I have no idea how you are able to analysis things so well but @laica you are so right! You are hard on the show but something is obviously not right.
I keep watching parts of it again and wondering how could it have been made better and why am not satisfied with where the story has taken me. And you explain it so well.

I think problem is ambition, the show extended itself too much and tried to do justice to every character, which is not possible for so many reasons.
But amen to your last statement. I do not want Joon Hwi to "just be grateful"... That sequence made me question if the writer just wanted to stay away from romance all together so they would end the series on Joon Hwi being confused about this feelings wherein he likes our girl but he thinks it is just gratitude!

Maybe in later years of the law school things become clearer for him when she starts dating another person and this romance genre will be written as fan fiction :D

Anyway, I enjoyed Kang Dan and bits of prof Yang so I don't regret watching this series but seriously they could have tweaked things a bit. I know episode 16 will not be satisfying but an audience has to take what they get else just speak about their unsatisfied experiences on dramabeans :)

I agree with everything you said @laica. The show works best when it focuses on students and their struggles. It's biggest flaw is that there is clear distinction good guys and bad guys when the Law itself never makes that distinction. Justice through the law just remains as tagline, it never explores it.

The truth of the jurae-dong accident is very very borderline. In every work environment, mentee-mentor or friendship mishaps is very tangible that calling the other out is hard to do, even though it goes against the ethics and moral we live by. Should I cover up an incident for my friend or person or mentor or mentee? The funny thing is its at the person coverings detriment at the end of the day, much worse when covering up for the likes of Assemblyman Ko.

I pray Joon-hwi Sol A doesn't end up in gratitude, and how can she be so dumb to his affection?

Thank you for the weecap, @laica! Yes, the last episodes were confusing in all the fake-outs. Prof Kim with the suggestions to Assemblyman Go, Yangcrates shaking up Prosecutor Jin, Joon-hwi liking somebody but I don't think he did any follow-thru this time, and most of all, Seol A masquerading as Erica Shin. If Go had started an argument with her using the law, could she have won? She already admitted that she's not the brightest bulb in the group while Erica Shin is considered an expert from Harvard Law! Good thing for her there was no confrontation.

Thank you for your effort to write this article, but sorry, @laica, I totally disagree with you.

The Kang Dan twist as well the impersonate of her by Sol A is the high point of this drama, I watched this (as well Ep. 14's ending, as Kang Dan's first real appearance) no less than 5 times each, also extra effort to screen-grab the scenes. Kang Dan’s story, in my opinion, is well executed, and wonderful to watch, and it is not too hard to predict that she will reappear in this show, because, after all, her relationship with Assemblyman Go, as well her entanglement with her own family is important part of this whole drama.

Ye-seul's story is well told, but after all, it is a side story, and it is part of the web Assemblyman Go is building. The show must go back to the original case, which is Prof. Seo Byung-ju’s murder and Assemblyman Go’s web of corruption. After all, Ye-seul winning the case is not the end of the story, Prof Seo's is, and beating Assemblyman Go must be the final goal.

Sol A/Joon-hwi’s interaction is fun to watch, but again, it is just another side story. If you want a sweet love story, you can go to watch My Roommate Is a Gumiho (Doom at Your Service may be a good choice, but I think it is more philosophical than a love story). Asking more about Sol A/Joon-hwi’s love story is like asking Cha-young and Vincenzo to kiss at the end of Episode 9 of Vincenzo, it is not only unsuitable, it is offensive.

I know K-dramas (and movies) have visited too many political scandals lately, beginning with Lee Byung-hun's award-winning (and well deserved) Inside Men of 2015. Assemblyman Go's, on the other hand, has some flare of current affairs, which I appreciate: his fake news network. I hope there is no Donald Trump/Rodrigo Duterte/Vladimir Putin/Xi Jinping supporter here (That silly attack I witnessed in the comment section of Doom at Your Service is not something I want to see here), but all these political scammer's powerful tool is controlling fake news (I heard in Russia there is a specific term to call this: Kompromat). If Ye-seul being sexually exploited by his then boyfriend (and after all, she seems to still have feelings for him, that's more hurtful) is a very harmful Infringement of her, then those terrible messages towards her are the second, just as harmful, infringement. (Seo Ji-ho: "They just killed my father a second time.") This is an issue we must address, and we should.

Based on the above argument, @laica, you have also neglected the reason why Prof. Yang Jong-hoon goes against his students, and sides with Prosecutor Jin Hyeong-woo to argue against the law of investigative secrecy. It is not, as you say, "a very muddled view of the law—it seems to be arguing for everything at the same time, with no clear sense of ethics except that as long as it’s legal, anything goes." In the last Open Thread, @jingbee said this...

Sol A and Joon Hwi are the heart and soul of this drama. It is sad they sidelined their relationship. The singular issue for me for the last few episodes is laying the ultimate blame at Assemblyman Go's feet. They seem to want to absolve everyone else of their own personal responsibility in the matters. Everyone had personal agency and deserved punishment for their actions. However, I did love Ye soul's storyline and I think they mostly did a good job there.

I enjoyed the episodes, but was a little disappointed to hear Joon Hwi say he feels indebted toward Sol A. I was like, wait, what? You've spent all this time looking at her like you think she's the most adorable thing you've ever seen and now you say that you feel grateful toward her? 😑

Can't wait for Assemblyman Go to get what's coming to him. I really hate the guy. Jin too. And for our students to go back to doing student things instead of worrying about lawsuits and trials and taking down corrupt people.

And is it too much to ask for us to get some sweet moments between Sol A and Joon Hwi in the final episode?

When I started watching this drama, I had no idea that I would love it this much. I even dropped it at Ep 4 because Lee Man Ho was creepy and despicable. However, since my Wed and Thurs nights were free, I decided to watch it again and fell in love with SolHwi after Ep6.

I am someone who doesn't take dramas seriously unless of course the plot demands my brain to work. This drama doesn't do that for me but I enjoy it. I look forward to midweek because of it and I am sad that it's ending. I really hope they give us a fun and memorable finale. I mean I'll take it even though it won't make sense.

Thanks for this, Anisa!

There's certainly no denying on my part that there's a certain madness to all of this. I don't think the show pretends otherwise. But that's always been the case practically from Day 1 so I'm not exactly clear on what's different here. Admittedly I came to this late, and binge-watched 15 episodes in two days. It struck me not long afterwards that Yang Jong-hoon is a fascinating pedagogical figure. He seems to be the consummate teacher where every single event becomes a teaching opportunity. The entire world that he inhabits essentially is his classroom. I wonder quite a bit if he didn't allow himself to be arrested and then indicted just so his students can have hands-on experience with a murder trial. I certainly wouldn't put it past him because he is enough of a maverick to do this. Of course that wouldn't be the only reason and he would be killing two birds with one stone.

Because of my background I'm really interested in Yangcrates' pedagogy and in that regard I'm of the view that the show is well-written. He's a true devotee of the socratic method. He seldom gives away the answers and pushes his learners to discover the answers for themselves. He gives them just enough to either hang themselves or save themselves. It's how he deals with his adversaries as well as his students. He gave Prosecutor Jin the heads up on Assemblyman Ko -- not everything but just enough to get him thinking and for the latter to go and find his own answers. During Ye-seul's trial, there was a moment when he told the story about a colleague who asked him out and he turned her down. Her behaviour afterwards was puzzling to him. Prosecutor Baek who was the unnamed colleague inevitably stood up and fell into his "trap" defensively by inadvertently providing the answer to the inconsistencies in Ye-seul's responses. It was a masterful moment. But more importantly a learning moment in Professor Yang's classroom.

I don't agree that the show has a muddled view of the law at all. On the contrary it has a very lucid perspective on what the law is. The law is a sword (or any weapon of choice) and depending on who wields it, the consequences can be for good or for ill. At the end of the day it is only a tool, an instrument. The crucial factor is the man or woman brandishing it. The reality is that whether we like it or not, the law is co-opted in service of all kinds of unholy endeavours. Prosecutor Jin's indictment is a great example of how laws intended for good can be abused in the wrong hands. But those are the risks civilized societies take having bedrock principles such a presumption of innocence, reasonable doubt, the right to representation etc.

Ultimately winning and losing in the courtroom is about the ability to prosecute arguments convincingly based on precedent and evidence. That has been a consistent message all throughout and one that Yangcrates' teaching style is calculated to instill. Right from the start he's been telling the...

You said it perfectly: " Law School has a unique talent for being boring and hard to follow at the same time."

I had the same problems as you did with these set of episodes, Anisa. Law School suddenly wants to be a crime drama when it was supposed to be a character-driven analysis of justice.
(Also I think @Lilium pedagogical analysis is spot on but I disagree that this means the drama as a whole is well-written, rather than Yangcrates character and the way he behaves through the whole show).

As with a lot of similar dramas, the characterisation is amazing (with one small exception that you touched on in your recap as well - the inexplicable 180 of Prosecutor Jin) and thus the show should have stayed being character driven while allowing the overarching plotline to be resolved more organically and with less ridiculous "twists" -
I'm assuming that justice can win even if somebody doesn't impersonate their identical twin for example.

My biggest issue with these episodes, and the one that really left a bad taste in my mouth, was the aforementioned 180 of Prosecutor Jin. This guy did some seriously distasteful things, so many I can't even list them. He pursued malicious prosecutions under orders from a member of politics (this is a breach of the separation of powers), he reused to prosecute crimes for the same reason. He broke the law on more than one occasion, he helped drive a man to his death. And despite all of this we're supposed to think he didn't know what he was doing?

Since when is "he was under orders from a politician" a reason for a member of the judiciary to avoid culpability for his crimes?