[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Doctor Frost" Episode 8

The rather trivially simple theme this episode is just lying. Works for me. While a person doesn't need a doctorate to understand lying, it is a topic that pretty much everyone can relate to. And the set-up is, in fact, a perfect situation for exploring the difference. A man is physically accosting a woman on the street late at night. The implication of the situation is obvious. And yet right from the beginning I couldn't help but wonder, if this guy's really a villain, why did he stand around and wait for the police to show up?

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The case is an almost perfect example of how scripted, clearly defined logic is usually a misleading way of figuring out how people actually act in the real world. In order for the obvious explanation to work, the suspect has to be both evil and stupid. The number one rule of effective lying is to make sure that the falsehood lines up as closely to the truth as possible. Otherwise, there's too many potential angles for the deception to be detected.

We get some good scenes here of Doctor Frost actually explaining the best way of inducing lies- mainly immediate reactions, which are much more difficult to fake than elaborate storylines that have undergone mental rehearsal. The best example is the close-up of the lips. Additionally, there's also the matter of cooperation. A person who's good at lying makes a point of acting helpful, because inspiring trust is the best way to prevent anyone from questioning the lie.

As mentioned, a doctorate isn't really necessary to understand lying. So this episode also goes in to some pretty decent detail as to how and why a person would become a consummate liar in the first place. Here is where Doctor Frost's degree actually become relevant- it is, in fact, one of the few times in the drama that the explanation actually sounds meaningfully psychological rather than just consulting detective denouement wrapped up in psychological jargon.

I wouldn't put too much confidence in the actual explanations offered by this episode. My knowledge of psychology as a discipline is pretty limited after all. But overall this was a fairly entertaining episode, with an intriguing psychological hook and just enough discussion of the drama's more long-running plot threads to build up expectation. I don't even mind the cliffhanger so much- a confessed murderer, after all, is quite unlike a corpse in that it's possible to psychoanalyze her.

Review by William Schwartz

"Doctor Frost" is directed by Seong Yong-il, written by Heo Ji-yeong adn features Song Chang-eui, Jung Eun-chae and Lee Yoon-ji.

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