, " How did DY know about him hacking into his files/background info?)" KDY knows a lot of things, about a lot of people. We have seen him (at least twice so far), talking on the phone with one of his minions. Once when DG was taken away in the trunk of a car, and was about to have his organs removed (literally), and also when PD Lee met with NDJ's dad. Both times, KDY asked his minion not to do anything (yet).

About this, "I do kinda feel a bit sorry for DY – perhaps because he was not only an orphan at one point but also a victim of a sick psychological experiment that led him to becoming one of the scariest villains in K-drama ever" and this, "I’m just saying the guy can maybe choose to be good provided he got a lot of mental help."

I too really feel sorry for KDY. He has lost his marbles, and you have to be really far gone, to do the things he does (and has done), and believe what he believes (which we will find out more of, next week). I mean, Pres. Bae said that his insides were "empty," in KDY's case, what does that even mean? (I still don't know). Manipulation of people, threats, bullying, murder(s?), what else has KDY done to others? What brought that on, really?

Also, I personally feel that KDY never sought mental help. Remember that he is (or was) a master at faking or hiding his emotions, and so he has been doing that for over 20 years (when he went to the US). Since he does not think that anything is wrong with him, why would he seek help? For the likes of KDY, I don't know if they should go to a mental hospital, or to prison. He HAS committed crimes, many of them.

So, I was wondering, to be clear, Dir. Jang found out about PD Lee meeting NDJ's dad because of PD Lee's cameraman, right? And said cameraman had (secretly) filmed the encounter, because he thought it would be a great scoop? And PD Lee was trying to protect NDJ, by NOT having that footage/meeting go on the air (and she made excuses about the audio not being clear). If based on what I wrote, I understood that scene correctly, then I really like what PD Lee was trying to do, and I really like that side of her (the one that tries to be moral).

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My stomach is crawling from the tension. how can I watch the last ep-s?
btw I saw cute pics of SSR meeting fans

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Where where?

What to do, what to do.. when I keep reading all comments about his being creepy, frightening etc, all I can think of this

http://38.media.tumblr.com/0d986673617735808226caa2e6aac679/tumblr_n8geg7qecc1s4tf1vo1_500.gif

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AHAHAXD Just the thing I needed after watching Liar Game throughout the night and dreaming that a crazed, knife-wielding KDY was after me.

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Haha, no no, he won't kill you... But can melt you with his voice only!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_JMTwzLqwA

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but now I want to join him.

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Get in the line missy!

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Now even that makes him look creepy in my eyes, like he´s about to run over couple of toddlers. Anyway, I´m a little disappointed that the show is making KDY such an inhuman maschine, seen that one too much. Well, if he actually has a point in weaving such a meticulous revenge on HJW, then it´s all cool, but stooping into killing off hacker boy? Damn, that just makes him I´m-so-mean-and-crazy-I-just-do-whatever-I-want, and it´s soooo boring. Maybe he milks some sympathy out me at the end, because he just had a tough luck as a child, being sent (perhaps by HJW mother?) to that crazy camp in US, but still, as Heads mentioned in the recap having a wierd soft spot for KDY well-being, I too would prefer having him tugging at my heart, instead of wishing him to trip over on his handsome joker face for once and just stop demonstrating how frigging crazy he is in every other second, that just makes the whole thing ridiculous (at least for me). But on the bright side, KDY is still pretty fab villain and the last ep was epic in many ways. Just loved the scene of Jamie sitting on that pile of cash:)

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Wait a second, that was it? That was Do-young's scheme? Not having any?

And while he is busy screwing up stupidly, he wastes his ace (Woo-jin's involvement in Da-jung's dad's debt situation) for nothing?

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Can I ask what you mean when you say scheme?
If you're talking about a scheme inside the game, I don't really think Do Young is as invested in winning it as he is in watching Woo Jin crumble. So although it upsets him to lose, it's more that he lost to Woo Jin and Da Jung and her belief in people which he's been trying to undermine than it is that he lost the game. I don't think he actually cared about the game at all.
Besides, he's playing a different game altogether that's focused on Woo Jin and his revenge. Which is why I don't think he wasted his ace for nothing. He knew, like he apparently knows everything, that Woo Jin hadn't told Da Jung everything yet. When else would he use his ace? After the game has ended? That he told her now, means that he's banking on the fact that Da Jung will see it as a huge betrayal and leave Woo Jin alone, which means all the others will leave him, which means he'll be vulnerable when Do Young launches his final attack. Maybe he doesn't think that Da Jung will be able to forgive Woo Jin at all, which I hope he's wrong about because Woo Jin was going to tell her everything, it's just that the program aired before he could.

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Apparantly, his scheme was 1) counting on Jaime to follow the path of most money like she has every time before and betray her team and 2) having the other team's cards while making invalid copies so he gets to take the most money for himself.

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Well, to be fair, Jaime surprised herself when she didn't betray the West team. And everyone else suspected her of having betrayed them because it was such a consistent pattern for her. So I don't think Do Young should be blamed for not realising she wouldn't take the bait. And I haven't really understood the invalid card trick yet, so I can't comment on that.

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Yeah, I thought Do Young knew something secretive or shady about Jaime so that's why she had followed his instructions in the past. He felt confident that she would be on his side.

I wonder if she's gonna be in danger now too.

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You know that moment when your body is awake but you still want to sleep, a thought came to me, HJW is also a child from the Walden two experiments hence the human lie detector and being a genius. He just forgot about it and KDY wanted to remind him of that fact. Hmm, maybe 'mum' wasn't to be trusted

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Nah, doubt so. WooJin didn't stay in America.

I think he was referring to the moment when WooJin's mother agreed to send him to America. Or something, I don't know.

I have a feeling that WooJin's mother knew something about DoYoung possibly being out in Waldon Two but still allowed him to go there. She must have somehow directly caused his enrolment into Waldon Two in DoYoung's eyes. I wouldn't understand his overwhelming need for such dire revenge on his part otherwise.

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but i hope that WJ's mom wasn't a bad person who intentionally and knowingly sent DY to America to enroll him in the Walden Two project. What if WJ's mom sincerely believed that DY would end up with a nice family in America? WJ did say his mom easily believes in and trusts in others. What if what drove WJ's mom to commit suicide was because DY confronted her about what he went through as a kid? But yeah, the part of WJ erasing his childhood memories at the orphanage give me reason to doubt this theory.

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I thought it would be that WJ's mom possibly received money in order for walden two to "adopt" some of the kids from the orphanage…. We'll see...

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@ klava, Hi~

Interesting theory! Though they would be a lot of holes through that theory. For example, how could HWJ forget so much though? Did he chose to forget because the experience was (too) traumatic? And HWJ was not an orphan (he had his mom), but KDY seems to have been (hence why he lived in the orphanage?) HWJ would just go to the orphanage because he had to be with his mom. And Walden Two took place in the US, didn't it? HWJ has no memory of having ever lived in the US, does he? Even if HWJ chose to forget something so big (living in a foreign country for a while), wouldn't his immigration papers show that at some point, and for a period of time, he (HWJ) lived abroad? KDY has immigration documents, but they are fake. Every documentation (except maybe for his US school degrees?) about KDY is fake, especially the ones regarding his life in Korea before his departure for the US. That was what HWJ said in voice over.

Also, Beeper Guru (I actually heard HWJ call that lady Beeper, so it is her name in the drama [FYI @ Shalini]), said that KDY would swallow whole his parents, or his owners. At 1st, I thought maybe KDY did do something bad to his parents (his real parents), the way that some children shoot their parents, or burn the house down, and their parents die in the process, etc... But then, if KDY was an orphan (I assuming of both parents), who did KDY betray then, or swallowed whole? How did KDY's parents die, actually? Now I am curious about that as well. I know we will find out next week, however these are some of the questions I have.

I do agree with you, that KDY did say in that phone call to HWJ, that HWJ saw his mother's "true colors." And that she was not an angel after all, and yet HWJ chose to erase that memory. Is that true? Or is that a distorted version of what TRULY happened, but KDY seems to believe the distorted version he remembers (or chose to remember)? This drama has so many twists and turns (as evidenced in this ep.), that I am opened to almost any revelations, twists and turns, in next week's final episodes.
And since I (and a few others) got our wish about Jamie thinking of others (for a change), could I send out another wish? Could we have CSJ wounded (but not dead), and recovering in a hospital in next week's episode, please? (Though when I remember how that elevator crashed, I am not really holding my breath either. KDY is crazy like that).

It makes sense now, having seen that picture from the USB, why KDY told HWJ that "of course, I know you." Not only because of L Company, but also because they go way back, to when they were children.

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Woo Jin would have remembered his time in America.
My theory is that Woo Jin and Do Young knew each other in the orphanage (were maybe even friends if that's him in picture with his mother and Do Young) and witnessed something on one of his trips to the orphanage that proved his mother's involvement in the experiments or their recruitment and, being only a child, was so horrified and traumatized that he chose to repress it. That's probably why he tells Da Jung after the Voting game that he doesn't remember his childhood much.
Regarding Do Young swallowing his parents, it could be that since he was an orphan, Do Young thought of Woo Jin's mother as his own, like the other kids (something Woo Jin resented them for) and he saw what happened to him as his own 'mother' betraying him. If he showed up again after so many years and revealed himself to her as his current psychopathic self, that could have driven her to suicide, especially since, if she was as kind as Woo Jin says she was, she probably didn't know what was going to happen and blamed herself for how Do Young turned out.

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I like this idea. Woo Jin already discovered that Do Young's past was fake, so he could have been anywhere. The fact that the two of them were under Mom's supervision and that they grew up to be kind of psychological genius...I can see how this plot could be developed.

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Oh, as I was watching episodes 9 and 10 there was a blackout due to heavy rains and thunderstorms, KDY 's creepy faces were freaking me out especially when the camera would zoom in on his face, I had to actually turn my phone away from me to avoid eye contact, Lol. SGR should win something for his performance.

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Same here..I watched it alone in my house as a thunderstorm was going on. I had to pause calm myself down than continue watching. He must win an award!!

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Clever! How this show turns the focus to "shady" mom elevates all of the intense. I do hope that HWJ's mom to be really not that angelic and there's genuine reason for HWJ to erase that part of memory. I feel that it bring more realism about human characters. That we are all flawed, after all ....

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I can't watch Liar's Game late at night... not because it's scary, but because I need to be wide awake to catch all the important details. I love a drama that forces you to pay attention!

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I know!I feel the same! Other dramas like Cantabile and Pinocchio I watch intermittently during my daily commute or in my idle times but such is not the case for Liar Game! It's really just a testament to how intelligent and intricate the drama is! Of course, that is, in no way, taking anything away from other (said) dramas (I love them and enjoy them to bits), but Liar Game is really a different beast altogether, and is clearly above all the other airing dramas RN.

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I love your name: hawoojinruinedme. I have enjoyed this actor before, but this role is so intense and really allows him to show his most manly self!

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Haha! I actually watch it during the night. The heightened sense of tension and terror really magnifies my viewing experience (and gives me nightmares, but sometimes HWJ appears in them so that's all good). This drama is honestly so brilliant, I wonder what I'm going to do once it ends.

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I know! But not just Liar Game... I am also addicted to Misaeng, another wonderfully written drama. I might have to find some really good books when these dramas are over.

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These cable dramas serve as challenge to recycled plots. Way to go!

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When I saw that last scene, I instantly thought that WooJin's mom was not as angelic as he had thought, and that led me to think, if there's a parallel between his mom and DaJung, isn't it possible that she also shows a dark side (as the desire for revenge against WooJin comes through) and turns her back on him?

The worst thing is that I kind of hoped for it to happen too haha I guess it's my profond desire to see DaJung actually become something more than an innocent, as it was so well said, Disney-Princess-ish character. But then again, it would prove Doyoung was right and humanity is dark and evil so...Urgh! I don't know what to think! I just hope the last 2 episodes give her character more spike.

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Great idea!

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THIS IS A NIGHTMARE. Oh my god my only source for Kdrama is no longer available. They didn't even wait tell this drama finish. I'm sick, living out of Korea, USA or Europe is not great when its come to dramas, none of the legal sites works for me. I just wanted to see this one :(

I'm gonna learn Korean and fly there to live the rest of my life. This is really sick and ugly.

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viki doesn't work in your country?

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Have you tried Dramacool (http://www.dramacool.com/) or Good Drama (http://www.gooddrama.net/watch-drama-shows)?

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Try this:
http://www.dramaload.ch/
or
http://www.dramago.com/
I can't promise they're legal, though they definitely seem legal to me, because you have to pay to download.

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where do you live? no my asian tv? or drama cool? or drama fire? (all of them have no space in between as a web address)

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Would torrenting work for you? (That is downloading the episode) I'd be happy to help out if you need help!

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if viki doesn't work in your country, you can try installing Zenmate chrome extension, use it with Chrome and set country to US.. this works like a charm! I am in India, and this is how I've been getting my daily dose of kdramas..

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such a twist!! just how this kind of good show have just two more episodes left??? season two juseyoooo.

i read people commenting how woojin is stupid in episode 8, during the coin battle. in my opinion its good to see the good side lost once in a while. its more logic that way. if woojin keep on winning over evil do young this show doesn't seem realistic.

and finally we can see da jung is not useless after all. she bravely talk back to do young. yippi!! please no more naive da jung.

with two more episodes left, i lose hope for a little bit romance. but can we have a hug scene between woojin and dajung?*winkwink*

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yes, yes, and yes, a hug scene! in the Japanese version, there was one. There was even one where he went up close to her face and touched her lips. I thought he was going to kiss her! ^-^ So hopefully, the Korean version has a nice hug scene for us at least, both WJ and DJ comforting each other about the shocking reveals and more. I can't wait for Episode 11 preview!

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I agree as well :) and if Doyoung didn't win, how can the writers plant him to play this Smuggle game haha. I kind of feel the President game was really the creative of the writers, and created out (I don't rmb it being in the Jap version) just so to pull Doyoung into the games and not remain as MC haha.

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I think the President game is based on the Musical Chairs Game from the manga. In this game, participants had to vote for someone to eliminate a chair in every round.
Does anyone follow Running Man? It did a Chairs elimination game that seemed to be inspired this game.

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my only criticism of the President's game is that it gave too much power to non-contestants like DY. DY did make the game interesting though.

I don't get why DY and Dal Goo were allowed to join the competition. They did fight their way up to this round like other contestants. I think it's a little unfair.

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*they didn't fight their way up...

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i've been wishing for a romantic scene too! loved how woo jin fondly called her na jung-ah... ah, the feels!

wishing for more awesome moments in the last 2 episodes!

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i meant Da Jung-ah.. Lol!

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That's as awesome as it can get. That actual "Da-jung-ah" is the talk of the town. Such 3-syllable "Da-jung-ah" sounded "Sa-rang-hae" and I hate it!

It has been a dilemma and why do the producers follow the orig's way of not putting romance in it, when they threw "Da-jung-ah" in the mix! Ah! This couple will be the end of me!

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Wow. Just wow.

Maybe a amazed wow, an impressed wow, a moved wow but surely a stressed wow.

How are we supposed to wait now ? I ask you, how ?

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LOL! ROFLOL!

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Am I the only person who thought this was going to be the last episode? As time kept ticking on, and more shocks came to light I was wondering, this is a heckofa final.

I purposefully didn't read anything about it, because I don't like spoilers. Maybe I should have at least read enough to find out there was an extension.

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Nope. You're not the only one. I thought episode 10 was the last one but it didn't feel finished, so I looked it up after it ended and am delighted to find that there are two more episodes. YAY!

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This is one of the very rare moments where I LOVED news REGARDING DRAMA EXTENSION. I never loved it any more than this.

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This is one of the few shows my husband is watching with me. (He liked 3 musketeers too.) We're both looking forward to next week.

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*speechless...*

Wew. this show really really got me. Keeping me on the edge of my seat every time.

First, let me squeaal first the moment Woo Jin, so fondly, called out her name..." Da Jung aah.." *peeling myself off the floor. O.M.G .. Can the show be a little bit generous to me by at least giving me a "hug scene" next week?? I know, I know that LSY & KSE's explosive chemistry won't be extended to romance line in the final week, and therefore I have to say goodbye to my hot-kisses scenes, but I'm really hoping the show can at least award us with a small incentive for being nice... by giving us Woo Jin & Da Jung skinship... hehhehe....
please... I won't ask too much, Show! a hug will do. well... yeah.. ROTFL (Rolling On the Floor Loving) won't hurt actually.. hehehheheh... or... what.. LOL (Loving Out Loud)?? ...hehheheh...

Second, uhuhuuuu... I cried a river when I learned the reason behind uri Cutie Dal Goo Ahjussie's betrayal. Why is he so damn kind to Dal Jungie?? Where in the world did you find a debt creditor like that??

Third, so the theory that Do Young might somehow be related to WJ's mom's orphanage turned out to be true. But what made him hate WJ's mom?? Because she sent him to the U.S and since then his life changed? because since then he didn't get a normal "childhood"?

This time I really wish that the PDs would announce Season 2 or extensions. I don't want too much open ending. and there are just too many questions left to be answered SATISFACTORILY.

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It's the penultimate week and you, Show, just had to kill off somebody. didnt you? On top of that, it had to be freaking Sungjoon? Wtf???

Unless explicitly stated in the drama that he's dead, I will continue to believe otherwise. It could be that he was just injured, you know? Maybe some bones broken here and there. Paralysis could be a possibility. BUT ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN BEING DEAD. You cant just kill noona-calling, wide-eyed Sungjoon off!

*currently playing denial game*

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I'm with you. There was no smashed body with blood dripping out of the mouth. Until I see that, Sungjoon is NOT dead.

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I completely agree! They can't kill off our cute puppy just like that? And oh gosh will DJ be devastated if that happens. As if this revelation wasn't bad enough.

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The killing of Sung Joon (if it succeeded) might?/would have the impact of making Da Jung re-think getting people onto her team, as it could endanger them. She might think it safer for the others to not betray Do Young, and/or she might keep her distance from those precious to her instead of continuing to work together? (Just as we were hoping for some relationship growth and hugs :( )

Another evil, manipulative move of Do Young?

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I said this in a comment up top, but I'll say it again here as well, just because.
I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE if Puppy the Second (Ha Woo Jin is Puppy the First) survived, but I'd still be a bit disappointed by Show because then it would take away from Do Young's core psychopathic evilness. I don't think he'd keep Sung Joon alive, especially after unhinging so spectacularly. We still don't know what happened to those contestants who disappeared.
So I would be over the moon if Puppy the Second survived, I'd be even more over the moon if Show stuck to its guns and killed him off. Although I'd be bawling my puppy loving eyes out.

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Well, here's the thing. Whether or not Sungjoon lives, I think DY pretty much showed everyone his psychopathic tendencies and how far he can go to get his point across. I guess past this point, everyone should now be fearing for their lives (if they haven't yet before) and just stay out of DY's way. I really feel that now he's become a raging bull, running over, horning, and chucking out everyone in his path just to win this effin game he's playing with WJ.

Before I was fascinated with and in awe of his character, sometimes terrified and all the time amazed. But in this episode, while I still feel the same, he was also just downright creepy and scary, and he was seriously freaking me out! Really, kudos to SSR for playing this character fantastically.

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*sobs* but i wonder what happened to the lady with the dog who got eliminated at the final round of the Minority Game? (Woo-Jin visited her house and just found the dog). Was she gotten rid of too? And the other participants who couldn't pay back?

And seeing truly evil, psychopathic characters like Do-Young go crazy makes me feel terrified and in awe too because they are so unpredictable at this point. Do-Young was in control before; all finely cut suits and poker face, but he seems to have lost it now (I still don't know if he's faking).

(Not related to this drama, but seeing Do-Young apparently go mad reminded me of a scene in the animated version of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Here's a video of the evil character going mad because she lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hoau5BuslPI)

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YEEEES!! why sung joon?? i hate how the world is so unfair to him bc other players were like terminated in the game because of betrayal or something but sung joon, aaaaah. i cant even finish ep 10 because i was so shocked :'(

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Sung-jun can't be dead! Andweeeee! If Do-young touches Goo In-gi or Bulldog, I WOULD BE MAD TOO! Nobody touch these guys, or I would call Do-young despicable in all aspect of life and nature!

He can't touch anybody from my team (well, he can touch Jamie, but dang, Jamie redeemed her character, I so love her)!

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I am still so sad and in shock over that. Everytime I think or read about it I go NOOOOO not cutie sungjoon!! I'm going to join the denial club because it's better than the alternative at this point TT

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Can someone explain the mutiny to me? Why would the mutiny cause them to forfeit their last 3 rounds to smuggle money from west to east? Why did they have to physically block him from returning to camp? Although Do young couldn't go back to camp but he held all the cards to pass through the passage for his team's last 3 turns. He could have withdraw money from West Bank and smuggle to east side.

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I think contestants can only go through the glass door to the other side by entering from their own building/country. That's why the East team blocked the entrance to their building. Also, the East team can only go from East to West. If they try to go back, the glass door will be locked. Only West's team members like Jaime can move from West to East.

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He freaking called her DA-JUNG-AH AIEEEEEEEEEE!

Why must you do this to us Show? I can hardly breathe after every episode just from the plot machinations and revelations alone. But then you throw in the romance so suddenly like that, giving us no time to prepare, bringing it up when we least expect it --- then that's just mean, and so fucking awesomeeeee.

Expect to see in the news tomorrow a story about thousands of drama-watchers mysteriously just dropping dead after this episode.

That "Da-jung-ah" bit will forever be etched on my heart, and my brain, and all the other important organs in my body. I feel like ive gotten even crazier than KDY because of all these squealing! Aiieeee!

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Did you see his eyes??!! His eyes were so awesome all through that scene! He looked so vulnerable when she asked why Do Young would say something like that and when he asked her to wait for him at the cafe. I just wanted to give him a hug and some hot chocolate with marshmallows. I know his 'faithful and vicious dog' line was probably the hottest thing he's ever said, but because of that, every time I look at him, all I can think is he has the most gorgeous puppy dog eyes EVER. As if having a gorgeous dimpled smile wasn't enough of a danger to my respiratory system. I was squealing just like you all through that scene and now I smile like a loon to myself every time I think about it.
*rewatches scene 10,000 times*

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Can you imagine if they do get together? He will never lose a fight because all he'll have to do is give her a puppy dog face and she'll cave in a millisecond.

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LOL, that's like the opposite of what's happening on WGM with Song JaeRim and Kim SoEun.

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okay now i hate you because im now imagining that scenario happening and its so freaking cute! but also heartbreaking because we'll never actually see that happening ever (not in the show's current trajectory). *sobs uncontrollably*

That said, any Beanies out there who knows a good HWJ-NDJ fan fiction?? I will seriously resort to anything right now just to quell my shipping desires. Is anybody even writing anything about this ship?? Please let me know!

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Oh. Me too me too! I've been searching and searching and so far, nothing. I might have to start writing some myself.

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His EYES. OMFG. He has the best puppy dog eyes ever. It's amazing how he can make them look so deadly one second, and so endearing the next. Even if the way LSY plays him is so nuanced, its amazing how i am still able to grasp even the tiniest change in his expression and understand what he's experiencing in any given moment.

I guess the writer thought it's already overkill to also use his dimples for the story so that we're just being blessed with his eyes right now. And i havent even included his beautiful naked body whilst showering in the equation.

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Okay, see, now I hate you because I may be able to write pages and books of fanfiction with Woo Jin and Da Jung being cute, but I will NEVER see Woo Jin having a naked, broody shower. Except in my dreams. So thanks for that.

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OH PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO! If only I were a good writer, I would have written something ages ago, but alas, that, sadly, is not the case. ALTHOUGH, my love for this ship may compel me to write my first fan fiction EVER. And what better pairing to write fluff about than these two, right? It’s going to be crappy and short for sure (I am fully aware of my skills haha) but it will still be a big accomplishment in and of itself!

Having said that, I am still going to wait religiously for your fan fiction shinayame! (I am so serious right now.) Honestly, I can read hundreds of novels of them being cute, dropping dead by fluff all the time be damned. But while you’re at it, maybe you can throw broody shower scenes of HWJ in there. Lord knows his lack of flesh-showing in this drama is a crime. Don’t let him to brood-shower only in your dreams. Share it to the world and the world will definitely be a better place.

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Unfortunately broody shower Woo Jin needs a good artist to do justice to all the droolworthy hotness and I can't draw a straight line to save my life. Buuuuuut, there's already an artist on this site who could maybe take a fantasy detour. (Hmm, Fanderay?)
As for the fanfiction, while I'm trying to justice to the cute, you know what my quick fix was? Reading the original Japanese Liar Game fanfic, but imagining Da Jung and Woo Jin in my head. Can I just say the steamier fanfic works so much better with these two. *ahem* I will try to sound less pervy now.

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IM ALL FOR STEAMY FAN FICTION!!! STEAMY FAN FICTION WRITERS UNITE! *calms down after a truthful outburst*

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YES YES YES. LSY really shines here, just as much as KDY. HWJ is a man of few words, so every bit of tenderness, fear, and warmth is magnified. NDJ and HWJ make a FANTASTIC tea, which was more evident that ever during this episode. I swear he gave her the look of love so many times, I can't even breathe. We honestly need more use of that dimple. Can't you imagine what would happen if he used his puppy eyes and dimpled smile on DJ? (We'd all be dead by then though xD)

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I’m pretty sure I’m already dead right now, just ‘cause of that Da-jung-ah bit. So in the event that the dimples-puppy eyes combo ever happens, I’ll just be drama zombie glued to my laptop screen, grunting phrases like “aieeee, aieee, aieeee!”

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"Da-jung-ah"

*Drops dead*

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“Da-jung-ah”

*Drops dead*

*Family members call 911, paramedics come rushing in*

"Where's the patient?" they ask. "All we see is puddle on the floor."

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Lol! i know, right? ha woo jin (& his puppy eyes) ruined me too!

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i'm actually amazed how much these few (almost)romantic moments all through the 10 eps so far have made me feel, especially cos I consider myself somewhat of a pro, when it comes to watching romantic scenes... that near-kiss (was it ep 2?), the smile on woo jin's face while watching da jung eat ramyun, perhaps woo jin's best line till date (well, besides "i have a winning strategy!") - "i'm da jung's loyal & ferocious dog!", & now him calling her da jung-ah! Oh be still my beating heart!!

not sure how many more of these moments are in store for us ahead, especially with all the revelations the series finale would contain, but i hope we get some closure in terms of woo jin and da jung's relationship.. i just adore these two!

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ahhhhh glad I'm not the only one who nearly had a heart attack when he called her that. Da jungah...!!!!

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WAIT! You mean Sung Joon DIED?!? Oh man, I was hoping maybe he would be severely injured, or even slip into coma, something like that. But dead?*Sobs**

I know it's highly unlikely, but I'm really hoping for a Season 2 of Liar Games, since the Manga kinda stretched on quite far beyond what this drama have showed. Because I am foreseeing much withdrawal symptoms from deprivation of HWJ & NDJ. Reading the manga isn't quite the same since the Korean Liar Game changed quite a few details.

Jamie's betrayal definitely brought a smile to my face, especially when others were all saying how she's hottest when she betrays. Hahas I'm not so sure how long their opinion will hold but let's enjoy it while it last. She have really come a long way from the bitch-from-inside-out to softie-in-bitch's-clothing. Heck I think I'll even miss Jamie and her reluctant loyalty.

Lastly, about Do Young commenting about the "true face" of HWJ's mother... does that mean there is a dark side to his mother which we're not made aware of? Hmm, this show have so far always portrayed Woo Jin's mother as someone who's 100% kind and gullible, it would be the greatest twist if his mother was not as angelic as he imagined, or if he had-- as Do Young mentioned-- deliberately forgot about it. Was that what Woo Jin was referring to when he said he had forgotten about his days in the orphanage( in ep 6 ) ? Or maybe, it's like the case that Jae Yeol( from It's Okay, That's love) mentioned, sometimes nice people also will do things that hurt others. Guess we have to wait for another five days for everything to be revealed to us.

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Finally finished my analysis on Episode 10! The anticipation is eating me up though it's a bittersweet feeling to say frewell to a show that I've come to love this much.
https://anunstoppablesun.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/liar-game-ep-10-when-all-secrets-come-to-light/

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it's been a while since I 've followed a drama and was compelled to rewatch every single chance I can get. I've lurked in forums just to check if there are items I missed. For this week's episodes, think I've gone through each at least 3x already and there are still a few days left before the next episode! the last 2 at that! there's just a lot of layers in every scene that I get to find another excuse to have another go!

For the last scene, if we'll follow Da Jung's ever positive mindset, I'm thinking she won't get mad at Woo Jin but actually feel overwhelmed and burdened that there's an actual reason he's helping her, that he's trying to make up for something. Just my hope though. The show managed to consistently surprise me so far so I'll take whatever direction they take for the finale (T_T) week.

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I really hope you're right. it would such a pity for the camaderie, affection and trust they've built thus far to be shattered so easily. (Don't leave him DaJung-ah! That's what KDY wants!) I'm looking forward to how beautifully they're going to tie things up in the final episode.

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I'm counting on da jung's ability to see the goodness in everything.. And I hope it helps that she knows about woo jin's pain & the fact that he did what he did cos of what happened to his mom. Woo Jin needs her beside him not just for the sake of the game, but also cos she's renewed a sense of purpose in him, and he needs that, more than ever, for fighting the evil that is Do-young!

stay beside Woo Jin, da jung-ah!

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Awesome episode! Does anyone have a link for episode 11's preview? I didn't get to see it.

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Here it is! It looks like NDJ will be staying by HWJ's side (fingers crossed) but the ending hints and something far more ominous that's going to happen to HWJ. I really hope that they give this couple a happy ending! xD https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1559671214265942&set=vb.1526718854227845&type=2&theater

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Thanks. I already saw it though and made a translation for it on this page. DJ says that she doesn't trust in WJ at the end of the preview.

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SSR is truly one of the best villains EVER! (I honestly think if I ever meet him in real life I'd run away, he totally creeps me out I have to keep on repeating this to myself "but remember 3 dads one mom, remember him in that…he CAN be cute!)

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Aha, AGREED. He plays good villains and DY is probably one of the most calculated villains I've seen in a kdrama. WIN.

But yeah, I will always remember SSR in 3 Dads, 1 Mom. He was so adorable in there and to be quite honest, I thought I'd only ever see him play roles like that. And dun dun dun, now he plays villains. Heeeh.

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on the side note.. Dal Goo and Jaime... will they be a couple?? heheh.... Watching them getting squeezed in that tiny car makes me lol...

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Hehe, I was thinking the same thing...that would be hilarious, to see them flirting-bickering their way through the final round. (and maybe after).

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"I adore her." - Dal-goo to Jamie

Probably the second best line in this episode following Woo-jin's "Da-jung-ah."

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When did he say that? Like, which part of the episode?

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It wasn’t said directly to Jamie but rather about her. It was when Jamie was revealed to have actually betrayed KDY and not her teammates, and all the other players each have their reaction cuts. DG actually said “이뻐” (i-ppeo) or pretty, but the subs labelled it as “I adore her” which imo is better, and not exactly an entirely different interpretation of what DG said. And, c’mon, let’s be honest, Jamie IS adorable.

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Oh, I remember that. Heh, that was when I actively got onto a Dal Goo-Jaime ship. That would be awesome.

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i have this insane theory (while reading the comments) that HWJ was actually part of the Walden experiment. He just repressed that memory entirely. Then it makes sense that the "dark side" of his mum is her being involved in this entire experiment, as a nurturing figure for the children so that they will be more vulnerable/trusting to the psychological experiment.

Maybe that is why DY and HWJ know each other? Because they were both in the experiment, but somehow HWJ dropped out? Him repressing his memory would also erase the memory of him ever going to the US, and it also could explain why he has the innate ability to detect lies through facial expressions. This is really too exciting I cannot wait for the finale!!!!!

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Agreed that DY and HWJ, mirror images of each other in so many ways, were both products of the experiment. My further hypothesis is that the orphanage, whatever role it played in DY's eventual adoption, IS Walden Two.

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@tiadebella

Oooh, I like this theory.

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It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Haha can you tell I'm a little excited? Ok off to read the recap now!

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Dang! Now i'm thinking our hero's sainted mother was not sainted at all...that all that goodie-two-shoeing was her trying to wash away her guilt towards Do Young and maybe others back in the day. So then.... are there good people in the world?

Thanks for the recap.

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Well, Da Jung's good and isn't that the point she's trying to make? That none of the other players are saints, but they proved that there is good in them.

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Maybe his mum trusted and believed whoever was running the experiment because she was naive, and she really thought the experiment was for a greater good. The only thing that Woo-Jin remembers is his mum being so trusting, which is why her last words mean so much for him, because she trusted someone and the experiment turned out to be not so good after all.

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*sniffles* Can I just live in my belief that Sung Joon is just seriously hurt and not dead...I mean...just for one week at least. Whaa! I don't want little cutie to be dead. *covers ears* La la lala la I can't hear you cutie's not dead la la lala la

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Welcome to our denial club! /Continues your chanting

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girlfriday, have you recovered from Woojin's dulcet 'Dajung-ah'? How many times have you replayed that part? I replayed it so much last night that I can hear it now as I type this.

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OK, I officially love Jaime, love her grit and spunk and for turning the tables on Do Young. Only Da Jung could get her to do that.

OMG is Do Young creepy ow what?! His malevolent look at the end of this episode totally freaked me out. I'd read comments on how frightening Do Young was, but I didn't really get scared until this episode.

Hope Woo Jin can come clean in time for Nam Da Jung to forgive him. It's obvious he cares for her, what is equally obvious is that Da Jung would forgive him. I hope Do Young's strategy of divide and conquer doesn't win, and I'm dying to know what history they both have that would make Do Young so malevolent towards Woo Jin.

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Let's not forget the guy in the suit that Dal Goo saw and thought he recognized in the episodes last week b/c he was the same guy who Sung Joon (bless his soul) saw right before he went on the elevator. **creepy**

Ugh, I love this show to bits...the writing, the directing, the plot...everything is spot on and completely unpredictable (which is rare). I don't pity Do Young in the slightest (which again is rare for me since I always seem to find some sort of weak spot for the villains) but I don't think his cause - whatever it might be - is completely invalid....sure it's messed up and revenge is never the answer but if his childhood or humanity was stolen from him I can't completely condemn him for going to such extremes.

With that said, I really don't believe that Da Jung's fairytale worldview or Do Young's cynical worldview is realistic...I truly hope that by the end, there's some sort of acknowledgment of all of humanity's complexities and the inability of this white &black worldview that the leads have of the world...and hopefully some happy medium...but maybe I'm asking for too much *shrugs*.

Great Recap!

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All I can say is, Day-um! What an episode! So much revealed and so many more questions! And Sung-joon is dead? How will that effect the game and the remaining contestants? What will Woo-jin do now that Da-jung knows he had a hand in her father's debt? Did he hear the broadcast and her father's confession about attempting suicide? What is Do-young's beef with Woo-jin and his mother? If Woo-jin's mother is dead, why does Do-young still want revenge against Woo-jin? I confess to caring about what happens to Do-young, too, because he is such a good villain, not at all bland, and I just feel sorry that he got so messed up in his childhood. I still want to see him get his just desserts, but I hope it's satisfying.

Thanks for the recap!

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I'm sobbing with you. Can't believe the show's ending next week!!

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"DA-JUNG-AH" is the reason of our existence.

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Oh my word, LOL!!!!!!!!

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Shhhh. Don't make Do-young mad or he will spit poison on you like a snake.

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I'm curious about the comment Da-jung made about Woo-jin's mothers orphanage seeming familiar back when she went with Woo-jin to his mother's orphanage. Maybe that's a connection between Woo-jin, Da-jung and Do-young. Because while I am willing to believe that Do-young roped Da-jung in just to get Woo-jin to play what I don't know is how he even knew she existed, unless he had prior knowledge of her somehow. Or was her comment really just a throw away comment and impossible as Woo-jin claimed at the time.

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Do Young knew about Da Jung because of the L Company. He probably roped her into the game because of that connection. I wonder if he knew about her nature when he picked her or if he picked her just because he knew that Woo Jin was indirectly responsible for her father's debt and therefore, anyone else affected by the L Company con would also have been acceptable.

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I have 2 questions,... from the end of the day conversation between the Actor Gu, BD and Sung Joon, they said that if they forfeit, Do Young will not even have to go through the reinstatement game but can continue to play in the final round. Does that mean that there must be the full component of 8 players to play the final round?

Now with Sung Joon out of action (hopefully not dead), will the reinstatement game be necessary?

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In ep. 9, I remember director Jang saying there's only going to be one winner from the upcoming reinstatement game. So, it should 5 people in the final round. I wonder what game they can play with so little people.

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Thanks united. We'll have to wait and see then and from the preview it did look like 5 people plus Do Young.

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i dun get the card reissue trick. to get invalid card replacement you need to hand over invalid cards to staff for replacement like do young did. how can woo jin have them in the end when do yound had their all the time.

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It was cause Woojin had them replaced after he withdrew all the West money. He replaced them before passing the damaged invalid cards to Dajung to hand over to East 3 for safe keep. Woo jin prolly asked the staff if he can keep the damaged ones as momento, and the staff thinking it doesn't matter since they can't be used, prolly gave him back. They shld have shot that scene to make it clearer haha. The j version showed 'Woojin' asking the staff for the spoilt cards back.

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Jamie is awesome when those 3 create treason! hah... Sitting there on a pile of money and fans herself with those money

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There is a possibility that Sung Joon was killed so that Do Young can continue to participate in the game. I believe the game will be musical chair? Which is one of my least fav again.

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why do you think musical chairs will be next?

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Not sure, it's just a feeling, because of the number of people left, and it's the easiest to resolve amidst all the conflict? But I sure hope I'm wrong, hehehe.

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i thought the musical chairs game was interesting. anyway, i don't think the next game will be this game. i'm not sure how the contestants will hide the chairs in a realistic way. also, the President Game seems to be based on this game. i think the final game will be an original/game based on some other game. I think j-drama's Garden of Eden could work, but I would personally love to see Bid Poker.

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also, another revival round is supposed to be next. i don't think Sung Joon was possibly killed so that DY could play in the next round. He could easily beat Sung Joon and those other guys to get to the final. I think DY wanted to get revenge on SJ for finding about his past history and giving it to HWJ.

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I just saw the preview for the next episode. The reinstatement round is going to some poker game (17 card poker?) and the final involves guns. (Russian Roulette?)

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is that true? YESS!!! I've gotten my wish!!! I was hoping it be the gambling games!

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Apparently the j drama made it clear that the West (Woojin and team) had a bank in the East (Doyoung and team). But in this k version, the bank belongs to the country. So the east bank is in the east, west in west. But the East members had accounts in the West bank nand vice versa. And the rule is that the East won't be able to use their bank cards in their own country's bank, so East can only do money business like withdrawing from West banks. And therefore when Woojin passes the East 3 the West cards, he wasn't expecting them to use it in the West, since it can't be used. And thus Woojin passing them a spoilt card trick worked. So before Woojin damaged the West cards, he withdrew all the money from the East bank, placed them in the East air van, he was playing smuggler, so he can only enter the east side from his house. They must pass the interrogation room before they can enter back into their land. So Woojin only has one chance like he said to withdraw all the money from East bank to the East air van. Then the remaining chances as smuggling side, Dajung uses then to persuade the East 3 to cooperate w the West. Then when its East's turn to smuggle, they are free to go to their own country first, and thus they can go to East air van, and loot the money to West, but once they pass that door, they can't go back to the East without passing the interrogation. Thus Actor Gu can't pick up his stack on the floor of the East when he pass the door and was stepping on the West floor. So they are now at the West, they can only use the East card, they cash in the money to make it East money, in East accounts, but in West land. And then withdraw to not make Doyoung suspicious of the large sum in their accounts, and place them in the West air van. So its said any money left in the either lands after the game, be it in the banks or on the territory, belongs to them, and will be divided equally into the Land Owners' accounts after the game. So since the money is now all in West land, its Woojin and team's money. That was all done in the 29th round. And during the last round Doyoung became the inspector and Jamie was the smuggler, and so Doyoung asked Jamie to loot the money from West to East since she can do so, she was the smuggler, and she can be in her country as freely as possible, but once she enters pass the center gate to the East, she has to pass the interrogation room to go back to the West. Doyoung being the inspector, was all along in the interrogation room and didn't notice whether or not Jamie looted the money, prolly confident that Jamie would definitely betray the West. But Jamie only brought the money out of West air van, onto the West land before the central gate. And so now with the 3 last smuggling turns Doyoung has, he has to pass though the East house to get to the west side if he wants to smuggle money, and thus the East 3 held the door to prevent Doyoung from entering the West pass the East house.

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Last week, the writers tried to get too clever/overly complicated w/ the writing and it didn't really work (some pretty big holes in the President's game - such as why it took so long for Woo-jin to realize that Do-young was faking his signals and why Do-young waited until the last possible moment before trying to win - a lucky guess or WJ realizing it sooner would have been his ruin).

This week was better in that respect.

Do-young is better as the host (Director Jang is interesting when he is up to his own machinations, but is a dull host), but can see why the writers decided to switch him to an active participant.

SSR is perfectly cast in this role - his character in YFAS was a bit too soap-operaish/makjang, but his character here is near perfect (just enough creepy, sinister and full of himself w/o going over the top).

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Thank you for the recap!

I'm loving this show!
I really like some of the comments above about HWJ, NDJ, and other characters' growth arc. All the characters have an important part in the game, and I loved how they all came together and joined hands this episode. Also NDJ shined in eps. 9 and 10. I'm happy to see that! I am sad for HWJ already. Knowing the truth about his mom and losing NDJ's trust at once :( I hope this guy can have a happy life after this.

I have a question about the supposed murder HWJ committed. I know that he swindled the company and TRIED to kill the CEO. Did the CEO commit suicide after that? I thought someone in the drama said that he was murdered? The murderer was not HWJ though, right?

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I don't think HWJ ever tried to kill the CEO, but he put him in a chair at the edge of a building's rooftop. This happened to HWJ too in an earlier episode. The show/DY never mentioned how the CEO died. HWJ was not the murderer. If he was the murderer, he would have stayed longer than 1 year in prison.

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Yes, that's what I thought. I had a doubt that I heard about the CEO being murdered somewhere in the series. Thank you for clearing it! :)

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Love this episode! The end is near guys. *sobs

Jo Dal Goo is my favorite ahjussi. Money is not his weakness, Da Jung is.

It was gratifying to see Jamie get her revenge on all the times KDY betrayed her. Totally love her in this episode.

My guess was right! KDY was an orphan! Kekeke

That showdown between HWJ and KDY had my heart racing at 180bpm. Hahahaha Sooo intense.

As much as I’m dreading the end of LG next week, I’m really looking forward to the surprises it’ll bring at the same time.

Thank yo for the recap!

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