Season 1, Episode 12 (Series Finale)
Date of release: November 3, 2023 (Netflix)
Written by: Lee Nam-gyu, Kim Da-hee, Oh Bo-hyun
Directed by: Lee Jae-gyoo
”Each one of us is standing on the border between normal and abnormal.”
Same issues as some of the other episodes of the show: It's got weird editing choices. A conversation between Da-eun and Yu-chan is depicted twice – once in the normal flow of the narrative, and once more in the form of quick flashbacks that help Yu-chan stand up to his boss and follow standard South Korean employment law, and leave work after he finishes his eighth hour. Why that conversation with Da-eun needed to be shown twice, I have no idea, so I guess that even South Koreans don't trust their audiences to have a memory, and could remember scenes that happened less than ten minutes ago. Or maybe that is just one of the things Netflix pushes on their show writers, to make their programs as digestible as possible, especially when viewers are on their phones all the time.
Just as I expected, this episode is more of a coda and less of a proper finale, which the previous episode already was. Da-eun has one more patient to take care of, Deul-re makes one more decision to go for her own form of happiness (goodbye, nurse job; hello, cruise job!), and the workplace drama was pretty much absent, with none of the employees going through difficulties at their job for the final episode of the series.
Except for Yu-chan, whose new corporate job makes him have panic attacks again, making me wonder if he quits his job after the first day to go chase his own form of happiness (because I cannot believe that working a corporate job makes anyone happy). There was a funny moment when the sense of drowning in the washroom turned out not to be in Yu-chan's head at all, because this time, an actual pipe burst and flooded the washroom, but other than that, it felt awkward to watch the man try and fight his panic attacks while working for literal ghouls who have no shame using and abusing their lower-level staff. But hey, Yu-chan was right on the clock when it came to going home – maybe his future would have seen him rise to become a union president, making sure that corporate employees not only get to go home after eight hours of work, but their bosses also follow the law. Maybe that is Yu-chan's happiness. Maybe that should be a spin-off show.
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| One final moment of friendship before going off to find happiness. |
