This was billed as a comedy. It's no comedy at all. A comedy at the beginning stages, at least until the heavy themes begin.

I can tell how much I like a K-drama by how quickly I finish it. I marathoned this one over two and half days, squeezing in a half hour here and there when I should of been doing other things.

A who dunnit which very quickly gave viewers a prime suspect, before-spoiler- allowing viewers to smuggly outwit the on screen cops and realise before they did the true culprits. We were very quick given the who did it and the how they did it, but what kept me hooked to the end was the why.

And the why was heartbreaking, because however monstrous the unscreen villians were, from their motivations, excuses and fates, exist in real life counterparts who remain unpunished to this day. The open ending is a question to the Korean people, how do you want to go forward.

I liked it a lot. I did feel like 12 episodes was a little too short considering how it felt like they edited down a lot, so the audience has to make some extra connections, and it almost feels like whiplash. There were some unanswered questions. There were a couple times when I felt like the drama meant to do more with a character given the way it was set up, but they didn't, and I don't think they had the room to. Given that the drama takes places using the same few locations and always showing the same few people, this feels like a production on a tight budget and must finish with 12 episodes.

I think they could have flesh it out to 16, but given the heinous crimes of the corrupt former cops, I'm also glad to not have to spend more time on how they've hurt people and destroyed families. State-sanctioned police brutality is not just a thing of the past. Sometimes kdrama indulge too much into the brutality that makes it hard to watch (i.e. Taxi Driver), and this drama just quickly goes through it and is like "you get the point, right? This dude sucks."

The drama knocked it out of the park with the casting. Jung Ryeo-won and Lee Kyu-hyung had great chemistry and were really cute and funny together. There was a snap in their repartee that makes me feel like this is a friends-to-lovers drama. I squee over them so much. Kim Sang-ho is always riveting. Kim Hye-eun plays the law firm CEO's wife and she was charismatic here and feels like she should have played a bigger role. Even Park So-jin's character felt like she could have been given more scenes. Lee Sang-hee made a cop role that could have been annoying palatable.

Despite flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed the drama and the ending. It definitely did not overstay its welcome, which many dramas do. I'm a little disappointed that it only appear in streaming in korea. Also the OST is fantastic. Silver lining is my favorite.

If you have "Why her?" 2022 Kdrama in your watchlist, please drop it and start this instead
because everything from FL's character growth to ML's backstory and their chemistry is much better in this drama. Although there are few dull episodes and annoying moments, this reminded a decent watch and my ratings: 7/10

If you expect a legal drama with typical case-of-the-week episodes like me: Better watch another show. (As legal dramas are kind of a trend right now, you will easily find a few.) MIPTC centers around the legal profession and the legal system as such but it does so with a heavy dose of murder mystery elements that inevitably begin to overshadow the individual cases. Needless to say: If that's exactly your kind of thing, why haven't you tuned in already?

Personally, I thought that the presented police investigation was unnecessarily sloppy and sometimes downright stupid which is why I didn't manage to enjoy this part of the show as much as I would have liked. This, however, is obviously an entirely subjective opinion because I have read other people rave about the intelligent story instead. YMMV. I suppose that I simply expected different based on the great, more comedic character moments of the first few episodes whereas the true narrative focus of the show always lay elsewhere.

As someone who came and stayed for the undeniable chemistry between our two leads Jung Ryeo-won and Lee Kyu-hyung, the snappy banter between our dynamic duo Chak-hee and Shi-baek definitely was the show's true highlight for me all along. I would even say that I've shipped those two idiots harder than any actual K-drama rom-com couple I've so far encountered in 2022. While I've never really imagined Lee Kyu-hyung as a potential romantic lead before, this drama certainly made me a believer... only to squash those hopes by leaving everything up for interpretation. (Don't get me wrong: It's not a bad thing. Chak-hee and Shi-baek work wonderfully in a just-friends, maybe-not-just-friends, or even basically-married kind of way.)

Last but not least: Who do I need to bribe or where do I have to start the petition for a second murder-less season/entirely different show in which Jung Ryeo-won and Lee Kyu-hyung play a zany couple à la "Mad For Each Other"? 👀