Partner Track (2022) review: Glamorous legal drama with predictable story beats

Partner Track (2022) is a legal drama about Ingrid Yun, a hotshot lawyer who works hard to become a partner at her law firm along with her best friends. However, she’s constantly faced with obstacles that make it almost impossible to achieve her dream. The series is streaming on Netflix.

Story

Ingrid Yun is a lawyer at Parsons Valentine & Hunt along with her best friends, Tyer and Rachel. She’s on the partner track but she’s competing for limited spots against some formidable colleagues who don’t have to work as hard as her.

Ingrid is a workaholic who goes above and beyond to improve her chances of becoming a partner at her firm and this affects her personal life. She goes through relationship drama and even gets into a tiff with her best friends.

Tyler and Rachel have their own issues to deal with, as Tyler has trouble accepting the systemic racist culture at the firm and is forced to quit, while Rachel is trying to find out what she truly wants in life apart when being a lawyer just doesn’t please her anymore.

Ingrid has to jump through many hoops and overcome several obstacles to get up in the world but in the end, things don’t go her way and she isn’t made a partner. She quits her job and tries to make up to a former client that she wronged while working at the firm.

This does get her job back but at a significant cost.

Performances

Partner Track is filled to the brim with stereotypical roles that are a dime a dozen but the actors portraying these roles still play their part brilliantly.

Arden Cho plays the main lead, a career woman who has to deal with casual sexism and racism but just sticks her head down and focuses on her work so that she can be respected for her efforts.

Alexandra Turshen plays Ingrid’s best friend, Rachel, a smart-talking woman who takes on the tin man role of taking things casually in life until she develops a heart and goes for what she wants. Turshen is snarky and entertaining in her role.

Bradley Gibson plays the fashion-conscious gay black man, a character seen many times before, and while he doesn’t bring too much new to the role, his intensity when the character goes through a rough time stands out.

Dominic Sherwood’s performance as Jeff Murphy is also unoriginal yet charming. The suave British person mixes it up with his American colleagues, relying on his accent to make everything he says smarter than it sounds.

Positives

Partner Track touches upon several societal issues like casual sexism and racism in the workplace, corporate capitalist greed shutting down progressive companies that worry about the environment or smaller entrepreneurs with original ideas.

The series pulls no punches when it comes to the depiction of how deep-rooted these issues are and how impossible it feels to fight for change in these scenarios.

The soundtrack of the series is jam-packed with peppy pop songs as well as slow, moody music with a song set for each situation. The songs certainly play their part and it’s consistent throughout.

Negatives

While Partner Track does bring up several social issues, they are overshadowed by the sensationalized lives of the lawyers within the series. They are insanely rich and even when there is a “little guy”, that person is far from the ones struggling at the bottom of the food chain.

The series feels rushed with certain characters playing their part and then falling by the wayside until reappearing for plot reasons. Ingrid and Nick go from the first date to living together to engagement to breaking up and even though it is considered too fast within the series, it might feel too fast even for viewers.

Speaking of relationships, there are barely any healthy ones showcased in the series. the main lead has one perfectly good relationship but cheats on him with another person she has a history with, which isn’t the only example of cheating taking place.

The writers of Partner Track have taken a simple approach to the script which is highly evident in the basic nature of the dialogues.

Verdict

Partner Track is a derivative legal drama with a gross disconnect from most of its prospective viewers. The series might have performed better as a weekly series that laid the story out gradually rather than rushing through the season.

There is an enjoyable factor to it, with viewers having to forget certain realities in order to enjoy the series that has gratuitous romance and legal expertise in equal measure.

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Also Read: Partner Track (2022) ending explained: Does Ingrid become a partner?