It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive ~ Earl Warren.
With all, its twistiness I love this drama or is it because of it. Not only is the dialogue brilliant, but the filming and directing are top-notch; it's movie quality shots. And as great as all the actors are in depicting their roles, Kim Myung Min as Professor Yang outshines all of them. I feel every character outside of Professor Yang, Joon Hwi, Sol A, Professor Kim, and Sung Dong Il (Woo Hyun) from the school copy room is completely shady, with the Kang family (father, mother, and daughter) being the shadiest of them all.
I cannot believe Kang Sol B's mother (Park Mi Hyun) had the gull to lie and cheat her daughter into law school and call Professor Yang a criminal when he hasn't even been convicted. It's like the kettle calling the pot black. Not only her but Assemblyman Go Hyeong Soo (Jung Won Joong), a bribe-taking criminal, demanding Professor Yang's dismissal was laughable if it weren't tragically disgusting. He also had something to do with Kang Sol A's sister's disappearance; he seemed terrified that Professor Yang might find her.
Speaking of the Kang family, now that is one messy family, not only messy but pretty twisted. Kang Sol B's mom needs to be institutionalized; that woman is mentally ill, no doubt. She has no right calling herself a mother, trying to manipulate her daughter by threatening suicide. Everybody in that family, daughter and father alike, who enable the mother's behavior is even worse than her. Saying "No" to family doesn't make one a bad person; it makes them honest, but then I doubt this family knows that. I was surprised to see that the whole family knew Sol B plagiarized her way into law school with Professor Seo's law review paper he published when she was in middle school. Not only did they know, but they also encouraged it. At least her mother did. I mean, the father may not have known at the beginning, but when he found out, he didn't do anything to fix it.
On the contrary, the Vice Dean kept quiet, hoping the issue would die out with Professor Seo's death and Professor Yang's imprisonment. But not only do they plagiarize, but they also lie through their teeth. I want to empathize with Kang Sol B so badly, but the minute she turned into her mother, all that feeling just dissipated as she doesn't fall very far from her mother, and the father is like a yo-yo caught in the middle. If this is not a toxic family relationship all around, I don't know what else it could be. I get that they're all trying to cover up for each other in their own twisted version of love for one another that, rather than bind them, chains them to each other. And now, the father is forced to lie about killing Professor Seo to save his daughter -- the sins of the child.
To that end, I was completely wrong in thinking Vice Dean Kang (Sol B's father) was the one that took Professor Yang's laptop. It was his daughter, and she was the one that took the sugar packet since she knew it was her father's; she thought he might have killed Professor Seo for her wrongdoings. But then why did Yoo Seung Jae (Hyun Woo) take Sol B's laptop; what's his motive; he is a hard one to figure out. I was also wrong about Seo Ji Ho (Lee David); the paper he was reading online was the law review paper Professor Seo wrote when he was in Harvard. I guess he had already figured out that Sol B plagiarized her entrance paper. Then there's Jeon Ye Seul (Go Yoon Jung); something is off with her; I bet her boyfriend Assemblyman Go Hyeong Soo is either physically or sexually abusing her, or maybe he's the one that has her on meth, could that have been what Professor Seo found on her; it would make sense.
Amongst all this shadiness, I like that we have Kang Sol A's purity. Her sense of justice and innocent trust in the law, not just for those wronged but those who wrong her, is platable. I love that she doesn't give up even when she threatens to do so, and I'm almost sure it's that quality that Han Joon Hwi finds so endearing about her. That he is totally into her is quite clear. I doubt Sol A realizes it yet, but I would be completely shocked to know she doesn't feel the same for him. Knowing the kind of person she is, Sol A probably thinks she's not worthy of his attention outside of a colleague. She has the same approach for being at Hankuk Law since she got in through a scholarship, unlike the other students. Sol A probably thinks she doesn't deserve to be there, but that could be the furthest from the truth; if anyone deserves it, it's her.