Here's My Plan (Initial Thoughts)

When you have an award-winning screenplay, you should be able to expect an excellent drama. Well, it's a little early for me to tell but the award-winning part is true with Here's My Plan (or directly translated to I Have a Goal), the screenplay of which won the award for outstanding work at the 2020 MBC Drama Screenplay Contest, having been selected with the highest praises by the judges. Starring Kim Hwan-hee (Beautiful World, When the Weather Is Fine) as female lead LEE SO-HYUN and Ryu Soo-young (My Father is Strange, Nice Witch) as male lead LEE JAE-YOUNG, this drama revolves around a young girl who believes that her life is destined to be unfortunate and decides to take revenge on those who have made her unhappy. Without further ado, let's dive in. 

INITIAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS (SPOILER ALERT)

Episode 1 introduces us to So-hyun, a 19-year-old high school dropout who makes a living as a pickpocket, wearing her old school uniform to mask herself and seem less suspicious. The first few scenes of the episode see her on the run after stealing a man's phone, almost getting caught before escaping with the help of a friend. We find out very quickly that So-hyun comes from a dysfunctional single parent family, with her mother, second female lead KIM YOO-MI [Rie Young-zin (Dear Dolphin, Memorist)], being a terrible influence by spending more time with alcohol than her daughter. So-hyun runs away from home and rents a rooftop unit for herself with a very specific goal in mind, to make her neighbour's life hell. Who is this neighbour? Well, we find out that a month prior to the start of the drama, So-hyun chances upon her alcoholic mother receiving money from a man who she assumes is her estranged father, who she thinks abandoned her. There's also a flashback to her childhood days, where she sees her mother arguing with the same man, although he doesn't react. 

Tailing the man until he reaches his home, So-hyun initiates her plan to ruin his life just like how she thinks he ruined hers. We later find out that this man is Lee Jae-young, the owner of a chicken restaurant called Happy Chicken, and presents himself as friendly and kind-hearted. One of his workers is second male lead JO YOON-HO [Kim Do-hoon (My Absolute Boyfriend, Doctor John)], a deliveryman who So-hyun actually met before when she turned a blind eye to him getting beaten up by some high school delinquents. Yoon-ho is actually the same age as So-hyun but presumably dropped out of high school to support his grandmother, who suffers from dementia and lives together with him. As luck would have it, the two young adults are neighbours and So-hyun strikes up a strange friendship with Yoon-ho in an attempt to get closer to Jae-young, with Yoon-ho treating her with disdain after she didn't call the police to help him. She ends up being hired by Jae-young to replace Yoon-ho as a delivery worker since he wound up with a broken arm from the beating. 

As So-hyun continues working with the two men, she warms up to them but doesn't shake the notion that Jae-young is her father, even going so far as to break into his house and rummage through his belongings. She does find a handkerchief labelled with her name and also finds out later on that Jae-young's dating Bok-hee, Yoon-ho's grandmother's caregiver. After coming to the conclusion at a work get-together that Jae-young's a good man and that the source of all her misery is her alcoholic mother, So-hyun pulls a whole 180 degree change after hearing Jae-young say that he's happy. Thinking that this man, who she thinks is her father, has nothing to be unhappy about when her own life is a total mess, she decides to initiate her plan to ruin her life. While all this is happening, the police are searching for So-hyun with regards to the earlier pickpocketing incident, with Yoo-mi even being called down to the police station for it. In the final scenes of the episode, Yoon-ho drags a drunk So-hyun to her house and they share a brief heart-to-heart, which ends with the pair kissing as part of So-hyun's bid to prevent him from seeing her investigations into Jae-young. While this is episode 1's final scene, we do get cuts to the future where So-hyun's being interrogated by a lady, who grills her on her motivations to ruining Jae-young's life. 

A pretty short introduction on my part but there's really not too much to delve into thus far. My foremost theory right now is that Jae-young isn't So-hyun's father at all, even though there's some evidence, and this is all one big misunderstanding on her part. What's his relationship with her mother? It's a little hard to say for now but it could be an old flame or maybe just a good friend. I also foresee that So-hyun will probably end up in a relationship with Yoon-ho but again, nothing much more to say here. As the drama progresses, it's highly likely that So-hyun will probably initiate her revenge plan against Jae-young but stop before anything really bad happens, potentially choosing to turn herself in in the end. It's also quite clear that Yoo-mi will play a bigger role as we continue watching and we'll probably understand her backstory far more. 

I can't say I'm super familiar with the main cast, having only seen Kim Hwan-hee and Rie Young-zin in fairly small supporting roles but I'm sure they'll do well in their roles. From what little interactions their characters have had, Kim and Rie have done a pretty good job of portraying a dysfunctional family and I'm sure we'll see more of this in future episodes. As for Ryu Soo-young and Kim Do-hoon, I don't really have a strong impression of their performances yet so we'll see. This is a much shorter drama than usual, only being 4 episodes long but since the screenplay is so acclaimed, I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this series. I hope you'll join me on this short journey as we watch So-hyun set her goal of revenge and tell us, "Here's My Plan".