Phantom Lawyer: Episodes 3-4
by lovepark
A new week means a new ghost for our phantom lawyer, and this time it is a teenage girl with a love for dance. With only a facial composite as a clue to find her identity, our hero must uncover who killed her and why. Of course, being a lawyer for ghosts comes with its own type of work hazards, but the rewards seem worth the risk at the end of the day.
EPISODES 3-4
Yi-rang’s win last week marked Na-hyun’s first loss, and as a result, Do-kyeong demotes her to a backroom office. It feels like a harsh punishment but keeps in line with Taebaek Law Firm’s cutthroat atmosphere where even father and son fight for power. In contrast, Yi-rang’s family is completely supportive of his endeavors, and the newest member to learn of his otherworldly powers is Bong-su. Despite his fear of ghosts, Bong-su agrees to help out Yi-rang on behalf of his mother-in-law, resulting in the unlikely trio of Kyeong-hwa, Bong-su, and the priest.
As for the ghost of the week, Yi-rang meets a dancing teen who we later learn is named KIM SU-AH (Oh Ye-ju). Unlike his first outing with Gang-pung, Yi-rang is much more adaptive to his ghostly companion and takes the possessions in stride. Even if that means he dances to Ive’s “Love Dive” and loses a potential client or fights with his niece YOON DA-BONG (Lee Ah-rin) at the dinner table, Yi-rang seems to have accepted his role as phantom lawyer and even draws up a contract highlighting duties and expectations.
Thanks to a rerun on TV, Yi-rang learns that Su-ah was an idol trainee going by the name Loanne. She was on course to debut with the survival program but dropped out for personal reasons. She then committed suicide by jumping off the agency’s roof, and the other trainees remember her as talented but difficult. As her memories return, Su-ah tells Yi-rang that she did not kill herself; someone pushed her that night.
When Su-ah was little, her young single mom left her at her grandma’s house where she grew up without a lot of material comforts but plenty of love. As a child, she always loved dancing, and later, got the chance to train as an idol. While pursuing her dreams, Su-ah worked multiple part-time jobs, so seeing others not give the same level of commitment made her mad. Then, right at the cusp of her debut, her groupmates backstabbed her by threatening to quit unless she did, and the agency sided with them over her.
Up to this point in the story, it seems there were plenty of reasons for Su-ah to give up, but our plucky teenage ghost tells Yi-rang that it was the opposite. She actually felt happy because her mom called that night for the first time in years and wanted to meet. However, she died right after, and unfortunately, it was too dark to see the assailant’s face. She did, though, hear an unfamiliar ringtone and lost her phone, as well.
While Su-ah’s testimony reveals foul play, ghosts can’t exactly show up in court, so Yi-rang sets out to find concrete evidence. Su-ah suggests asking her friend Emma for help, but the agency is empty by the time Yi-rang arrives. The only people still there are getting lessons from vocal trainer and songwriter Ko Jeong-seok who also happens to be Su-ah’s crush. Seeing the teen act nervous, Yi-rang realizes the implications and tries to run away, but his escape comes a step too late. Jeong-seok asks how he got inside, and Yi-rang turns around like a blushing schoolgirl and calls himself Loanne.
As security arrives to drag Yi-rang away, Jeong-seok’s phone rings, and Su-ah turns around in shock. She recognizes it from the night she died and chases after her vocal trainer to get an explanation. Meanwhile, Na-hyun’s newest client is Su-ah’s entertainment agency, and she notices some peculiarities in their files. She arrives at the agency to question Jeong-seok right as Yi-rang/Su-ah runs after him and watches in horror as the other attorney steps into oncoming traffic. Suddenly, memories of her older sister’s death play in her head, and on instinct, Na-hyun reacts, pushing Yi-rang to safety just as her sister did for her that fateful day.
At the same time, Kyeong-hwa and the priest bump into each other while snooping around Yi-rang’s empty office. They both want to solve his unusual predicament, and while he thinks it could be related to the incense Yi-rang burned, Kyeong-hwa is worried she inadvertently cursed her child. Back when her husband died in a mysterious car accident and was found to have taken drugs as well as bribes, she came to this very place to seek help from the shaman and got a talisman. Though the priest cannot refute her theory, he does reassure her that Yi-rang is not alone and that his presence has a positive influence on everyone around him, the dead as well as the living.
Now that Yi-rang has a suspect, he and Su-ah infiltrate the songwriter’s home to find her missing phone. However, when they overhear Jeong-seok singing a new song, Su-ah freezes since this is her work. It’s becoming more and more obvious that Jeong-seok is the culprit, but then he gets on the phone and yells at his partner that someone else knows about Su-ah’s songs. Putting the pieces together, Su-ah guesses that her other teammate Abel must be the traitor which means her best friend Emma is in danger.
Also investigating Su-ah’s supposed suicide, Na-hyun drops by to question Jeong-seok about the plagiarism accusations as well as his whereabouts the night she died. The songwriter huffs angrily before leaving, and Yi-rang takes this as his cue to slink out, too. Unfortunately, his eye-catching truck gives him away, and Na-hyun waits for him just around the corner. She threatens to report him for trespassing unless he can explain himself, and Yi-rang agrees to reveal everything if she helps him with this case. They settle on a tentative partnership and split up to save the other girls from Jeong-seok.
Borrowing Na-hyun’s car, Yi-rang arrives at the meeting spot first to warn Emma, but not long after, Jeong-seok appears. In order to protect Emma, Yi-rang hands her a taser, but as soon as his back is turned, she uses the weapon on him. The real killer was Emma this entire time, but just as the criminals whip out Su-ah’s phone, Yi-rang pops up and swipes the evidence from them.
Rewinding the clock a couple of minutes back, Yi-rang asked Na-hyun for the results of the survival program and learned that Emma was right at the cutoff for debuting. While it might be hard for Su-ah to believe, Yi-rang has enough wisdom to know that the culprit is usually the person who benefits the most from the deed, and in this case, that person was Emma. Thus, he gave her a taser without batteries, and as expected, she revealed her true colors.
Realizing that they’ve been caught, Jeong-seok tries to run, but Yi-rang predicted this as well. Before the songwriter can get far, Bong-su pulls up and uses his acting abilities to “arrest” the criminal (he gets the Miranda warning jumbled, but his heart is in the right place). Meanwhile, Yi-rang chases after Emma who runs into a dead end, and Su-ah pleads with him to ask her why she betrayed her friend. Though Yi-rang thinks it’s a bad idea, he complies with Su-ah’s wishes, and Emma scoffs at the question.
She sneers that she was never friends with Su-ah since she thought the latter displayed her poverty shamelessly. However, for some unknown reason, everyone seemed to flock to Su-ah, and Emma became jealous of how “easily” the newbie rose up the ranks. Thus, she got Su-ah kicked off the show and stole her songs all in the hopes of seeing her suffer. Alas, even after all that, Su-ah kept smiling, and in a fit of envy, Emma pushed her off the roof. Unfortunately, Jeong-seok happened to witness it, but Emma threatened to blame him for the murder and turned him into an accomplice.
Overcome with emotions, Su-ah takes over Yi-rang’s body and confronts her ex-friend. She tells her that she wanted them to debut together, but Emma calls him crazy and pushes Yi-rang to the ground. She then grabs a rock to hit him, but Na-hyun makes another heroic entrance and saves our ghost-possessed attorney. The two culprits are arrested (by real officers this time), and the case is closed… or at least that’s what I would have liked. Instead, the show spends the rest of the episode on Su-ah’s second plot thread: the runaway mom.
One quick ghost haunting later and we learn that Su-ah’s mom never wanted to abandon her daughter but had to for her sake. Eighteen years ago, she was diagnosed with a disease that would leave her blind, and she contacted Su-ah because she only had a month before completely losing her eyesight. Feeling bad for her mom, Su-ah asks Yi-rang for one more favor, and she gets her corneas donated to her. As her mom regains her eyesight, she reunites with Grandma who tells her to live a full life for her daughter’s sake.
I have so many issues with this storyline because, on a personal level, it gives me the ick. First of all, I think donations are great, and if possible, everyone should sign up to be a donor. However, I find it creepy that Su-ah is “returning” her sight to her mom as if parents have some sort of birthright to their children’s body. Also, I hate how the show tries to absolve the mom of abandoning a toddler because she was sick when she could have just lived with them from the start. I don’t understand how going away helped Su-ah or Grandma since she was clearly able to provide for herself during those years apart. Couldn’t they have just been a two-income household? It’s not like Grandma’s apartment was too tiny to accommodate them both. It feels like lazy writing, and the implications afterwards regarding filial piety leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Rant aside, we get another beautiful parting scene with Su-ah turning into golden musical notes, and I love the running gag where everyone looks in the wrong direction when addressing the ghosts. We also get to see a bit of Na-hyun who learns about Yi-rang’s ghost-seeing powers and promptly tells him to stop. While Su-ah’s case was not a direct loss, it still hurt her client, and Na-hyun’s uncharacteristic decisions stem from her unresolved past. Like Su-ah, Na-hyun wanted to pursue music, but when her sister died, she gave up her own dreams to live out her sister’s.
In order to compensate for her recent actions, Na-hyun proposes to handle a troublesome case for the firm as a thank you gift to the chairman. It involves a husband who was brutally murdered by his wife, and coincidentally, that same husband appears in Yi-rang’s office. However, unlike his previous two clients, Yi-rang is ready for this ghost and greets him as his attorney.
Though I had my issues with the secondary plot of this week’s case, I actually enjoyed the overall mystery and its conclusion more than last week’s. Su-ah was an interesting character with flaws and regrets that felt age-appropriate, and I liked how Yi-rang helped solve her troubles as well as her murder. He is getting more comfortable with the dead, and as a result, the show is able to highlight his flexibility and understanding towards them. It’s clear from his performance that Yoo Yeon-seok is having fun with the character, and I love the energy he brings to a scene as both the tenderhearted Yi-rang and the multifaceted ghosts who possess him. While the writing in terms of plot still remains the weakest link, the characters are absolute gems, and the actors carry this show on their backs. As long as they stay their adorable selves, I’m happy to stick around and watch whatever shenanigans our phantom lawyer gets into next.
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