[Current Drama 2024] To My Haeri, 나의 해리에게- Shin Hye Sun & Lee Jin Wook-Mon&Tue (2024)

Dear Hyeri: Episodes 1-2 (First Impressions)

by quirkycase

Like many, I came into this drama primarily excited by the cast, director, and screenwriter trifecta that promised skill a plenty. However, when I realized the main character has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), I got concerned. Dramaland doesn’t have the best track record of handling mental illness in a sensitive, accurate way – and when it comes to DID, neither does most any media. Still, I wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately, the handling of DID was as I feared. However, the rest of the drama was not quite what I expected, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

We’re first introduced to an exuberant and playful JOO EUN-HO (Shin Hye-sun) in 2015 when she and her boyfriend JUNG HYUN-OH (Lee Jin-wook) are happy and in love. Fast forward to now, and they’re barely civil to each other at work, a broadcast station, where they’re both announcers. He’s considered the more talented one with a future as an anchor, while she has remains largely in the shadows. Despite their constant sniping, they end up hosting a program together, much to Eun-ho’s chagrin.

That said, it’s clear to everyone that the exes are not over each other. Eun-ho talks about how much she hates Hyun-oh a little too much, and he somehow always has a reasonable excuse to throw jobs her way that could help boost her career. While insisting he can’t stand her, of course.

Eun-ho is a wild card, which doesn’t endear her to everyone. She’s brash, hotheaded, and can be petty if she feels slighted. But her spiritedness and unpredictability have earned her a fan in her younger colleague MOON JI-ON (Kang Sang-joon) who has been chasing after her for a while. He’s stunned when she, rather apathetically, agrees to go on a date that turns into a work excursion.

Since Eun-ho isn’t the type to exploit someone’s feelings for her, she tells him outright that she only “hates” Hyun-oh because she can’t have him. They dated for eight years, and she wanted to get married. He had no interest in marriage. Hating him is the only way she can handle interacting with him.

Even knowing Eun-ho’s feelings for Hyun-oh remain, Ji-on wants to give a relationship with her a shot. He kisses her one night… and we’re suddenly transported. It’s now daytime, and we meet eccentric JOO HYERI as her parking attendant colleague asks if she fell asleep and was dreaming again. Hyeri has been having dreams of being this announcer named Eun-ho who has her same face.

Hyeri shakes her weird dream off in favor of dealing with more pressing matters, like her crush on news announcer KANG JOO-YEON (Kang Hoon) who she sees regularly in the broadcast station’s parking lot where she works. She’s bored and in desperate need of excitement, but she’s also timid and unable to talk to Joo-yeon directly. Despite her gloomy demeanor – likely due to quite literally hiding behind her hair most of the time – she takes an optimistic approach to life.

Soon, Hyeri gets the chance to make an impression on Joo-yeon. And oh, does she make an impression. She sees a protestor in the station’s lobby attacking her beloved Joo-yeon with a freaking pickax and springs into action. She slaps a box over the assailant’s head and drags Joo-yeon out of the lobby to hide until the woman is apprehended.

All that adrenaline must go to the girl’s head because instead of finally talking to Joo-yeon, she adds to the poor man’s shock by kissing him with no warning. Then she turns and walks away without a word. Suffice it to say, Joo-yeon has had a day.

Amidst these shenanigans, Hyeri has been seeing a therapist regularly. She talks of her memory loss (she can’t remember anything about her past) and vivid dreams of this Eun-ho’s life. Her therapist breaks it to her that she is Eun-ho and has been diagnosed with DID. And here’s where we start to go off the rails.

The therapist (and drama) acts like Hyeri and Eun-ho are two entirely separate people who live in one body, hinting that Hyeri is a fictitious identity created by Eun-ho. We don’t get the whole story yet, but we do see flashbacks of what seems to be Eun-ho and her sister Hyeri, so I’m assuming Hyeri died and Eun-ho supposedly adopted her sister’s identity due to grief which… is not what DID is. *sigh*

Honestly, why even call her condition DID? Just make up a fake condition or leave it unnamed rather than misrepresenting a real disorder to fit the premise. I won’t go into all the questionable details about how DID is portrayed, but some things are too unrealistic to even make sense. You see, Eun-ho and Hyeri switch at exactly 4:00pm and 4:00am every day. I guess having her DID work on a convenient schedule is the only way her two lives wouldn’t intersect. I don’t see how that’s even possible when she was dating, and seemingly living with, Hyun-oh for eight years. Maybe the drama is suggesting she didn’t have DID then, which again, is not how that works. Either that, or Hyun-oh is ridiculously oblivious.

Back to Hyeri, she tries to avoid Joo-yeon after her attack kiss, but he manages to confront her. He’s pretty calm about the whole situation, but he does demand to know why she kissed him. All Hyeri can do is burst into tears. She’s so distraught she can’t even form words. Somehow, his justifiable anger surprised her. At least she does now understand that what she did was disrespectful and could even get her sued for assault.

She folds him a bunch of paper stars and writes him a letter to answer his question by confessing her feelings. He once again seeks her out, and this time she apologizes. For some reason, he also apologizes for being too angry. He doesn’t seem particularly upset that she kissed him and instead finds her intriguing.

Not only does Joo-yeon forgive her, but he invites her to his home to chat more. (WHAT.) This man is notorious for being cold and stoic, yet he trusts this random woman who assaulted him enough to let her into his house and tell her about his dead brother and his ensuing survivor’s guilt. It’s only their second conversation and he’s already opening up about his family trauma. Then, he lets her sleep at his house because it’s late. I have no idea what is happening.

MORE https://www.dramabeans.com/2024/09/dear-hyeri-episodes-1-2-first-impressions/