Workaholic Jae-won is on her feet around the clock, busy preparing for the launch of their latest product, which leaves precious little time for her to spend with her picture perfect family.

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The only blemish on Jae-won’s life is a mysterious stalker who has been a thorn in her side for the past seven years. Usually he does innocuous things such as send her unsolicited bouquets, but today things escalate to a dangerous degree when an intruder breaks into her office while she is there alone, burning the midnight oil.

After smashing the trophy cabinet in the lobby, the masked man forces Jae-won to barricade herself in her office. The man attempts to breaks his way in but just as he manages to gain entry a security guard appears in the nick of time and he runs away.

This is one of many close encounters that befall Jae-won and, as her stress levels and fear mount, so does her paranoia. She begins suspecting that her hunky lead designer Yoon Te-o (Lee Ki-taek, Moonshine) may be the stalker.

Her nerves also compel her to go snooping through her husband’s phone, which leads her to a building where she sees Soon-young secretly meeting another woman – none other than Jae-won’s best friend, artist Kwon Yoon-jin (So E-hyun, Red Shoes).

She is also approached by slimy insurance investigator Nam Tae-woo (Park Ho-san), who, curiously, is looking into the death of her mother years earlier.

He suspects the mother may have been poisoned by Jae-won’s kindly stepfather, Seo Chang-seok (Kim Hong-pa). Jae-won scoffs at the idea, but on the heels of the other disturbing events in her life, a germ of suspicion sprouts.

The story returns to the cold open; after her throttling, Jae-won is tossed into the river beneath the bridge. While she does not perish, when she opens her eyes in a hospital bed she finds herself in a different hell, as the three men she is no longer sure she can trust loom over her.

In a country obsessed with branding and propriety, image is everything, but a constructed image seldom tells us the real story. It is no accident that the first time we see Jae-won at work, busying herself with tools, wood and a 3D printer in a carpentry studio, we quickly discover that we are being fooled.

What we have seen is actually an ad for her company. Jae-won used to be a designer, but as a CEO she now only cares about product deadlines and marketing, something Te-o chides her for.

Jae-won soon discovers for herself what it is like to be fooled, after events lead her to suspect the main men in her life, who all appear to be perfect on the surface. This notion of people presenting fake versions of themselves blends well with the fears a women can feel in a world where any man could potentially be a predator.

It is a great concept for a late-night melodrama, and Jang, sharp and charismatic as ever, ably draws us into Jae-won’s nightmare. Unfortunately, her many ordeals are offered up as a patchwork dotted with several holes.

After the initial intrigue drummed up in episode one, the show struggles to hold it together. Beyond Jae-won’s increasing paranoia, there is not much else for us to latch onto – the other characters in the story are all ciphers who we are almost immediately led to suspect may not be who they appear to be.

Hopefully the story will iron out these kinks and establish some clarity in the next few episodes.

My Happy Ending is streaming on Viu.