oppa_

I get what you’re saying about being objective and not reducing the story to a surface reading. That’s a fair point.
But at the same time, I’m watching this as a viewer, not as a critic dissecting themes. My reaction is emotional and psychological. That’s just how most people experience a drama. We pick sides, we look for someone to root for, we connect or disconnect based on our own values.
For me personally, I just can’t bring myself to like these so-called “warrior lawyers.” And obviously I’m not going to sympathize with the criminals either. So I end up stuck in this space where there’s no one I actually feel invested in.
Cheating/affair plots are something I generally avoid because they frustrate me more than they engage me. That’s just my taste. I’ve even skipped hugely praised shows built around that theme. I only started this drama because Lee Chung-ah was in it and I was excited to see her play a hero for female victims.
So yeah — I understand the thematic arguments, the ambiguity, the realism, all of that. But emotionally? I was disappointed.
And I think that’s a valid viewer response too.

was Jun Gyeong an evil person
who kicked denial out of her boyfriend life because kid doesnt liked her ?

Calling other people insecure doesn’t magically make you secure.

If anything, that kind of response usually signals the opposite. When someone disagrees with you and your first instinct is to reduce their argument to “LMAO brain” or “zero substance,” that’s not intellectual superiority — that’s avoidance.

You accuse others of lacking depth while positioning yourself as the only one capable of “critical thinking.” That’s not analysis. That’s ego. Declaring your opinion as inherently superior doesn’t strengthen it — it just makes you look defensive.

And let’s be honest: announcing that this is the “last bit of attention” you’re donating while writing a dramatic exit line about “enjoy the void” isn’t disengagement. It’s performance. If you truly believed the other side had nothing of value, you wouldn’t need a monologue to exit.

You can disagree without trying to belittle people.
You can defend your interpretation without insulting others’ intelligence.
And you can stand by your argument without pretending everyone else is beneath you.

Confidence doesn’t need theatrics.
Substance doesn’t need condescension.

If the intention was truly to frame her as someone caught in coercion or blurred consent, then the drama completely failed in execution.

Because her actions after the encounter don’t reflect someone who feels violated, manipulated, or psychologically pressured.

If she felt coerced, confused, or emotionally destabilized, the logical narrative direction would have been:

Distance from him.

Fear or anger toward him.

Internal conflict about what happened.

Questioning his intentions.

Or even defending him publicly as misunderstood if she believed he wasn’t capable of harm.

Instead, what do we see?

She goes back to his house the very next night. Late. Knowing he’s there. Knowing what already happened.

That is not someone trying to escape coercion.
That is someone continuing involvement.

You can’t frame the first encounter as “ambiguous coercion” and then ignore the fact that she voluntarily revisits him at the same late hour. That decision removes the ambiguity. If she truly felt pressured, uncomfortable, or manipulated, why return?

And more importantly — when he dies, she does :-

She tampers with evidence.
She lies.
She hides.
She obstructs justice.


because exposure would reveal her affair.

That motivation matters.

If she was written as someone psychologically entangled or emotionally manipulated, the drama needed to explore that explicitly. Instead, it shows calculated damage control. That doesn’t read as trauma — it reads as self-preservation.

And here’s the bigger issue: when defenders of the show try to soften her choices by reframing them as coercion, it starts sounding like retroactive justification. The script never commits to that interpretation. It leaves enough room to generate sympathy while still showing her repeatedly choosing secrecy.

You can’t have it both ways.

If she is a warrior fighting predators, then she must be held to basic ethical consistency.
If she is so psychologically unstable that she cannot distinguish coercion from desire, then she shouldn’t be portrayed as a moral authority leading cases.

Going back the next night eliminates the “moment of weakness” defense.
It shows continuity.
It shows intent.
It shows willingness.

And when everything spirals — the body, the evidence tampering, the lies — it all traces back to that choice.

So no, focusing on that isn’t ignoring systemic violence.
It’s questioning the integrity of the protagonist the show asks us to root for.

If the drama wanted viewers to focus primarily on institutional abuse, then it shouldn’t have built its central conflict around a voluntary affair that triggers obstruction of justice.

Viewers are not wrong for responding to what the character repeatedly chooses to do.

Moral complexity is fine.
But repeated, deliberate decisions carry weight.
And going back the next night carries a lot of it.

I strongly disagree with your framing — not because the issues you raise about violence and victimhood are unimportant, but because you are misplacing responsibility for the audience’s reaction.

First, no one is defending pedophiles. No one is saying sexual predators are not criminals. That is not the debate. The reason people are focusing on cheating is not because they rank it above abuse in moral severity — it’s because the drama itself places cheating at the center of its turning points.

If the core theme truly was systemic violence and trauma, then the narrative weight should have stayed there. Instead, the affair directly drives the plot:

She revisits her ex at night.

She discovers his dead body.

She steals crucial evidence.

She tampers with a crime scene.

She lies repeatedly.

She risks sabotaging legal cases.

She endangers justice — all to hide her affair.

That is not a side detail. That is structural. When the protagonist’s personal betrayal becomes the engine that drives obstruction of justice, viewers are naturally going to focus on it. That is not “selective outrage.” That is responding to what the script prioritizes.

If audiences are talking more about cheating than the legal cases, that is on the director. You cannot blame viewers for reacting to what the drama chooses to emphasize. If the cheating arc consumes more screen time, more suspense, and more consequence than the courtroom battles, then of course it will dominate discussion.

You ask whether a character’s moral failure invalidates a thematic argument. No — but when that moral failure actively undermines the very justice she claims to fight for, it absolutely damages the credibility of the theme.

You say trauma produces survivors, not saints. Fine. No one is demanding a moral saint. But there is a difference between being flawed and actively obstructing justice to protect your own secret. Evidence tampering is not “messy humanity.” It is criminal. When lawyers fighting abuse manipulate crime scenes and face no meaningful consequences, the narrative collapses under its own hypocrisy.

You call it realism. But realism doesn’t mean bending logic so the protagonists win anyway. Realism would require consequences. Instead, the drama shields them. They win cases while committing crimes. That isn’t moral complexity — it’s narrative favoritism.

And the “ambiguity” argument about the encounter? That reads like justification. She says no, then returns the next night willingly. If coercion was the intended theme, the writing should have committed to that. Instead, the show leaves it vague, then continues the affair secrecy plotline. Viewers are not wrong for reading that as cheating rather than victimization.

You also argue that criticizing her affair ignores systemic violence. It doesn’t. The problem is that the show itself blurs the line between fighting evil and becoming morally indistinguishable from it. If you fight predators but manipulate evidence, lie, and protect criminals to save your reputation, then you are not morally elevated. You are compromised.

Calling the audience “intellectually lazy” for noticing that is unfair. Viewers are reacting to narrative inconsistency.

The husband is a victim of betrayal. The abuse victims are victims of violence. These are not competing tragedies. But when the protagonist repeatedly prioritizes hiding her affair over pursuing justice, she shifts the moral focus herself. That is not the audience choosing “safer anger.” That is the script making her personal scandal the catalyst for everything.

If the director wanted the outrage hierarchy to look different, the storytelling needed to reflect that. When cheating leads to crime scene tampering and obstruction of justice — and those actions are softened or excused — viewers will question the integrity of the characters.

That is not demanding a “perfect victim.”
That is demanding narrative accountability.

And if the show portrays its heroines as entitled professionals playing at moral superiority while committing crimes in their comfort zones, then criticism is not misogyny or moral purity policing. It is a reaction to hypocrisy.

You can defend the thematic intention.
But you cannot blame the audience for reacting to what the drama actually shows.

**“Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed breakdown. I completely agree — the ending was disappointing. The king’s abdication felt pointless, almost like it only existed to shift power toward the male lead.
I’m also confused about how the male lead could realistically return to the female lead, since she’s still socially known as Im Sang-hyeol’s ‘mother.’ The drama never properly resolves that issue.”**

Can you please spoil it for me...

Not everyone support evils

I will watch it if they sent him to jail and raise my rating .

It's 16 ep drama there might be in ep 11-12

I honestly couldn’t buy that scene at all. The whole “let’s feed her” thing just felt so off to me. Yes, she was a child back then, but she’s still the daughter of the man who brutally attacked his father and then framed him. That’s not some small mistake or misunderstanding — those were serious, life-ruining crimes.
Because of that, the family’s sudden kindness didn’t feel moving or mature, just unrealistic. I get that she came to apologise, but forgiveness like that needs time, tension, awkwardness… something. Instead, everyone just seemed weirdly okay with everything, like the past barely mattered.
And the way the scene was shot didn’t help either. ML and FL sitting there eating, and he doesn’t even properly introduce her? The parents left guessing if she’s his girlfriend? It just felt awkward.
Also, the father sitting on his knees gave the whole thing a strange vibe — it didn’t read as emotional to me, just uncomfortable.
Then there’s the contrast with his wife having to practically beg him to visit his parents. The character dynamics felt inconsistent and messy.
For me, it wasn’t heartwarming — it was jarring.

Yes 🤣🤣

You’re honestly lucky you didn’t finish Game of Thrones 😅 it saves you a lot of frustration.

And maybe we just see Se-hee differently.

In his previous life, he wasn’t some innocent victim either. It was a business marriage. They were never in love, never emotionally committed, and loyalty wasn’t the foundation of that relationship. He got financial and political advantage, she got a judge husband who obeyed her father. Calling it “betrayal” like it was some tragic love story feels exaggerated to me. It was transactional from the start.

She was clearly used by her father in her first life. And in the second life? According to the male lead himself, she was again positioned as a pawn to secure a judge son-in-law — without her consent. The pattern didn’t change. She was still being used.

Yes, in the new life he tried to understand her more. At first, the way he used his past knowledge about her felt almost cute — like he was trying to do better. But for me, it crossed a line when he knowingly let her fall for him while emotionally keeping his distance. That’s where he stopped being romantic and started feeling manipulative.

What bothers me most is this: he knew she was being used in both lives. He had knowledge, power, and foresight. He could have actively protected her from her father’s manipulation. But he didn’t. He let the situation unfold while positioning himself strategically.

And the ending almost suggests he and Jin-ah might have some sort of casual fling now, which makes everything feel even more detached emotionally.

He used the male prosecutor, then basically stole his crush without any empathy. He treats people like chess pieces because he has information others don’t. Every relationship he builds feels calculated.

In the end, I don’t see much difference between him and Kang Shin Jin. Both manipulate situations for their own version of “justice.” Both prioritize personal goals above emotional honesty. The only difference is that one didn’t get caught.

That’s why I can’t see him as a hero

Just started using chatgpt to frame my opinion in English well
As English was never my first language
Very easy to understand if you just remove your Vile glasses

Director might have done that intentionally — to show that he’s hesitant to get near her, or emotionally guarded for a reason. Maybe he knew her for all 10 years but kept his distance on purpose.

But if that was the intention, then I blame the director and the actor for not portraying it honestly. You can’t convince me that a man who was married to her for a decade can suddenly act like a complete stranger and never slip once — not a moment of warmth, not a mistake, not even a subconscious pull toward her. That doesn’t feel restrained; it feels robotic. Like he has no real emotions.

And when the male lead feels emotionally hollow, even the “justice” angle or noble actions don’t land — they just feel empty.

As for Stranger Things, I actually stopped after Season 3. Once Stranger Things shifted tone and Millie Bobby Brown grew up, her character didn’t feel the same to me. She was honestly the main reason I was watching in the first place.

But my biggest drama disappointment of all time? The ending of Game of Thrones. Forcing a cripple onto the throne that belonged to MY QUEEN — Daenerys Targaryen Stormborn — will never sit right with me.

Well my rating was reflection of how annoying and disappointed I feel when in last ep FL replace Se hee and went to eat at his place,
That anger me

They give so much time to his wife character and then kick her out to put fl in at last ep like that was most disappointing

I feel disappointed when they destroyed the chemistry between male lead and his wife see hee to forcefully fit FL into it at end of drama

Why that matter more then the topic itself ?
English is not everyone's first language

after enjoying the show they might go on a search for finding either male lead or female lead kind of people depend on there preference but ending up with either of them will surely will put them in abusive relationship...