Team Solution settles into the new week with new cases and new faces that keep them clashing with the same old problematic humans of Chayul. But what’s a little professional rivalry to our heroine when she has to deal with working with her charming ex-boyfriend, and unavoidable run-ins with her scummy ex-husband?
EPISODES 3-4
Ki-joon is now onboard the Solution team, but Sara isn’t as welcoming of him as their other team members. Ki-joon promises to leave if she’s still uncomfortable around him after three months, and Sara agrees to the deal. She’s almost sure he won’t last till then. *Laughs in famous last words of dramaland* Ki-joon is immediately brought to speed on Solution’s newest divorce case between a news anchor on trial for sexual assault, and his bestselling novelist wife. Ki-joon isn’t sure the divorce will proceed smoothly if the husband wins the trial. But isn’t that why the wife came to Solution?
Of course, Anchor is represented by Chayul, and that’s a major reason Sara took on the case. Her ex in-laws have refused to allow her to see her son, and when she confronts Yool-seong, he tells her to step down from the case otherwise he will send their son abroad. He also makes a fuss about Sara’s work partnership with her ex (Ki-joon), and I wonder how that is any of his business seeing how they’re divorced and he’s remarried.
Then again, anyone can tell that Sara and Ki-joon look good together. And despite her initial resistance, Sara warms up to Ki-joon soon enough. When he asks about her dreams, she mentions that she wants to screw over her ex husband in order to bring her son back, and he offers his assistance. Cheers to “comradeship.” Heh.
Back to the ongoing divorce case, Novelist reveals that she was also a victim of Anchor’s sexual assault — in fact, they got married because the assault resulted in pregnancy! Wow! The husbands in this show are seriously competing for the Trashiest Husband of the Year crown. Novelist initially labels her husband’s latest victim as an adulteress to avoid their daughter being tagged as a “sexual offender’s daughter.” She then begs Sara not to reveal that she was assaulted in court, because she doesn’t want her daughter to find out the circumstances surrounding her birth.
When Solution finds out that Anchor — through Chayul — has bought over his victim’s lawyers, they approach her with an offer to team up with Novelist. Of course, Novelist has to apologize first for making the victim out to be an adulteress. And I love how Sara was all matter-of-fact about how the victim doesn’t have to forgive Ms. Novelist because this isn’t a reconciliation case, it’s about putting that SOB anchor behind bars!
After Novelist gets Anchor’s “A guy who asks for consent is a total fool” confession on tape, Solution serves Chayul with an uncontested divorce agreement — which Anchor has to sign, or else the tape goes public. Novelist and her daughter leave to start a new life abroad, but as part of the divorce agreement, she can’t testify against him in his ongoing trial. Thankfully, Sara can. And with her testimony, the SOB is sure to pay for his crimes in prison.
Chayul suffers another defeat when Yool-seong’s assemblyman father-in-law is arrested for illegal solicitation. With the Chayul law school bill now in jeopardy, Yool-seong sets his sights on politics to salvage the situation. Since his new wife, HAN JI-IN (Lee Seo-ahn), has now become useless to him, Yool-seong and his mom get ready to kick her to the curb. But first, they must make her out to be the guilty party in the marriage (meaning no alimony) since Yool-seong’s reputation must be spotless for his political ambition.
To make matters worse for Ji-in, someone blackmails her with an old (illegally filmed) sex tape — and from all indications, Yool-seong might have been sent a copy of the tape to use against her in their divorce. Ji-in heads to Solution, but Sara declines the meta case of representing her ex-husband’s soon-to-be ex-wife in a divorce suit. Ji-in then informs Sara that her son has been sent abroad, and she offers to give Sara a number to contact him if Sara takes on the case.
Contacting her son aside, Sara decides to take on the case because Yool-seong warns her to stay away from it. How dare he tell her what to do? Of course, Ki-joon is all up for it because it’s a chance to knock Yool-seong down a peg. Hehe. I guess the earlier case of the victims teaming up against their abuser was a foreshadowing to Yool-seong’s ex-wives joining forces against him.
The first step in Solution’s grand plan is to steal Yool-seong’s USB that supposedly contains the sex tape. Sara and Ki-joon pull a USB heist that involves Sara distracting Yool-seong in his office, and Ki-joon sneaking in to find the USB. From this heist, we learn that: 1) Yool-seong lacks situational awareness — because they successfully pull it off; 2) he’s shameless — because he brings up getting back together with Sara; 3) he doesn’t have the sex tape. He was bluffing the entire time! Still, the tape is out there, and they have to find it before he does.
To avoid scandals, Yool-seong’s party refuses to nominate him for assemblyman until after his divorce is finalized. But Ji-in is in her “speak with my lawyers” era, and a frustrated Yool-seong orders his wife to be brought to him by all means. Unfortunately, the underlings fail to differentiate between ex-wife and soon-to-be ex-wife, so they kidnap Sara instead. Pfft. Ki-joon and the kidnappers engage in a Fast and Furious speed chase, and not even a Truck of Non-doom can put a stop to it!
Our Solution partners eventually prove to be too much of a headache for the kidnappers, so they zoom off leaving Sara behind. Phew! Sara’s survival/fighting skill is no surprise, but Ki-joon was kinda badass here. And trust the show to follow up with the slo-mo “covering the love of my life up with my jacket” trope afterwards. I love K-dramas!
Solution gets a new teammate in manager, JANG HEE-JIN (Kim Shi-hyun), who seems to have an agenda for joining the firm. In the meantime, the team sets a trap for Ji-in’s blackmailer — but they fail to catch him even after making a mess in an innocent citizen’s bakery. I became curious when Solution’s hacker, Dae-ki, froze up on sighting the blackmailer, and I was shocked when it’s later revealed that both guys are brothers! *Chews popcorn*
I’m not exactly sure what the circumstances were, but it seems Dae-ki had cancer, and his brother failed to show up on the day of his — I suppose, bone marrow transplant — surgery. Their mom fainted and passed away out of frustration, and the brother has been AWOL since then. Big Bro is in the business of blackmailing and selling data from second-hand phones, and Dae-ki tracks him down to destroy all of his hard drives.
Curiously enough, Hee-jin appears in the background to witness Dae-ki cutting ties with his brother, and it is eventually revealed that Yool-seong planted her in Solution as a spy! Hee-jin is a totally different person around Yool-seong, and she proves her worth by handing him the trump card he needs to get the divorce: Ji-in’s sex tape! *Aggressively throws popcorn at the screen*
Yep, it’s official. Yool-seong cannot be unseated as the Trashiest Husband of the Year. I mean, he has two murders on his hands already, what’s a spy compared to that? Speaking of murders, a person of interest in Yool-seong’s mistress’s “suicide” case jumped off the roof when Ki-joon summoned him for questioning last week, and the man is still in a coma. Although he has left the prosecution, Ki-joon is still looking into the case, and he learns that Chayul has taken the man’s phone. All the top prosecutors involved in the case have also moved to Chayul, and Ki-joon is convinced that it is not just a coincidence.
In other news, we learn that Sara didn’t run away with Ki-joon back then because she was already pregnant. Not that she has told him the reason yet. Although Ki-joon isn’t actively chasing Sara, it’s clear as day that he still has feelings for her, and she is not so indifferent towards him either. But her priority at the moment is her son, and Ki-joon has to make peace with the fact that the boy will always be a link between Sara and her ex-husband — who is clearly still obsessed with her. Sigh! I need this man to hurry into his downfall era already.