The confident ratings stride upward for SBS Mon-Tues drama Defendant doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. After episode 7 on Monday broke the 20% ratings mark to reach 20.9%, the following day episode 8 rose another 1.3% to end this week’s episodes at 22.2% AGB nationwide ratings. This is beyond impressive as the successful SBS Mon-Tues dramas last year were both medical dramas in Doctors and Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim so the legal thriller genre wasn’t coming in with recent successes under its belt. Last year SBS did a similar crime/legal thriller drama with Wanted which failed to bring in viewers so I’m chalking up some of Defendant’s ratings to Ji Sung’s incredible performance will definitely be a Daesang contender at the year drama SBS drama awards.

Both Rebel: The Thief Who Stole the People and Hwarang stayed nearly the same in ratings, with 10.6% and 7.7% respectively.