The Judge Returns: Episode 1 (First Impressions)
by missvictrix
Did someone say Ji Sung? Because that’s why I tuned in. In recent years, I’ve come to expect two things from his projects: complex writing and a riveting performance. And we’ve got just that with the opening episode of The Judge Returns.
EPISODE 1
We open with a flash-forward where a desperate-looking LEE HAN-YOUNG (Ji Sung) makes his way through a slummy back alley only to be brutally knifed in the neck. It’s clearly a hit job — a man stands nearby to watch — and it’s worth noting that our hero is in prison garb too. But the most important part here (*stores info for later*) is that as he takes his dying breath, he’s regretful. “I can’t die like this. I finally want to live as the real Lee Han-young.”
We fade to black, and when we’re back, it’s 2035. Yikes! Things look vaguely more modern, everyone has fully see-through glass phones (#why), and the corruption in the court, big law firms, and chaebol corporations is as bad as ever. Maybe worse?
When we re-meet Han-young, he is on a morning run through Seoul, except there’s nothing ritualistic or pleasant about it. He looks more like he’s running from something — and as we’ll come to learn, that something is the man he used to be and the one he has become in the last ten years. After marrying into the powerful Haenal law firm, he’s become known as “the son-in-law lap dog.” He might be a judge, but “justice” isn’t really a part of the game — he just decides cases in the favor of corruption and power. And money.
At first, it doesn’t seem to bother Han-young much. He takes bribes, cooks cases, and even goes against his father-in-law’s (Ahn Nae-sang, why so evil) instructions to make some extra bang for his buck. When he allows a terrible chemical company to pay him off and get off scot free while their workers die of leukemia, even the rep during the backroom deal asks, “Is this really appropriate for a judge?” Han-young essentially answers that it’s because he’s a judge that he can do it. He’s meant to turn our stomachs, and he does. *callously lets Lady Justice figurine fall to the ground*
Slowly, though, Han-young starts to reach his breaking point. It happens gradually over the first episode, which is essentially setup for his character escaping from the stranglehold life he’s been in. And this is where Ji Sung comes in with the brilliant performance (already!). Behind the bravado of the flashy suits and black sunglasses, we see a Han-young who is at war within himself, and Ji Sung plays it perfectly with these uncomfortable micro-movements that make it feel like even though the surface is calm, something is about to boil over.
The chemical company case, and his ghastly decision to let them off the hook (instead of downplay the case and minimally punish), was the first straw. His mother’s reaction to the case is the second. She lives quite poorly, and even though Show doesn’t let her survive long (you gotta know it’s coming once you see the inhaler), she’s immediately the moral center for the story. Her single scene with Han-young is fantastic, and we get so much insight on who their family was, how they once lived, and how Han-young turned away from that path in favor of money and power.
The third straw, and the one that’s been lurking in Han-young’s mind for years, is his father. His father was involved in a protest many years ago, while Han-young (already joining the dark side, I see) was on the side of the brute force with baseball bats who came to break it up. Well, Dad got attacked — all while young Han-young was watching — and now he has a severe brain injury. Present day, his father’s posh nursing home is paid for by Han-young’s in-laws.
It’s squarely Han-young’s story here, but we have some other important players introduced in our first episode. The dripping-with-gravitas Park Hee-soon plays a chief justice who’s mixed up in all the high-level corruption and looks to be the big bad (unconfirmed as of yet). There are a bunch of other corrupt judges and lawyers, too, but the beacons of un-corruption are PROSECUTOR KIM JIN-AH (Won Jin-ah) and PROSECUTOR KANG JAE-JIN (Kim Dong-joon).
These two are kinda cookie cutter right now, but their roles have potential. Jin-ah is ferociously chasing down the highly-corrupt S Group in her sassy trench coat and wire-rimmed glasses, and Jae-jin is rocking the three-piece suit and doing deep research. Let’s hope they both get more to do than try to intimidate and outsmart chairmen in future episodes (not because it’s not done well, but because it’s not different from any other legal drama setup yet, and I want more).
The prosecutors’ road converges with Han-young’s when he’s given the case for S Group. And when I say “given,” it’s more like “force-fed.” A bunch of calls between higher-ups are made, and Han-young’s barely had time to mourn for his mother (RIP) when he’s transferred to the criminal court so the S Group case can oh-so-coincidentally land on his desk. And not only that, but his father-in-law has already planned out the final verdict that Han-young is supposed to deliver.
At this point, we see Han-young really starting to question WTH he is doing with his life — and his mother’s words about him being “an upright judge, fair under heaven” have been ringing in his ears. Suddenly, we see him submit his resignation. Then he tells his father-in-law he wants out. And he wants a divorce. Yet all this is not enough to get him unentangled! He’s forced/pressured/coerced into seeing the S Group case to the end, and in legal drama fashion we skip quite quickly to the final trial where the verdict is expected.
Han-young is late into court, and the tension is brimming. Of course, the court is awaiting his sentencing — the chairman expecting to run free after his scapegoat took the heat, and our prosecutors looking tense but hopeful. It’s actually Han-young himself who’s sweating the most. We’ve seen him coldly deliver a truly galling verdict before… is he going to do it again? Han-young looks like he’s about to explode, but again, the beauty of this performance is that it’s all under the surface. In a truly epic moment, he delivers the chairman a sentence more severe than the prosecution had requested — and then resumes quietly freaking out behind the bench.
His victory (if we can call it that), seems short-lived, though. The next scene is a total flip (and a jump into the future, presumably), where Han-young himself is the defendant in court, and he’s the one screaming and carrying on that he’s not guilty. Omona!
There’s so much more to come for this story, since this episode seemed to serve as the backdrop for Han-young and the obstacles he’s up against in the plot to come. Also, I was promised a time-slip, so we’ll have to wait for more episodes (lezgo, Episode 2!) to see how that comes into play. Whatever legal mess Han-young’s found himself in, he’s definitely going to be up against it. But now that he truly wants to return to being upright and honorable, he’s gonna make it, right?
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