we should submit a petition for a moratorium on legal dramas / procedurals involving corrupt assemblymen/ chaebol CEOs and the accompanying tragic backstories and serial killers.

some thoughts:
-personally, i think Kim Ji-eun was miscast. Mari as a character probably required some amount of over-acting, but I felt too much distance from who the actress may be in RL and the person she tried to portray. For example, her stink eye looked sooo unnatural to me.
-I love NGM.
-whenever the Evil CEO showed up, I started thinking about joseph gordon levitt, so I wasn't as miffed about how this drama ended. In a way, I prefer this super easy one episode takedown where the villains are handing over the answers, over what may have been a three episodic resolution of a storyline we've seen 100x already.

@missvictrix Your intro is SO on point because that's exactly how I felt after watching this episode. This is the show (or at least the latest show) that made me go "what the...?!"
It's so weird that a show can wrap up all its loose ends and still feel weirdly out of wack. Like it got the job done but still made it feel like something was missing.

Even the whole reason I signed up for this made me just 🙄 and wondering why haha
I was just like the last client who just kept looking around as if he was being pranked because what even is happening?! The lawyer shows up in a swan boat and then starts vocalizing (or whatever its called) in his face before seemingly getting serious again.

One thing I can say is I've never seen a drama like this before and I'm not even sure if I mean that in a good or bad way haha

The production issue clearly didn't help this drama but I wasn't a fan from the beginning.

The cases weren't really interesting, the painter family case was good but way too long.

The main plot with his father and fiancée didn't really bring anything, it explained how he got there but in the present, it just brought us a weird time jump.

I think the best 2 episodes were the story in the past with Lee Chung-ah.

Even Nam Goong-Min looked Iike he didn't know what he's doing in this story.

I can’t even be bothered to share my thoughts I really hope they count their loses and forget season two of that ever was on the cards.
Unfortunately another drama where I only stayed for the bean. I feel that whatever the behind the scenes politics was trying to achieve no one won and they only succeeded in disappointing the audience.

The last episode tied up the loose ends neatly in a bow, but it just felt unsatisfying. All the emotional upheaval and grief caused by this evil CEO and whoosh, everyone who needed punishing got punished, and Cheon Ji-Hun is the one who did the punishing. It was like this big build-up and then... done, with none of this shown, just told.
Now Cheon Ji-Hun's back to being wacky and even stranger. I just don't get that ending. When NGM started singing (?) the drama theme song to his potential client, I was cringing and dying. And it seemed to go on for such a long time.
But, I came to new realizations: (1) NGM is a professional - like how did he not die of embarrassment while doing this; and (2) he's meant to be an actor. I still love NGM and look forward to his next drama.

I'm trying to recall other K-dramas that were abruptly truncated. One was 'Let's Eat 3' (due to the lead being called into the military). The other was 'A Piece Of Your Mind', a drama which mostly involved people talking to a small box (lampooned in 'Gaus Electronics'), that could have never been sustained through a full season. I know there were others, but I'm not sure which were always going to be 11 episodes and which got chopped down from 16.

A rushed wrap up for an average show for me. NGM in the flashbacks was fabulous, and I'd probably dropped this sooner only for him.

I forgot to mention about Jihoon and Minhyeok just swinging between titles. Can lawyers in Korea do that? Minhyeok saw his client was shady and just goes "well, I'm going back to the prosecution". I know this was lampshaded but then Jihoon does the same thing. He goes from lawyer to special prosecutor back to lawyer.
Not to mention seems weird he would be the prosecutor for the guy responsible for deaths of his father and fiancee and his own attempted murder.

There's a lot of suspension of disbelief involved haha

Agreed - what was this? I was left confused for 30 secs and then decided I didn't care enough to try and figure it out.

NGM is a star. The two episodes of his back story were excellent and he continued to deliver in a drama that rapidly disappeared down the black hole of nonsense. I remain grateful that at least they didn't try to shoehorn in a loveline with Mari which would have been excruciating. (Which makes me think: is there something in NGM's contract where he will not portray relationships where he has to make physical contact with women? I'm struggling to recall one of his roles where he had to do more than simply make us believe something was going on.)

Whenever I hear about episode cuts or rewrites or staff changes or whatever, I always think of Temperature of Love, where behind a fairly successful drama was a writer having her vision ripped out from underneath her, shred by shred, while the director went on a power trip and belittled her in every possible sense. I wonder what must have happened behind the scenes here for such a successful show to become such a shambles?

Oh Namgoong Min--so much talent, such weirdly uneven projects. I wanted to like this and it seemed promising at the start, and I even rolled with the tonal shifts in the middle. But the wheels came off at the end and so once again I'm disappointed. I guess starting to fan NGM with Stove League meant my expectations will forever be too high, since that drama is pretty flawless imho. But I'm willing to wait for his next perfect project, whatever that may be. Sadly, it wasn't this one.

So let's see, the incriminating document that Joo-young was killed for has been at Baek Law Firm, Mari's grandfather is so aware of this fact that he even helps her, yet, he and his firm have nothing to do with anything? I know the order to kill Joo-young didn't come from the law firm so there's that, but the law firm is still tied to JQ Group and the baddie CEO.

The episode cut didn't seem to do the show any favors, unfortunately, and the ending was a little rushed. In spite of the shortcomings, it was still fun to see Namgoong Min.

And finally, those sunglasses! I still want them all!