I feel like there is a bit of a divide when it came to this drama: some liked it as a whole and some were disappointed by it overall. I fall into the second category so I would take my review with a grain of salt and also read what people who had a more positive experience have to say about it, before making a decision as to whether you jump into the drama or not!

My long story (review) short: watch for first half, get ready to be disappointed in the second half. Would I recommend? Only if you’re a massive Woo Do-hwan fan and would happily watch him paint a wall at this point. Because he delivers but the story does not.

I’ve got some very mixed feelings (mostly salty, because the finale just aired and it’s fresh in my mind) but that’s literally because it had a really promising start. The premise was fresh and intriguing- the ML wasn’t the usual sageuk lead (read: crown prince/warrior/righteous flower boy scholar) and our FL is brave, resourceful, intelligent and not the stereotypical damsel in distress. PLUS, another win, they’re both not stuck in the confines of the palace, à la most other sageuks these days. The case of the week formula also worked for the large part, and it doled out some heavy emotions and also very interesting food for thought on the law - theory vs practically, the issue of accessibility, and whether the cycle of corruption and injustice could indeed be broken. It even had an interesting set up with the SML and put in him a position where he could be more than the usual ‘pining from afar and nothing else’ kind of character. Plus the palace politics was actually quite interesting - which was a first for me. I can count on one hand how many palace politics plot lines I’ve been able to tolerate.

BUT unfortunately, in my eyes, the second half of the show torpedoed the trajectory it built up, by introducing a lot of inconsistencies, unnecessary plot points and many question marks. There were characters who did things that didn’t seem to line up with how they were built up initially, characters who weren’t given much to do by the end, characters whose arcs weren’t really fully explored at all for no good reason, and the whole revenge part of the plot became a bit of a mess too - which all made for an unsatisfying, and a little rushed, ending.

So yes, very much a mixed bag and I’d recommend going in knowing that (and also with a hand on the ff button) because at best, you could be pleasantly surprised and find that your experience is actually much more enjoyable or at worst, at least you were warned in advance!

Despite being on the other side of the “divide” from @lapislazulii, I generally agree with their review. I enjoyed this show quite a bit, in part because there weren’t any characters who were all good or all bad, characters who made all the right decisions or all wrong…rather than seeing them as inconsistent, I took them as each playing around with what it means to act human.

I think that if one were to go into this drama imagining that you are watching *caricatures* rather than characters, that might be one way in. The weird English subtitle, “A Morality,” seems a helpful way to get at that. I mean Woo Do-hwan does an excellent job throughout being an exaggeration of swagger, and exaggeration of pain, and an exaggeration of happiness. The other actors do similar feats—sometimes, perhaps, as blank slates for other actors’ work.

Did I enjoy the last 30 minutes? Not really. But we hadn’t seen a few tropes yet :), and I’m not quite sure how I’d want to wrap up a show that wasn’t all comedy, all tragedy, all melodrama…all any one thing.

@lapislazulii has nailed the review here. If you're a WDH fan (which, cards on the table, I am) your tolerance level may carry you through. However, even as a fan I struggled to maintain enthusiasm at the end for a drama that increasingly lost its moorings and began to wallow in tropes that ceased to make sense. Enjoy the first half and then let it slide.

I skipped 2 of the weakest episodes, so I managed to enjoy it and the ending, though I side-eye how neatly it tried to wrap things up. @lapislazulii's review really addressed the drama's strengths and weaknesses, particularly the weaknesses in the second half of the drama.

I do give Joseon Attorney points for involving the palace politics aspect without drowning in it, like some of the other modern-y/fusion sageuks. I think it knew just the right amount to move the story and give the older actors something to do without making the viewers go "I'm so tired of this sh*! again".