Actor Yoo Yeon-seok is serving up cathartic, no-holds-barred comedy from the start — and the ratings are already soaring.
The second episode of SBS’s Friday–Saturday drama Phantom Lawyer, which aired on the 14th, recorded 9.2% in the Seoul metropolitan area with a peak of 11.3% (Nielsen Korea). Just two episodes in, it cracked double digits. It also ranked No. 1 in both average ratings and the key 20–49 demographic among all dramas airing in the same time slot on Friday and Saturday. Viewers are loving the show’s buzzworthy “possession hard-carry” setup — where the lead fully absorbs traits of the dead — signaling a new hero in SBS’s line of cathartic courtroom series.
Shin Yi-rang (played by Yoo Yeon-seok) isn’t your typical justice-obsessed hero. Branded by the lingering “scarlet letter” of “that incident” involving his prosecutor father a decade ago, he kept getting rejected by law firms. Determined to turn it around, he vowed, “I’ll put my name on the line and build the best law firm,” and opened his own practice.
His office, Room 501 of the Okcheon Building, used to be a shaman’s place. Beneath newly pasted wallpaper, the walls are covered in talismans, and after lighting a censer he found in a desk drawer, Yi-rang starts seeing ghosts. Even when he tries to run, the spirits cling to him. Exhausted yet unable to ignore their unjust stories, he literally lends them his body in a hilariously tragic struggle.
From soft-hearted lawyer to a terrifying gangster spirit riding his body, Yoo Yeon-seok’s limitless transformation amps up immersion. He delivers tingling thrills with bare-handed action that turns a storage room upside down, then cracks viewers up with rough dialect and colorful curses that slip out before he knows it. Once the possession breaks and he panics at the chaos he’s caused, the comedy doubles down.
Meanwhile, Yoo Yeon-seok’s full-on comedic turn in ‘Phantom Lawyer’ airs every Friday and Saturday at 9:50 p.m.