Date of release: November 3, 2023 (Netflix)
Written by: Lee Nam-gyu, Kim Da-hee, Oh Bo-hyun
Directed by: Lee Jae-gyoo
”Just because I get a stain on my scrubs doesn't mean they're not scrubs anymore. The same way it doesn't mean that I'm no longer a nurse just because I was a patient at a psychiatric hospital.”
This was not the final episode? The last couple of minutes sure made it feel like that, but there is still one episode to come, even though this hour could be seen as the season closer. However, I do like it when TV shows get all their important storylines done before the season finale, so that the last hour of a show – whether it's the last of the season or the entire series – could be used as a coda of sorts. For workplace dramas, it could be an entire episode dealing with work-related issues (the series finale of ER did that in 2009, making for a finale that might not have been memorable, but was completely right for its genre). For action shows, it could be one final mission (where characters die and all that jazz). For DAILY DOSE OF SUNSHINE, it could be one more patient for Da-eun, proving once more why she is the greatest in her field, and why the guardians deciding to protest against her in this episode was one hell of a waste of time.
And for Deul-re to find her own little place of happiness, since she had something of a revelation here. She has gotten rid of her mother, she has paid off all her debt, she is in somewhat of a relationship with Yeo-hwan (no scenes of them making out though, which has me wondering if Korean dramas even depict romantic storylines this way, or if it's just like Disney Channel shows: one kiss per season, and that kiss better be a story-breaking one!). It would be a shame for Deul-re to quit working at the hospital and start singing and dancing for a cruise liner because I would have loved to imagine another season in which she actually interacts with Da-eun, but I guess it's all about Deul-re's happiness, and if she feels much better when on a ship taking care of drunken cruise passengers than mentally ill people, then so be it. Since the writers never managed to get the two women together for a storyline, it would be better for one of them to change professions.
The guardians' protests against Da-eun were a little over the top, though. I have no idea how South Korea looks at mental illness, but judging by the way it was seen as something criminal and bad by the general public, makes me think this show was partially written and made to combat that type of real-life stigma. Going up against a single nurse who hasn't done anything wrong kind of made the patients' guardians the villain of the story. Demanding the hospital to fire an employee even though there has been no evidence of wrongdoing... Way to make yourself look evil there while telling the same hospital to please take care of your sick family members.
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| One can't recover from a mental illness when the entire world reminds you of it. |
