Case 1: Extraordinary Attorney Woo.
Woo Young-woo narrates, “There comes a day for every parent when they ask themselves if their kids could be special. For my father that day was November 17, 2000. “. Young Woo is 5 years old at that time, she is hoping left and right and glaring at a dolphin wind chime. Young Woo and her father are in a clinic and her father tells the doctor that she is unable to speak though she is 5 years old and he gets to know from the doctor that she might be autistic.
They both return to their home while Young Woo’s dad buys her some snacks. The landlord of the rented house they stay in suddenly starts to yell at Young Woo’s father for contacting his wife when he was away from home. We get to know that Young Woo’s father is a widower from the owner. Young Woo’s father tries to explain that he goes to leave Young Woo so that the landlady could babysit Young Woo but the man doesn’t hear a word and starts to swear and beat him up. Young-Woo watches the owner beat her father and she feels uncomfortable and disturbed. Young Woo starts slapping her head with both her hands, this is how Young Woo reacts to stress. That is when Young-woo starts to speak her first word. It’s not just simple words but she starts reciting the punishment for causing bodily injury.
Young Woo’s father ecstatically screams in happiness, lifts her, and takes her to the room. She starts jumping on the trampoline as soon as she enters the home. Her father learns that she has learned not only a single law but an entire thick book of laws that he has in his home. He cries and happily tells his owner’s wife, who brings him medicine for the injury, that Young Woo read an entire book and she can recite the law. The landlady tells him that Young Woo is a genius and that one day she will become an attorney.
Young Woo narrates, “There comes a day for every parent when they ask themselves if their kids could be special. For my father, that day was November 17, 2000. The day he found out that his daughter was an autistic genius.”
It’s the first day of work for Young Woo. She introduces herself, “My name is Woo Young-woo. Whether it’s read straight or flipped, it’s still Woo Young-Woo. Kayak,deed,rotator, noon,racecar. Woo Young-Woo.”.
Her room is filled with all the forms of whales that she could fit in pillows, paintings, toys, and much more. She likes everything arranged. The second thing other than whales is her law books.
She gets ready and searches through her wardrobe to find the dress gifted by her father and then scans through various photos of her dad with different facial expressions for different emotions. She chooses to wear a smile that day.
After leaving her home she goes to a nearby hotel which is owned by her father and orders a “Woo young-Woo gimbap”. She chooses to eat gimbap because she could see all the ingredients openly and there won’t be any surprises.
Her father first makes sure that she knows the route to her office by heart and then lists out the forbidden things for her –
“Don’t repeat other people words and don’t say anything weird but don’t be too blunt. No talking about whales”,
For Young-woo the only thing that irks her is that she can’t talk about whales. She becomes happy only after her father agrees to her that she can talk about whales if it’s absolutely necessary. She leaves for the office and we are shown a frame of a newspaper article at the shop entrance – “First ever autistic attorney of the Republic of Korea, Woo Young-woo”.
The hustle and bustle of the train make her anxious and uncomfortable but she knows how to calm herself. She wears the headphones and then imagines a whale swimming along the train while she hums.
Young-Woo reaches her station and notices the pattern that Yeoksam station is again the same when read straight or flipped.
After reaching the CenterBiold building, she notices the door is under some maintenance and she is directed to a revolving door. She attempts to get into the door but she fails and reaches the entrance of the building again instead of going in. The only person to help her after seeing her struggle is Jun-Ho(male lead).
He helps her into the building through the revolving door and then takes her to Attorney Jung Myeong-Seok, to whom she would be reporting. Young Woo also has another habit of knocking on the door 3 times and then counting to 5 before entering a room. There was Attorney Jung along with his acquaintances Choi Su-Yeon and Kwan Min-woo in the room. Young Woo seems to know attorney Choi well, later we get to know they both went to the same law school.
Attorney Jung is confused as to whom she is. Young Woo introduces herself as a new attorney under him. Attorney Jung finds her resume with a note from CEO Han to take care of her. Young Woo points out that the second page of her resume is missing and It says she falls under Autism spectrum disorder.
Attorney Jung asks Young Woo to get along with his acquaintances and goes straight to the CEO’s office to ask why she appointed an autistic person as an attorney under him. CEO Han tells him to look at the first page of her resume that She graduated with top honors from SNU law school and even Scored 1500 on the bar.
Attorney Jung argues that anyone can score well by memorizing but it takes Good social skills and speaking eloquently to be an attorney. He challenges that Young Woo is not capable of it and gives Young Woo a chance to handle a client case and if she fails to handle the case she must be fired. CEO Han accepts it.
Attorney Jung gives Young Woo a Public interest case. He explains to her that the defendant is an old woman in her 70s who takes care of her 80-year-old husband and he has mild dementia. During an argument, the old woman has beaten her husband with an iron box.
Young Woo gets distracted by the shape of the iron box which looks like a sperm whale. She starts reciting about sperm whales and Moby dick novel written by Herman Melville where he describes the sperm whale.
Attorney Young Woo gets her out of the whale talk and asks her to be in context. She then tells herself that whale talks are prohibited. Attorney Jung continues that the old man suffered a brain hemorrhage requiring 12 weeks to heal, so the defendant was charged with attempted murder.
Since the defendant is in her 70s and already is facing her health issues and on top of it, she has to take care of her 80-year-old husband the prosecutor has not charged any arrest warrant.
Usually, It won’t be possible to get her probation but this case is a little different. Attorney Jung then asks her what she must do now. Seeing her remain silent he guides her to get the old lady probation.
They then leave to the conference room to meet the defendant. The defendant is no one but the landlord’s wife whom Young Woo used to stay with when she was 5 years old. The defendant doesn’t seem too keen on Young Woo handling the case and asks attorney Jung if he is not taking up the case.
Attorney Jung tells her that Young Woo is in charge and he will also be handling the case. When Young Woo is left alone with the defendant she introduces herself that she used to stay in the house years back. The landlady doesn’t take much time to realize she is the daughter of Gwang-ho, and she is the little kid Woo Young-Woo. The landlady is proud that Young Woo has become an attorney and asks many questions but Young Woo comes straight to the point and asks when her husband was diagnosed with dementia.
The lady tells her that it was 5 years ago and he was a very active person and worked even after retirement. The man used to be a section chief. As the inquiry proceeds, Young Woo finds out that the defendant’s only source of income is her husband’s pension and the house rent (Even the house is under her husband’s name.).
Later at Attorney Jung’s office, Young Woo submits her attorney’s statement of Opinion where she mentions that defendant is not guilty. Attorney Jung gets annoyed that this case was a very simple one where even the public prosecutor is ready to Give the defendant probation from the beginning and asks Young Woo why she wants to Argue over guilt and innocence though she can simply sit next to the defendant and get probation for the defendant.
Young Woo explains the whale puzzle she likes,” If a female whale weighs 22 tons ate the giant squid weighing 500 kgs and then laid an egg that weighs 1.3 tons 6 hrs later, how much does the sperm whale weigh?”. She answers, “Whales cannot lay eggs, Whales are mammals so they give birth instead of laying eggs .”.
So, they are missing the main point that this is not a criminal case but a civil case. She explains to him that the defendant is fully dependent on the victim for money and if he dies, she would not be able to survive. So, this case should be seen as a Crime of inflicting bodily injury as the defendant has no intention of killing.
Attorney Jung is astounded and apologizes for misjudging her. She replies that at least now he realizes, making him spill the coffee he was drinking. He then asks her to visit the victim at the hospital along with another person since it would be hard for even ordinary attorneys to do fieldwork. After a few moments, Attorney Jung realizes what he just said and apologizes for calling others ordinary. She then tells him that it was ok since she was not ordinary anyway.
The person who accompanies Young Woo is Lee Jun-Ho. Jun-Ho notices Young Woo staring at the revolving door and asks if she needs help. She tells him that she is waiting for someone and they both wait without knowing they both have to accompany each other.
Young Woo starts stating that the revolving door has many more disadvantages than advantages, So they should persuade the landlord to remove the revolving door.
Jun-Ho tells her that it is very simple to cross it and to imagine Dancing the waltz. He then counts One, two, and three in a beat and teaches her to follow the rhythm. They both then count and follow the rhythm.
He tells Young Woo that they both can cross after some time and calls the person he should be meeting, only to find out it was Young Woo all the time. He formally introduces himself as Lee Jun-Ho from the Litigation team.
They both then count one, two, three and follow the rhythm to cross the revolving door.
In the hospital, the doctor treating the victim tells Young Woo and Jun-Ho that in the victim’s brain blood is pooled under the dura mater and it is called subdural hematoma which might be caused by external injuries. He tells them that it is severe out of all the traumatic brain illnesses since only there is a 60 percent chance of survival even after treatment.
Young Woo and Jung-ho question the doctor to find out that there are no fractures in the skull and he doesn’t even suffer from high BP.
They then meet the victim, While entering the ICU they find the defendant Choi young-ran taking care of her husband by closing the blinds. As they enter young-ran invites them and asks them if they can talk outside as her husband is sleeping.
Her husband wakes up before they move out and asks who they are. The man’s reaction is unwaveringly mean even in that condition. He starts to yell at Young Woo that her father used to come and see his wife when he was away and starts cursing her and tries even to attack her making her uncomfortable and anxious that she starts tapping her head. Jun-Ho saves her and they all come out of the room.
Young Woo asks if Young-ran intended to kill her husband. Young-ran wails that she should have killed him when she got the opportunity and now she would have not been in this mess.
Young Woo explains to her how the law works and how important the intention of a person during the crime matters a lot. She tells her that if she wanted to kill her husband then it would be attempted murder and if she wanted to Hurt him then it is inflicting bodily injury. If she Hit him it is an injury resulting from violence and if by Mistake it happened means bodily injury by negligence.
Young Woo then tells that it is very hard to fathom human feelings and points out that young-ran would have not closed the curtains so that her husband could sleep. It’s something that is done out of love and not with hate.
At Hanbada, Young Woo and Jun-Ho join attorney Jung and the team as they discuss the Young-ran case. Attorney Jung asks about how things went in the hospital and get to know that the man was too mean to Young Woo and screamed at her. Jun-Ho tells them that the man is hard to handle and he could relate to Young-ran who wanted to kill him at that moment.
Young Woo tells Attorney Jung that the old man thinks that her father and his wife had affairs and created a scene. She speaks that she should get a Letter of non-punishment as he caused a scene today. Attorney Jung asks what he told to be dumbfounded by her response, “You’re going to die after spitting your damn nonsense like that!”.
Attorney Jung immediately changes the topic on what should be done in Young-ran’s case. Attorney Choi and Attorney Kwan fight over who would be representing the case on behalf of Young Woo. Attorney Kwan argues that he has passed the news anchor test and Attorney Choi argues that she won first place in the speech competition for rookie attorneys. Young Woo smashes both of them saying that since Young-ran should be shown pitiful It would be best that she represents the case as she is disabled. Attorney Jung buys it and asks Young Woo to handle it and asks her to keep in mind that she would represent Hanbada so she should practice well and not humiliate herself.
Young Woo gets up and leaves cutting Attorney Jung in the middle of the next sentence. On day end, Attorney Kwon asks in the elevator to Attorney Choi that is Young Woo disabled or is she making fool of them. Attorney Choi tells him that Young Woo was called FWA – First place is Woo Young-woo anyway.
Attorney Choi always felt bad at how clumsy Young Woo was and helped her but it would hurt her that anyway, Young Woo comes first in everything. Attorney Kwon tells her why would you help someone stronger. When they get out of the elevator, they see Young Woo dancing one two to three in the rhythm and struggling to pass through the revolving door.
Attorney Choi frustratingly asks how she could ignore this and while leaving helps her cross the door. Attorney Choi yells at Young Woo if she is a fool to take the revolving door instead of a normal one.
Young Woo thinks, “My name is Young-woo, as in “Flower” and “Luck”. It means a lucky charm as pretty as flowers. But perhaps Young-woo as in “clever” and “Foolish” would have been a better fit. Woo Young-Woo, who remembers every single book she’s read since birth but can’t even go through a revolving door. Clever and Foolish Woo Young-woo.”.
Young Woo then visits a restaurant. We are introduced to Young Woo’s only childhood friend Gue Ra-Mi. She is lively and Bouncy and raps when she cleans the restaurant. She raps, “Give me 100000 won, boss. Give me 100000 won” asking him for money. Her boss seems to be cool and enjoys her actions too.
She even has a rap for inviting her friend. Young Woo and Ra-Mi do a cool move rapping and finish it with a dab- “Woo to the Young to the Woo. Dong to the Geu to the Ra-mi.”.
Young Woo visits her friend for help. That is to learn from her how to speak in court. She asks Ra-mi if she knows what it means by trial by Jury. Ra-Mi correctly answers that the trial involves public participation. Young Woo tells her that she is going to present a case in front of a judge and jury.
Ra-Mi surprises her boss and Young Woo by delivering various dialogues from law movies when her boss tells Young woo that Ra-mi might have never seen a trial. She then teaches Young Woo to say the most important thing – “Objection! “and continues with basic vocalization.
The next day in court, Young Woo is extremely anxious about her first trial. She gathers all her energy and enters the room. As the judge takes attendance of all the attorneys who are present for the trial, Young Woo can’t even pull herself to answer the judge that she is present.
Attorney Jung tries to imitate Young Woo’s voice and answers yes. He gets caught terribly and manages by saying she is present.
The case starts, the prosecutor gives his Opening statement but then when it’s Young Woo’s chance of giving an opening statement she finds it hard to even get up. She gets up as soon as she notices attorney Jung was about to take up. Ra-mi and Young Woo’s father joins the trail on time without missing her opening statement.
She starts her statement with this- “Before I start, I ask for your understanding. I have autism spectrum disorder. So for you, my speech and actions might seem inarticulate and awkward. But I love the law, and my respect towards the defendant is no different from any other attorney. As an attorney, I will do my best to help the defendant shed light on the truth of this incident.”
Ra-mi and Young Woo’s father swell up with proudness. The judge is impressed with her love for the law. During the prosecution inquiry, the prosecutor attacks the defendant with various hard questions, and when he tells them that she was the one who said that she will die with him on that day.
Young Woo objects to this(Thanks to the practice with Ra-mi she does it well and makes Ra-Mi proud.) and says the Leading question. The judge sustains the objection. The prosecutor continues to attack the defendant to the point that she starts crying and that she did what she did out of misery but she loves her husband a lot.
The trial ends for the day, Attorney Jung tells the prosecutor that he is questioning the old lady as if she is a gang member. The prosecutor says that he thought he would take it easy but now the attorney is coming strong so he can’t be the prosecutor who let Indiciment stick.
While going by car, Attorney Jung plans on bringing Park Gyu-sik(Young-ran’s husband) and pleading for the defendant. They decide that Attorney Jung can take the case forward as the man goes nuts seeing Young Woo.
The next day trial starts, Attorney Jung instead of taking forward asks Young Woo to start, Jung remembers one thing Jun-Ho told earlier that he could relate with Young-ran seeing the man’s nasty temper.
As soon as the man sees Young Woo he starts screaming and throwing things at Young Woo. The trial continues after the man is taken to the hospital. Young Woo argues how hard it was for Young-ran to live with a husband who constantly doubts and uses cuss words with her. She tells them that Young-ran did it out of frustration.
At this time they get the horrible news that Gyu-sik is dead and everyone along with Young Woo is in great shock. Now the case is not an attempted murder but a murder case.
Young Woo visits the memorial and apologies to Young-ran that she was greedy to take up Young-ran’s case. She tells that her first words were bodily injury and the first person to tell her that she would become an attorney was Young-ran so she was thinking that if she takes her first case of Young-ran it would be good.
Young-ran tells her that it was not Young Woo’s fault but her fault to attack a person whose time was already up. She tells her that her husband complained of a headache all the time and she ignored it. Young Woo consoles the crying Young-ran.
At her office, Young Woo looks at the case board, and at that time Jun-Ho enters with the report that Gyu-sink’s postmortem report came and the Cause of death is brain hemorrhage. Gyu-sik had a recurrence of the subdural hematoma that he got surgery for.
Jun-Ho notices the iron box and tells her that the iron box resembles something. He starts with a moby dick novel and Young Woo finishes “Sperm whale”.
She gets anxious and tells him that whale talk, blunt talk, and repeating others’ words are not allowed unless necessary. Jun-Ho tells her that it was ok if it was both of them. Young Woo is happy that it was ok for her to talk about whales if it was Jun-Ho.
Young Woo stares at the iron and her whale flies (Whenever she realizes something or an idea pops up she imagines a huge whale spiraling out of the sea.). Young Woo tells that the doctor missed out on the most important point. Young Woo remembers Young-ran weeping in the memorial that the old man was constantly complaining of a headache that day.
She asks for a police statement and points to the line where the old man complains about a heavy headache. She then says to Jun-Ho that the doctor was so focused on iron but it might be possible that the brain hemorrhage might not be because of the Iron box.
At the court, the trial starts and Young Woo argues that the cause of the old man’s death is brain hemorrhage and it might be caused due to long-term illness since the old man doesn’t have any kind of fracture or injury caused by iron. She points out the police statement that the man was already suffering from heavy headaches and the doctor accepts that he might have fainted due to long-term illness and dementia.
Attorney Jung submits the post-mortem report which says he got spontaneous hemorrhage and Young Woo concludes that the old man died because of illness and not because of an attack by the defendant, so they should modify the charges.
The next day, Jun-Ho informs Young Woo that judgment has come as not guilty of murder and probation for the crime of inflicting bodily injury. Young-ran comes in now and hugs Young Woo-hard. Attorney Jung passes by and smiles proudly noticing the defendant hugging Young Woo.
The episode ends with Hanbada’s CEO getting out of her car to the Instant gimbap shop that Young Woos father owns. Gwang-ho is surprised to see her and she calls him Gwang-ho sunbae.
The episode was so engaging and good that loved every scene of the episode. I am happy that I chose to watch this feel-good drama. Loved how Young Woo always finds her way out of everything and the good support system she has, be it her dad or the attorney team she joined. Attorney Jung finally understood how important Young Woo could be to the team and he misjudged her. And I just loved the character of Jun-Ho and Ra-mi the most!
Tell me in the comments that you loved this drama and are you planning to continue watching it.
To read Extraordinary attorney woo other episodes click here!