Air Dates: Jan 31 - Mar 7 2024 - [completed]
Genres: Action, Crime, Romance
Main Tropes: Second chance romance, person with vital information gets it, detective team up
Synopsis: Kim Sa Ra (Lee Ji Ah) is a modern day Cinderella with a twist: her own mother is lovely, but her mother-in-law refuses to accept her. Sa Ra does her best to grin and bear it, especially for the sake of her son, but eventually can't take it anymore and makes a deal to improve the relationship; a deal that her mother-in-law never intended to keep. Framed, divorced, and sent to prison, Sa Ra is rescued by someone she helped in the past. But even with her new lease on life, and the return of the man she loved before her ex-husband, she has a lot of work to do to untangle everything that happened and get her son back.
Quick review: Is it just me, or are kdramas becoming more representative of the social reality in South Korea? I'm noticing vibe similarities with Marry My Husband (2024). Specifically? The men are pretty violent towards women, and no one seems to think much of it except the male lead. At times, it's been a bit difficult to watch (trigger warning - this drama has depictions of violent abuse, both physical and emotional). But the female lead is an interesting mix of formidable and wronged without falling into the Mary Sue character trope, so I want to see her get justice.
Episode recaps
01 & 02 (You are Here) - 03 & 04 - 05 & 06 - 07 & 08 - 09 & 10 - 11& 12
SPOILERS BELOW
Episode 01
Right off the bat, Kim Sa Ra (played by Lee Ji Ah) looks like she's the typical thriving Cinderella. She married the chaebol who loved her, No Yool Sung (played by Oh Min Suk), had the desired son, and even has an amazing career at the law firm run by her husband's family. We also see a friendly rivalry with a male colleague, but that is where the fairytale ends.
Sa Ra inspects preparations for a big celebration - her mother-in-laws birthday celebration. But she's shocked to find out that she was not allowed to sit with her family. She quickly asks the staff to set a place for her, and they do so but make it clear that they think it's a wasted action. Sure enough, once the dinner starts, the mother-in-law orders the staff to set the table again for just herself, her son, and her grandson.
Sa Ra accepts the insult and instead goes to find her own mother outside of the company who dotes on her and makes sure she is fed. This only fuels tensions when she arrives back home, and drives her mother-in-law to desperate actions. She distracts Sa Ra by promising her the director position and more respect at home if she takes on an impossible case (representing an abusive husband in a divorce to make sure his wife gets nothing).
Meanwhile, Dong Ki Joon (played by Kang Ki Young), an honest and upright prosecutor, happens to be investigating the same husband at the same time and finds a lot of bad evidence. Ki Joon, who somehow knows Sa Ra, gives her this information about her client at the same time she finds out that her mother-in-law tricked her. Sa Ra uses her conscience and decides to give this information to the wife of her client, which helps the wife win the case and get alimony. The wife is now super rich.
But the good deed doesn't matter; Sa Ra's mother-in-law's true plan succeeds. A scandal breaks on the news, and Sa Ra is part of it - without knowing. Her husband and mother-in-law tell her to take the fall for them and go to prison. She does, and then they use this as an excuse to divorce her. Sa Ra also loses custody rights to see her own son.
Things get even more intense as we find out that Sa Ra's husband had not only been cheating, but now he's planning to re-marry someone other than his affair partner. The affair partner is obviously angry and tries to crash the engagement party. Ki Joon the prosecutor somehow sees her there, and hears her shouting that she's the affair partner. The woman ends up dead. The investigating officers ruled it a suicide.
Ki Joon decides to start an investigation since he had seen her shouting. As the news breaks, Sa Ra's mother watches a video that her employee took by accident. The video shows Sa Ra's ex-husband, Yool Sung, asking someone to kill his affair partner. As we see the mother realise that something isn't right about her daughters ex-husband, Sa Ra receives an employment offer from the rich wife that she helped before.
Episode 02
Sa Ra initially rejects the offer of employment because it is not entirely legal. She doesn't want to risk her morals.
Meanwhile, Ki Joon calls Sa Ra's ex-husband in for questioning, but he refuses to go. He says that he will instead visit Ki Joon's superior. When he does, he offers the superior a job at his family's law firm and asks him to take care of Ki Joon's investigation. Not long after, Sa Ra's mother calls Ki Joon and says that she has evidence about the case, but wants help with her own daughter's situation. They arrange to meet in person.
Unfortunately, the mother arrives just as Sa Ra's ex-husband is leaving, and he suddenly clues in that something isn't right about her appearance. Yool Sung calls her to check his intuition. Because she acts nervous, he confirms his suspicions. He makes another call just before a strange man comes to collect the mother, lying that he will take her to see Ki Joon. Ki Joon arrives seconds later and is unsuccessful in finding her.
Suddenly, Sa Ra is notified in prison that she needs to prepare for a funeral - her mother's. The official report labels it a suicide, and she has no ability to suspect otherwise. The ex-husband attends and acts like they are still married. When she is not having any of it, he disparages her for having grief and being difficult before walking away. We see montages of Sa Ra fighting and training to fight in prison.
Someone sets up Ki Joon to look bad by forcing a witness/suspect to jump out a window. The public blames Ki Joon for using coercion and intimidation while interrogating people. The superior does nothing to stop the negative press. Ki Joon finds a unique way to show the press that his superior set him up to look bad, but is fired for taking that action.
Sa Ra, meanwhile, got out of prison and changed her mind. She accepts the job after all and two years pass by. Sa Ra cannot practice law because she had gone to jail, but she helps her clients in other ways - investigations, finding the truth, and giving them data that other lawyers try to hide. One day, one woman approaches their service for help with divorcing her famous news anchor husband. The news anchor, though, was outed for assaulting a woman.
In the middle of their consultation, the woman gets a call from her daughter. Kids at school have been bullying her because of this news and she feels hopeless. They arrive in time to save the daughters life, showing us the heroics, bravery, and preparation of Sa Ra's team. Sa Ra decides to take the woman's case.
Meanwhile, Yool Sung marries again. His new wife is the daughter of a politician who promised to help them change a law so they could build a new school. This is why he married her - to convince this politician to help them. He gives a status report to his mother that things are going well.
Sa Ra's boss tells her that she wants to recruit Ki Joon as their legal representative. Sa Ra is hesitant, and we learn that it's because she has deep history with Ki Joon. The day before her wedding, she ran away and went to see him. They planned to run away together, but she changed her mind last minute and got married. She asks him to decline the job offer. He accepts instead.
My TMI for this recap:
Ahhh I haven't written summaries in forever, and it's always so hard to decide what to include - I have a bad habit of being too wordy. As I keep writing about different kdramas, I'm sure it'll get more concise. Practice makes perfect, or so they say.
I really enjoyed reflecting on the kdrama details, too. It helped me process what's going on a little better. For instance, and for some reason, I didn't think they stressed how important Sa Ra's relationship was with her kiddo. But...they actually did.
Sa Ra doesn't express herself well and compartmentalizes a lot of things for later (kind of like an avoidant attachment), so it makes sense that we wouldn't see extreme displays of grief about her losses. She does cry...at intense moments. Yes. But she doesn't carry on the way we usually see grief. Instead, she finds something else to focus on and then comes back to the issue later.
But for some reason, my brain didn't see that as evidence that she cared a lot. So thinking about the events again helped me realise that she did, but that she just expresses it differently. In other words...writing this out helped me connect with the main character a little better.
If you're also watching this drama, let me know what you think over on X (Twitter)!