The K-drama world has been riddled with law shows lately, and I’m somehow watching all 3 major ones. While Idol I focuses on the romantic angle, Pro Bono gives off more serious vibes, but The Judge Returns incorporates a bit of the supernatural, or should I say sci-fi? Ji-Sung returns in the role of “devil judge,” but this time around, I don’t think he’s going to be able to keep his devilish ways for too long. The drama tells a story that is split between 2035 and 2025. It can certainly feel confusing, and a lot happens in the first few minutes of the opening act. This can throw you off, but if you stick through, the show certainly makes for an entertaining legal drama that incorporates the typical Korean media elements of mystery, grotesque details, and a whole lot of drama, of course. I do think it’s also going for comedy by the end of episode 2, so I guess it’s a mixed-genre thing? Anyway, with that said, let’s jump straight into everything that went down in episodes 1 and 2.
Spoiler Alert
What Happens in the Gojin Chemical Case?
Episode 1 of The Judge Returns sees Han-Young running chaotically, even kicking a man who grabs his ankle, before he himself gets stabbed in the neck. The dude who stabs him says something like, “This is it,” before the scene changes. In the present day, it is 2035, and Han-Young is a renowned judge, but he’s also called a lapdog. It seems he’s living a lavish life on the outside, but at home, he and his wife don’t even say hi to each other. The big difference between 2025 and 2035 is that the phones are now transparent slabs (and the homeless epidemic, which I’ll get to). Meanwhile, the main story in this episode is that of Gojin Chemical. As soon as Han-Young enters his building, he’s swarmed by a protest. Industrial workers are protesting Gojin Chemical because many people have died from cancer after working with them. This scene reminds Han-Young of his own father, protesting many years ago. Han-Young watched his father get hit in the back of his head while he was standing right across from him as one of the anti-protestors. He’s riddled with the guilt of his father’s pain, which ended up putting him in a nursing home. But he also wonders if his father saw him that day.
Currently, a woman named Na-Young is suffering and at the heart of this protest alongside her grandmother. Na-Young looks very ill and is in a wheelchair, while her grandmother does all the screaming on her behalf. But Na-Young already looks quite tired from these protests. Anyway, because of who Han-Young’s father-in-law is, he has no choice but to do whatever his friends have to say. For example, in this case, the ruling shouldn’t be entirely in the victim’s favor, but the company should benefit in that they’ll pay off the victims and brush this problem under the rug. Han-Young decides that’s too generous, though, and rules that the victims don’t deserve any compensation at all, proving just how corrupt he is. Their suffering means nothing to him.
Unfortunately, this ruling sends Na-Young straight to the rooftop, as she takes her own life, leaving a note that says she doesn’t want to be a burden to her grandma. Han-Young learns about this when he’s back home at night, and it’s clearly something that’s making him rethink his choices. To make matters worse, it’s his mother’s birthday, and she absolutely despises him for what he’s become (all because of the family he’s married into). Han-Young’s mother is heading off to Na-Young’s funeral, where she gets beaten up for what Han-Young did. The man did warn her earlier, but she’s so ashamed of him that she thinks she deserves this beating. However, when she’s walking back home, all the crying and sorrow lead to an asthma attack, and she’s left her inhaler back at home, so she collapses at the bus station, and it’s already too late, because Han-Young has to watch her die and doesn’t even really get the time to grieve her.
What Happens With S-Group?
Meanwhile, the homeless of the urban areas of South Korea are now being forced off the streets, so they have to live in tiny underground matchboxes. This is being done for “aesthetic” development of urban areas. But because of this, a lot of homeless people are committing suicide. Specifically, we hear about a family of 3, where the parents killed the young child first and then killed themselves. This is all because of S-Group. Kim Jin-Ah is a prosecutor who will not let them go, so she raids the company 30 minutes before the expected time, knowing they’ll be aware she’s coming. Despite having to climb many flights of stairs, the team raids the company and gets all their documents. Jang Tae-Sik, the CEO of S-Group, is unbothered, though, because he knows Chief Justice Shin-Jin.
Now comes in the lapdog, i.e., Han-Young, who should be the one to handle this case and give S-Group the benefit of the doubt. The plan is to have the director of S-Construction take the fall by having him kill himself in prison, so nobody will ever learn the truth. Han-Young and Jin-Ah’s first interaction is when he goes to see his father at his nursing home after his mother died. Jin-Ah’s clearly all fired up, and she’s there to tell Han-Young that she’s going to fight hard. But maybe out of guilt, Han-Young tries to resign altogether, which leaves everyone, including his father-in-law, confused; obviously, he’s rejected immediately. But ultimately, the man chooses to do the right thing and sentences Tae-Sik to prison for 10 years, even making him pay a big fine. However, the ending of the episode has something completely different planned for us. In here, we see Han-Young is now arrested for murder, and he’s crying because he’s innocent. What will happen to him?
Where Does Han-Young End Up?
In The Judge Returns episode 2, Han-Young is reeking of guilt and decides to finally do the right thing, though I’m not sure quitting is enough. But, before he can leave, he’s choked by a man, and when he wakes up, he finds himself in the same room as a bloody corpse. Unlike the judge that he is, Han-Young literally grabs the knife that’s clearly the murder weapon and then runs, as if that’s not going to make him look like a murderer. Sure, the dude is scared because he doesn’t know what’s going on, but this just makes things that much worse for him. Now, the dead man worked for S-Group and also gave Jin-Ah vital information, so it obviously looks like the lapdog was made to do the dirty work for the team. Somehow, Han-Young tells Jin-Ah what’s happened before promptly getting arrested. It doesn’t take long for Han-Young to look properly guilty, because he’s a corrupt judge, and he clearly looks like someone who has never done any good. This is when we see him crying like a little baby, but clearly what goes around comes around, because now Han-Young can feel how the many innocent people he messed up would’ve felt.
Han-Young’s old “friend” Yoon-Seok offers him an escape, a poison pill (after he insults him for being a puppet). This is the only way for the dude to escape, so he does take the pill and ends up in the hospital, outside of prison, so he makes an escape from there when he’s left alone. Earlier, Han-Young saw a video of his father being dropped off in the underground streets, where the homeless live now. He goes there immediately, looking for his old man. He sees a wailing baby, and the mother is terrified of him. When he walks out, we’re back to scene one, where a man grabs his ankle. He thinks it’s his dad, but the face morphs into another man’s, and he immediately freaks out. But this is when the man from the intro stabs him in the neck. This guy has been sent by Shin-Jin, because Han-Young is the next scapegoat of their power play. However, Han-Young doesn’t die, as we suspected he would. Instead, he returns to 2025, when he got his first case.
What Happens in the Sang-Jin Case?
The case begins as a petty thief thing. Han-Young knows that this man will eventually become a serial killer, so he needs to intervene at the right time and not send an innocent woman behind bars instead of the killer. But sentencing a thief to death makes zero sense, so immediately, Jeong-Sik, the Chief Judge, takes the case. Anyway, Han-Young doesn’t plan on following the same path as the first time around. After all, this is like the perfect escape for him, and he wants to set things right. Even his mother likes him still, and he’s genuinely happy. He decides not to stay away from his old friend either, and for now everything is going right.
Additionally, Han-Young wants to help Ju-Young, the woman who went to prison instead of Sang-Jin. Han-Young tries to break into Sang-Jin’s house, but it’s a bit too early, and there’s no evidence. However, he does end up finding Ju-Young at the right time, finding the freezer full of body parts. Sang-Jin has told Ju-Young he’ll kill her family members if she doesn’t help him. This is the day Sang-Jin is meant to kill a 6-year-old child, but Han-Young has other plans. While he’s in a car with Ju-Young, who is freaking out because she thinks Sang-Jin will surely kill her mother and nephew, Han-Young’s assistant, Cheol-Woo, is running after Sang-Jin like his life depends on it.
In the ending of episode 2 of The Judge Returns, the tone of the show changes entirely, and Han-Young tells Ju-Young to announce after him that Sang-Jin, the murderer, should be sentenced to death. When she says it out loud, he immediately hits the accelerator on his car, just in time to speed into Sang-Jin as the guy falls to the floor bleeding. I know Han-Young wants to do good by people, but why is he turning into a murderer for real? A little bit confused with this choice of ending, but hey, guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
