[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Pride and Prejudice" Episode 20

Almost all of the outstanding questions regarding the past case are clearly answered here, and the explanations we get aren't terribly reassuring. In short, most of the terrible mistakes that resulted in tragedy were in fact well-meaning ones. In fact, on multiple levels the question is raised whether from a legal perspective the crimes were actually even that serious. Not that many people actually made a premeditated effort to commit capital offenses.

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It's a discouraging contrast to the earlier portion of "Pride and Prejudice", when the characters were mostly struggling against bureaucracy and cover-ups. To go back to the Nixonian example, this is why cover-ups can and should be a bigger deal than the actual crimes being committed. Closure, resolution, and reconciliation are pretty important. So, too, should victims be able to live their lives without fear just because they were unfortunate enough to get hit with a crime. The recent American torture report is another obvious example.

Obviously considerations of American political issues didn't go into the production of a Korean drama. But the fact that these analogies come up so obviously is really a testament to how effective "Pride and Prejudice" is at exploring the abuse of power on the governmental level. In many ways the roadblocks the team has faced up until this point have been completely arbitrary. They could have and should have been able to figure all this out within ten episodes. The fact that twenty were necessary is a stinging condemnation of how justice can be subverted by those who are supposed to protect it.

The emotional issues, too, are fairly unavoidable. It's bad enough that Kang Soo was in a severe accident, but he also has to come to grips with a memory that's sharply and cruelly reminding him of the present day circumstances, practically arguing that everything that happened was, in fact, Kang Soo's fault. In a twisted way, everything that's happened since then may well have been for the man's own protection. Could he have coped with this kind of trauma if forced to live up to it as a mere child?

Even in the face of some conceivably good news the sentiment leading to the last episode is a morose one. Yes, it does look like justice will be done. This is a set of events that can and should happen. Yet these revelations aren't terribly satisfying. Especially considering the context of the early episodes- those feel relieving in retrospect partially because they resolved quickly enough that no long-term trauma was necessary. From this point on, that pain will always linger in the background.

Review by William Schwartz

"Pride and Prejudice" is directed by Kim Jin-min-I, written by Lee Hyeon-joo and features Baek Jin-hee, Choi Jin-hyuk, Choi Min-soo, Son Chang-min, Jang Hang-sun, Lee Tae-hwan and many more.

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