‘Pro Bono’ Episodes 5 & 6 Recap – A Timely Immigration Case Moves Things Along

Pro Bono is getting a little better episode by episode. You can wonder if that’ll end up being enough – and, given the general predictability of the structure and the lack of a real stand-out original “wow” factor, it probably won’t be – but it’ll do in the meantime. It’s certainly better than a show getting consistently worse, if nothing else.

And you have to give it some respect for its willingness to paddle in murky waters. Last week’s double-bill weighed up the pro-choice vs pro-life argument alongside a pretty stark criticism of the healthcare industry. Episodes 5 & 6 get into the especially timely argument of immigration. Now is, perhaps, a good time to bring to mind our conception of what constitutes a nation, especially a free republic that, in its own success, will unavoidably become an attractive proposition to those outside its borders.

The subject here is a woman named Kaya, who is a foreign national but came to Korea via marriage and has since settled. But she wants a divorce for reasons that she’s quite obviously being cagey about, and while her citizenship in the wake of an amicable divorce isn’t really in question, how the truth of the matter might change things in that regard ends up forming multiple subsequent hurdles. Already, there’s a bunch of interesting stuff at play here, including the difference between economic and marriage migration, but as the case progresses across these two episodes, much more is revealed, including some heavy stuff about sexual abuse and assault.

Kaya is hiding an injury, you see. She’s considered to be provocative and promiscuous, which shouldn’t go unremarked upon, since it strongly affects how a woman is viewed in the context of certain allegations, and Kaya has an allegation to make. But it’s not against the person you’d think. When Da-wit digs into Kaya’s circumstances to see whether her case is worth taking on, they realise she’s covering up her neck, which turns out to be to hide the legacy of a choking attack. Her husband is the obvious suspect, but Kaya’s adamant he’s totally innocent and is, on the contrary, a really nice guy who wouldn’t hurt anyone.

So what gives? Well, it turns out it was actually Kaya’s father-in-law who choked her during a sexual assault that she feared might have left her pregnant with his child (hence the morning-after pill). Her husband was the one who saved her, since in this, at least, she’s telling the truth. But Kaya’s trustworthiness is brought into question when it’s later revealed that she had a child before she moved to Korea. This raises the possibility of her marriage being annulled, rather than the divorce being upheld, which would prohibit Kaya from remaining in the country legally.

This, needless to say, is where Pro Bono Episodes 5 & 6 venture into notably heavy territory. Kaya had been kidnapped and sexually abused at 14 – she really doesn’t have much luck – resulting in the pregnancy and the birth, which took place in the middle of nowhere after her father kicked her out for having apparently lost her worth. Kaya has been through hell, only to arrive in a new country and be subjected to largely the same thing; there’s very little wonder that she decided to keep her past quiet, and the idea that this would be a knock on her essential character is absurd (though, sadly, all too common in one way or another).

It’s a matter of humanity. There are obviously very real logistical concerns associated with immigration, and it isn’t a cut-and-dry issue anywhere in the world, but all too often those logistical issues can become a convenient smokescreen for personal prejudices and a dearth of empathy. Immigrants tend to be considered simply as immigrants, not as human beings with complex experiences, a viewpoint that often overlooks the seemingly quite obvious reality that being willing to completely upend your life and relocate to a completely different country doesn’t speak especially highly of your prior circumstances.

This is the angle that Da-wit takes, showing the judge a litany of refugees whose circumstances in Korea have largely been terrible. They fled traumatic circumstances only to be treated with suspicion and derision, and while this is bad enough on purely human terms, it doesn’t paint an especially favourable portrait of Korea either. The judge agrees, and the case goes Kaya’s way.

In the background of all this is a bit of business involving Gi-ppeum looking into the video she was sent of Da-wit supposedly taking a bribe, but ultimately coming to the conclusion, based on how much he seems to earnestly care about his clients and cases, that it can’t be true. There’s a bit more here with Jung-in’s dad proposing dissolving the pro bono team, but it’s very much the individual cases that are really taking centre stage.