Extraordinary and exhausted: Being Woo, being seen, being real - A throwback review of Extraordinary Attorney Woo

April is for autism awareness—but Extraordinary Attorney Woo goes beyond just awareness. It offers something rarer: resonance. For many autistic people, including myself, watching Woo Young-woo isn’t just seeing a character on screen. It’s watching someone swim against the current in a world that keeps asking for straight lines.

The show doesn’t just give us a quirky genius with a photographic memory and a love for whales. It gives us nuance. Texture. A protagonist who is kind, sharp, overwhelmed, resilient, and deeply human. And no, I don’t relate to everything—because autism is a spectrum, not a script. But that’s the beauty of it. Seeing her feels like being told: “There’s room for your version too.”

In a mix of procedural drama with our typical K-drama trope's, Extraordinary Attorney Woo gives us pinches of fun, drama, weirdness, love, and everything in between. She even deals with another autistic character in such tense but special moments and it shows the viewers that there is no such thing of all autistic people share all the same traits and/or that autism "has a face." It's good to see her character unfold, keeping her weirdness, what make's herself who she is and being accepted all the same. It hurts at times. The preejudice, judgement, everything is there. However, beyond all that, there is a message, as if it were saying, "We're here and we belong and you won't ignore us any longer."

Beyond the whale songs: What makes this representation matter

Where The Good Doctor (and here I mean the Western version, for, even though I know it was based on a K-drama, I have not watched the original one) medicalizes and Atypical romanticizes, Extraordinary Attorney Woo dares to linger in the in-between. It paints overstimulation not as melodrama but as lived reality. It shows hyperfocus not as a superpower, but as both anchor and trap. And believe me, it is. Or I would not be here writing to post this review. Yes, I was preparing to sleep... but...

Also, it doesn’t shy away from showing how exhausting it is to exist in a world that expects you to “mask” 24/7. Which brings us to the controversy: Park Eun-bin, the actress behind Woo Young-woo, said that preparing for the role was “exhausting.” Some viewers were upset. But here’s the thing—she’s right.

Food for thoughts: Tell me one thing: in the picture below, does she "look" autistic?

A hint? For most of us, it's really exhausting to hear "you don't look autistic."

Being autistic is exhausting. The sensory overload, the social gymnastics, the anxiety, the co-occurring conditions… They don’t come with cute theme songs. They come with burnout. Frustration. Depression. The rage, everyhting. Not that anyone is normal. Normalcy is a myth. Neurotypical people also wear maks, but differently from us.

So, when someone says it was hard to embody that experience, maybe instead of criticizing, we should listen. Because sometimes, just existing in this world is performance enough.

And it has been really rewarding to see the same actress in Hyper Knife. Haven't heard of it yet? I won't spoil it for you, not here. I've written a bit about it here, if you want to see Park-eun bin embracing a different version of neurodivergence all over again.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo: Not your neurotypical fairy tale

The genius lawyer trope isn’t new. What’s new is how Extraordinary Attorney Woo flips it on its head. The show doesn’t say, “She’s a genius despite being autistic.” It shows us a woman who is brilliant, autistic, and still learning how to live. Not to fit in—but to stand out on her own terms. As an adult.

The metaphorical whales she sees aren’t just cute quirks. They’re survival tools. Imaginative lifeboats in a sea of impossible expectations. And that’s why it hit so many of us like a tidal wave: not because we saw ourselves in all of her—but because we saw something real in her.

This isn’t inspirational only, it’s reflection

We’re often fed stories about “overcoming” autism. This one is about existing with it. Loving, hurting, trying, failing, growing. It’s not sanitized. It’s symphonic.

And in a media landscape that still struggles to tell neurodivergent stories without reducing us to plot devices or quirky sidekicks, Extraordinary Attorney Woo felt like a breath of actual air.

Not because she’s perfect. But because she’s complex.

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Rating with a touch of flair: 5 out of 5 honest truths she told that no one would dare say in real life (especially to her boss who could die from cancer) unless they were really autistic. Well, they could be just really mean, but I'd rather believe in the first option.

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