"While You Were Sleeping" drama: episodes eleven and twelve recap

 Air Dates: September 27th to November 16th on SBS, airs Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00 pm, two episodes per night

 Ratings(Nielsen) for the two episodes- 8.9% and 9.7%

Main Cast:

Bae Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo

Lee Jong-Suk as Jung Jae-Chan

Lee Sang-Yeob as Lee Yoo-Bum

Ko Sung-Hee as Shin Hee-Min

Jung Hae-In as Han Woo-Tak

Shin Jae-Ha as Jung Seung-Won

Hwang Young-Hee as Yoon Moon-Sun

Park Jin-Joo as Moon Hyang-Mi
Kim So-Hyun as Park So-Yoon
Lee Yoo-Joon as Oh Kyung-Han

If you enjoy legal dramas set in a courtroom then you'd enjoy these two shows as that's where much of the action took place. But after the trial the fast pace picked up even more and the finale to the twelfth episode was the drama's most intense ending to date.

 The eleventh episode began innocently enough with Hong-Joo finally returning to work at the SBC station where she's a reporter. The one thing that scared her about going back to her job was a reoccurring dream she kept having about dying on a mountain in her work uniform. It wasn't the usual uniforms worn at the station but when Hong-Joo arrived at the office she was given a new one, the same one she had been seeing in her dreams.
 But if you're a big Suzy fan and she has many of them we don't see that much of her until the middle of the next episode as a trial is the main focus of this recap. No reader should like the lawyer
Yoo-Bum who is as crooked as they come but when he's around the story is going to be interesting. Upon arriving at his office one morning he has a new client waiting for him and the man's name is Kang Dae-Hee.
 In the previous recap we met him very briefly, he had been the driver in an accident which killed his younger brother. He's also the older brother of Cho-Hee who works at the coffee shop that Jae-Chan and Hong-Joo stop at every morning. Kang wants to hire Yoo-Bum as his lawyer as there's now a warrant for him to stand trial for the death of his brother. Kang had what Yoo-Bum would want for a case like this and that's a duffel bag stuffed with cash, close to $2.7 billion won or $2.4 million!

 Jae-Chan above got the case half right, he had a dream where the brother had also killed his sister to collect insurance money. That's where the $2.7 billion won had come from as that was the settlement from his brother's death. Kang had been taken out an insurance policy on both of his siblings beginning in June 2015, it's now early April 2016. There were a few other minor events that took place during the days of the trial but will get to all of the happenings in the trial first and then get back to the other smaller stories.
 Yoo-Bum naturally accepted the case even though he knew Kang had killed his brother which didn't happen in the car accident. Kang had admitted in that first meeting that he had used potassium cyanide on his brother who had been dead at the time of the accident and there's no way for the police to prove it. That's because Kang didn't want an autopsy done and one wasn't, the funeral was held quickly and the body has already been cremated thus leaving no evidence.
 These are the kinds of cases Yoo-Bum savors, especially when his fee will be $2.7 billion won. For the prosecutor's office Hee-Min will be in charge of the trial, nice to see her with more screen time. She worked hard and has more than enough evidence to convict Kang of killing his brother on purpose and walks into the courtroom very confident. Yoo-Bum is definitely a devilish lawyer but he is quite knowledgeable about the law, it's not going to be an easy case then for Hee-Min.

 Hee-Min did present a solid case with much evidence but stood a gigantic hill to climb as the odds were well against her. Kang had planned this crime out well and was able to make the evidence against him look so feeble. Hee-Min had obtained Kang's Internet searches where it showed him looking up such terms as autopsy and how to collect a deceased family member's insurance. Usually a case like Hee-Min prepared would have won but it wasn't just the underhanded doings of Kang but also the heinous Yoo-Bum she had to battle.
 He was able to convince the panel of three judges that the searches Kang had been doing had no merit and he was able to convince the judges of that. In a Korean District Court there are three judges who decide the outcome of a case and have that odd number so there won't be a tie. Yoo-Bum brought up his own evidence with the main topics first being why there wasn't more blood in the car.
 There wasn't because the deceased brother was already dead before the accident! That was true but only Yoo-Bum and Kang knew that along with knowing what the actual cause of death was. Also Yoo-Bum had interviewed the EMT who was first on the scene who said the dead brother's body temperature meant he had been dead for longer than an hour which would rule out the car accident being the cause of death.

 In the courtroom's audience were three of Hee-Min's associates from the Prosecutor's office including Jae-Chan. They had been quietly cheering her on when the case started so strong for her to the annoyance of everyone else in the courtroom. The case started out well but is slowly slipping away, it wasn't the fault of Hee-Min but Yoo-Bum has such a strong way about him along with being so knowledgeable about the law so soon the case became his to lose.
 Yoo-Bum had suggested that perhaps the brother had a heart attack well before the accident, he was supposedly sleeping when the accident occurred but of course was already dead. Another few events at the trial were about the car's surveillance systems. The dash-cam hadn't been focused on the front seat which allowed Kang to pretend he was talking with his dead brother as the camera also had a recording device. Kang is a demon but had planned this crime out very efficiently.
 The judges convened though it wasn't a long meeting as it appears all were in unison. Kang was easily found innocent and was able to walk away with a snicker. Hee-Min was naturally dejected but it was Jae-Chan who was the most angry person from his office. He met his old rival outside of court and tried to get Yoo-Bum to tell him how the death really occurred. Yoo-Bum had nothing to lose by telling him but refused to and really laid into the prosecutor's staff who were viewing their spat.

 That's Lee on the left above, on the night of the accident Jae-Chan was supposed to be on night duty but had a previous engagement. Lee then was there when the dead body was brought in along with Jae-Chan's assistant Choi. Because it looked like the reason for death was the car accident and as how the family there was weeping so much the pair felt no need to do an autopsy. If one was done perhaps the real cause of death would have been discovered, Jae-Chan had he been there seems like the type of prosecutor who would have searched further for clues.
 We're not done with the sinister Kang as he'll make an appearance towards the end of the recap. It's a bit quiet at work for Hong-Joo, she had been used to doing more corrupt stories but on that front it was rather quiet. She gets assigned a case where she needs to find out the cause of street cats dying, Hong-Joo would rather work with humans.
 Woo-Tak had told her about a serial cat killer in the area that so far had murdered over a hundred cats, her boss thought it was interesting and assigned her the story. The main piece of evidence in the murders of the cats were that they were all killed by potassium cyanide. That was the cause of Kang's brother's death too and you can see where the two crimes will eventually come together.

 Except for a few other short scenes that trial and other events associated with it lasted until halfway through episode twelve which left only fourteen or so minutes of action. But what action it was as there was no dragging out of the upcoming scene like you see in most dramas.
 Jae-Chan has told Hong-Joo if she's ever in trouble to ask for help from him, somehow he can now see her in his dreams when an event is happening like if she asks for his help. Hong-Joo has told
Jae-Chan about the new story she's working on about the cats being killed by potassium cyanide. This got him thinking about the Kang case and he talked with his assistant Choi who was there when the dead brother's body was brought to the morgue.
 Jae-Chan had quizzed him about the body and all of a sudden things started to add up for Choi. There wasn't that much blood from the body or at least not enough to kill him. Choi also remembered that the color of blood was a bit odd, more of a greenish tint than a bluish red color. Often that's the sign of poison in the blood, now Jae-Chan thinks the cat killing and the brother's death could
be connected.
 Kang had owned a chicken restaurant and of all the places in Seoul to eat at it happened to be an eatery that Hong-Joo occasionally visited. She recalled Kang feeding street cats some slivers of chicken, it was obvious to her that the chicken was laced with potassium cyanide and that's he's the serial cat killer. Hong-Joo didn't know about the trial that Kang just went through so had no idea what kind of dangerous man he was.

 Hong-Joo told what she knew about Kang to Woo-Tak and both headed to his restaurant, he was out of uniform which was a big mistake as he had neither a gun or his police radio. In the restaurant which was closed Kang and his sister Cho-Hee were arguing, she's come to the conclusion that Kang had killed their brother on purpose. Woo-Tak saw that Kang was about to get violent and rushed in to save her.
 That was a huge error, at least one should have called 112 which is the Korean police emergency number. Once inside the restaurant Woo-Tak confronted Kang, that lasted all of two seconds as Kang started to pummel Woo-Tak badly. Hong-Joo entered but there's no way she could have fought Kang, instead she took his sister Cho-Mee and both ran for safety. Woo-Tak tried a few times to hold back Kang but to no avail, with each attempt Kang kicked him even harder. We didn't see the status of Woo-Tak by the end of the show but think he's alive though just barely.
 Hong-Joo and the sister ran to a abandoned factory and it looked like they've ditched Kang. They were hiding under some sheets on the rooftop and Hong-Joo started to ask for Jae Chan's help, she was hoping her plea would be seen in his dreams. Hung-Joo and Cho-Mee really needed her cry for help to be heard as Kang had somehow found the pair of them, how he did was a mystery. Like a madman he he had such an evil grin on his face and was about to eliminate the two women.
 Jae-Chan being able to see Hong-Joo in her dreams works as he had seen her asking for his aid. Just a moment before Kang was about to deliver his death blows to the two women Jae-Chan made his appearance. He didn't go up to Kang and start hitting him but instead just told him he's under arrest for murdering his brother by using poison, behind him was also an army of police officers.

 Surprisingly the 12th episode ended right at that moment, we didn't see the expected embrace of Hong-Joo and Jae-Chan nor did find out the status of Woo-Tak's severe injuries. Sure the next show will pick up where this ended but the murder case has been solved. Jae-Chan had also prevented another killing as in an earlier dream he saw Cho-Hee getting murdered by her brother.
 These four episodes were quite different from the first eight episodes and even though they started out a bit slow these last two shows were the best as even the trial was quite suspenseful. This series has been going head to head with "Hospital Ship" as both air at the same time, it's been a ratings battle recently with this drama winning for the first show and "Hospital Ship" winning the war for the 10:30 time slot.
 That's a mystery as why that happened as this final episode was such an exciting watch. So far this may be my drama of the year and will be back next week around the same time with the next pair of recaps. In the meantime may be starting on the "Black" drama which begins tomorrow, that looks like one promising drama.