"While You Were Sleeping" drama: episodes 23 and 24 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- 7.3% and 8.6%

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
Bae Hye-Sun as Son Woo-Joo

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

 Slightly higher ratings compared to the two previous shows but think this series deserves to be in double digits which has only happened for one episode. If you like courtroom showdowns these two episodes had quite a good one and and wish we had seen more of them prior to now as I think this may have been only the third case to go to trial.

 The pace for the last two episodes was nonstop, bit of a slower beginning but the action if you can call it that soon picks up. Would recommend reading the above post first as so much happened in the previous two shows and won't be rehashing too many of those details. Middle screenshot above is at Hwan's autopsy, he's the brain dead patient who the writer and professor Moon is accused of killing. Besides the operation being his autopsy it's also to remove seven of his organs, 5:17 pm is the time of death which does come into play later.
 Hong-Joo and Woo-Tak both had dreams about the upcoming trial though for now seems only
Hong-Joo is admitting to it. Lately these two close friends have been keeping secrets from each other and not sure why. There is something very mysterious about Woo-Tak's past which we haven't learned about but Hong-Joo knows there is one, wonder if we will ever learn about it.

 Will admit I'm not up on murder or homicide laws as I haven't been charged with either one as of yet, are they different in Korea than America? Jae-Chan is going after a murder conviction, with that charge it means that Moon had the intent to kill Hwan, homicide appears to mean when one person was trying to hurt another but not enough to kill him yet a death did occur.
 As Yoo-Bum has said it's more difficult to prove a murder charge but the penalty for being found guilty is much more severe. At the prosecutor's office Jae-Chan's colleagues plus his supervisor are saying Jae-Chan should have the charge as homicide, they tried convincing him to change it but
Jae-Chan is stubborn but eventually all have his back 100%.
 Didn't take long into the first of these two episodes for the trial to begin and it took up about 2/3 of the screen time between the two shows. Jae-Chan is confident but Hong-Joo thinks he's relying too much on her dreams and how she said he was able to get a conviction. The problem is that it's not the truth as besides fibbing to Woo-Tak about her dreams she's been doing the same thing to Jae-Chan.

 If my memory serves me well this may be the first time Jae-Chan and Yoo-Bum have dueled one on one at a trial, may have happened before but that was only as Jae-Chan as an assistant. Yoo-Bum is even more confident than Jae-Chan and he has good reason to be as I don't think he's ever lost a case. Though Jae-Chan's presentation will be strong it's based on some iffy things which could explode in his face.
 One is that the only witness who saw Moon shove Hwan into an elevator shaft was a young boy who is only about five years old. The other was about the autopsy and it's a rare occurrence that one is done at the same time as an organ transplant is. In Korea there's a panel of three judges and no jury, Jae-Chan just needs to convince two out of the three to get a guilty verdict.
 That won't be a simple task versus Yoo-Bum who is even more prepared than Jae-Chan is. Jae-Chan presents all of his charges to the court which are seemingly strong, as expected Yoo-Bum makes them appear somewhat weak. One problem is too much of it is circumstantial, Yoo-Bum doesn't deny that Moon was at the elevators with Hwan but said that Hwan was fairly drunk and Moon had left the scene well before his fall down the shaft.

 It was never brought up but don't know why Hwan wasn't tested for having alcohol in his system when he was first brought to the hospital, think it was too late when the autopsy was done. Jae-Chan had tried proving that Hwan was completely sober but his only evidence was from the videos at the book launch party. That event had been one for Moon's newest book, he's a successful writer and afterwards is when the beating of  Hwan had been committed.
 As mentioned there was one witness to Moon shoving Hwan down the elevator shaft, it was a five year old boy named Se-Young. It would have been too much for him to appear in court so he had gone to a secret location(at the court?) with his mother and the questioning was done via video cameras. Jae-Chan's questions flopped fairly badly, he didn't know how to communicate with a five year old.
 Yoo-Bum didn't know how to talk to such a young boy either, he asked just a few simple questions but that was all that was needed. He asked Se-Young about taking the bus that morning, the young boy couldn't remember the number of it. Yoo-Bum told the court if the lad couldn't remember an event from an hour ago how could be remember all of the details from a week ago?
 Just noticed that the trial started so quickly, doesn't it usually take months for one to begin? It being a drama there isn't enough time for such a long gap but there is time for Jae-Chan to redeem himself as he has one more chance to question Se-Young. He had some advice the previous day from Woo-Tak and Hong-Joo, it would make the boy so much comfortable if Jae-Chan could talk like Se-Young does. Which is what Jae-Chan did the second time around as his voice sounded like a young boy, this put Se-Young at such ease he was able to tell accurately what happened between Moon and Hwan. To Yoou-Bum's dismay the judges seem to think the boy was a reliable witness.

 Seems to have been a three day trial, we saw nothing of day two so not much must have taken place but on the trial's final days fireworks explode! Jae-Chan still has no idea that Chan-Ho is Woo-Joo's son, she's indebted to Jae-Chan as her son is on the road to recovery after the kidney transplant. She's been doing quite a bit of studying about autopsies and how they can help convict a criminal.
 Woo-Joo attends the third day of the trial with Jae-Chan who is delighted to have her there as it appears he wasn't too sure of how to use the evidence from the autopsy. Woo-Joo was magnificent in court as she asked the right questions, showed some easy to read charts and presented other evidence, looks like she'll be the MVP of the trial. Jae-Chan was so impressed with Woo-Joo he gave her a high five when she returned to the prosecution's desk, looks like the verdict is a no-brainer.
 WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! When it's Yoo-Bum you're going up against never count your emu eggs until they're hatched. It was a very low tactic that Yoo-Bum started using and everyone in court was rather upset with him but it was all legal and it was a rarely used defense. Near the beginning mentioned the time of 5:17 pm and how it would come into play later. Well it's now later and the time of Hwan's death now plays a pivotal part of the trial.

 We saw quite a bit of Hee-Min in the episodes but she didn't have many lines of dialogue, we can live with that as staring at her is good enough for me us. As you can see above Yoo-Bum was telling the court about the time of Hwan's death, there were actually two official ones. At 8:30 am he was taken off the life support system, his brain was dead which was death #1 though his body is still very much alive. Close to nine hours later was when the autopsy and organ transplants began, at 5:17 pm his heart officially stopped.
 Yoo-Bum in a low but ingenious maneuver brought to the court's attention the times of the death. If 5:17 pm is the official time of Hwan's death than his client Moon can not be charged with murder, it was the transplant doctors who had stopped the heart thus Moon was not responsible for the death. If it sounds confusing it was a little bit, did go over that scene twice but it does make sense in a way.
 Moon is on trial for the murder of Hwan but the charge is him dying by being brain dead, those injuries were the result of Moon pushing Hwan down an elevator shaft. But the official cause of death was from the heart stopping at the time of the organ transplants meaning Moon can't be found guilty of murder. The charge dealt with Hwan being brain dead and you can't keep bringing up new charges to tailor your case, it's why a homicide case is easier to prosecute.

 Yoo-Bum didn't win any friends with his actions but think deep down many in the court were impressed with his defense. Seemed even the judges were impressed, and at first what looked like a slam dunk victory for the prosecution has now been taken away. The three judges may not agree with Yoo-Bum's tactics but everything he said is true as there is a loophole in the law. Hwan's father in court had a tantrum after listening to Yoo-Bum and had to be escorted out of the court by Hong-Joo.
 Hong-Joo was there covering the case for her SBC station, she had some words too for the court as she was escorting the elder Hwan out. Jae-Chan had originally asked for a ten year sentence for Moon if he was found guilty, that doesn't seem like it's a long enough penalty. But it doesn't matter now as it looks like Yoo-Bum will somehow win another case against all odds.
 Not quite yet as Jae-Chan is allowed a closing statement. He pointed out that yes, Hwan's death didn't officially happen until the organ transplants began. But Hwan would have never been in that situation if it wasn't for Moon who had pushed him down an elevator shaft, that was after he tried to strangle him which wasn't successful. So while Moon didn't do the actual killing his actions are what led to Hwan's death and this statement from Jae-Chan seemed to have swayed the judges. Say that because Yoo-Bum looked like he was ready to explode when listening to Jae-Chan.

 The only part of these four episodes which was a downer was the court's verdict on the Moon case. After Jae-Chan's long spiel which did sway the judges we never saw the inside of the courtroom again. Above is how we and Jae-Chan learned about the verdict as he had to hear it from Lee, he's played by Min Sung-Woon who is in so many dramas though they're always just medium sized roles but I've always liked his characters. The judges decision was seven years in prison for Moon, not the ten that Jae-Chan had asked for but least he won the case.
 Actually there were two down notes as after the trial ended we never saw Yoo-Bum again, would have loved to seen his reaction when he heard the verdict. What really would have been nice to watch is if the verdict was read in court, wonder if Yoo-Bum would have tried to behead the judges!? There were about five minutes to go in the show but nothing of importance happened as Jae-Chan is back in good graces with Hong-Joo's mother, the pair also take a quick trip down to the beach.
 Think because there wasn't much time left in episode 24 no new developments began. But there is one new story which may be beginning and it has to do with a friend of Seung-Won who is
Jae-Chan's younger brother. He has a classmate named Myung Dae-Gu who wants to meet Jae-Chan, he reveals to Seung-Won that his father is in jail because he's a serial killer! But just before the episode ended it was reported on the news that his father had committed suicide in prison. To me think that the father was sentenced when he shouldn't have been and Yoo-Bum is behind everything, it would have happened when he worked for the prosecutor's office. Plus it seems Dae-Gu knows who Yoo-Bum is and has secretly been keeping tabs on him, for instance he was at this episode's trial.

 Have a few other thoughts about the father's imprisonment but will keep those to myself for now in case I'm totally mistaken. There's two weeks and eight episodes to go for the drama which is four of these recaps. Not positive but heavily leaning towards taking next week off from the recaps and having the final four of them in a row two weeks from now.
 That may work better for all of us as this final case could be one that takes up most of those final shows and it'd make it easier for you to follow. But also want to take a break for a week from drama viewing as there's a  few films I'd like to watch and post about. One of them is another Korean flick titled "White: Melody of the Curse" which stars a T-ara member, film is horror one which looks to be quite good.