My Happy Ending is one of those K-dramas that’ll leave you bald by the end of the month. There’s only so much frustration one can handle. I suppose it’s especially agonizing when the protagonist is a woman who seemingly has it all—the perfect family, a company of her own, and an impeccable public image—and then it’s all just taken away from her because she’s simply existing? What kind of awful person would do that? Well, the makers of My Happy Ending for one, and I find myself almost as invested as I was with The World of the Married. When it comes to shows like this, there’s the added bonus of luxury fashion and expensive homes—an aspirational aesthetic that we all love to see. Anyway, let’s quickly get into Jae-Won’s story. In episode 2, we learn about Soon-Young’s twin brother. In episodes 3 and 4, the show explores this concept a little further in a convoluted manner to keep us hooked.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In Episode 3?
Soon-Young has decided to go back to work as a professor. Jae-Won can’t hide her distaste anymore, and throughout episode 3 of My Happy Ending, she continues to push Soon-Young away. She’s become especially distrustful of everyone around her after the awful events of the previous two episodes. When Ah-Rin asks Jae-Won to play with her, she tries to snoop around the incidents of the day. Ah-Rin says they couldn’t meet her father’s friend because the friend shared the wrong address. This leaves Jae-Won especially confused. On the other hand, Tae-O confronts Yoon-Jin about the person she’s seeing, and she tells him it’s not Soon-Young but his twin brother (Scandy). Jae-Won installs a hidden camera in the house to check for suspicious activity from her husband. Jae-Won seems a little unstable with everything going on and doesn’t bother pretending she’s okay in front of her husband. Yoon-Jin and she argue work, and it almost feels as if they’re completely different people, one day saying they only have each other and the next appearing to be at each other’s throats.
What Really Happened To Jae-Won’s Mother?
Jae-Won goes to see her father after learning some more details of her mother’s death from Tae-Joo. Her father apologizes for not telling Jae-Won about her mother sooner. He says she went back to her gambling ways, and so he decided to hide all their money once. She threatened to drink pesticide if he didn’t give her the money. Jae-Won’s father thought it was a lie until she actually drank it, leaving him with no option but to give her some money. Seeing as it worked, she tried it another three times before she died on the last go. Jae-Won believes her father because she grew up dealing with her mother’s gambling problem. However, this is all fabricated because her stepfather really wanted her mother dead. The reason is still unknown, though (other than him simply being an awful man). In a separate flashback, we also learn that Jae-Won’s name used to be Yoon-Jin too. But why did Yoon-Jin change her name? It definitely has to do with her friend, Yoon-Jin.
At work, Tae-O learns that it’s Seung-Gyu, an employee working under him, who is Jae-Won’s stalker. He also happens to be Jae-Won’s assistant’s boyfriend, so the assistant knows where Jae-Won and Seung-Gyu are. Both of them simultaneously connect the dots, and Tae-O rushes to reach Jae-Won before something bad happens again. Unfortunately, he’s too late because someone’s messed with the brakes of her car. After an awful lot of driving, just as Jae-Won is about to drive into the river, Tae-O uses his car as a shield to slow Jae-Won’s car down, not caring about himself at all. It somehow works, and they’re both safe and alive. Despite Tae-O saving Jae-Won by risking his own life, she can’t understand how he knew where she was and still doesn’t trust him. Tae-O doesn’t give up easily, though, and plans on telling Jae-Won everything he’s learned once it’s confirmed. However, when he tries to find Seung-Gyu, he learns that the man has fallen off the roof of his building (yikes). Tae-O accompanies him to the hospital and is handed Seung-Gyu’s phone by the guardian present.
Tae-O receives a call from Soon-Young on Seung-Gyu’s phone. Tae-O doesn’t say anything; however, Soon-Young asks Seung-Gyu how things went. It’s either Soon-Young or his twin who’s been communicating with Seung-Gyu, so which one of them wants Jae-Won dead? We learn that Jae-Won received a scholarship from Yoon-Jin’s father, which is how she became the person she is right now. Elsewhere, Jae-Won skips her “headache” medication and stays up all night pondering over all the incidents that have recently happened. She’s meant to be at a conference the next day, and she manages to make it just in time. Tae-O stops her from going up on stage when he sees her panicking. It seems he knows something about her “headache” medicine. Later, when Jae-Won is with her psychiatrist, it is revealed that Jae-Won has bipolar disorder. At the end of episode 3, the neighbor meets Jae-Won and tells her of her chance encounter with her husband. She tells Jae-Won that he was acting like a whole new person and even had a different car. When she gets to work, she looks at the live footage of the hidden camera and sees Ah-Rin playing with her father, but to her disbelief, Soon-Young is right in front of her in the office.
What Happens In Episode 4?
At the beginning of episode 4 of My Happy Ending, Yoon-Jin and, who we are guessing is Soon-Young’s twin (it’s definitely Soon-Young), are making a dirty video. It quickly skips to the events of the previous episode, and both husband and wife rush to find their daughter. Jae-Won asks Soon-Young about his twin when they reach home, and Ah-Rin is safely in bed. Soon-Young says he hasn’t been in contact with Chi-Yeong, his twin, since he was 13 years old and their parents got divorced. Chi-Yeong has also been missing for the last 8 years, and Jae-Won wonders why Soon-Young hasn’t ever tried to look for him. On the other hand, it’s quite clear that Yoon-Jin wants to emulate her friend’s life and even goes as far as to pretend that Ah-Rin is her own daughter. In a flashback, we see that she had a miscarriage some time ago.
Tae-O finally tells Jae-Won everything he knows, and she’s in a dilemma again. He learns about Chi-Yeong too; however, they don’t know how to find the guy. Jae-Won has an incident with her unstable mental condition, leading to a deep wound in her hand. In another flashback, we learn that she used to self-harm during school, which is why her father took her to the psychiatric ward. One day in school, Yoon-Jin found a wounded Jae-Won in the bathroom (her name tag says Yoon-Jin too), and instead of finding her disturbing like the rest of the school, she befriended her. It seems almost as if Yoon-Jin may be the reason Jae-Won is where she is, but we might be getting ahead of ourselves. Obviously, Jae-Won has worked very hard to get where she is, which is what would’ve made Yoon-Jin very jealous. Yoon-Jin’s father, on the other hand, is an awful man who always wanted his daughter to be the best at everything. He even beat her up, which is what she bonded with Jae-Won over back in the day.
Tae-Joo finds out that Chi-Yeong suffered from a chronic lung disease, but he can’t find him in any nursing homes around the area where he used to live. In the meantime, Tae-O finds Soon-Young in his office and sees a picture of him with Seung-Gyu. Soon-Young admits that he was the one who introduced Seung-Gyu to Jae-Won as a proud senior. Yoon-Jin’s father is set to become the minister of culture, but this is all thanks to Jae-Won’s popularity. Through association with her, he’s able to maintain a good image, which is why he keeps a great relationship with her. Tae-Joo seems to be a weird man, as we see him beat up an ex-junior for acting like he’s above him. This is probably why he was removed from the force, but it means Jae-Won needs to be extra careful with him.
In the middle of the chaos, a reality show is shot in Jae-Won’s house, showcasing the perfect family. It’s a PR event that leads to all the furniture getting sold out; that’s how popular Jae-Won and Soon-Young are in the country. Ultimately, Jae-Won learns that Chi-Yeong died a year earlier from his respiratory disease. Jae-Won visits Yoon-Jin in her flat, shocking her friend and making it clear who has the upper hand in their “friendship.” To show her friend and her husband that she’s ready to put up a fight, Jae-Won invites Soon-Young to a dinner she’s meant to have with Yoon-Jin’s family. Things get really awkward and intense very soon. Jae-Won even goes as far as to joke about Yoon-Jin dating Soon-Young and then changing it to her seeing someone “like” him. At the end of episode 12 of My Happy Ending, Jae-Won straight up tells her husband to stop seeing Yoon-Jin.
