Spooky in Love: Episodes 1-2
by DaebakGrits
A chaebol hotel heiress repeatedly crosses paths with a prosecutor when her ability to see ghosts coincidentally has them drawn to the same cases — and into the same chaotic situations. Maybe they will eventually learn to work together, or maybe her ability to see ghosts will scare him away, too, like everyone else in her life.
EPISODES 1-2
The leading lady and gentleman of our newest spooky romance first cross paths in the middle of the woods, and it’s not exactly an ideal meet-cute for more reasons than one. For starters, CHEON YEO-RI (Park Eun-bin) is digging up a dead body, and given her highly suspicious actions, it’s no wonder prosecutor MA KANG-WOOK (Yang Se-jong) is immediately leery of her presence. Likewise, he failed to introduce himself, so Yeo-ri is equally cautious of the strange man in the woods. Their mutual distrust and caginess escalates to a physical fight that eventually concludes with them both on the ground and in an unintentionally compromising position that leads the police officers — responding to Yeo-ri’s anonymous tip about a body in the woods — to assume they’re a couple in the mood for some voyeuristic hanky-panky.
While Kang-wook isn’t looking, Yeo-ri slips away so she and the dead man’s ghost can watch from a distance as his body is recovered. She briefly gets existential, asking him whether there really is an afterlife, but like every ghost before him, he disappears without giving her an answer. We still don’t know how Yeo-ri gained the ability to see spirits, but we do learn how she’s adapted to living with it. After her ex-fiancé abandoned her on their wedding day — apparently after inheriting her ability through physical contact — Yeo-ri has isolated herself to avoid passing it on to anyone else. Her solution? Gloves. Lots of gloves. Fortunately, she has somehow managed to turn avoiding skinship into a very stylish personal brand.
Given that she doesn’t exactly advertise her ability to see the dead, her reputation has suffered. Still, despite the rampant rumors painting her as aloof and unapproachable, she’s proven herself to be an exceptional businesswoman, turning every corner of the hotel into a profitable venture. The only exception is the wedding hall, which people believe has been cursed ever since Yeo-ri’s own engagement — the first after the hall’s renovation — fell apart there.
When it comes to matters of her family, even her grandmother BAEK KYUNG-JA (Ye Soo-jung), the family matriarch, places a high value on her input. Case in point: the family asks for her opinion on her cousin CHEON HA-RI’s (Jo Hye-joo) engagement to golfer PARK SEUNG-JAE (Kim Do-wan). Initially, Yeo-ri gives a diplomatic answer, but when pressed for her true opinion as an “unnie,” she pulls no punches in describing him as a “parasite” who has nothing to offer beyond his father’s influence. Plus, there’s the little fact that Seung-jae was recently on trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend — a giant red flag that Ha-ri is far too cavalier about but her reaction is everything we need to know about her personality.
Meanwhile, Kang-wook is convinced Seung-jae murdered his ex-girlfriend JANG EUN-JU (Yoo Hye-rim), but Sung-jae’s father is an assemblyman and the ruling party’s likely presidential candidate, so without the victim’s body, it’s unlikely he will be able to successfully appeal the judge’s not-guilty verdict. Despite the chief prosecutor advising him to drop the case and the odds being very much against him, Kang-wook is determined to see justice served. His tenacity is not a matter of pride, though, as he genuinely wants to put bad guys behind bars, but sometimes he takes matters into his own hands when he should probably have the police step in.
For instance, after dinner with his coworkers, he clocks a suspicious individual in a convenience store. The man’s tattoos, mud-caked shoes, and what looks suspiciously like a bloodstain on his jacket suggest he’s been up to no good. Kang-wook follows him out of the convenience store just in time to see Suspicious Man and his accomplice back their car into Yeo-ri’s parked vehicle. As if the universe decides Kang-wook needs even more probable cause to give chase, the pair nearly mow down a student crossing the street as they speed away.
At this point, Kang-wook decides that the best course of action is apparently to commandeer Yeo-ri’s car and join the chase himself. She’s understandably less than thrilled to have him riding shotgun, especially since she has her own reason for pursuing Suspicious Man: the ghost of a dead taxi driver sitting in her back seat. The ghost assures her that, despite wasting time arguing with Kang-wook, they’ll still catch up at the next red light. Still not recognizing Yeo-ri from their earlier fight in the woods, Kang-wook flashes his prosecutor badge, and she reluctantly agrees to continue the pursuit with him along for the ride.
And it’s quite the pursuit. Ignoring Kang-wook’s instructions in favor of the veteran taxi driver’s internal GPS, Yeo-ri skillfully weaves through traffic, leaving a terrified Kang-wook clinging to the “oh shit” handle bar and suddenly convinced his superstitious grandmother PAENG MYO-SOON (Cha Mi-kyung) was onto something when she forewarned him against women born in the year of the black monkey. (Cue: Yeo-ri’s black monkey plush gleefully swinging with every sharp turn.) Eventually, Yeo-ri is able to block Suspicious Man’s car, and Kang-wook hops out to give them an ass whoopin’. He does well in the two-against-one fist fight, but in the final moment Yeo-ri steps in to deliver a timely blow with a baseball bat — which she then uses to help Kang-wook up from the ground because no-touchie. Once he’s on his feet, Yeo-ri tells him to open Suspicious Man’s trunk, and there Kang-wook finds the poor taxi driver’s body.
After their chaotic encounter, Yeo-ri starts appearing in Kang-wook’s dreams, and her presence finally helps him connect the dots: she’s the mysterious woman he fought with in the woods. He reviews the CCTV footage from the anonymous tip that led police to the body, and while he can’t see her face, he notices one unmistakable detail: her shoes — shoes so ugly they either cost millions of won or were the product of some Y2K bedazzling disaster. Luckily for Kang-wook, they’re the former, and he’s able to trace the expensive and exclusive shoes back to Yeo-ri.
Kang-wook arrives at Reina Hotel, and despite everyone’s assertions that he won’t be able to get an appointment with the extremely reclusive hotel heiress, he just so happens to spot her in the hotel’s lobby. She runs away, and a slow foot-pursuit through the hotel commences. Eventually, he corners her in her office (because for some inexplicable reason the receptionist’s desk was left unattended) and questions whether or not she is the murderer’s accomplice. How else would she have known the body was buried in that precise location in the woods? Hmmm? Well, she admits, a ghost told her.
As expected, he does not believe her, but Kang-wook decides not to press the issue when their conversation is interrupted by Kyung-ja, who heard just enough of their conversation to be suspicious that Yeo-ri is not being entirely forthcoming with her personal hauntings. This worries Kyung-ja, especially with Yeo-ri’s ex-fiance’s family spreading rumors that she’s a shaman, but business matters soon take over the conversation. Kyung-ja is interested in a collaboration with CL Group (for reasons methinks aren’t entirely business related), but Yeo-ri doesn’t see the merit in her proposal.
Yeo-ri’s next visitor is Seung-jae, who saunters into her office after hearing from Ha-ri that she considers him a parasite. He’s taken offence and tries to intimidate Yeo-ri into accepting her fate as his future in-law, but his inflated ego is no match for Yeo-ri and her spooky aura. You see, before Eun-ju disappeared, she’d come to Yeo-ri and asked to book the wedding hall. Although she’d known Seung-jae had dumped her to be with Ha-ri, she’d thought he would follow through on his earlier promise to marry her when he’d found out she was pregnant with their child.
Seung-jae, however, claims that the baby — if it even existed — wasn’t his, so Yeo-ri suggests that they should ask his Eun-ju. You know, the woman he’d claimed disappeared of her own volition. Seung-jae gets antsy as Yeo-ri summons someone to enter the room and the door slowly opens…but it’s only Yeo-ri’s assistant. She asks her assistant to escort Seung-jae out of her office, but Yeo-ri has one parting message — a message from his very deceased Eun-ju. She hopes he wins the upcoming championship because the higher he is, the harder his fall will be.
At the same time, Kang-wook is piecing together the events following Eun-ju’s murder in hopes of finding her body. His first breakthrough comes while Spider-Man-ing his way up the side of an orphanage to retrieve a ball from a locked office, prompting him to realize that Seung-jae could have smuggled Eun-ju’s body out through the adjoining hotel room. After reviewing the hotel’s CCTV footage, he confirms his theory: disguised as a woman, Seung-jae checked into the room next to Eun-ju’s, climbed across the shared balcony into her room, stuffed her body into a suitcase, retraced his steps back to his own room, and then carried the suitcase up to the roof.
There are so many flaws in this elaborate murder cover-up — namely that Seung-jae is intelligent enough to pull it off by himself — but Kang-wook ventures to the roof hotel to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, he finds Eun-ju’s body…and Yeo-ri. Once again, Kang-wook is suspicious of her presence; that’s now three bodies she’s located. Kang-wook has bigger fist to fry, though, and I suspect he was positively itching to roll up in a golf cart, siren blaring, and arrest Seung-jae immediately after he won the golf championship. (Was it extra? Yes. Did it make me laugh? Also yes.)
It was extremely satisfying to see Seung-jae get arrested, but Ha-ri proves she’s not much better than the scumbag she was dating when she admits to Yeo-ri that she totally could have lived with being Seung-jae’s wife if she’d remained ignorant of his crime. She has some seriously messed up priorities, and given that she’s also got a strong desire to escape Yeo-ri’s shadow, I wonder if Ha-ri is going to one day try to eliminate her competition. (It certainly tracks with this genre of dramas.)
With Seung-jae behind bars — but still using his father’s influence to reshape the public narrative and paint the victim as the villain — the story quickly pivots to its next murder case. This time, the action moves to Jeju Island, where Kang-wook is attending his best friend’s wedding. Conveniently, Yeo-ri is also in Jeju to meet with the CEO of CL Group and formally decline the company’s proposed collaboration. As it turns out, the CEO is her childhood friend, KANG MIN-HWAN (Ong Sung-woo), and he’s very interested in the collaboration — and even more interested in her.
As you can imagine, Min-hwan is none too pleased when a mix-up at his resort leaves Yeo-ri and Kang-wook sharing a room. Even more amusing is the fact that neither of them realizes it until the next morning. Yeo-ri assumes she’s sharing the room with nothing more than a ghost, while Kang-wook is so drunk that he doesn’t notice someone else is already occupying his bed before climbing under the covers. It’s an utterly ridiculous sequence of events, but once again, this drama charms me into tossing logic out the window.
Neither Yeo-ri nor Kang-wook is thrilled to wake up beside the other, but the person most outraged by the situation is Min-hwan. To be honest, he gives me the ick — to the point that I was convinced he was going to turn out to be the killer behind the latest missing-person case. I was genuinely surprised to learn he’s supposed to be this drama’s second male lead. His possessiveness, the way he repeatedly speaks for Yeo-ri and inserts himself between her and Kang-wook, and his habit of invading her personal space even when she’s visibly uncomfortable are not invoking Second Lead Syndrome. Instead, his behavior thus far is serving more “I’ll murder you in your sleep if you try to leave me” vibes.
For the time being, at least, Min-hwan is neither a killer nor the prime suspect in the disappearance of an aspiring fashion designer. Instead, Kang-wook’s suspicions fall on JUNG HAE-NA (Ryu Abel), a renowned designer preparing to unveil her latest collection at Min-hwan’s resort. The collection’s centerpiece is inspired by the haenyeo, and, wouldn’t you know it, the missing designer’s grandmother is one. Naturally, Kang-wook concludes that Hae-na plagiarized the design and murdered its creator to keep the truth from coming to light. CCTV footage from Min-hwan’s resort appears to support his theory, showing Hae-na following the aspiring designer after she left the resort on the day she disappeared.
Kang-wook tracks down the taxi driver who picked Hae-na up that day and has him retrace the route to the spot where he dropped her off. Unsurprisingly, Yeo-ri is already waiting at the cliff overlooking the ocean. This time, however, her presence is not only suspicious but also a little alarming, as Kang-wook initially mistakes her for someone contemplating suicide. Although that’s not her intention, she does accidentally lose her footing, and when Kang-wook reaches out to pull her back, she rejects his prooffered hand (because ghosts). In the end, they both plummet into the ocean, and beneath the crashing waves, they find the aspiring designer’s body. Kang-wook, not realizing Yeo-ri has experienced her fair share of death, covers her eyes to protect her from the sight. It’s a sweet gesture, but it likely cursed him to see ghosts.
Given how jumpy and goofy Kang-wook is, I’m looking forward to him entering his full “I see dead people” era. I’m expecting plenty of slapstick physical comedy ahead, and honestly, I’m here for it. Objectively speaking, this drama isn’t exactly groundbreaking — it’s giving Master’s Sun meets Hotel del Luna. The writing leaves plenty to be desired and the number of plot holes surrounding Seung-jae’s murder cover-up is… a lot. But so far, it’s undeniably entertaining if, like me, you’re in the mood for something light, tropey, and fun.
My biggest concern moving forward, though, is Min-hawn. As mentioned before, he’s not personifying the typical second male lead, and as much as I prefer to avoid a bad case of Second Lead Syndrome, I also shouldn’t be weary that he’s going to kidnap Yeo-ri and hold her hostage in a secret serial killer room like the supposed second lead in A Girl Who Sees Smells. Unless…that’s the direction the story is eventually going to take, in which case I’m disappointed that Ong Sung-woo did so poorly at hiding his character’s inner freak.
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