10/10 from a non-fan of Kdramas

A white male nearing 50, married with children, is probably not the target audience of kdramas. But, I stumbled across this by death scrolling through Netflix desperately looking for anything to watch, and when I read that it was about an autistic lawyer I wanted to see if it was just another stereotypical portrayal of people sharing my condition. Yes… I’m on the spectrum, so I stuck around to see if I was being mocked. In short: quite the opposite.

Now, I’m not some expert on autistic representations in media, but this is the first time that I’ve seen an autistic person portrayed as a real person with their own thoughts, hopes, dreams, and flaws. Not a one dimensional plot device, weirdo, object of pity, or some combination of these. Kudos to everyone involved in this production for their sensitive, respectful, and dignified treatment of this condition.

That out of the way, I genuinely love the show. While I have no other kdramas to compare it to, it’s easily better than 95% of what I’ve watched in the past 2 years (mostly American and British productions). The overall positivity reminds me of Ted Lasso, which is one of my all time favourite shows, and this is just as good. The acting, not just Park Eun-Bin, is fantastic. The characters are wonderful, even the very minor ones like Hairy Boss. The cinematography, and general production quality is superb. Absolutely top notch show, and it is inspiring me to look into more kdramas (what a gateway drug!)

Lastly, while I’m not really into romances, I’m a pretty sensitive guy whose in touch with his emotions, and so this show just hits me like a punch to the gut time, and time again. What an emotional experience. Many tears - joyful tears - shed. Sure, it’s manipulative, but damn do they do a good job of it.

Rewatching it now with my wife.

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An excellent show, but difficult to recommend

I don’t know how to review this one. On one hand the production value is top tier, the acting is very good (the main cast is excellent, but the supporting cast has been hit-and-miss), and the story is solid, but it requires a lot of effort to watch because it deals with very negative subject matter. Don’t get me wrong: mental illness, suicide, suicide prevention, etc. should be exposed in all forms of media, but that doesn’t necessarily make for good entertainment. In fact, trying to make it entertaining might be the problem with this show.

To be clear, the subject matter is treated respectfully, and I think the production means well, but there are simply too many limitations on what can be done within a 60 minute episode. So while the problems are realistic, and sensitively portrayed, the solutions are superficial, and hollow. The reality is that heartfelt words, and appeals to supernatural/spiritual “faith” are rarely ever (probably never) enough to deal with mental illness severe enough to drive someone to suicide. So while I appreciate that this show promotes awareness of many deep issues within not just Korean society, but worldwide, it ultimately falls flat despite being an otherwise excellent show. Thus, difficult to recommend.

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