Jang Na-ra leads melodrama with intriguing premise but marred by plot holes
Jang Na-ra, star of 2021’s “Sell Your Haunted House,” returns to our screens in “My Happy Ending” as a successful entrepreneur whose seemingly idyllic world crumbles around her as she begins to suspect that all the men in her life have it in for her.
Jang is Seo Jae-won, who we first meet, as in so many K-dramas, on a dark night as she runs through Seoul for dear life, chased by a masked man in a black cap and hoodie. Despite her desperate dash, he catches up with her on a bridge and throttles her.
After this brief and cliched cold open, the show brings us back to the halcyon days of “a few days earlier”, as we find Jae-won on a sunny day and in her element as the fashionable, attractive and confident chief executive of a successful furniture brand.
Workaholic Jae-won is on her feet around the clock, busy preparing for the launch of their latest product, which leaves precious little time for her to spend with her picture perfect family.
Her secretary informs her that her stay-at home husband, Heo Soonyoung (Son Ho-hun, “The First Responders”), has called, quipping that he is about to file a missing person’s report as he and their darling daughter have not seen Jaewon in 60 hours.
The only blemish on Jae-won’s life is a mysterious stalker who has been a thorn in her side for the past seven years. Usually he does innocuous things such as send her unsolicited bouquets, but today things escalate to a dangerous degree when an intruder breaks into her office while she is there alone, burning the midnight oil.
After smashing the trophy cabinet in the lobby, the masked man forces Jae-won to barricade herself in her office. The man attempts to breaks his way in but just as he manages to gain entry a security guard appears in the nick of time and he runs away.
This is one of many close encounters that befall Jae-won and, as her stress levels and fear mount, so does her paranoia. She begins suspecting that her hunky lead designer Yoon Te-o (Lee Ki-taek, “Moonshine”) may be the stalker.
In a country obsessed with branding and propriety, image is everything, but a constructed image seldom tells us the real story. It is no accident that the first time we see Jae-won at work, busying herself with tools, wood and a 3D printer in a carpentry studio, we quickly discover that we are being fooled.
What we have seen is actually an ad for her company. Jae-won used to be a designer, but as a CEO she now only cares about product deadlines and marketing, something Te-o chides her for.
Jae-won soon discovers for herself what it is like to be fooled, after events lead her to suspect the main men in her life, who all appear to be perfect on the surface. This notion of people presenting fake versions of themselves blends well with the fears a women can feel in a world where any man could potentially be a predator.
It is a great concept for a latenight melodrama, and Jang, sharp and charismatic as ever, ably draws us into Jae-won’s nightmare. Unfortunately, her many ordeals are offered up as a patchwork dotted with several holes.
After the initial intrigue drummed up in episode one, the show struggles to hold it together. Beyond Jae-won’s increasing paranoia, there is not much else for us to latch onto — the other characters in the story are all ciphers who we are almost immediately led to suspect may not be who they appear to be.
Hopefully the story will iron out these kinks and establish some clarity in the next few episodes.