People focusing just on the cheating arc are crazy here, there sexual trafficking going on and all they care about…
You’re acting like people are crazy just because they’re reacting to a different part of the story than you are. Not everyone consumes a show the same way. Some focus on the crime plot, some focus on the relationship dynamics. That doesn’t make them immoral, jobless, or “incels.” It just means they’re engaging with what stood out to them. You’re asking people to focus on what you think is more important, but then you insult and judge them for not doing so. That’s a bit ironic. Everyone has the right to like or dislike whatever aspect they want. If someone finds the cheating arc more disturbing or more relevant to them personally, that’s valid. Fiction hits people differently. Also, calling people “jobless” or saying they have “undeveloped frontal cortex” just weakens your argument. You don’t know who’s on the other side of the screen. For all you know, they could be working professionals, students, or just casual viewers sharing an opinion. Disagreeing with you doesn’t make them trolls. You’re absolutely right that serious crimes like trafficking and attempted murder are huge issues and deserve attention. But moral betrayal in relationships is also something people care about because it connects to real-life experiences. Both discussions can exist at the same time. If you want people to engage with your point, try debating it without attacking their character. Once you start insulting everyone who disagrees, it stops being a discussion and just becomes noise.
Apologies. I'm a little bit confused on the wording here. What's the question?
Thanks for explaining that — I appreciate it. After reading the episode summaries before, it honestly sounded very different to me. It felt like the father was already living with his son, and the FL just came in and disrupted their life together. And when she questioned his DNA just because he didn’t like her, that really annoyed me.
But knowing now that he wasn’t actually living with his dad and was only visiting changes the whole perspective. In that case, it makes more sense that he was the one stepping into his father’s established relationship and struggling with it, rather than her interfering in an existing father-son dynamic.
With that context, I’d be more willing to give the show a fair chance and watch it properly.
If you’re engaging to genuinely understand and discuss, you’ll notice that most of what you’re arguing against…
You’re asking viewers to separate personal immorality from professional credibility, but the narrative itself doesn’t separate them. That’s the core issue.
This isn’t just “I dislike cheating.” The entire story hinges on her actions — and those actions are not primarily about fighting systemic evil or defending her client. They’re about protecting herself.
When she tampers with evidence that could help her own client — not to serve justice, not to dismantle corruption, but to hide her affair — the personal betrayal stops being a side flaw. It becomes a professional breach.
At that point, cheating is no longer a private moral failure. It directly affects the case, the stakes, and the supposed thematic focus.
So how exactly is a viewer supposed to separate her personal life from her professional life when the narrative merges them?
You argue that focusing on cheating is reductive. But here, cheating isn’t a detached moral incident. It motivates evidence tampering. It compromises legal ethics. It endangers a client. It weakens the supposed fight against larger systemic evil.
That’s not reduction. That’s causation.
You say the story is about systemic violence. Fine. But she isn’t consistently shown prioritizing that fight. She prioritizes self-preservation. She prioritizes hiding the affair. She compromises her client to protect herself.
So the question becomes: if she’s comfortable betraying someone she has lived with for years — her husband — why is it unreasonable for viewers to question whether she’d betray a client she’s known for a month?
Trust is cumulative. Betrayal patterns matter.
You’re framing audience discomfort as moral simplification. But for many viewers, the issue isn’t “cheating is wrong.” It’s this:
If a character shows willingness to violate trust in one core area of life, especially without sufficient remorse or consequence, that inevitably affects how we evaluate their reliability in other areas.
And when she literally goes to investigate a case and ends up sleeping with a person connected to it, that’s not ambiguity. That’s a collapse of professional boundaries.
At that point, the audience isn’t shrinking the narrative to cheating.
The narrative itself made cheating structurally relevant.
You can’t ask viewers to treat infidelity as morally separate when the script uses that infidelity to drive legal misconduct. Once she tampers with evidence to conceal her affair, the personal and professional are fused.
And if the show wants us to see her as morally complex but still fundamentally committed to justice, then her actions need to reflect that commitment more strongly than her self-preservation.
Otherwise, the thematic argument about systemic evil weakens — because the protagonist herself becomes ethically indistinguishable from the corruption she’s supposedly navigating.
This isn’t about wanting comfort. It’s about internal consistency.
If betrayal defines her private life and directly contaminates her professional actions, viewers questioning her credibility isn’t reductive.
I totally disagree!! what you want to say is that these things don't happen? women in workplace are mostly underestimated…
The only one worn out here is you — arguing against things I never even said.
At what point did I say workplace harassment doesn’t exist? Or corruption? Or domestic violence? Please quote me. You’re putting words in my mouth and then debating those imaginary arguments.
My point was simple: this specific character in this specific show did not experience those things as justification for her actions. That’s not denying reality — that’s discussing what was actually written.
You can’t excuse cheating with random social issues the character never faced. “Women are underpaid” — okay, but was she? No. “Domestic violence exists” — yes, but did her husband abuse her? No. “Workplace harassment exists” — sure, but was that shown as her motive? No.
The drama shows a wife who is loved, supported, and pampered — and she still chooses to cheat. That’s a character decision. Not systemic oppression. Not trauma. A decision.
And yes, regret is possible. I never said cheaters can’t regret. But regret is shown through actions, not just dialogue. If you cheat one night and then go back to your ex the very next day, that’s not accountability — that’s continuation.
And the bigger issue: she tampers with a crime scene and steals evidence to hide her affair — actively sabotaging her own client. That’s not “defending victims.” That’s harming them.
Would you hire a lawyer who destroyed evidence that could prove you innocent just to cover up their own affair?
And let me be clear — I respect women a lot. That’s exactly why I’m disappointed in this portrayal. So many dramas repeatedly write women as morally flawed while the male characters are treated like they’re holier than saints. That imbalance is frustrating.
This isn’t prejudice against women. It’s criticism of a badly written character and a double standard in storytelling.
Disagree if you want — just don’t invent arguments I never made.
If you’re engaging to genuinely understand and discuss, you’ll notice that most of what you’re arguing against…
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.
I get it, critical thinking feels like a 'word salad' when you’re used to a mental diet of 'LMAO.' Projecting…
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.”**
MDL ?
You’re asking people to focus on what you think is more important, but then you insult and judge them for not doing so. That’s a bit ironic. Everyone has the right to like or dislike whatever aspect they want. If someone finds the cheating arc more disturbing or more relevant to them personally, that’s valid. Fiction hits people differently.
Also, calling people “jobless” or saying they have “undeveloped frontal cortex” just weakens your argument. You don’t know who’s on the other side of the screen. For all you know, they could be working professionals, students, or just casual viewers sharing an opinion. Disagreeing with you doesn’t make them trolls.
You’re absolutely right that serious crimes like trafficking and attempted murder are huge issues and deserve attention. But moral betrayal in relationships is also something people care about because it connects to real-life experiences. Both discussions can exist at the same time.
If you want people to engage with your point, try debating it without attacking their character. Once you start insulting everyone who disagrees, it stops being a discussion and just becomes noise.
But knowing now that he wasn’t actually living with his dad and was only visiting changes the whole perspective. In that case, it makes more sense that he was the one stepping into his father’s established relationship and struggling with it, rather than her interfering in an existing father-son dynamic.
With that context, I’d be more willing to give the show a fair chance and watch it properly.
This isn’t just “I dislike cheating.”
The entire story hinges on her actions — and those actions are not primarily about fighting systemic evil or defending her client. They’re about protecting herself.
When she tampers with evidence that could help her own client — not to serve justice, not to dismantle corruption, but to hide her affair — the personal betrayal stops being a side flaw. It becomes a professional breach.
At that point, cheating is no longer a private moral failure. It directly affects the case, the stakes, and the supposed thematic focus.
So how exactly is a viewer supposed to separate her personal life from her professional life when the narrative merges them?
You argue that focusing on cheating is reductive. But here, cheating isn’t a detached moral incident. It motivates evidence tampering. It compromises legal ethics. It endangers a client. It weakens the supposed fight against larger systemic evil.
That’s not reduction. That’s causation.
You say the story is about systemic violence. Fine. But she isn’t consistently shown prioritizing that fight. She prioritizes self-preservation. She prioritizes hiding the affair. She compromises her client to protect herself.
So the question becomes: if she’s comfortable betraying someone she has lived with for years — her husband — why is it unreasonable for viewers to question whether she’d betray a client she’s known for a month?
Trust is cumulative. Betrayal patterns matter.
You’re framing audience discomfort as moral simplification. But for many viewers, the issue isn’t “cheating is wrong.” It’s this:
If a character shows willingness to violate trust in one core area of life, especially without sufficient remorse or consequence, that inevitably affects how we evaluate their reliability in other areas.
And when she literally goes to investigate a case and ends up sleeping with a person connected to it, that’s not ambiguity. That’s a collapse of professional boundaries.
At that point, the audience isn’t shrinking the narrative to cheating.
The narrative itself made cheating structurally relevant.
You can’t ask viewers to treat infidelity as morally separate when the script uses that infidelity to drive legal misconduct. Once she tampers with evidence to conceal her affair, the personal and professional are fused.
And if the show wants us to see her as morally complex but still fundamentally committed to justice, then her actions need to reflect that commitment more strongly than her self-preservation.
Otherwise, the thematic argument about systemic evil weakens — because the protagonist herself becomes ethically indistinguishable from the corruption she’s supposedly navigating.
This isn’t about wanting comfort.
It’s about internal consistency.
If betrayal defines her private life and directly contaminates her professional actions, viewers questioning her credibility isn’t reductive.
It’s logical.
At what point did I say workplace harassment doesn’t exist? Or corruption? Or domestic violence? Please quote me. You’re putting words in my mouth and then debating those imaginary arguments.
My point was simple: this specific character in this specific show did not experience those things as justification for her actions. That’s not denying reality — that’s discussing what was actually written.
You can’t excuse cheating with random social issues the character never faced. “Women are underpaid” — okay, but was she? No.
“Domestic violence exists” — yes, but did her husband abuse her? No.
“Workplace harassment exists” — sure, but was that shown as her motive? No.
The drama shows a wife who is loved, supported, and pampered — and she still chooses to cheat. That’s a character decision. Not systemic oppression. Not trauma. A decision.
And yes, regret is possible. I never said cheaters can’t regret.
But regret is shown through actions, not just dialogue. If you cheat one night and then go back to your ex the very next day, that’s not accountability — that’s continuation.
And the bigger issue: she tampers with a crime scene and steals evidence to hide her affair — actively sabotaging her own client. That’s not “defending victims.” That’s harming them.
Would you hire a lawyer who destroyed evidence that could prove you innocent just to cover up their own affair?
And let me be clear — I respect women a lot. That’s exactly why I’m disappointed in this portrayal. So many dramas repeatedly write women as morally flawed while the male characters are treated like they’re holier than saints. That imbalance is frustrating.
This isn’t prejudice against women. It’s criticism of a badly written character and a double standard in storytelling.
Disagree if you want — just don’t invent arguments I never made.
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.
who kicked denial out of her boyfriend life because kid doesnt liked her ?
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.
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.
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.
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.”**