Miss Night and Day – K-drama Episode 1 Recap & Review

Episode 1

In episode 1 of Miss Day and Night, we are introduced to Lee Mi-jin, a civil service aspirant who burns the midnight oil every day to pass her exams.

Although she consistently scores top marks in the written exams, she repeatedly fails the interview, often seemingly due to her age.

After failing the interview for the eighth time, she returns to her family, who rejoice at her success due to a misunderstanding involving a selected candidate with the same name.

Devastated by her situation, Mi-jin meets a man who had given her his business card, explaining that he can help with her selection via a referral process. She gives him her bankbook along with the documents, only for a stranger to intervene, identifying the man as a scammer. As the scammer runs for his life, with the stranger hot on his heels and Mi-jin screaming, “Give me my money,” he is eventually arrested.

The stranger helps Mi-jin get to the police station. It’s revealed that Mi-jin had used her family’s emergency funds to pay the scammer and cannot get the money back immediately since it was transferred to a burner account.

She further confesses that she had given the man her bankbook, with the officer informing her that “if this ends up being connected to a phishing case, the victim can become the perpetrator in a heartbeat.” And this is how she finds herself in double trouble.

Elsewhere, we discover the stranger to be Gye Ji-ung, a perfectionist prosecutor, who finds that while helping Mi-jin, their documents were exchanged and now he has her resume instead of his case file. He calls Mi-jin, but she mistakes him for another scammer and ends up blessing him with innovative curses before blocking his number.

After reaching home, Mi-jin comes across a seemingly magical cat, gives the cat some milk, and says, “You look just like this cat I know. Instead of a broke job seeker like me, make sure you find a rich owner who gets paid well and feeds you nice organic food.”

With this, she goes back to her room, burns all her study material, and drinks until she drops while reminiscing about the time she wasted studying hard for the exam only to end up broke and jobless. As she is drinking, the magical cat jumps into a well, with Mi-jin following to save it. Time stops and reverses. The next day, Mi-jin wakes up in the body of a 50-year-old woman.

Her family obviously cannot recognize her and chases her out of the house as police apprehend her, all the while the old woman claiming to be Mi-jin. They conclude that she’s mentally unstable, and Mi-jin successfully escapes with the officer following her.

As she tries to hide from him, the sun sets and she returns to her own body. She returns home and concludes the sun might have something to do with her sudden transformation. The next day, despite all her efforts, she transforms yet again, this time locking herself in so she isn’t chased in the streets.

Feeling the cat has something to do with the absurd situation, she sneaks outside and visits the veterinary clinic where she had run after the cat fell into the well. But when she arrives, she finds that the cat had escaped. Meanwhile, the magical cat appears in a room with a poster of a missing person named Lim Sun.

The next day, as Ji-ung fights a case against the celebrity Ko Won, we discover that while doing his job, he transforms into an irritable, snappy perfectionist. Meanwhile, Mi-jin visits a plastic surgery clinic and even a shaman to undo the spell cast on her but without success.

This is when she comes across a public service posting for the elderly and appears for the interview where she not only passes but excels due to her energy levels belonging to a person in their 20s. She finally gets a job as Ji-ung gets transferred to her town where he’s after a missing person case.

The Episode Review

Episode 1 of Miss Day and Night feels a lot more clichéd than we would have liked with a worn-out plot, but since it’s only the first episode, it’s hard to guess how the series will pan out. It’s nothing out of the ordinary with subpar production quality, but somehow it does pique our interest.

Mi-jin is the typical damsel in distress with a fairy godmother-cum-cat who crosses paths with a successful man who ends up saving her. Since a veteran actor is playing the role of Lim Sun, the daytime persona of Mi-jin, there is still hope for the best. We also look forward to watching more of Jung Eun-ji and Choi Jin-hyuk in this fantasy mystery romcom.