It doesn’t always take ghostly encounters to realize that people aren’t always as they seem, but dealing with ghosts (not to mention being a ghost!) certainly makes it easier to discover other people’s well-kept secrets. Long-awaited answers about the past emerge this week, bringing joy to some and heartbreak to others. But one especially terrible secret is catching up to our photographer very quickly, leaving death and destruction in its wake.
EPISODE 8-9
Having successfully lured Ki-joo to the bridge by possessing Bom and threatening to throw her off, ghost-turned-evil-spirit Hoon proudly admits that he enjoyed being people’s one and only lifeline. Also, he didn’t just stalk his victim, Hyun-joo — he manipulated her boyfriend into thinking she was cheating so he’d break up with her.
Ki-joo inches closer until he’s able to knock Bom off-balance and pull her into his arms, activating the Safe Zone and expelling Hoon from her body. While Nam-gu fights Hoon off and tosses him back into the river, Ki-joo comforts Bom. She doesn’t remember anything that happened while she was possessed, and is immensely relieved to hear she didn’t hurt anyone.
Ki-joo’s only physical injury from the ordeal is a deep scratch on his elbow, but he’s far more concerned about Bom’s safety than anything else. Theoretically, throwing Hoon back into the river (the same thing that killed him originally) should destroy him, and the team helps Hyun-joo clear her name and return to a happier life. But Ki-joo isn’t taking any more chances. He accompanies Bom to work and holds her hand as they walk down the street to keep other ghosts away.
Then, since Ji-won is working late, he offers to stand guard outside her door all night. That quickly gets amended to him sitting beside her bed (because Safe Zone) until Bom realizes he’s feverish again — this time because Hoon never passed on through the Gate of the Dead like he was supposed to. So Bom lets Ki-joo rest his head on her shoulder, watching over him instead of the other way around. Unbeknownst to them, Hoon does ultimately emerge from the river, only to be absorbed by the evil spirit that has been working its way ever closer to Ki-joo and the Midnight Studio (and killing all the neighborhood cats in its path).
Traditionally, the Midnight Studio photographer takes his funeral photo 50 days prior to his 35th birthday. When the day arrives, Ki-joo asks Bom to take his photo, though he doesn’t tell her why. At his awkward attempts to pose, Bom joins him on the couch for practice. He stares in open admiration while she chatters obliviously, and then he confesses his feelings and leans in for a kiss. (Many more kisses later, they do eventually get the photo taken.)
Around the time Hoon’s case gets wrapped up, Nam-gu’s killer — the criminal who got away — is spotted again. Nam-gu joins the chase and helps his old partner catch and cuff the guy. Then he goes home to see his wife as the news breaks that his killer has finally been brought to justice. To his utter shock, he discovers that she had been planning to divorce him, seemingly because of an (at least emotional) affair with the local florist.
Enraged, Nam-gu makes a mess of the flower shop. He’s seconds away from killing the florist when Ki-joo arrives and calms him down. Ki-joo acknowledges the legitimacy of Nam-gu’s anger but warns that acting on it will turn him into an evil spirit, and advises Nam-gu to think carefully about what he really wants.
Also around this same time, Ji-won reveals (without knowing it’s a reveal) that she was in fact Sung-ho’s online girlfriend. She thinks he ghosted her on the night he, well, became a ghost, and the only way he can think to begin making it up to her is to follow her around like a good-luck fairy: holding the bus when she’s running late, delivering helpful files and insider tips to make her job easier, that sort of thing.
Now that Bom and Ki-joo are officially (if secretly) dating, he surprises her with a spontaneous camping trip. They leave Sung-ho in charge of the Midnight Studio and drive to the ocean… or, at least, that’s the plan. But this is Ki-joo’s first time behind the wheel, so a two-hour trip turns into five hours, and that’s just how long it took the car to run out of gas. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, they decide to make the best of it and pitch their tent under the stars.
Based on their conversation that night, Ki-joo finally puts the pieces of his life together: Bom was that 12-year-old ghost who disappeared! Following the accident that killed her parents, she was in a coma for two months — during which time her soul hung out at the Midnight Studio. The Safe Zone is the result of a protective salt circle he drew around the two of them. Now, Ki-joo holds Bom tightly and thanks her for saving him many times over. They agree that they must have been fated to meet each other at just the right time.
While Ki-joo and Bom are bickering over the right way to cook ramyun and sharing kisses in the rain, however, Sung-ho is left to deal with a direct attack from the cat-murdering evil spirit. It ransacks the outer studio, but fortunately it can’t breach the doors into the actual Midnight Studio, so Sung-ho is shaken but unhurt.
When Ki-joo returns from the camping trip, he’s unofficially interrogated by police officer LEE SEON-HO (Ahn Chang-hwan), the same officer he encountered at the police station before. Officer Lee can’t help noticing that Ki-joo keeps showing up conveniently at the center of weird cases (plus, to anyone who can’t see ghosts, the bridge incident where Hoon tried to kill Bom almost looks like Ki-joo tried to push her off), and he’s observed that Ki-joo’s operating hours are unconventional at best. He outright accuses Ki-joo of running a fake storefront, but with zero evidence of anything underhanded on Ki-joo’s part, he backs off for now.
That night, a new visitor named KIM YOON-CHUL (Park Doo-shik) arrives at the Midnight Studio. He was murdered immediately after being released from prison, and insists his murderer also framed him and got him imprisoned in the first place. But hang on — this is the guy from the case that got Bom fired several years ago. He wasn’t killed yesterday like he thinks he was; his spirit has been wandering the netherworld since 2019… and he met Ki-joo’s uncle there.
Meanwhile, Bom picks up Ki-joo’s photo. She starts to hang it in the studio, only for Sung-ho to inform her what it’s actually for. Devastated, she goes straight to Ki-joo for answers. Which, I’d rather her find out now than when it really gets down to the wire. But her finding out so soon after Ki-joo finally let down his guard and decided he wants to live a long life feels like an extra cruel blow. But these two seem to have a knack for getting themselves and each other out of difficult situations, so here’s hoping they can put their heads together and find a way to beat that curse once and for all!