The 2024 Kdrama “Doubt” Episodes 1 And 2 Review- I See A lot Of Potential
Han Suk Kyu returns to MBC for the 1st time in 29 years, so how is his drama’s return?
Note: this article is a first-impression review, it doesn’t mean this is the writer’s final thoughts on the drama. This is a spoiler review.
Quite good, actually!
If you’ve been following my reviews on this blog you know that noir, murder mysteries and thrillers are right up my ally. I enjoy them a lot, and I enjoy speculating a lot too, its part of what makes said dramas so much fun.
We believe in Han Suk Kyu. He’s always chosen amazing dramas and he chose a script by a rookie screenwriter. Screenwriter Han A-Young, who penned this, won the MBC Drama Script Contest in 2021. It took it 3 years to get made and picked up and it has such a great lineup attached to it, so I am hoping its something.
“Doubt” tells the story of a profiler father who suspects his daughter is involved in a murder and tries to chase after the truth.
The idea is nice, its not quite uncommon, but its promising and if done well, could end up being quite memorable. Memorable enough to earn Han Suk Kyu another daesang.
For the premiere episodes, I loved the mood the director sets up, I loved the editing of the drama including the introduction shot. I also like the background OST too.
The performances are amazing, goes without saying. Rising actress Chae Won-Bin, who plays the daughter, can keep up with Han Suk Kyu, which is not an easy task. She’s on par with him when it comes to the performance and she’s quite infuriating as a character, she’s also difficult to read, so difficult to read.
So lets talk script and theories.
First things first, this type of plot is tricky for a kdrama because it cannot be stretched beyond a certain point, if its stretched too far, it’ll break, break the immersion, break the logic and break the project.
So, when I found out that “Doubt” will only be 10 episodes, I was actually happy. I still believe 10 is a bit much, but I was afraid it was going to be 12, so I’ll take what I can get.
this is MBC so they rarely greenlight scripts less than 12, not to mention 10. So this is definitely a step in the right direction.
The father’s character is a terrible communicator. He seems to be a good profiler but terrible in communicating with everyone around him, his family and his co-workers. Despite how talented we’re told he is, I feel his judgment will be badly impaired by the fact that his daughter is somehow attached to this.
So I am guessing the daughter is either a sociopath or a psychopath based on the father’s actions and reactions. I think the fall out of the parents marriage happened because the father suspected his daughter was not normal but did not / chose not to communicate this properly to his wife.
If he’s as talented as we’re told, then he could sense early on that she’s quite manipulative and is great at putting on a fake mask. Considering how she also grew up mostly without her father, it means whatever happened in the past with the death of her brother, also deeply affected her, if she’s not a psychopath.
So we have two possibilities, either she’s truly implicated in the murder and is toying with her father, or she was forced into a situation and somehow got involved in something beyond her control.
I am leaning towards the 2nd possibility as it feels that the screenwriter is trying to create a diversion. If she’s the murderer, then I’d love it even more. It’ll be more intriguing if she’s actually a horrible teenager who killed somebody she knows. It’ll be interesting to see how the profiler grapples with that fact.
I am guessing he’ll be taken off the case next week and will try to find out what happened but will struggle because evidence will begin to point to his daughter.
Something about the murder scene… I felt the blood pool was poured onto the ground not that it was the location of the murder… idk why I got that feeling watching the murder scene…. Idk, something felt off about it.
All in all, I enjoyed “Doubt” premiere, what are your theories guys?