The songs featured during the recap: “Brave” by Kim Jong Wan and “Beyond My Dreams” by Sunwoo Jung-a. Kim Jong Wan is the lead of alternative rock band Nell; Sunwoo Jung-a is a prolific indie artist and producer in South Korea.
The episode title in Korean, 이상한 변호사 우영우 (“Strange Attorney Woo Young Woo”), and how the English title "Extraordinary" reflects her character more positively.
Woo Young Woo’s first words: quoting the Korean criminal code after her father is attacked, marking both her autism diagnosis and her path toward becoming a lawyer.
The careful, touching portrayal of autism spectrum disorder through Woo Young Woo’s sensitivity to stimuli, love of order, and her difficulty reading emotions.
Her father’s deep support, including the emotion-photo wall and her daily Woo Young Woo kimbap.
The charming and gentle "meet cute" between Woo Young Woo and Lee Jun Ho at the revolving door and how this connection grows throughout the episode.
Her love of whales as a comforting and symbolic presence, with whales appearing when she is inspired or stressed.
The courtroom debut of Woo Young Woo—initially frozen, but ultimately brilliant in her defense of her childhood babysitter.
Attorney Jung’s skepticism turning to respect as Woo Young Woo wins her first case with logic, persistence, and empathy.
The mysterious visit by CEO Han to Woo Young Woo’s father late at night—hinting at a deeper backstory.
The joyfully eccentric best friend Dong Geu Rami and her role in helping Woo Young Woo navigate life.
References
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Fabulous podcast, ladies! Extraordinary Attorney Woo was my very first KDrama in October 2022. I think Netflix pushed it to me because we watch mostly legal shows. Then Netflix suggested CLOY as "most rewatched by viewers," so I watched CLOY. That was it...only KDramas from that point on 🩷
ReplyDeleteI must start this by saying that Jun-ho is an entire green forest. I love his character so much!
ReplyDeleteThis is my third time watching Attorney Woo. I find it really meaningful as both my children are autistic, as likely myself. I also have a masters in education for which I took an entire class on ASD. I can actually see my textbook as I type this.
Woo Young Woo's love of whales is what's known as a special interest. Usually, special interests are extremely long term, such as life long. However, in my experience, special interests can also span several months or a few years. Mine was Phantom of the Opera for a while. I discovered it over thirty years ago, and still have the entire London cast recording memorized. One year, I rented about 4 or 5 movie versions to watch on my birthday. I refuse to go see the stage production after seeing it twice, as they changed some lyrics. Etc. Etc.
My son had speech delay. However, before he started therapy at two, he loved letters and numbers. He had learned all of them while evacuated for a hurricane. When we returned home, I made him a birthday cake. The stores were minimalistic in supplies, but I was able to find a set of those candy letters and numbers. I made the mistake of lighting the candles, then cutting the cake. He was hysterical. We wouldn't know why for another three or four years. I could go on and on about his special interests alone.
Sensory issues are found often in autistic individuals. The kimbap and the tags are examples of those. My daughter won't eat single serving mac and cheese from her favorite brand because the consistency is different. I have an aversion to ground beef after having it too often while the rest of the house will mostly eat the same thing over and over. I also can't stand whispering and the sound of lawn equipment even though I have significant hearing loss. As I have said before, I live in headphones, even if they are playing nothing. I like the way they feel.
Paralegals do attend court sometimes. My sister-in-law is one and often has to go out of town for cases for weeks at a time.
Thank you for sharing Laurel.
DeleteI will be looking very much to your comments.
Attorney Woo was my first K-Drama too. I call it my gateway K-Drama. Now I have watched over 50 series and about 5 movies. I keep a list.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on season 12!
ReplyDeleteI watched Extraordinary Attorney Woo back when it was airing, but I did not end up liking it as much as others did (I had quite a few problems with the drama, but I wonder if my perspective will perhaps change as I listen to your podcast). That being said, I enjoyed Park Eun-bin's performance (I watched her in the King's Affection first, and she was great; I still have to check out Do You Like Brahms, I have a feeling that it a kind of drama I would enjoy.)
Please do share your observations.
DeleteThis blog is mature. There is no name calling and abuse. We disagree in a very friendly way and accept that sometimes we have different views.
Park Eun-bin is great actress. Besdie EAW, I loved her in Hot Stove League. It is a drama about changing the culture of a workplace.
Hey Sunghee and Joanna,
ReplyDeleteI’m rewatching Extraordinary Attorney Woo with you this season—it’s still just as good! It was my #2 K-drama of 2022. I was living in Bangkok then, and because of the show, kimbap became my go-to food. Now that we’re moving back, I’m definitely going to start hunting for kimbap again!
Hi Irma! Have you tried doing kimbap yourself?
DeleteNo, I haven’t, Tina, is it easy to make? Maybe I should look it up.
Delete*I have to start with Sunghee’s memory hahaha that never cease to amaze me. I think Sunghee used all her memory during her medical school. There is only tiny bit left and she has to recycle the information lol.
ReplyDelete*I remember watching beginning of first episode when it came out, but I started to feel a bit unsure and uncomfortable when it got to the revolving door scene. I didn’t know if this is going to be a series that is going to make fun of Autistic people, so I just stopped watching and left it be.
However, I started to notice that the series was gathering big momentum, including in Western Europe, probably Kdrama’s toughest market, so I thought maybe I should try again.
The series by then was probably in its 5th week. I started almost 2 weeks of intensive reading of articles and various comments about its representation of Autism.
My conclusion was while there were objections, the series were doing by and large really good job. I would say professionals were about 65% in favour, while general audience who had some experience with Autism, or were Autistic themselves about 75% (or more).
..and so, I started watching, and never looked back. I will keep my final assessment to the last episode.
*As far as pilots go, this was great. Totally agree with Joanna.
Frankly, I don’t like revolving doors either. We have one where I work, and I find them annoying, and they just slow down everybody. Whenever the security open the normal ones I use them.
I liked that Woo Young Woo was a tiny bit also calculative during the scene when they were discussing who should represent the client in court.
Dong Geurami is probably the best quirky friend in any Kdrama I have seen. Her quirkiness is next level. “Did you squeeze your b**t?” LOL. That is one way to teach vowels lol
Their greeting routine (the actress came up with it) is absolutely iconic!
WYW opening statement was great! I think we all wanted to stand and cheer like Dong Geurami.
When WYW starts talking about whales (PEB is so good in those scenes because you see how excited and happy she become) makes me feel self aware, because I think am a bit like this when I talk about cinema, tv, or books :).
I don’t think Choi Soo Yeon was mean to WYW(maybe tiny bit) at night. I think she was telling her that she is a clever person, so why she is acting stupidly? Her words weren’t nice, but her motives is out of concern.
I think this is fairly common behaviour between friends/family members. I would say this was the equivalent of saying angrily “What were you thinking?” in English.
I wouldn’t have minded the title “Strange Attorney Woo”, although I admit that the nuance of the word might get lost in translation.
The content and message is far more important than the title imo.
* Slightly off topic. Where I am originally from, people also address each other “Father/mother of *first born*”. I actually picked up on this fairly early in my Kdrama journey, because you learn the words father and mother early on (mind you, my first Kdrama had orphan leads lol).
What I find interesting is that sometimes they use both family name and given name to call each other, including family members!! (I assume they use it for emphasis/seriousness?)
*Yesterday I finished watching Call it Love (2023). It is slow, with lots of angst, moping around, and sadness. I liked it lool.
The series has some echoes of My Mister, but with romance and generally closer to ordinary Kdrama. It is not in the same class though. The writing, while it has some flashes of beautiful quotes and imagery, it is way below My Mister level. The actors are also not the same calibre imo.
But despite all that, I enjoyed it and wasn’t bored. I would even recommend it for those into that kind of shows. Just set the correct expectations.
LOL-ing at the mention of Sunghee unnie's KDrama amnesia. I mean, I still can't believe it sometimes. But I agree with you, she's slaying ✨✨ as an anesthesiologists, the details for that one is more important to be part of her RAM.
DeletePark Eun-Bin is my favorite actress. I would watch her reading a phonebook. This Kdrama was among my first and I was amazed at her incredible acting skills. I was actually almost through watching it again, when I noticed the ladies were covering it this season. While this may be jumping ahead I thought I would attach the YouTube link were Eun-Bin accepts the Grand Prize in 59th Baeksang Arts Awards. Unlike western awards shows, she isn't rushed off the stage and her complete humility is obvious...again, not like many western actors. The first comment says everything about her portrayal of Woo Young Woo, "She played her role so well! As an autistic person who is born female, I really appreciated how she portrayed someone like me with so much kindness and empathy! I have rewatched this show 3 times already, because I and other people like me feel genuinely understood and appreciated through this show ❤". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq5JYKOOtdI
ReplyDeleteI just so appreciate that that we have something stronger than the previous two seasons! (i'll still campaign The Glory and Vincenzo in the future, but for now..)
ReplyDeleteTbh, EOWYW is not a fave of mine, if not for Kang Tae Oh. I recall telling my friends that I was so in love with Junho. the way he smiles? the way he catered to WYW as a person? his competence in his job? Then with Kang Tae Oh - him on military uniform? him dancing? and his hair? Ugh. Drools. I did know much about him before seeing this show, but since I fell in love, i checked his other works and there's this one where he was such a red flag - glad it wasn't the first one I saw.
BUTTTT, as much as I feel uncomfortable watching characters on the spectrum (fear of it being cringey, bad acting, etc), i just loved EOAW the way I loved IONTBO. They made the characters well-written, and made me feel that they're not really different from me, someone who is not on spectrum. I almost dropped it because of some people, stayed for WYW and Junho my love, and actually finished it (and loved all the characters eventually)!
On food - just wanna share that when I was still learning to Korean cuisine, I made the kimbap rice sour (i blame it for the recipe I saw online), no one in our family liked it. Apparently, kimbap mean 'seaweed rice', and sushi means 'sour rice'. I think I'm doing it right these days as my sister now loves the kimbap I make. It became something we can eat for 3 straight days.
On umbrella scene - THERE'S MORE OF THIS SOON HIGHLIGHTING LEE JUNHO MY LOVES COMPETENCE AND PREPAREDNESS
Will you two be greeting each other like WYW and DGR on the next episodes? IT'S GONNA BE AN AMAZING INTRO I SWEAR.
Looking forward to future episodes and for the meet and greet!
I second the idea of greeting each other like WYW and DGR. And I will need to see the video!
DeleteI actually watched Extraordinary Attorney Woo a few months ago, so it is still fresh in my mind. As an extraordinary attorney myself 😉, I have many thoughts on this show. Now I am not an expert on autism, or the Koren legal system (or the American legal system come to think of it), but I find many of the legal plotlines in this movie highly questionable. I actually see no reason why people with autism cannot be lawyers – I suspect I have worked with some attorneys who are on the spectrum. But like any individual, I would think a lawyer who is on the spectrum would want to play to their strengths and potentially avoid certain situations. The idea of giving a first-year attorney a jury trial is unheard of, much less one with significant autism (if the that is the right expression). But obviously this is fiction and its not like an autistic character reviewing tax law would make for a good show.
ReplyDeleteI understand why Park Eun-bin was hesitant to take the role. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with playing someone with a disability. I also wonder if Woo Young woo character is bit too much of a unicorn character. She is highly intelligent and the challenges she faces because of her autism generally play out in cute or amusing ways – like always talking about whales or not being able to use a revolving door. I fear it might give a false impression of what autistic people are really like. However, I think she does a great job with this show.