'Private Lives' Episode 3 Review: Is Jeong-hwan dead? Joo-eun told so days after learning he’s a con man
'Private Lives' Episode 3 takes the time to introduce us to who Lee Jeong-hwan (Go Kyung-pyo) really is. He is a man who works for a conglomerate called the GK technology, however, what exactly is his line of work is something of a mystery. He isn't employed by the company directly and seems to be working for a man who plans takeovers, steals technology from competing companies, and so on with Jeong-hwan's help. All of them work in what is called the Vision Room, which these people believe drives the direction of the technological and economic growth of the country. They have the power to make or break any company and Jeong-hwan is a scholarship student who was hired in 2007. However, from what happened at the end of the episode, things might not have ended that well for Jeong-hwan.
The first man who mentored him and trained him to work in the field is none other than Jeong Bok-ki's partner who currently goes by the name of Edward Kim. A year ago, she had approached Jeong-hwan as Sophie Chung to find her partner after being referred to by her lawyer who had previously worked on both Joo-eun's (Seohyun) father's and her cases. She hands Jeong-hwan the pictures of this man and she wants him found. Turns out, her mentor and Bok-ki's partner are the same person. It is while tracking Edward Kim that he meets Joo-eun.
After being told by his boss that he should soon get married as his work means that he needs to seem normal on the outside, Joo-eun seems to be on his way out from this particular problem. However, on the day of the wedding, he doesn't arrive because he gets chased by a group of thugs. What exactly happened and who he was chased by is not revealed. Instead, by the end of the episode, it is clear that Jeong-hwan was pushed to either fake his death or die by an accident. We know this because Joo-eun ends up getting a call from the cops 15 days after the accident occurred about how it took them time to identify the victim of the crash. They also explain that they are unable to confirm by testing his DNA as of now.
While it has been revealed that his relatives and even his parents were hired to act, Joo-eun did not fall for a scam where the man ran away with her money. Instead, he was chased away from the venue and forced to miss their wedding. So what will Joo-eun do now and did Jeong-hwan really die in that accident? Something we must wait another episode to find out.
'Private Lives' airs on JTBC on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 pm KST and can be streamed on Netflix outside of South Korea.