Wild Card VS Tactician
Extraordinary Attorney Woo starts with a big board meeting for a revolutionary ATM machine. The idea here is to cut out embezzlement and financial crime. Essentially, this serves as an “honest cassette”… but it’s already being used. The tech has actually been developed by a rival company called Geungang ATM. ..
Hwang Du-yong’s pitch falls apart when he realizes it was leaked and Geumgang has already released a cheaper version. ..
The case of the missing diamond necklace goes to Hanbada Law Firm, where it is revealed that Attorney Kwon Min-Woo and Young-Woo will be in charge of the case. Min-Woo hands over a stack of papers for his colleague to review and immediately brings Young-Woo along for a meeting at 2pm, completely unprepared. ..
In the meeting, Young-Woo doesn’t make a great impression while Min-Woo immediately warms to the entrepreneur, Du-Yong, as they discuss where they served in the military and the details of what this cassette is.
Young-Woo is getting a hard time from her boss, Min-Woo, because he sees her as a competition. Min-Woo wants to be accepted into the law firm at Young-Woo’s expense, so he’s trying to get her to back down.
The plagiarism case goes ahead but there are doubts over the validity of this case, especially given the weights used in the cassette are different for each company. Right now, there’s not enough for the judge to go on either way, so he decides to set a later date for the next hearing.
Jun-Ho and Min-Woo end up playing basketball together but Jun-Ho overhears Min-Woo badmouthing Young-Woo on the phone. Not only does he claim she has a “handicap” but he also mentions how he has to shoulder all the responsibility himself. Given Min-Woo isn’t playing fair, Jun-Ho ends up being rough with him on the basketball court.
Jun-Ho learns from Young-Woo that she has a hard time distinguishing between who is being deceptive or real. For her, she has to work very hard to try and determine who is trying to play her, but sometimes she forgets and that perception leads her to believe that everyone around her is deceitful.
It’s a touching chat between Young-Woo and Ihwa, where the two try to figure out if Ihwa are lying to them or not. Given Manager Bae has all the nervous ticks of lying and being deceptive – including rubbing his thighs and the tip of his nose – Young-Woo ends up coaching him on how to act in court.
This trial is going to be interesting to watch, as the robotically-speaking Bae robotically answers questions and seems much more confident than the human witness. However, Young-Woo has doubts about the validity of his story and who is telling the truth in this case.
Young-Woo and Myeong-Seok are both shocked to learn that the technology they developed was stolen by their former colleagues at Geumgang and Ihwa. The CEO of Geumgang confirms that the technology was developed by an American company and was made public at the exhibition. Both companies took it to make products. ..
The CEO of Ihwa ATM, Young-Woo, wants to monopolize the industry and is using a letter from Min-Woo to try and prove her innocence. However, Min-Woo brings up ethical questions about the letter and whether it’s legitimate.
Leader ATM’s cassette is the wildcard in all of this. Leader went out of business a year earlier, and it turns out Ihwa ATM are actually at fault here. As we soon see from an on-site verification soon after, Ihwa stole this idea from Leader ATM, meaning Geumgang get the rights and the court case is dropped. ..
Du-Yong has already won the battle, but Young-Woo is not happy about it. She feels responsible for having Ihwa apply for model utility rights and filing for the injunction.
After receiving a letter from Geumgang, Young-Woo puts the letter up on the wall as a reminder of what she was part of.
The final scene of the episode shifts across to Taesan Law Firm, where rumours are abound that the CEO actually had a child out of wedlock. Could this be Woo Young-Woo?
The Episode Review
This week’s episode of Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a strong one, exploring the very real implication of being on the wrong side of the law as a lawyer. Young-Woo’s eyes are filled with pain as he watches this case from start to finish, and it’s particularly heartbreaking to see it re-contextualized at the end.
The final shot of the CEO walking away, downtrodden and defeated, was a hard to watch sight. The smug Ihwa CEO got exactly what he wanted in the end.
Young-Woo has been a great character so far in this series, and there’s more depth to her this time, framed around the theme of deception and what impact that has on Young-Woo. ..
The ending of the show hints that Young-Woo is about to face a whole new challenge in the form of this CEO and whether she may be her mother, but it’s still unclear how all of this slots together right now. Attorney Woo bows out on a high, leaving the door wide open for tomorrow’s follow-up in what’s quickly shaping up to be one of 2022’s brighter K-dramas.
