The Evil Lawyer, a new Netflix law drama from Thailand, is about how an idealistic young lawyer has a defense attorney known for her cold, calculating defense of indefensible clients, to help him when he’s charged with a murder he didn’t commit.
Opening Shot: A pregnant woman is wheeled into an emergency room. She is bleeding so badly that there is a chance that the doctors will loose both her and the baby.
The Gist: We cut to the same woman a few months later on the witness stand of a trial; she survived, but her baby didn’t, and then she found out that the baby’s body was sold to a shaman to make a talisman from it. The shaman’s defense attorney, Jittri (Rhatha Phongam), coldly lays out her case, citing that because the baby was stillborn, it was never considered to be alive.
Her pregnant assistant is so disgusted by her boss’ defense — and her cold defenses of seemingly indefensible clients — she quits after the trial. The mother of the baby, who is distraught over the verdict and the fact that Jittri called her dead child a “piece of flesh,” throws pig’s blood on her.
One of the people splashed with the pig’s blood is Mek (Nat Kitcharit), who works for the public defender’s office after leaving the Lawyer’s Rights Center. He’s given a case where the owner of an e-waste processing plant is pleading guilty of arson for burning the place down. It’s supposed to be an easy lift, but Mek thinks the confession was coerced, and he is even more convinced when he meets with the man’s son, who just wants to get the process over with.
Mek goes to the man’s neighborhood near the fire site, where he runs into his ex, Ang (Atchareeya Potipipittanakorn), who used to work with him at the Lawyer’s Rights Center, but quit to help her mother’s political party. He still has no idea why Ang left him and the Center, but something changed in her after attending a ritzy party on a boat a few months prior.
Mek finds out that his client was a security guard, not the owner, of the factory. He encourages the man to retract his guilty plea while he tries to find out who put him up to facing the charges. His opposing attorney, Techin (Paopetch Charoensook), has some high-up connections, including his police commissioner father Anan (Songsit Roongnophakunsri). He also has information on Ang and that party that he can use as leverage. After Techin calls Mek to his house to talk about that leverage, someone ends up dead, with Mek accused of killing the person. This is when Jittri shows up at his holding cell; she’s offering to defend him, but for an unusual price.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Directed and written by Nottapon Boonprakob, The Evil Lawyer is a more-serious take on shows like The Lincoln Lawyer or The Rainmaker.
Our Take: The Evil Lawer might take itself too seriously for how semi-campy the premise is. Jittri is one of those classic lawyer-drama attorneys who will defend indefensible cases and end up winning because she’ll “go there” during her defense, shaking off all notions of humanity and empathy in the process. Mek is an idealistic public defense attorney with a very dark past who is going to struggle with being defended by Jittri, even though she might be his only way to not rot in prison for the rest of his life.
There are some nuances to this arrangement, as Jittri is going to ask Mek to be her assistant in exchange for her pro bono services. So Mek is going to experience Jittri as both a client and her assistant, seeing how ruthless she is in order to get to the truth of a case and how it relates to the law, as opposed to being led by emotions. We wouldn’t be surprised if there is going to be conflict between them along the way, but that conflict is going to drive the series and keep it from becoming a depressing slog.
One of the things that surprised us about the show was that it wasn’t afraid to give audiences some pretty disturbing imagery, like when a photo of a room full of babies’ bodies flashed on the monitor in the courtroom. The view was momentary, but it was certainly clear what the picture was. Most shows, even ones on cable or streaming, wouldn’t dare show such images, preferring to show character’s reactions to the imagery instead of the image itself. But this show has decided to not spare the audience, perhaps in an effort to make it seem grittier than it actually is.
Performance Worth Watching: Rhatha Phongam shines as Jittri, mainly because while her use of loopholes and other tactics seems “evil” on the surface, Phongam plays her as a person who knows she’s in the right and is doing all she can to defend her clients.
Sex And Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Jittri appears at Mek’s cell. “If you want to survive, listen carefully, because I’m your only way out.”
Sleeper Star: It was a bit heartbreaking when Ang, played by Atchareeya Potipipittanakorn, tells Mek that on the boat she just decided that they should break up. Her face is blank, which tells us that there was more to it than that, but it was still an effectively sad exchange.
Most Pilot-y Line: Tenchin’s dad uses golf as an analogy to his son about focus and making sure he keeps his word about winning the e-waste factory arson case.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Evil Lawyer is a bit overdramatic, but it sets up an intriguing scenario where Jittri and Mek defend more impossible clients while Mek faces his own fate in court.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
