After eight weeks of alternating between night and day, our show has finally come to an end. The show’s plot threads are wrapped and tied up in a decent bow — at least the mystery arc is. As for the romance, let’s just say the Oliver Twist in me expected a buffet and I got a single serving. But I guess it’s okay since I got food.
EPISODES 15-16
We pick up from last week’s ending where villainess Eun-shim knocked Mi-jin out. Thankfully, a sensible Mi-jin already texted Ga-yeong to call the cops before she walked into the lion’s den. When Mi-jin regains consciousness, Eun-shim attempts to inject her with fentanyl, but she’s unstable — probably withdrawal symptoms from all the opioids she’s been taking — and the syringe falls out of her hand. Thanks to a penknife in her pocket, Mi-jin frees herself from her restraints, grabs the syringe and jumps out of the window. All that experience climbing out of Ji-woong’s house finally came in handy. Lol.
Eun-shim goes after Mi-jin with her axe, and the chase in the woods ends when the wolf catches Red Riding Hood. Just as the wolf is about to pounce on our heroine, she falls into a hallucination and begins to see Mi-jin as aunt Soon. Eun-shim is scared shitless to see the woman she killed, and Mi-jin takes advantage of the situation to inject her with the fentanyl syringe. By the time Ji-woong arrives on the scene, Eun-shim has been tied to a tree, and he sees the mysterious cat — who leads him to Mi-jin. The sun rises when Ji-woong sees Mi-jin afar off, and she transforms into Soon before collapsing — leaving him thoroughly confused about what he just saw. It only took 15 episodes, but hey, at least our hero finally knows the truth.
Soon wakes up in the hospital and Ga-yeong assures her that her dad is fine. Phew! Our heroine cries as she recollects a childhood memory where her aunt promised to rescue her if she’s ever in danger. And I suppose our mysterious cat is auntie, and the deus ex ghostina was her way of protecting her niece. The police dig up the surroundings at Eun-shim’s hideout and they find the bones of Ji-woong’s mom and aunt Soon. Finally, Ji-woong and Mi-jin’s family can properly grieve and get closure on their loved ones.
Eun-shim’s “Woe is me, I don’t have a family. So I’ll take my anger out on those who have families” as a reason for killing is quite pathetic, and I’m just happy to be done with her part of the story. Soon visits Cheol-gyu to update him about the case, and he thanks her for keeping her promise to catch the culprit. Although the statute of limitations on his wife’s and her aunt Soon’s case have expired, Eun-shim is looking at a life sentence for her most recent murders and Mi-jin’s attempted murder.
It’s finally the moment of truth, and Ji-woong waits outside Mi-jin’s house after she has avoided him for days. She hems and haws and tries to work up the courage to reveal her secret, but he beats her to the punch. He knows that Mi-jin and Soon are the same person. Sigh. Right till the end, this show prevented Mi-jin from telling Ji-woong the truth by herself! Ji-woong and Mi-jin get into a “You should just have told me” and “It’s the side of me I want to show the least to the person I care about the most” back and forth. But rather than ending the scene with tears and a hug — or perhaps, a kiss — Mi-jin asks to break up, and I…
Mi-jin knows that Ji-woong forced the Eun-shim case to close without any further probe into her Im Soon identity in order to protect her, and she feels guilty over it. A little tweak in the witness statement records doesn’t bother Mr. Prosecutor, but Mi-jin insists on taking responsibility for her actions because she doesn’t want to “burden” him. Ugh! “What about me? I’ve never liked anyone like this before. What will you do about my feelings?” Ji-woong asks her. And at this point, I fully expected them to break out in a High School Musical number since all of us are being clowns here. No, really, what do you mean our OTP finally got together in the penultimate week — which was largely overshadowed by the raincoat killer reveal — only to break up in the first episode of the final week? Make it make sense, Show. *Rolls eyes*
The next set of people to learn about Mi-jin’s secret are her parents. There’s enough shock and tears to go round, but at least our heroine can have a good night’s sleep without having to bolt out of the house at the crack of dawn. Mom and Dad quickly adapt to the dual lives of our heroine, and watching their interactions with Soon makes me wish they knew about the transformation sooner. Imagine all the hijinks we could have gotten that didn’t involve them chasing her around the neighborhood and calling the police on her?
Having quit her job, our heroine reminisces on all her adventures as a prosecutor’s office assistant. She’s only just realizing how much she liked the job, and this propels her to resume studying for the civil service exam — this time, not because Mom wants her to be a civil servant, but because she has found something she really wants to do. On the other hand, Mr. Prosecutor gets his transfer orders back to Seoul and he drops by Mi-jin’s place to say goodbye but she’s not home. Instead, he meets Mom and Dad, and they look like they’re the ones going through a breakup with him. Lol. Sorry, Mom, you really captained the ship well, but your daughter drove it into an iceberg.
Our heroine has this whole epiphany where she realizes that although she hated being young because there’s so many things she couldn’t do while young, her youth was a gift. When she comes to terms with that, the mysterious cat appears one last time — as if to say well done on finally realizing the joy of youth — then it leaves the story.
Mi-jin has a dream that night where she sees Soon sitting in front of her. Soon is finally leaving, but Mi-jin has mixed feelings about it. Mi-jin is kinda at a loss of what to do without Soon, and she argues that she was able to do everything she did because of Soon. “You’re wrong. You were able to do it because it was you. You’re me,” Soon replies, and a part of me wonders if this curse is part-manifestation of some hidden split personality in our heroine.
“Do you think I can be brave without you?” Mi-jin asks, and Soon assures her that she’s already brave. Miss Night and Miss Day tearfully bid each other goodbye, and our heroine wakes up from the dream to a beautiful sunrise… as Mi-jin. The transformation curse is broken! I don’t think we got a proper explanation for the curse, but maybe it was so that our heroine could catch the killer, and gain new experiences on the side that she would never have been able to as Mi-jin.
Now that she can be out and about in the daytime, Mi-jin is able to attend Eun-shim’s trial as a witness. The unremorseful-till-the-end Eun-shim gets the death penalty and that wraps up the case. You’d think that now that the curse is behind her Mi-jin will find a way to work things out with Ji-woong, but no. I’d mostly given up on their relationship with each passing minute, but it still hurt to see Ji-woong standing outside Mi-jin’s house all alone while the family enjoyed a fun dinner inside together. Come on, invite that man in for a meal!
In other news, Ji-woong returns to Seoul and the Seohan prosecution office welcomes a new set of senior interns. Military service is over and Won is back to promoting as an idol. Things with Mi-jin are officially over and will remain as a precious memory to him. Myung-duk proposes to Ga-yeong — shaking every step of the way, lol — and I’m impressed by how our second leads didn’t waste any time. Some people need to learn from them.
Six months later, a new set of investigators arrive at the Seoul prosecution office and we see a familiar face. That’s right, our Mi-jin passed the civil servant exams and she is now an official investigator! It’s good to see that Mi-jin has found herself and the path she wants to take in life — and all of that is colored by her days as Soon. It’s also cool to see that those work skills of hers that wowed Ji-woong and Myung-duk at Seohan are still wowing people in Seoul — nice Yoon Park cameo, by the way. Only when my face cracked into a smile at his appearance did I realize that I’d been mostly watching the episode with a straight face. Lol.
After stringing us along for 16 episodes, our OTP has their “I missed you” kiss and getting back together moment. But for how dramatic and needless the breakup was, their getting back together was kinda underwhelming. I was so over them at this point, so I didn’t really care as much. But I didn’t like how Mi-jin waited for Ji-woong to make the first move when she was the one who broke up with him. Show made her passive for most of their relationship, and I’m not confident she won’t break up with him in future over some other unnecessary issue — which is not a good place to end a romance journey. But oh well. They had a happy ending walking down the cherry blossom streets, and wherever they go from here on out is their business not mine.
The romance arc was my primary reason for watching this show, and I did not appreciate it taking a backseat to the fantasy and mystery plots. At least we got humor even if most of that was missing towards the end. Still, I won’t judge the show too harshly because I did enjoy it at some point. The loving familial relationship between Mi-jin and her scene-stealing parents was a show highlight, and the supportive relationship between our heroine and her bestie was equally amazing.
I loved how Ga-yeong was Mi-jin/Soon’s biggest cheerleader, sounding board, and pillar of support. And in the scary world of navigating two lives, it was a blessing for our heroine to have a safe space in Ga-yeong where she could just be herself. We may not have gotten the romance we wanted, but at least we got a rock solid friendship, right? Besties over boyfriends!