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Young-woo continues to learn more about herself with every case that she’s assigned. She applies past lessons that she’s learned to the latest one and continues to be an honest and hard-working attorney. But as Young-woo will witness with this case, there are just some things that you never expected to happen or are prepared for. Not every case has a happy ending.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo Episode 11: Case 11 – Mr. Salt, Ms. Pepper, and Attorney Soy Sauce

The episode starts off with three guys checking the numbers on their lottery ticket inside of a busy gambling house. Two of the guys aren’t so lucky, but the third one holds onto some hope as his numbers match up with the winning numbers. Eventually, the lucky guy is lucky after all and the numbers on his lottery ticket matches up with the winning numbers. He hits the jackpot and the three friends rejoice at the win.

Young-woo waits patiently in the lobby for her lover and best friend, Jun-ho. The man himself enters through the revolving door shortly afterwards and the couple reunite. They’re quite content to see each other; Young-woo wanted to see Jun-ho since she noticed how he wasn’t in the office at his usual time and Jun-ho is happy to know that Young-woo was waiting for him. Hehe. Eventually, Young-woo is called by Attorney Jung to head to the conference room. They have a meeting with a new client. The two lovers agree to meet at lunch for their usual lunch dates. Hehehe. I can’t stop smiling because of these two.

Young-woo encounters CEO Han in the elevator on the way to the conference room. CEO Han sparks up a conversation with the young attorney and checks in on her employee. Does Young-woo have any concerns or has anyone been bothering her lately at work? Young-woo is a bit hesitant at first as her concerns are personal, but she ends up sharing them to CEO Han. She’s been pondering about kisses and whether there’s a way you can kiss someone and also be able to breathe at the same time. Hahaha. The concern is not what CEO Han expected and she’s a bit flustered by the information. As for Young-woo? She simply goes on with her day.

Young-woo and Attorney Jung meet with their new client, Shin Il-su, and his wife, Sung Eun-ji. The man is quite expressive with his affection and love towards his wife and gives her a piggyback ride on the way to the conference room. Her heels broke so he wanted to carry her to protect her feet. Eventually, the two attorneys settle down and meet with the couple. The man was one of the guys in the opening scene whose friend won the lottery. The three friends had originally agreed to split the money evenly since they all pooled some money together to buy the lottery tickets, but now the man who won won’t split the money.

It doesn’t look good especially considering that the three friends are gambling buddies and bought the lottery tickets with their gambling money. There’s also nothing in writing to confirm this agreement. Plus, gambling is illegal anyways so the case would not be legally valid. Mr. Shin attempts to appeal to the two attorneys. He can recruit his other friend into the case and they can lie in court that they didn’t buy the lottery ticket with their gambling money. But Young-woo makes it clear that lying in court is prohibited. Even then, the couple doesn’t give up. Mrs. Sung chimes in and adds that they are in desperate need of the money. They’re only afloat thanks to her gimbap shop, but other than that, they need the money. It’s now or never for the couple.

Young-woo visits best friend Dong Geu-ra-mi and Min-sik to catch up. They update Young-woo on Min-sik’s blind date with Soo-yeon that didn’t turn out that well. Min-sik couldn’t stop it with the dad jokes which caused Soo-yeon to run away. But wait.. dad jokes? What are dad jokes? Dong Geu-ra-mi and Min-sik break a few dad jokes to Young-woo, but maybe it wasn’t the dad jokes that was the problem. Maybe it was the fact that they were jokes about food. Soo-yeon’s an attorney so maybe that’s why she didn’t find them so funny. So with that, Min-sik and Dong Geu-ra-mi take turns spitting some law-related dad jokes to Young-woo. The young attorney enjoys the jokes and she laughs plenty at them. Aww, they’re all so cute.

Soo-yeon receives an unexpected surprise from Jong-gwon, the guy she met at the club the other night. It seems like the two are a thing now and have been talking. He shows up outside of her work building and surprises her with two items: a special cocktail that he made just for her as well as a bouquet of flowers. Soo-yeon is pleasantly surprised at the gifts and she appreciates them. Meanwhile, Young-woo goes on a field trip with Mr. Shin to the gambling house. There, she meets a woman nicknamed Coffee Shop who makes coffee at the gambling house as well as a man who is referred to as Ashtray. He runs errand at the place and it is he who Mr. Shin wants to specifically meet with. Ashtray was the man who bought the winning lottery ticket for Mr. Shin and his friends so he overheard their conversation about the money split. Mr. Shin is excited to know that he might have a potential witness in his case, but Ashtray is a bit hesitant. He does work for a gambling house after all and it’s risky getting involved.

However, Mr. Shin is persistent. He’ll even pay Ashtray afterwards if Ashtray was to testify in court. Of course, this doesn’t fly with Young-woo who views this as another illegal act. Mr. Shin is frustrated at how inflexible Young-woo is, but that’s her job as an attorney. Mr. Shin is willing to do whatever he can to get Ashtray to testify as a witness in support of him.

While in the office, Young-woo keeps her eyes on Jun-ho. Literally. Jun-ho is notified by his co-worker about Young-woo’s peeking eyes and discovers the young attorney staring at him from her office window. Hahaha. Is this a horror drama now? Haha. However, Jun-ho enjoys it and he finds it adorable. It’s so adorable he walks up to Young-woo’s office and is about to enter until a co-worker interrupts him at the last second. So the two have to settle and Jun-ho places his hand on Young-woo’s office window. As a response, Young-woo places her hand on the office window as well and mirrors it to Jun-ho’s hand (I love this office romance!).

In the first day of the court trial, the counsel team for the defendant (the lottery winner) argues that their agreement to divide the money was not in writing nor was there a ranking in terms of what winning money to divide. Therefore, Mr. Shin and his friend’s argument is invalid. Attorney Jung argues that an agreement is still an agreement; the three friends had agreed to divide all the money from any of the lottery tickets that they pooled money together and purchased. To support their case, Team Hanbada plan to invite Ashtray to testify as a witness. However, Jun-ho enters the courtroom at the last second to update Attorney Jung and Young-woo about the urgent situation. Ashtray is nowhere to be found or seen as he’s an undocumented Korean-Chinese immigrant in fear of deportation, hence, why he backed out at the last minute. With that, there’s no witness to call up to testify and Team Hanbada are back to square one.

Team Hanbada reconvene with Mr. Shin and his friend outside of the courtroom. Is there anyone else who they could think of that could have possibly overheard their conversation? Mr. Shin’s friend suggests that they hire someone who can play pretend, but that doesn’t fly with Young-woo. Though Mr. Shin’s friend isn’t so happy with how inflexible Young-woo is, Mr. Shin is a bit more optimistic. He calms down his upset friend and is confident that they will find someone else. There were quite a few people in that gambling house. Before leaving, Attorney Jung reminds Young-woo about their goal with the case again: they need to determine whether the agreement between the three friends is valid or not.

So with that, Young-woo works late into the night to get more work done. She decides to take a break and video calls none other than Jun-ho for some late night talking. She’s not as familiar with video calls so he gives her a few tips on how to adjust her cell phone camera and then the two chat with each other. Young-woo’s about to keep the call short as she only called Jun-ho because she wanted to see him, but Jun-ho wants to converse just a little bit longer. EEEEEK. They’re so cute. Is there anything she might want to talk to him about other than work or whales? And indeed there is! Young-woo recites the two dad jokes that Min-sik and Dong Geu-ra-mi shared with her the other night and Jun-ho finishes her sentence to the dad jokes quite easily (they’re a match made to be). Just as the two are about to end the call, there’s one more thing that Young-woo wants to share with Jun-ho.

Young-woo is a big fan of whales, but it’s not just whales that she’s been thinking about. Jun-ho has been occupying her mind; she can’t stop thinking about him. It’s a new feeling for her as she’s never thought of a person this much before. When the video call ends, Jun-ho can’t help but smile. It seems like whales have some competition now. Hehe.

It’s another day of the trial. Team Hanbada continues to go up against the defendant’s counsel team and Young-woo is quite vocal in defending her clients. Eventually, the presiding judge reminds them again about the validity of the agreement so they invite another witness to testify at the stand. This time, it’s Coffee Shop. During her testimony, she argues that she did inquire Ashtray about the errand that he was running for the 3 friends on the night they won and also learned from him about the agreement. The defendant isn’t so happy as he accuses Coffee Shop of lying and giving false testimony. He even goes as far to claim that she and Mr. Shin are in a relationship with each other which is why she’s looking out for him. Though Coffee Shop denies there’s anything going on between them, Young-woo sees otherwise. She watches as Mr. Shin sneaks a small heart finger to his secret lover from his seat in the courtroom. Uh-oh.

Min-woo does some investigating of his own in his office. He compares a photo of Young-woo and Attorney Tae and grows fascinated at the similarity between the two. Meanwhile, Young-woo returns home from work that night and has a brief chat with Dad. He’s curious if she’s ever thought about having a doctor who specializes in autism who can support her and though the thought has passed Young-woo’s mind a few times, she never communicated these feelings with Dad. With that, Young-woo retreats to her room while Dad takes another peek at the pamphlet that Attorney Tae gave him about her Taesan branch located in Boston.

Eventually, a verdict is reached for the trial and Mr. Shin and his friend wins the case. They are to be paid the amount that they formerly agreed upon by the defendant. Mr. Shin and his friend rejoice in the courtroom at the decision and Mr. Shin also calmly celebrates with his wife. He thanks her for all that she’s done taking care of their kids and they give each other a warm embrace. Afterwards, Mr. Shin visits Young-woo and gifts her with some gimbap made by Mrs. Sung (ooh, her favorite!). But there’s another reason for the visit to Young-woo’s office. Mr. Shin wants to know what the effects of getting a divorce after winning the lottery is. Does he also have to split up that money with his wife? To summarize, Young-woo answers that Mr. Shin wouldn’t have to split his lottery prize with his wife since he won it due to his own personal luck. Mr. Shin leaves the office happily after receiving an answer.

However, the question continues to bother Young-woo and she inquires Soo-yeon about it during lunch. Soo-yeon’s taken on a few divorce cases before so she knows some stuff about divorce assets and all that good stuff. Since Young-woo can’t expose details due to attorney-client privilege, Soo-yeon and Jun-ho use bottles of soy sauce, salt, and pepper to role play. Using the ingredients, Young-woo explains that Mr. Shin (AKA Mr. Salt) came up to her (Attorney Soy Sauce) about splitting up a peculiar property that he acquired in his own name during his marriage and wanted to know whether it’s subject to a claim for division of assets.

The thing is Ms. Pepper (Mr. Shin’s wife) has no idea what Mr. Salt is planning and Attorney Soy Sauce isn’t sure if there was anything that Mr. Salt promised Ms. Pepper after winning the lottery prize. Soo-yeon advises that Attorney Soy Sauce find evidence or else things will turn out to be a psychological battle which can get complicated. Since Mr. Shin was also Young-woo’s client, Young-woo will not be able to give Mrs. Sung legal advice.

Attorney Jung warns Young-woo not to say anything to Mrs. Sung about Mr. Shin’s question. As an attorney, it’s her job to protect her client. So if Young-woo can’t interact with Mrs. Sung from a legal standpoint, maybe she can still interact with her as a customer. Mrs. Sung does own a gimbap shop after all. With that, she and Jun-ho take another field trip to visit Mrs. Sung’s gimbap shop. However, on the walk to the place, they overhear loud commotion coming from inside of the restaurant. When the couple reach the entrance door, they discover Mr. Shin and Mrs. Sung arguing with each other over money and Mr. Shin slamming a bunch of items onto the floor.

Mr. Shin eventually walks out of the gimbap shop and reunites with his secret lover, Coffee Shop. The appearance of the secret lovers basically confirms Young-woo’s suspicion and she grows shocked at the sight. A few seconds later, Young-woo and Jun-ho enter the gimbap shop and greet Mrs. Sung. They learn from her about the new luxurious foreign car Mr. Shin had wanted to purchase with his lottery money which Mrs. Sung herself wasn’t so thrilled about. Young-woo gets straight to the chase and she makes it clear that she’s there as a customer. She orders some gimbap and sit at an empty table with Jun-ho while Mrs. Sung cleans up the mess that Mr. Shin had made.

Similar to their lunch conversation, Young-woo uses the salt, pepper, and soy sauce bottles on the table to chat with Jun-ho about Mr. Salt and Ms. Pepper. The couple purposely speaks loudly so that Mrs. Sung can overhear their conversation which they eventually achieve in doing. Thanks to the salt, pepper, and soy sauce bottles, Mrs. Sung learns about Mr. Shin’s question regarding divorce and the split of his lottery prize money. Mrs. Sung is in disbelief at first; her husband isn’t like that at all and plus, he had promised her he would give her all the lottery money. But like Soo-yeon advised Young-woo, hard evidence is important in this case and Young-woo relays the information to Mrs. Sung. She needs to see if there was anyone around them who could have possibly overheard their promise.

Soo-yeon enjoys another date out with Jong-gwon at a nice restaurant. Things are going well between the two until he excuses himself to the restroom and another woman replaces him at the table. Turns out she’s another one of Jong-gwon’s victims who has suffered at his hands before. He’s a player who dates women with elite jobs and plays around with them. He’s a scammer. To prove her point, the woman confronts Jong-gwon when he returns from the restroom. Disgusted, Soo-yeon exits out of the restaurant herself, but she stops by the bar for the most expensive alcohol bottle before leaving. She notes that Jong-gwon will pay for it and she chugs the alcohol on her way out of the restaurant.

Young-woo and Attorney Jung meet with Mrs. Sung to discuss a potential divorce with her husband. Would she able to get some money from the lottery prize if they were to divorce? Young-woo once again mentions about having any hard evidence, but Mrs. Sung hasn’t been able to gather anything as Mr. Shin has already caught on to her actions. Since Young-woo and Attorney Jung represented Mr. Shin already, they share that they won’t be able to help Mrs. Sung with her lawsuit. But they’re happy to refer her to another attorney who specializes in divorce cases. Attorney Jung also adds that the chances of Mrs. Sung winning her case legally might be low.

Jun-ho and Young-woo drop Mrs. Sung off to her gimbap shop after the meeting. On their way to the shop, they encounter an angry and impatient Mr. Shin waiting across the street with his brand new luxury car. He’s in disbelief that Mrs. Sung has already met with attorneys and he urges for Mrs. Sung to cross the street to talk to him. As a precaution, the three head back to Jun-ho’s car to protect themselves. Mr. Shin himself then rushes back into his car and drives across the street to confront them, but gets plowed by a huge garbage truck on the road along the way. Time stops for Jun-ho, Young-woo, and Mrs. Sung as Mr. Shin’s car is crashed into. Mrs. Sung rushes to her husband’s side and she wails upon seeing her deceased husband.

Young-woo herself is in complete shock and she reacts to the accident. Jun-ho runs to Young-woo and places his arms around her to calm her down. Young-woo expresses for Jun-ho to hug her tighter and tighter from behind and so he does. While Young-woo does calm down with the technique that Jun-ho uses, the trauma and pain from the accident is still vivid in Young-woo’s mind.

While walking home from work a few days later, Young-woo shares with Jun-ho the conclusion from Mr. Shin’s death as well as the lottery prize money. Mrs. Sung and her kids inherited the lottery prize money as well as Mr. Shin’s life insurance money so she’s closed her shop as a result. The couple eventually arrive in front of Young-woo’s house so they prepare to bid farewell. She thanks Jun-ho for hugging him from behind during the incident and prepares to explain the reason as to why she asked him to hug her tighter. But Jun-ho already knows the reason. For people with autism, anxiety can be relieved if pressure is put on the body. In France, they even have hug chairs that serves a similar purpose. Young-woo’s quite interested in owning a hug chair, but Jun-ho feels otherwise. He can be her personal hug chair. The two chuckle and giggle at the cheesy comment and Jun-ho takes this opportunity to close the gap between him and Young-woo.

He steps towards her and leans in for a kiss. This time, the kiss goes much smoother and they don’t have to stop halfway through to whisper to each other. While Young-woo and Jun-ho express their love for each other, Dad is in shock upon witnessing his daughter kiss a man outside. Hahaha. All Dad wanted to do was just take out some trash and instead, he got something else.

Another episode means another ending scene involving Attorney Tae. She’s occupied at her desk office when she receives an unexpected visit from none other than Min-woo. He wishes to work for her at Taesan (I KNEW IT!). He explains that he’s currently employed at Hanbada and works with Young-woo which draws Attorney Tae’s attention. He blackmails her with all the information and research he dug up on her and once again reiterates that he wants to work at Taesan. But it’s not going to be as easy as Min-woo thought. Min-woo will get the chance he wants if he somehow manages to get Young-woo to quit Hanbada. If he does, he’ll get to work directly under Attorney Tae at Taesan. Min-woo understands the secret mission and agrees to it. Challenge accepted.

My Thoughts:

First and foremost, thank you all who patiently waited for this recap. As much as I’m enjoying ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’, recap fatigue is real and I was exhausted from recapping weekly episodes and all the amount of hours and work that came along with it. I know this recap came a little later than usual, but I needed the few extra days of (a well-deserved) break. Because I’m still a little exhausted, the commentary section for this episode shall be a bit shorter than usual.

On to the episode itself, this episode was actually one of the more enjoyable episodes for me. Most of the episodes in the drama so far have been decent and ones that I didn’t enjoy so much I’ve been vocal about. There was just something about this episode that I really enjoyed and it might have to do with the case itself. Though the episode made it obvious and I should have seen it coming, I actually was a little thrown off by Mr. Shin’s decision to divorce his wife. I know he had a secret lover and he had just won a lawsuit where he received a ton of money, but still, the naive part of me was not expecting him to divorce his wife so soon. How ironic that his rush to divorce his wife and to keep his money for himself resulted in an unfortunate and tragic series of events. He lost his life and his money that he wanted so badly.

If this episode taught us anything, it’s that marriage is so darn hard and difficult to manage. Mrs. Sung didn’t believe her husband would betray her, but like Attorney Tae and Young-woo mentioned in a previous episode, “there is nothing weaker than the human mind in the face of money.” This was true for Mr. Shin who completely changed after winning the lottery prize money even though Mrs. Sung took care of their kids and managed her own small business. My heart broke for her when Mr. Shin wanted a divorce and my heart broke for her even more when she inherited his lottery prize and life insurance money as a result of his death. Yes, she eventually got the money that he won from the lottery, but at what cost?

The drama has been really interesting so far with the way that it’s been focusing on our other characters. Min-woo’s been doing Min-woo stuff and still trying to find ways to take down Young-woo which isn’t so surprising. I had a feeling that he was going to eventually switch over to Taesan and it was only a matter of time before doing so. He was frustrated and fed up working in Hanbada and felt as though he was at a disadvantage there. As if what was he was doing wasn’t already bad enough, he received a mission from Attorney Tae to make Young-woo quit Hanbada. Can we just leave Young-woo alone? Why is she suffering as a result of decisions that people made earlier in their lives? She’s done nothing wrong; she doesn’t deserve any of this treatment from anyone. All Young-woo is doing is simply minding her own business and going on and about with her life. I know there will be people there to protect Young-woo (Dad, Jun-ho, Soo-yeon, Dong Geu-ra-mi, Min-sik) and Young-woo can also protect herself, but I hate seeing Young-woo be the target of malicious attacks. Leave her alone T_T

I’m also interested in seeing where the drama is going with Soo-yeon’s arc and story. I thought there was going to be more to her relationship with Jong-gwon and that there was going to be some kind of connection with the case in episode 10, but so far, it seems as if there’s nothing. I’m curious if there was more to Soo-yeon’s relationship with Jong-gwon or if the drama was just trying to give Soo-yeon more screen time so it threw in this random part with Jong-gwon. I was hoping the intentions behind her little fling with Jong-gwon would be more obvious and explicit, but seeing as to how it all went down in this episode, it seems like that’s the end of things. There could potentially be another layer or side to their relationship that the drama will reveal in upcoming episodes, but if this is all that we got between Soo-yeon and Jong-gwon without there really being any significance or intentions behind it, then I’ll honestly admit that I’ll be a bit disappointed.

What was the whole point of showing us Soo-yeon with Jong-gwon if there really wasn’t anything behind it? Is this the drama’s version of showing us Soo-yeon and her desire to live life more passionately? What should we take away from Soo-yeon’s fling with Jong-gwon? The drama has been great with being intentional and strategic with its sub-plots, character arcs, and messaging, but Soo-yeon’s relationship with Jong-gwon felt a bit empty and underwhelming. I’m not so sure I’m the biggest fan of it especially because it felt random and out-of-place in comparison to everything else that was going on in the drama.

I’m relieved that we’re now at a point where we get to witness Young-woo and Jun-ho’s honeymoon phase. They continue to be absolutely adorable together, but it’s also nice seeing the more serious and mature side to their relationship. We know that they work well together as seen with all the previous field trips they took to visit the sites of cases that they were investigating, but it also just feels different now that they’re in a relationship? For example, I loved seeing the two use the salt, pepper, and soy sauce analogies again at Mrs. Sung’s gimbap shop to communicate with her on her situation with Mr. Shin. They work so well together and they both make sure to be on the same page when it comes to work-related situations.

I also loved seeing Jun-ho help calm Young-woo down after the car accident. More so than it being romantic, the purpose of the scene was to educate and inform viewers about what anxiety attacks are like for people with autism and the “deep pressure” technique that can be used to support them in the process. The conversation about the hug chairs further supports this notion by bringing about awareness about the item and what purpose they serve. I think some people could view this scene romantically because Jun-ho is implementing the technique on Young-woo and “hugging” her from behind and holding her in his arms. I get that and I think it made sense that Jun-ho knew how to calm Young-woo down given the little hints we’ve gotten here and there about his knowledge and involvement with people with autism. But at the same time, that scene is so much more than what we saw on screen. There’s a lot more to that scene and I think the drama’s intent behind it was so it’d be perceived more non-romantically than romantically.

Overall, episode 11 turned out to be a satisfying watch with a case that didn’t feel too heavy or overloaded that resulted in an unexpected ending. That’s the reality of it all: life is unpredictable and you never know what’s going to happen. One second you can be happy after winning a grand lottery and then the next, all of that disappears. I also enjoyed watching Young-woo stay true to her colors and to herself. Even though she was accused of being “inflexible” by Mr. Shin and his friend, she knew when to also be flexible. As an attorney, she did her job of protecting her client, but she was also honest and truthful by communicating with Mrs. Sung. I love seeing the different sides to Young-woo as both an attorney and a person and we see her grow with every passing episode. Life may be unpredictable and there will be many times where you will have to be flexible, but there’s one thing for certain: Young-woo will forever be an extraordinary attorney.