Our one dollar lawyer and his crew spend a lot of time in nature this week — but it eventually leads them to a solution, and just when their latest case gets more and more convoluted, the truth comes bursting out. The aftermath, however, leads to some hints around our hero, and we’re rewarded with some long-awaited backstory.
EPISODES 5-6 WEECAP
Because this is One Dollar Lawyer and the cool is constantly undercut by the comedic, we first replay Ji-hoon’s heroic save of Mari in the woods, and then his epic strut to the bad guy with a flashlight. Except it’s not a bad guy with a flashlight, it’s Min-hyuk! With Mari and Moo-jang joining them, it’s a bunch of funny and informal recognitions all around. In the words of Ji-hoon: “I met an old friend in the middle of a murder investigation.” Everyone knows everyone, but Mari wants to know just what Ji-hoon was like as a prosecutor; even though she digs a bit, she doesn’t find out much (for now).
Ji-hoon and Min-hyuk are on opposing sides of the case this time, of course, so they part ways only for Ji-hoon to head back to the crime scene even later at night by himself (so clearly, his theatrics are just that, which makes me love them even more).
Ji-hoon and the gang uncover new leads bit by bit, and it’s packed with humor and pretty well-written PPL scenes — I guess it’s a bit easier to write a PPL scene when you have three wacky characters with whom it doesn’t feel strange to talk about chicken pasta and carry on while staring at it.
Starbucks coffee and chicken aside, Ji-hoon does uncover quite a bit — though maybe not through his lip-reading skills (lol!). An analysis of the missing father’s last painting reveals an important clue: the signature character (a man with a black umbrella) has been freshly painted, but the actual painting is over three years old. This causes Ji-hoon to rethink the whole crime scene, and one clue after another, we learn that the missing father (cameo by Uhm Hyo-seop) is not missing at all — he committed suicide three years ago, and the wife kept it a secret. The paintings worth billions of won were not done by the father… but by Kim Min-jae! He’s been the captive genius behind the scenes, though it all started out innocently enough.
Anyway, all the sleuthing of our good guys seems for naught when Min-jae outright confesses to the murder, out of the blue, and straight to the prosecution — with a finger heart for added weirdness. Everyone is thrown for a loop except our lawyer. He knows that Min-jae is innocent because he’s Ji-hoon, and I know Min-jae is innocent because he just spent the scene prior crying to Chopin in the interrogation room. That is surely the act of someone suffering, most likely out of love, and sure enough my hunch was correct.
Ji-hoon still believes in his client even when Min-jae leads them right to his father’s three-year-old grave (!!!) and the murder weapon from the mother’s stabbing. The truth, however, doesn’t come out till they bring Min-jae to visit the crime scene — with the press hovering about — to walk through the night of the murder.
Ji-hoon is about forty steps ahead, though, and he lays a trap for Min-jae that he never saw coming. The “last painting of his father,” which was supposedly being worked on, was replaced by another one, and just when Min-jae is trying to think himself out of the tangle of lies, his noona KIM SOO-HYUN (Han Dong-hee) charges in.
That’s right — the daughter was the murderer in what was a case of accidental manslaughter after Soo-hyun slashed the painting with a knife. Min-jae happened upon the scene, and in an effort to save his step-sister, he said they would blame it on his father. But then, possibly in the bubble bath, Min-jae realized he will have to be the scapegoat himself.
Gah, family love! Or wait, is it romantic love? These two were thrown together five year ago when their parents (unhappily) married, so who really knows what’s going on there (but maybe it’s just my makjang imagination, or the chem of these two actors). Either way, the show makes it clear via flashback that Min-jae, Soo-hyun, and their father were lovely humans, and the curator mother was the nasty one. Not that she deserved to die like that.
Leaving the scene of their victory, Ji-hoon quizzes Mari on what will happen to both Min-jae and Soo-hyun as per the law (a nice way of giving us closure on those characters without actually giving us closure), but the story lingers here for a moment.
Mari ponders over the mother’s dying words, and we get this flicker of a moment from Ji-hoon. Dangit, the acting from Namgoong Min here! There is something we haven’t seen on his face before; he lets down the facade by a fraction of an inch for a fraction of a second, and then says, “Parents are like that,” before going back into weird mode and leaving.
At this point we’re half through our second episode of the week, and — despite being an adamant hater of “case of the week” stories — I am quite enjoying how the drama is pacing itself. The first four episodes handled quick and light cases with an equally quick and light touch. Then, when the painter-murder case got heavier and deeper, the story slowed the pace, and we spent over two episodes there.
Now, with that case concluded, we pause before the next one — a decision I’m so glad the drama made. We all need to catch our breath; also, it’s a good time to step back and give us a little more information about our hero. (It’s a ballsy move that we’ve gone almost six full episodes with practically nothing on Ji-hoon’s life or backstory.)
After that first barely-there hint at the crime scene, we next see Ji-hoon at a grave with a bouquet wrapped in black paper. The OST, which has been mostly a mixture of goofy and epic, switches to a throb of mournful strings. It’s nice to have the drama confirm for us what we’ve all likely intuited by this point: a tragic event in Ji-hoon’s past is what made him leave the prosecution and become the one dollar lawyer.
The sad music continues when Mari accidentally finds a photo of attorney LEE JOO-YOUNG (finally my girl Lee Chung-ah enters the plot!). Her curiosity finally wins out, and she treats her sunbae Prosecutor Na to dinner and we get a full-fledged five-year flashback to tell Ji-hoon’s story.
Past-tense Ji-hoon might be in a black suit and have straight hair, but his ways are just as crazy. We see him and Min-hyuk in action, finally getting a search warrant for the corrupt CEO of JQ Group (Yoon Na-moo) and going against all their higher-ups who were likely to give the guy a free pass. They’re not only bold as hell, but Ji-hoon is just as creative in the past. They wind up bringing the CEO to a red carpet event where Ji-hoon knows they’ll get press coverage and the powers that be won’t be able to cover up his arrest. (And, as an added bonus, we get an adorable but random Lee Je-hoon cameo).
Ji-hoon and Min-hyuk are hard at work on their case, but the defense is soon revealed to be Baek Law Firm. Grandpa and his cronies march into the courtroom… but the lawyer is actually Joo-young! She previously sought Ji-hoon out in the men’s restroom (lol) and seeks him out again after their first hearing. She buys him vending machine coffee and it’s clear the two share a ~connection~ despite being on opposing sides of the case. Joo-young is their ace attorney, but she seems to want Ji-hoon to win so that the bad guy she knows she’s defending can actually get punished.
The show keeps up with the sad strings and even adds in some beautiful lighting in our final scene of these two together. What happens between them? Why does Ji-hoon have her photo hidden five years later? Is what happened in the courtroom related to Grandpa Baek’s high opinion of Ji-hoon?
Even though it was a unique move to make us wait this long for Ji-hoon’s story – and then to give us a massive twenty-minute chunk of it — I’m not sorry they did it. We’ll see how much it plays into the present-day, though after the huge tonal shift we’ve taken, I don’t know how quickly I’ll be able to laugh over curling iron jokes again.