Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a great Korean drama, but it has a boring ending and moves in ways that have been done before. This K-drama became very popular very quickly. It had great acting, good cases, and a group of characters that people liked. Attorney Woo started with a tiny 0.9% share of viewers across the country, but by the end of its last episode, it had a 17.5% share, and a huge number of people around the world watched it on Netflix.
Usually, I wouldn’t bring this up, but it’s important for Attorney Woo to know because this drama’s wide popularity is both a good and a bad thing in many ways. On the one hand, it’s never bad to have more people look at a project. On the other hand, that added pressure and expectation to deliver, especially during the last episodes of filming after such a good response, can sometimes make or break a series. And that seems to be the case with this one, too.
Don’t get me wrong, Attorney Woo is a fun show to watch, but the bubbling subplots that go along with each week’s different cases eventually fizzle out and fall apart, leaving some unresolved conflicts and a few rushed chapters that try to tie everything up in a nice little bow.
The show is about Woo Young-Woo, a 27-year-old who graduated at the top of her class from both college and law school. Park Eun-Bin gives a great performance as Woo. Only the fact that she has autism spectrum disorder keeps her from being even better than she already is. Young-Woo has trouble making friends, but her job at Hanbada Law Firm helps her deal with the ups and downs of the law.
The show has 16 episodes, and most of the time is spent juggling short-term cases with a larger storyline. From that main storyline, a number of smaller stories are told. Most of the focus is on the different cases, and there is a lot of accurate law drama in this. The main subplot that comes out of this is a love triangle with Jun-Ho, the office heartthrob.
The story of Young-parents Woo’s has been going on for a long time. People say that she might be Tae Su-daughter. Mi’s Tae Su-Mi is a possible candidate who is about to play a big role in front of the public.
At the same time, there is a drama involving Min-Woo, a lawyer who doesn’t like how Young-Woo seems to be getting special treatment at the firm. Myeong-health Seok’s and his wife’s health are also a subplot, while Su-Yeon is desperate for love.
All of these problems basically come to a head over the course of the episodes, and some are even hinted at as big dramas at the end of each chapter. Unfortunately, they’ve been out for so long that by the time the last week of episodes comes around, Extraordinary Attorney Woo throws in a couple of longer episodes to try to tie everything up in a hurry. And I don’t think it works all that well.
The other thing I don’t like about this show, and this might be more of a personal thing than anything else, is how often “lightbulb” moments are used to solve the tougher cases. Young-Woo is completely obsessed with whales, and this comes up in each episode in funny ways. Young-Woo, on the other hand, has a tendency to make a sudden breakthrough, including seeing dolphins or whales, before coming to a conclusion that wins the day. Even though I like that the show is about her, it sometimes seems like a cheap way to get out of trouble.
The show gets around this problem by having some cases with unclear morals and some open-ended endings. Young-Woo sometimes finds herself on the wrong side of the moral compass because she defends some pretty bad people. Other times, the actual solution, like a young man stealing a bus full of kids so they can have fun away from a strict school, is likely to cause both sides of the argument to fight very hard.
But you can’t say anything bad about the characters or the acting, because they are both great. I already talked about Eun-Bin, but everything about her, from her mannerisms to her general attitude, is spot on. It’s hard not to be impressed by how well she plays her part. Next year, this woman will definitely win some Baeksang Awards.
Even so, Extraordinary Attorney Woo isn’t the best legal drama out there, and in many ways, the ending is a letdown. But the show does a good job of making its material more interesting with a great cast of likable characters and a strong premise. Still, this is a drama that makes you think, and it’s easily one of the best ones that came out this year.
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Will Extraordinary Attorney Woo Have a Happy Ending?
On August 18, 2022, the last episode of Extraordinary Attorney Woo aired, giving us a beautiful ending to the story of our favorite lawyer, Woo Young-woo. At the end of the show, Woo Young-woo, who had been in the middle of everything bad, started to feel better.
