My friends, this is the review that almost never was, not because I almost didn’t watch this show, but because I wasn’t sure how to go about this review, and I almost gave myself permission to just.. not write it a review. 😅 Almost.

If you’ve seen the show, you might have an inkling of why I feel like this isn’t a straightforward review to write, heh.

In the end, though, I thought that there would still be value in adding my two cents to the collective wisdom of the drama community, so here I am.

I make no promises, but I’ll do my best. 😅

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS / THE VIEWING LENS

Here are a few things that I think would be helpful to keep in mind, to maximize your enjoyment of this one:

1. Go in blind

I’d originally wondered why all the promo materials and trailers for this show had been so vague, and it’s only upon watching this show, that I realized that it was all on purpose.

It’s truly best to go into this one blind, for the storytelling to have maximum effect.

2. Be patient

I’ll talk more about this later, but the story is told in a very fragmented style, and it will take a fair while for things to fall into place and actually make sense.

Being prepared to be patient does help, I think.

3. It’s not truly a horror story

Even though I said to go in blind, I do think it’s helpful to horror wusses (like me! 🙋🏻‍♀️) to know upfront that while there are horror elements at play in our story, this is not true horror – and therefore, you don’t have to worry too much.

[SPOILERS HENCEFORTH!]

IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE SHOW, COME BACK LATER!

MY THOUGHTS ON THE WRITING

I feel that the writing is, paradoxically, Show’s greatest strength, while also being the greatest barrier to viewers.

Let me explain.

On the upside, Kang Full clearly knows and understands the characters and story world that he created, and is able to deftly move between characters and plot points with ease, like he’s solving a Rubik’s Cube with just the little finger of his non-dominant hand.

Like with Moving (review here!), the storytelling approach that Kang Full adopts here, is also a revolving focus across a big cast of characters, before tying everything together, at a chosen point in our narrative.

The difference that I felt here, is that while Moving spent more time with each revolve, and therefore gave us, as viewers, more time to get invested with each character, the same doesn’t apply here.

The storytelling approach is so fragmented, that we spend mere minutes with each character and narrative arc, before the narrative kaleidoscope is twisted again, to bring someone – or something – else into focus.

It’s a cool concept, and Kang Full is adept at it, but I have to confess that I found it a real struggle to get invested, particularly in Show’s first four episodes.

My main issue here, is that while the reveal is suitably clever, four episodes is a reaaally long runway, when Show is only eight episodes. We basically spend half of the entire watch not understanding what’s going on.

I don’t know about most people, but this felt like an eternity to me. 😅

Aside from the horror elements that Show serves up, I felt that not knowing what was going on also added to my sense of uncertainty and eeriness, while watching.

On a related note, because I couldn’t understand what was going on in these first four episodes, I also found it hard to get invested in our characters.

I think this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the first four episodes were released all at once, so that folks could binge them all in a single sitting, thereby getting to the point of illumination sooner.

For me personally, however, I still struggled to stay engaged through all four episodes, because, as I’ve discovered, I can’t quite get invested in a story where I don’t know what’s going on. 😅

That said, this narrative approach was pretty effective, in terms of building, layer upon layer, that sense that you get, that everything is not as it seems.

The realization that Hyun Ju (Shin Eun Soo) is buying a light bulb every single day; the realization that Park Bo Young’s nurse is seeing non-humans in the ICU; the fact that the scared singing highschooler is going in circles – and can see ghostly hands on Kim Min Ha’s character in the window.

It all layers together, to ultimately create this very strong sense that something is very off-kilter, and then it all comes together at the end of episode 4, in what feels like a single whoosh.

We learn that you can see “special” people, if you’re either between life and death, or have been there before; Hyun Ju goes home and embraces her mom – who’s revealed to be the dead lady in the coffin; the camera finally pans across the ICU, to reveal the identities of all the victims of the big accident.

Like I said earlier, it’s a clever reveal, though that runway was rather too long for me personally.

At this point, I was definitely curious to see how Show’s storytelling approach would evolve, after the Big Reveal, and I also did wonder whether Show would have any more surprises up its sleeves, after this one big surprise (of course it did 😁).

Overall, I feel much more at home with Show’s relatively more straightforward storytelling style in episodes five and six, and then after that, Show packs some surprise emotional punches into its finale (which I’ll talk more about later).

Like I said, the writing here is definitely a strength – except when I feel like it’s alienating me. 😅

On another note, I couldn’t help but be curious as to how the first four episodes would land on a second viewing, and that’s exactly what I did.

Here’s a collection of realizations, conclusions and questions that came up for me, during my second watch. If you have theories or answers to my questions, please feel free to share, in the comments!

Realizations, conclusions & questions on my second watch

• Hyun Min (Uhm Tae Goo) finds himself in the bus, in a repeated cycle, and I think it’s because he’d been on the bus on his way to see Ji Yeong (Kim Seol Hyun), when he’d gotten into the accident. But why can’t he remember Ji Yeong, the way other characters can remember their companions / important people, like Hyun Ju?

• If Hyun Min keeps collapsing in a heap every time he gets off the bus, how come he’s able to walk to the apartment, when Ji Yeong asks to go with him? Is it because her will for him to live is stronger than his own will to live?

• When Hye Won (Kim Seon Hwa) enters the light shop and tries to reach for a light, why does Won Yeong (Joo Ji Hoon) stop her? Is it because, at this point, she’s already dead? That doesn’t seem right, since we later see that she’s gets all scary-tall while walking with Hyun Ju. But if she’s still alive, I guess Won Yeong had stopped her because she’d reached for the wrong light?

• All the students in Hyun Ju’s class are dead; she’s the one that’s different, because she’s in between life and death. That’s pretty trippy. 🤯

• Won Young says that he sometimes is confused about whether a customer is regular or “special” – I think this confirms that he doesn’t actually realize that Hyun Ju is “special;” he only concludes that she has the ability to see “special” people.

• It’s very likely that Yu Hui (Lee Jung Eun) had kept sending Hyun Ju to the light shop, to find her light, but because Hyun Ju doesn’t understand the errand, and because Won Young doesn’t realize that Hyun Ju is “special,” that’s why she only ever comes back from the light shop with regular light bulbs.

• I’d assumed that our entire time in the afterlife is spent in the “night” portion of time, since we see our various characters searching for a way out, in repeating cycles. Later, even the detective mentions that here, the night never ends. However, when Seon Hae’s shown looking for a house to rent in that alley, it’s daytime. What does that mean?

• The basketball boy seems fine in episode 2, but by the time we get into our later episodes, his leg’s all wonky. We see similar deterioration in other characters (like the detective) but not others, like Hyun Ju. Does this reflect a deterioration in these characters’ physical states, where they’re in comas?

• We see that the people who are between life and death, sometimes show up in the world of the living, like at the hospital. I wonder how that works? How do they move between the afterlife and the land of the living?

• There’s also the bus driver (Park Hyuk Kwon) who tries to go to the ICU. He’s dead. How does this work, where he’s dead, but he can wander around the land of the living, and the afterlife? He’s searching for all the victims. Could we say that he’s a ghost with a mission? Is that what makes it possible for the dead to wander both worlds..?

• There’s also Ji Yeong, who’s dead, and shows up at the hospital ICU at Hyun Min’s bedside, sobbing. At the same time, we see her dragging around her suitcase, in the afterlife. Is this a Matrix sort of thing, where you can be in both places at the same time..? Or is she wandering around both places, but is only in one place at a time..?

SPOTLIGHT ON SELECTED CHARACTERS / RELATIONSHIPS

Hyun Min and Ji Yeong

With the Big Reveal, I found this relationship to have the biggest element of surprise, because in the afterlife, when I’d been thinking of this show as horror-adjacent, it had totally looked like Ji Yeong was out to harm Hyun Min.

All those scenes of her acting so strangely, and asking strange questions, then following him home and taking out that pair of scissors – after which we see blood dripping out of the suitcase that she’s dragging around – totally made me feel like she had maybe chopped him into pieces and stashed said pieces into the suitcase. 😅

It was a huge twist, for me, to realize that she was actually Hyun Min’s beloved girlfriend, who’d tragically killed herself when she’d believed Hyun Min to be dead (what an awful, terrible lie that Hyun Min’s mother told! 😱), and is now, in the afterlife, desperately trying to keep Hyun Min from dying, by sewing up the gaping wound in his torso.

Context changes everything, like I always say, and the context here really reframed this relationship for me, in the biggest possible way.

The thing that strikes me a lot, is the fact that she’s not trying to keep him with her, which she could certainly do, since he’s teetering on the edge and could easily die without her intervention.

Instead, she’s fighting with everything that she has, to make sure that he lives, even if it means pushing him away from herself, into the light shop, to find his light.

The only thing that doesn’t quite seem to line up, for me, is the fact that Hyun Min can’t remember Ji Yeong in the afterlife.

Every other pair of loved ones that we see in the afterlife remember each other, like Seon Hae (Kim Min Ha) and Hye Won, and Yu Hui and Hyun Ju. So why not Hyun Min and Ji Yeong, especially since they loved each other so deeply, before landing in the afterlife?

Later on, we see a refusal by Ji Yeong, to move on, from not allowing the door of her morgue chamber, to eventually haunting Hyun Min.

I’d wondered if this was because she’d died such a tragic, unfair death, or because she was that consumed by wanting Hyun Min to remember her.

I think that both of those things could be factors, but the thing that the mortician (Lee Hwang Ui) says – that she’ll forget everything once she moves on – feels like the key, to me.

My take, is that the biggest reason Ji Yeong ends up being a virgin ghost that attaches herself to Hyun Min, is because she doesn’t want to forget.

Additionally, I’m thinking that it’s very possible that the reason she attaches herself to Hyun Min, isn’t because she wants to harm him.

In the end, her final words in voiceover, are identical to the ones that she’d once texted him, “I’ll follow you.”

I do think that this allows us to conclude that Ji Yeong’s main reason for attaching herself to Hyun Min, is simply because she doesn’t want to forget him, or be separated from him.

And given what we’ve seen thus far, in terms of her strong desire to save him, perhaps  part of the reason she attaches herself to him, is because she also wants to protect him?

Seon Hae and Hye Won

I feel bad for this pair, because they have such a terrible falling out, before the accident.

They are technically a couple, but with the way Seon Hae makes it clear that she wants nothing more to do with this relationship, before she boards the bus, it’s kind of hazy if they are still a couple, both during the accident and in the afterlife.

Perhaps that’s why we see them separately for a good chunk of the afterlife portion of our story?

We see Seon Hae finding a house to rent, and staying indoors to write, while we see Hye Won wander the streets, seemingly lost.

I think that when Hye Won enters the light shop, she’s likely still alive; it’s just that she approaches the wrong light, and that’s why Won Yeong tells her not to touch anything, which is when she leaves.

At the same time, the fact that we hear the doctor say that Hye Won’s arms are stiff from rigor mortis while clasped around Seon Hae’s body, seems to indicate that Hye Won had died even before arriving at the hospital.

I’m rationalizing that the way time passes in the afterlife is likely different from that in the land of the living, and that’s why we see Hye Won wandering the streets and becoming a wonky giant, before she dies.

The thing that I find interesting, is the way Seon Hae eventually remembers Hye Won; while gazing at the flickering light bulb in the closed off room that she’s not supposed to use.

Is that bulb a reflection of her own life light? And that’s why, when it’s flickering like that – and she’s perhaps therefore slipping from life even more – she finally remembers Hye Won..?

Or could it be a reflection of Hye Won’s life light, and that’s why the bulb goes out completely – because Hye Won’s dead?

I’m going with that interpretation, and that it’s only upon her death, that Hye Won, now normal looking again, enters the house and lies down on the bed with Seon Hae.

It’s quite touching, I feel, that the first thing Hye Won does, is talk to Seon Hae about getting out of the house to go to the light shop to get a new light; she doesn’t allow herself to soak in the time together for a single moment.

Hye Won’s love for Seon Hae is, like Ji Yeong’s love for Hyun Min, sacrificial; she’s pushing Seon Hae to live, even if it’s without her. 🥲

Also, I thought it was an interesting point that Hye Won brings up; the door had always been within Seon Hae’s power to open and walk through; Seon Hae had been locked in by her own beliefs.

In the end, this arc resolves while resting on Seon Hae’s ability to choose.

Not only does she have the ability to walk out of that door, to seek out the light shop and her life light, she also has the ability to choose to destroy that light – so that she gets to stay with Hye Won.

Ultimately, I do find this arc quite touching, in that Hye Won chooses to show Seon Hae how to leave, for Seon Hae’s sake, and eventually, Seon Hae chooses to stay, for Hye Won’s sake.

Yu Hui and Hyun Ju

It really was a very poignant reveal, for me, when Show lets us in on the fact that Yu Hui is the deceased lady in the morgue chamber.

That put everything into sharp perspective; why Yu Hui had asked if she was alone, and why she’d been relieved to hear that she indeed was alone (coz that meant that Hyun Ju wasn’t dead), and why Yu Hui keeps asking Hyun Ju to go to the light shop.

In episode 6, we see that Yu Hui can’t speak, because of the cotton that’s been stuffed into her mouth at the morgue, and that’s likely why Hyun Ju doesn’t understand the real reason that Yu Hui keeps asking her to go to the light shop.

This entire arc, I feel like Yu Hui’s selfless love for Hyun Ju, keeps coming through, more and more clearly and deeply.

I’ll talk more about this in the next section, but I just have to give Lee Jung Eun mad props, for a tour de force of a performance; worthy of all the acting awards, and then some. 🥹

THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING [SPOILERS]

Like I mentioned earlier, Show packs some emotional punches into its finale. They basically felt like they came out of nowhere and hit me right in the gut. Oof.

I think the first thing that hit me in the gut, was the reveal that the barking dog had been the rescue dog which had stayed by that hiker’s (Park Jung Pyo) side until help came, and that the rescue dog had been impaled by a branch, but had stayed by the hiker nonetheless.

OOF.

And to think that the hiker had been yelling for the dog to stop barking, for almost the entirety of our story – when the dog had given its life, to save him. 😭

If you didn’t already know, I am very much a dog lover, so any story where a dog gets hurt or killed is just very overwhelming for me; I legit cried real tears, when I realized what a self-sacrificial hero this dog had been. 😭

And what a good doggie is he, to even lead the hiker to the light shop, and save him, all over again, in the afterlife? 🥹

I also found the bus driver’s arc very poignant; his guilt over the accident is so great, and he tries so hard, to find the various victims, to do what he can to help them.

In the natural, we see that he’s already dead, and is being prepared for his funeral, so clearly, he doesn’t have a lot of time left.

I found it very affecting to watch him push himself to the brink of his body’s abilities, in order to help the various victims reach the light shop, to find their light, before it was too late. 🥲

I also found it affecting to watch the scene where Bus Driver sobs and apologizes to Hye Won, saying that it’s all his fault.

Show doesn’t sugarcoat it; Hye Won agrees that it’s his fault – but she also takes consolation in his apology, and that is quite poignant, I felt.

I found it interesting to learn how Won Yeong had become guardian of the light shop; that he’d been in a building collapse, and had made a deal with the previous guardian, because he’d wanted to help his daughter.

And then, the scene that I found most surprising, and that packed the most emotional punch for me, is the one where Yu Hui goes to the light shop to beg Won Yeong for help.

Again, I’m blown away by the depth and nuance in Lee Jung Eun’s delivery, because at this point, Yu Hui can’t speak at all, since her mouth is stuffed with cotton.

And yet, her growing desperation is so clear to see; I could barely hold it together, with the way she desperately whimpers, as she begs Won Yeong to help Hyun Ju.

And then, what a breathtaking hit-to-the-gut reveal, that Yu Hui is actually Won Yeong’s daughter. 🥹

First, there’s the way Won Yeong reveals his eyes and therefore his face to Yu Hui, to stop her hysterics, which is when Yu Hui makes the tearful connection, that the guardian of the light shop, is none other than her own father.

And then, there’s the way Yu Hui struggles to communicate this realization to Won Yeong, and finally hits on the butter-flavored toffees being the key to telling him who she is, because that is the shared memory that they have, from their last moments together. 😭

AUGH. I’m a bawling mess; this reunion is so, SO precious, and so, SO unexpected. 😭😭

We see in flashback, that back when Won Yeong had first made that deal with the previous guardian, that he’d gone back for Yu Hui – and he’d brought her light to her, and we can safely conclude that that’s how Yu Hui had survived the building collapse.

And so, it makes sense that he would bend the rules again, to help Yu Hui; after all, he’d accepted the guardianship, purely to be able to help Yu Hui.

That’s how Yu Hui ends up bringing Hyun Ju’s life light back to the apartment for her, in much the same way Won Yeong had once brought her life light to her as well.

There’s something quite poetic about that, I feel. 🥲

Of course, the scene where Yu Hui tries to give Hyun Ju her life light, is very poignant as well.

The way Hyun Ju screams and cries, because she doesn’t want to be parted from Yu Hui, is so visceral and affecting. 😭😭

In the end, we get to see our various characters moving on from this point, with the survivors working to get used to a new way of life.

It’s not pretty, particularly with Hyun Min now being depressed and disabled, and Hyun Ju struggling to fit in at school.

My favorite bit of the ending, has to be the scene where Yu Hui, now no longer with cotton in her mouth (most likely because her funeral is now over), visiting Won Yeong in the light shop, and sitting with him, talking and laughing, and sharing those toffees – while the light shop’s new dog, Max, sits in the corner.

That’s very heartwarming and comforting indeed.

Ultimately, though, I don’t think Show sets out to be heartwarming or comforting, honestly.

Not all our characters get to be with their loved ones; some are separated, like Yu Hui and Hyun Ju, and Hyun Min and Ji Yeong. And we even have Ji Yeong becoming a virgin ghost.

The way I’m digesting this, is that Show basically takes things that happen, like near-death experiences where people describe a light at the end of a tunnel, the mixed survival rate of accident victims, and the lore around virgin ghosts, and offers a possible reality that would account for them all, in an interesting way.

If that’s what Show set out to do, then I think it’s done a very good job. 🥲

THE FINAL VERDICT:

A bit of a slow burn, but works out to be interesting and thought-provoking.

FINAL GRADE: B++

TRAILER:

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