Your Honor: Episodes 9-10 (Final)

by lovepark

Your Honor ends with a bang as the story reaches its tense climax and fallout. Two arrogant fathers and two defiant sons, at first so different but ultimately the same, their choices slowly lead them towards their demise as they learn that no matter how fast or far you run, the consequences of your actions will never disappear.

 
EPISODES 9-10

Blood of the innocent spilt, blood of unbreakable family ties, blood of which flows like champagne and dyes the city street’s red. To some like Sang-hyuk, blood commands them to rise and take power, but for others like Kang-heon, it is a curse rather than a blessing. So many lives lost in order to save a few, but even after all that, tragedy befalls both fathers who must ask themselves, where did it all go wrong?

For the last six months, Ho-young meticulously planned his attack on Kang-heon’s second son and approached the mechanic to act as his informant. We know what happened to that ill-fated partnership, and soon, so does everyone else, including Boss Jo. With too many people now aware of the truth, Pan-ho attempts one final strike against Kang-heon, but alas, he underestimated Woo One Group’s reach and falls to his knees in defeat.

The only thing Pan-ho can do is trust Kang-heon’s promise to spare his son’s life, and during the final hearing, our once respectable judge declares his wife’s killer innocent of all charges. As the weight of his decision falls across the room, the show continues its narration of Crime and Punishment in which its protagonist claims that he wanted to be a good man. “If I had succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I’m trapped.” – Dostoevsky

After the trial, Ho-young obtains a gun from a stranger who is aware of his role in this string of deaths and tells him to finish what he started. Unaware of her boyfriend’s ulterior motives, Eun invites him to family dinner — Sang-hyuk’s last request before his exile to the U.S. — so Ho-young joins them with his weapon in hand and his fury barely disguised.

At the table, only Kang-heon knows of Ho-young’s true intentions, having heard about his months-long plan from Boss Jo before her unceremonious death, but for the sake of his family, he ignores the rising unease. While Ji-young excuses herself from the table to answer a call from an incessant Prosecutor Kang, Sang-hyuk needles his sister’s guest, asking if they met somewhere.

Ho-young tells him that they met two years and two months ago outside the police station, and ignoring Kang-heon’s warnings, he mentions his mother’s case. He asks if they ever considered the victim and their family’s anguish, but answering his impassioned question is Sang-hyuk’s apathetic, “Who?”

Enraged by Sang-hyuk’s utter lack of remorse, Ho-young pulls out his gun and aims it at his mother’s rapist. He announces that not all lives are equal — the very same words Sang-hyuk told the press after his brother’s death — and believes his mother’s was worth thousands of theirs. Even as Eun tries to reason with him, Ho-young is too entrenched in his own emotions to waver and shoves her aside before pulling the trigger.

Though his bullet hits its mark, another shot rings out in that same moment, and Ho-young stumbles as blood soaks his shirt. From the doorway, Ji-young holds a gun, and her eyes burn with rage. While the others were locked in their own world, she heard from Prosecutor Kang that Ho-young intentionally hit her son, and our prosecutor knew exactly what she was doing when passing along this information. During the trial, Prosecutor Kang learned of Detective Jang’s fate, and after losing the case as well as her partner, she chose violence over the law.

Outside the house, Pan-ho arrives after getting a call from Kang-heon earlier that evening, and he pushes past the guards as gunshots echo in the night. By the time he reaches his son, Ho-young is dead on the ground, discarded by everyone. Despite all his efforts to save his son, Pan-ho failed, and now, he sits in an empty funeral hall with nothing.

To atone for his sins, Pan-ho finally lets Ho-young go, spreading his ashes rather than holding onto them as Eun wished, and then he turns himself in to Prosecutor Kang. He tells her that he once thought he had the right to weigh and punish other’s crimes, but it was arrogant of him to believe that he held that power. He knows that he can no longer hide from the atrocities he committed, but Prosecutor Kang refuses him the chance to unload his burdens with a few words. Instead, she orders him to wait his turn, and from across the window observing the crestfallen judge is the Blue House chief of staff and Assemblyman Jung, conspiring amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, Kang-heon’s right-hand man takes the blame for Ji-young’s action, and as per usual, his family buries the truth with money and power. However, they failed to account for one thing, and the only innocent person in this twisted mess pays the price for the family’s crimes. Eun tries to take her own life, and though Kang-heon discovered her quickly, the doctor informs them that recovery seems implausible.

As the show reaches its end, the two fathers meet once more by the ocean and mourn over the loss of their children. Kang-heon admits that he no longer has a purpose to live, so Pan-ho tells him to not forget. The former wonders if he hopes to get revenge on him, but our judge clarifies his statement: repentance. They both thought they could judge the world and hoped to save their families, but that shared hubris was their downfall. Kang-heon surmises that this may have been the only way to teach them a lesson, and he leaves Pan-ho to ponder over that thought.

A contemplative ending to a story wrought with morally grey characters, the show leaves its main protagonists reeling from the consequences of their actions while opening the doors for another season. While the final scene was a bit simplistic in the grand scheme of things, the parallels between the fathers was a consistent theme from the beginning, and as such, served as a fitting conclusion to this tale. Though they lied, fought, and even killed to protect their families, these same choices were ultimately the cause of this tragedy that left both sides broken. Only after the loss of their children did Pan-ho and Kang-heon finally see their wrongdoings, and their never-ending game of “what ifs” all pointed to their own responsibility for what transpired.

While I found the show engaging and thoughtful at times, it never really went beyond surface level commentaries, and I think the slight hollow feeling I got from the last two episodes reflect this lack of depth. One of the key ideas the show plays with is justice, yet it comes across as one-note. The emphasis on retributive justice stunted the characters, and as a result, the parting message about consequences and the inability to run away from one’s sins fails to address the cyclical nature of violence, the classism within society, and the underlying conditions that perpetuate these injustices. There is neither restoration nor transformation in this tale of two dads, and I’m left wondering if true change can manifest itself in such a limiting framework.

Despite these grievances and the show’s decision to tease a second season (not a trend I like seeing), the main draw for me was always the performances by the leads, and in that regard, Your Honor deserved the praise it earned and its steady climb up the viewership charts. Sohn Hyun-joo and Kim Myung-min were both amazing in their roles and made me feel sympathy towards two very unsympathetic characters because of their portrayals and the nuance they conveyed. I was also pleasantly surprised by Kim Do-hoon as the misguided Ho-young and Heo Nam-joon as the irredeemable Sang-hyuk. The former captured the turmoil and unease of his character well, and the latter was absolutely magnetic and horrible all at the same time. The entire cast was filled with talents and interesting characters — particularly the supporting female roles — and in the end, I enjoyed this fast-paced show about two fathers who thought they could judge the world and paid the price.

 
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