Divorce Attorney Shin Episode 8

Episode 8 of Divorce Attorney Shin begins with Sung-han on the radio giving an interview about his life. He likens his different cases to loved ones and he discusses switching from music to law. All of this is, of course, a ploy to make his persona look better in his fight back against Yeong-ju – and she knows it.

Sung-han turns the attention to his case but the minute he mentions Mr Ma, the comment section changes and becomes slightly hostile. Still, it’s bound to have sowed the seeds of doubt for some people.

Yu-seok and Yeong-ju are certainly getting cold feet and when they meet with Choi Jun, they want answers over exactly what Sung-han is up to. Choi scoffs at the prospect and instead decides he wants something in return if he’s to give up crucial information. Specifically, he asks for Yu-seok’s position at Keumhwa. However, he’s still on Sung-han’s side it seems, evidenced by him feeding back to Sung-han exactly what’s going on.

Seo-jin heads back to the BSN radio station, reminiscing on old times and trying to get her old job back. She’s offered the late night slot but it’s not good enough for her. Seo-jin wants the 9am morning show, just like she did before.

Yu-seok speaks to Dinh Thi Hoa about the series of events that transpired, including how Chun-seok became furious when he found out about the divorce. This occurred on September 12th. A day later, Chun-seok promised to beat some sense into Dinh Thi Hoa and picked up a stick, proceeding to bash her with it and injuring her arm. At least, that’s her version of events.

From Chun-seok’s perspective, he tells Sung-han that he has no idea how all of this happened. He does admit to throwing and breaking objects, given he was a bit drunk, but seemingly didn’t physically abuse his wife. Sung-han sighs, pointing out that throwing things can be construed as emotional abuse. Chun-seok points out how abusive his father was, including how he used to beat Chun-seok badly. There’s no way he’d dish that out himself.

Sung-han though is concerned about the timeline of events, especially when Dinh Thi Hoa returned a day later after initially leaving. When Chun-seok is arrested by police for the alleged beating, Dinh Thi Hoa picks up her child and rushes away. Sung-han contemplates why she’d go go back to Vietnam to be with all her siblings, given she left the country initially to try and start a new life in Korea. She even has permanent residency here too. Something’s not right.

Heung-seon and Jeong-sik head off together to Haenam to try and get some background about the Chun-seok case. According to the pharmacist in town, all of this began over by the pesticide shop, as Chun-seok got into a big fight with the owner, Mr Baek.

Meanwhile, Seo-jin continues her case with Min-jeong, including how her parents were hoodwinked by her future husband, who mixed lies with facts to sound more trustworthy. Her parents agreed to help open her a café, which she intended to run with her husbands. Only, he’d disappear for long stretches at a time and had no idea Min-jeong was schizophrenic. At least, that’s the story anyway. It would appear that he already knew from the get-go but what is his end-game here?

When Jeong-sik and Heong-seon return from their trip, they contemplate the pesticide shop fight. Apparently, the fight originated because a lot of residents had been talking behind his back and the owner there was the only one who spoke to Chun-seok’s face. Specifically, they discussed Dinh Thi Hoa. Given she’s still really young, Chun-seok doubled his workload to support her family in Vietnam. Dinh Thi Hoa has apparently been studying Korean but still can’t speak the language, and she has also been spotted hanging around a guy her age, which could be connected.

As the trial goes ahead, Sung-han decides to question Dinh Thi Hoa in the courtroom over exactly who the father of her child is. It’s a precarious situation and as we see from two interconnected heart-to-heart chats, Dinh Thi Hoa tells Yu-seok in confidence that she needs to go back to Vietnam in order go survive and she also has no idea where the real father of her child is. Yu-seok decides they should hide the true dad, while Sung-han drops a bombshell in the courtroom – he wants the court to approve a paternal test. Sung-han looks over at Yu-seok, who looks at him with murderous intent.

The Episode Review

There’s a lot going on in Divorce Attorney Shin and at times, it’s in danger of clouding the main narrative and Sung-han’s revenge mission. The entire subplot involving Seo-jin’s separate case, not to mention the Geum-hee (Ju-hwa’s mother) plot and how that ties into the main storyline feels a little redundant this episode, despite Sung-han meeting Yeong-ju for the first time.

The situation involving Dinh Thi Hoa though is just starting to get interesting. It would seem that Chun-seok is innocent in all of this and he’s been played for a fool by his wife, who’s probably fooling around with some other guy and he’s unaware of this.

It could be that she’s being blackmailed into returning to Vietnam, with someone else physically abusing and forcing her to pay up. Her idea of getting a divorce and returning to Vietnam to “survive” could be her way of getting away from this.

Either way, the show continues to use humour and drama well and that’s easily the stand-out of the whole drama. While the earlier episodes struggled, this show is definitely a grower, with the latter few chapters working really well to keep things interesting.