A Terminal Diagnosis and an Ice Cream Heist
Welcome to Haeseong, where twenty-seven-year-old Eun Chae-ni receives the devastating news that she is terminally ill. Naturally, her immediate reaction is to demand world travel money from her grandmother, Kim Jeon-bok, who shuts down the request faster than a bank during a holiday. Frustrated and broke, Chae-ni handles her grief like any mature adult would, by stealing a young boy’s ice cream in broad daylight. This petty crime is witnessed by Lee Un-jeong, a righteous civil servant whose colleague instantly brands Chae-ni as the neighborhood weirdo to avoid. Meanwhile, the town’s resident rag picker, Kim Bong-pal, is having a much worse night at the local dumping yard. He gets stuck in a mysterious, slimy puddle that literally melts his ear off before he passes out, proving that Haeseong is not your average sleepy countryside town.
Bureaucracy, Bouquets, and a Sudden Kidnapping
A few days later, City Hall becomes a battlefield of complaints. While Bong-pal’s friend is completely ignored by the lazy staff while trying to report him missing, a disgruntled citizen named Son Gyeon-un arrives to scream about the hazardous dumping yard. Un-jeong is handed the unfortunate task of dealing with Gyeon-un, calmly explaining that government officials cannot just march onto private property. Gyeon-un throws a tantrum and threatens to report Un-jeong to his boss, but our stoic civil servant refuses to back down, forcing the angry man to storm out. Outside the office, a mysterious old man approaches Un-jeong to warn him that people have been vanishing just like they did twenty years ago. Before he can elaborate further, members of a religious cult casually kidnap the old man in broad daylight, because why not add a cult to this unfolding madness.
When Hardware Shopping Turns into a Serial Killer Investigation
Chae-ni is still desperate to flee to Mount Kilimanjaro, but her neighbor and friend, Kang Ro-bin, cannot lend her a single won because he spent his entire savings fixing a leaking roof that his cheap landlord refused to touch. Undeterred, Chae-ni hits up the local hardware store to buy escape supplies, where she accidentally runs into Un-jeong. The two engage in a hilarious battle of suspicious glances, intensely judging each other's shopping carts. When Chae-ni tries to hijack Bong-pal’s abandoned shopping cart outside to carry her massive suitcase, Un-jeong transforms into a detective. Convinced she might be a serial killer thanks to the old man's earlier warning, he tackles her suitcase, causing it to burst open and rain her clothes all over the pavement. After an agonizingly awkward cleanup, a deeply embarrassed Un-jeong hands her his business card, and Chae-ni promises to contact him later for financial compensation.
The Fake Kidnapping with a Fatal Twist
Meanwhile, Gyeon-un is suffering at home under the thumb of his domineering wife, who is furious that the dumping yard is ruining their flower business and refuses to fund a vacation for his mother. Seeking an escape, Gyeon-un visits Ro-bin’s leaky apartment to bond over their shared financial misery. Chae-ni walks in on their pity party and offers them hard cash to help her with a little project. Cut to the trio filming a highly dramatic, fake ransom video to extort money from Chae-ni’s grandmother. The plan seems flawless until Chae-ni, while tied to a chair, suddenly ceases to breathe. Yes, she actually dies mid-prank, leaving her two accomplices screaming in absolute terror while her grandmother is simultaneously hiring an ex-cop named Gu Jun-mo to track her down.
A Miraculous Resurrection and Secret Superpowers
Instead of calling an ambulance like normal human beings, a panicked Gyeon-un convinces Ro-bin to dump Chae-ni’s corpse at the infamous dumping yard. Naturally, they run right into Un-jeong, who is already investigating the area after finding a cult brochure among the local homeless population. A chaotic wrestling match over a wheelbarrow ensues, resulting in Chae-ni’s body rolling directly into the glowing, radioactive slime. Ro-bin and Gyeon-un take a desperate dive into the ooze to hide the body from Un-jeong, but when they look up, the corpse has completely vanished. The police arrive just as Un-jeong accuses the two men of body dumping, only for the officers to point out that Chae-ni is standing right behind them, fully alive and utterly confused. A final flashback reveals that during the daytime suitcase explosion, Un-jeong secretly used his hidden superpowers to protect Chae-ni from being injured by the sharp objects inside, setting the stage for a wonderfully foolish supernatural comedy.
The Verdict: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
Talk about a premiere that hits the ground running and then trips directly into a puddle of radioactive slime. This first episode is a masterful blend of dark comedy, neighborhood pettiness, and genuine supernatural intrigue. Watching a terminal diagnosis immediately pivot into an ice cream heist and a botched ransom video is peak K-drama chaos. The setup is fast-paced, the characters are beautifully unhinged, and that final superpower twist raises the stakes perfectly. It is a brilliant, laugh-out-loud launch for a series that promises to be beautifully bizarre.