The Midnight Studio: Episode 5

by mistyisles

We only get one episode this week, but The Midnight Studio uses that episode to dig deeper into our characters and their understanding of each other, add a new player to the mix, and drop more hints about a mystery in our ghost-seeing photographer’s past. As it turns out, the ability to see and interact with ghosts is both more and less fun than it sounds — and it certainly doesn’t give you all the answers.

 
EPISODE 5

Until Bom, Ki-joo has never seen or heard of someone still seeing ghosts after leaving the Midnight Studio. After checking Bom over and finding nothing (else) unusual, he sends her off with a kit of ghost-repelling supplies and his phone number in case of emergency. But he and Bom have very different interpretations of what constitutes an emergency, and soon she’s calling him at all hours of the day with questions ranging from “Is it okay to feed a hungry baby ghost?” to “Can I give this ghost the Midnight Studio address?”

At first, Bom’s ghost encounters are cute and sweet, if a little sad. But then she visits a potential client in the hospital, only to discover the woman she’s talking to has already passed. The scene quickly turns gruesome, as other ghosts in the emergency room have died violent deaths, and they crowd threateningly around her demanding help she has no way to give. Bom runs home in tears and lines the doorway with salt and red beans, just in case her mysterious “Safe Zone” forcefield doesn’t work.

Someone does come through her door that night, but it’s not a ghost — it’s her friend, KIM JI-WON (Lee Bom-sori), who cut her globe-trotting adventures short to be with Bom after Geum-soon’s passing. Unbeknownst to Bom (or anyone else, for that matter), Ji-won was previously diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and given one year to live. That’s why she quit her job and left to see the world.

But, in a wonderful stroke of luck, Ji-won’s most recent tests baffle her doctor — the cancer is shrinking! He calls it a miracle, but in the moment Ji-won can only wail in frustration at having cut professional ties and drained her bank account. Now that she’s no longer dying, she’ll have to start all over again. Fortunately, Bom is more than happy to have Ji-won move in with her, and Ji-won lands a marketing job easily enough. It happens to be at Sung-ho’s old workplace — the very office in which he died of a heart attack from overwork, and which he still haunts, scaring away new recruits who dare to sit at “his” desk.

Between being chased by menacing ghosts and Ji-won laughing at the notion of seeing ghosts, Bom starts to understand what Ki-joo has dealt with every day of his life. So when he trudges home covered in salt after a demeaning encounter with a bereaved family, she offers comfort in the form of head pats and a sweet “you’ve worked hard today.” She wonders aloud if she was made to share his ability so he’d have someone to understand his burden. But the frightening ghost encounters keep coming, and after Ki-joo has to rescue her from a particularly nasty spirit, Bom admits tearfully that she can’t handle living like this.

Fortunately, Ki-joo and his assistants have found a possible solution: one of his ancestors wrote about a person who retained the gift just like Bom did. After that person took another photo with a second ghost, their sight went back to normal. So Ki-joo tracks down a lingering ghost and convinces him to take a photo with Bom. Once it’s done, she tells Ki-joo she wants to act as his Safe Zone after all, but this time he’s the one to say it’s too dangerous. He doesn’t want to endanger her anymore, so he plans to move out of both the rooftop room and her life.

The next morning, Bom ventures cautiously outside. With no ghosts in sight, she skips off to enjoy her day. And we jump to meet a person who can only be the next Midnight Studio guest: a young deliveryman (cameo by Seo Ji-hoon!), who’s clearly beloved by his colleagues and about to celebrate his long-awaited graduation. Sure enough, a dark spirit creeps into his truck. It causes him to fall asleep at the wheel and steers his truck toward a crowd of people at an intersection, one of whom is Bom. Just in time, the man wakes up and swerves — straight into one of the more horrific K-drama car wrecks I’ve seen in a while.

Bom and the other bystanders rush over to try and help the survivors, but there aren’t any. There are, however, multiple ghosts emerging from the wreckage. And she can still see them. As Bom starts to panic, Ki-joo arrives on the scene and covers her eyes.

Alongside this main storyline, we also got a peek into the pasts of the Midnight Studio staff. We already knew the broad strokes of Sung-ho’s story: he met his first love online, and in fact was planning to finally meet her in person the night he died. He’s not entirely convinced the woman wasn’t Bom, but considering Bom has no idea what he’s talking about, my money is on someone else. As for Nam-gu, he was a detective who (it’s implied) died while chasing down a criminal. This episode, he joins a stakeout with his old partner and visits his now-widowed wife, wishing she could see and hear him like Bom can.

Finally, there are several more references to a young girl ghost who came through the Midnight Studio when Ki-joo was young. Instead of passing on through the Gate of the Dead after three days like visitors are supposed to, she stuck around for weeks and eventually disappeared. It’s hinted that Ki-joo may face dire consequences for messing with the door’s usual operations, though not what specifically he did. And there are also a number of uncanny parallels drawn between the girl and Bom, so we’ll see if the “missing” ghost is still running around somewhere, or if she found her way (perhaps with help) back into the land of the living.

Speaking of Bom, I’m glad for the sake of the story that they couldn’t get rid of her ghost-seeing that easily, though I appreciated that Ki-joo tried his best to find a way to do it. I love how this shared experience is impacting the relationship between him and Bom, such that he’s willing to help her stop seeing ghosts even though he craves another living human to share his world with, and she’s willing to help protect him from the ghosts even though she’s terrified.

They haven’t figured it out yet, but it seems to me the Safe Zone isn’t so much linked to Bom alone as it is generated by the two of them in proximity. So I’m looking forward to watching them realize they’re stronger together and officially team up — and hopefully find a way to break that curse before Ki-joo’s time runs out.

 
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