I Dol I: Episodes 11-12 (Final)
by SailorJumun
It’s been a long, perplexing investigation for our heroes, and it’s about time that they get some answers. While there are characters who are still trying to avoid the truth, some even twisting it, there are others who are finally ready to power through and face the music. No better way to face the music than with an actual idol, eh?
EPISODES 11-12
News breaks that Jae-hee has woken up from his coma. His friends, along with the police, all wait to hear what he has to say… and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is Hye-joo’s name. Ra-ik seems heartbroken but not surprised. He privately tells Se-na that when he saw the crime scene photo of the earring, he realized that it was Hye-joo’s. (They had matching earrings, and his was still locked in his safe.)
Jae-hee asks to speak to Byung-gyun, and he reveals what led to his car accident. Hye-joo had asked to meet with him, and they discussed how stressful the case was. Hye-joo mentioned the fact that Jae-hee went to Ra-ik’s apartment the night of Woo-sung’s murder, making Jae-hee tense up — he never told anybody he went up to the apartment. He tried to leave, but the coffee she gave him had been drugged, and he passed out.
It’s all pointing to Hye-joo, and even still, Byung-gyun is hesitating. Se-na finds him in his office, handing over the evidence she’s gathered. And though Byung-gyun denies it, Se-na can tell that he sees the truth. That he knows he’s going down the wrong path. She asks if he could really handle ruining an innocent person’s life. He thinks it over, remembering the way his dad handled Se-na’s dad’s case. Then, coming to a decision, he calls the lead detective.
Thankfully, the police get to Hye-joo before she’s able to catch her flight to the States. During questioning, she remains cold and evasive, but Byung-hyun doesn’t back down. Not even when his dad storms in, demanding he let her go. He finally understands where his dad’s loyalties lie, and he’s ready to fight him.
Since Hye-joo’s not talking, our team’s gonna need their smoking gun. Ra-ik gets the idea to try to access Woo-sung’s iCloud, since Woo-sung was known to record everything. (Um, you just thought of this now?) Se-na uses her fangirl connections to crack the password, using clues from Gold Boys’ songs. Then, they’re in, and lo and behold, there’s an audio file from the night of the murder.
As Se-na and Ra-ik listen, we get to see how that night played out. Woo-sung had been on the phone with CEO Geum, when he heard someone trying and failing to enter the apartment door’s passcode. He opened the door, and Hye-joo barreled in, adamant on speaking with Ra-ik. He wouldn’t let her, angrily saying that her relationship with Ra-ik was over. The finality of it all hit her and, suddenly emotionless, she went to grab a kitchen knife.
Hye-joo held the knife to her own throat, wanting to end her life if she had to end things with Ra-ik. Woo-sung tried to get the knife away from her, and they got in a tussle… ending with them falling to the floor, the knife in Woo-sung’s chest. Oh, jeez… the fact that it was an accident somehow makes it worse. But as horrified as Hye-joo was, she still chose to cover her tracks and she chose to frame Jae-hee. It’s a little unbelievable that she managed to do all of this herself — it’d make more sense if she had Corrupt Dad’s help — but whatever.
As hard as it is for Ra-ik to accept what happened, and as hard as it is to turn this evidence in, he does. He eventually visits Hye-joo in jail, and he learns that she’s been dealing with severe mental health issues. In fact, when they first broke up, she wasn’t sent to the United States; she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. She coldly states that, while locked up, she hated watching him move on from her. She hopes that, at least now, he’ll never be able to move on and will hate her forever. Ra-ik can see what she’s trying to do. And he can see how she might’ve felt the night of the murder.
He figures that she took the knife because she loved him and didn’t want to incriminate him. However, he tells her, that isn’t real love. Real love is cheering someone on and wanting them to be happy. With that, he walks away from her, a weight lifted off his shoulders.
Byung-gyun is also feeling a lot lighter. He thanks Se-na for pushing him in the right direction and subsequently making him a hotshot prosecutor with this case (pfft). But in all seriousness, he’s glad that the truth came out, and he hopes that the truth will come out in her dad’s case as well.
One year later. Hye-joo’s trial is wrapped up, and once again, she’s locked in a psychiatric hospital. Byung-gyun would’ve preferred prison, but he’ll take what he can get. He catches up with Detective Yoo, revealing that his next step is transferring to a different office to be closer to his mother. Meanwhile, Chung-jae is moved out of Se-na’s storage unit and is starting his own detective agency.
As for our couple? Se-na is hard at work toward a retrial for her dad, while Ra-ik is on a world tour with the Gold Boys. Se-na is quite stressed, but much like before, she finds comfort in watching Ra-ik shine on TV and online. There is, of course, the added comfort of her idol boyfriend sending her direct messages through interviews, lol.
Se-na gets her day in court, speaking up for her father and requesting another chance at justice. It’s quite moving seeing all the familiar faces in the gallery, including her boss, the detective, and Byung-gyun.
Later, Se-na is out doing a press conference, when Ra-ik appears and makes a big show out of congratulating her. Oh, you know the fans are eating this up. After everything the Gold Boys went through, and after Se-na came out as the hero lawyer, the fans are incredibly supportive. They go above and beyond to protect them and their privacy — we even see the neighborhood sasaengs ward off a reporter.
Ra-ik takes Se-na to the columbarium, knowing she’d want to share the trial news with her mom and dad. He greets her late parents for the first time, promising that he’ll stay by Se-na’s side and keep her happy. Afterwards, he takes her home, and she gives him a shy peck on the lips. He can’t exactly leave after that, so he gives her a deeper kiss and leads her inside. Hehe, cute.
What’s funny is, Se-na is back to her fangirl ways, and she doesn’t let her dating Ra-ik change that. She wants to buy her own Gold Boys merch, rather than have him simply get it for her. And she jumps at the opportunity to take pictures of him, squealing at how handsome he is. He loves it, and I love it. I wish we could’ve gotten more of this kind of dynamic.
Se-na is determined to get tickets to the boys’ first comeback show in Korea. She manages to snag two seats, asking her online bestie if she wants to go with her. On the day of the concert, Se-na finally meets her friend face-to-face, and she’s surprised to find out that it’s her reserved paralegal Ye-sol. Oh, I love it, I love it. Finding fellow fangirls at work is the best.
Backstage, the boys hype themselves up, agreeing that they’ll keep Woo-sung and his stage presence alive. They take their place onstage and rock out, incorporating Woo-sung’s solos via video. Se-na watches from the audience, cheering along. She locks eyes with Ra-ik, and she narrates that being him was always meant to be a fantasy. But now, it’s her real life, and they’ll continue living this life to the fullest.
I mean, yeah, I’ll keep saying it. I loved it. I loved the murder mystery and all the twisty turns. I loved the acting, with Sooyoung being her usual awesome self and Kim Jae-young being a revelation (I hadn’t seen him in anything before this). And I loved the music. I’ve been randomly humming the opening song for weeks, and I probably won’t stop anytime soon.
That doesn’t mean the drama was perfect. Far from it. My biggest complaint would be that we didn’t get much depth from the secondary characters. Their respective storylines hit all the right beats, but there wasn’t enough there for those beats to be satisfying. Hye-joo, especially, needed more screentime for that villain reveal to really punch me in the gut.
In a way, a lot of this drama was surface level. It delivered the typical tropes, delivered the typical romantic lines… And yet. There was always something about the drama that had me eager to tune in every week. It was solidified with that ending, when the boys were up there singing and they showed Woo-sung. I was surprisingly emotional, as it reminded me of seeing real-life group Shinee perform without Jonghyun for the first time. Then, seeing Se-na’s emotion, I just felt so seen. I think those of us in fandoms are usually depicted as crazy and obsessive (and trust, some definitely are). But beneath all that, oftentimes, there is someone who is hurt or lost and needing something to hold onto. As we saw in I Dol I, all it really takes is one human reaching one human. One heart reaching one heart. And it’s pretty fucking powerful.
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