A white male nearing 50, married with children, is probably not the target audience of kdramas. But, I stumbled across this by death scrolling through Netflix desperately looking for anything to watch, and when I read that it was about an autistic lawyer I wanted to see if it was just another stereotypical portrayal of people sharing my condition. Yes… I’m on the spectrum, so I stuck around to see if I was being mocked. In short: quite the opposite.

Now, I’m not some expert on autistic representations in media, but this is the first time that I’ve seen an autistic person portrayed as a real person with their own thoughts, hopes, dreams, and flaws. Not a one dimensional plot device, weirdo, object of pity, or some combination of these. Kudos to everyone involved in this production for their sensitive, respectful, and dignified treatment of this condition.

That out of the way, I genuinely love the show. While I have no other kdramas to compare it to, it’s easily better than 95% of what I’ve watched in the past 2 years (mostly American and British productions). The overall positivity reminds me of Ted Lasso, which is one of my all time favourite shows, and this is just as good. The acting, not just Park Eun-Bin, is fantastic. The characters are wonderful, even the very minor ones like Hairy Boss. The cinematography, and general production quality is superb. Absolutely top notch show, and it is inspiring me to look into more kdramas (what a gateway drug!)

Lastly, while I’m not really into romances, I’m a pretty sensitive guy whose in touch with his emotions, and so this show just hits me like a punch to the gut time, and time again. What an emotional experience. Many tears - joyful tears - shed. Sure, it’s manipulative, but damn do they do a good job of it.

Rewatching it now with my wife.