Daily Dose of Sunshine (2023) KDrama Episode 8

Episode 8 of Daily Dose of Sunshine begins with Da-eun still trying to come to terms with what’s happened to Seo-wan. She blames herself for the suicide, given she was his doctor and in the same ward al that time. Dr Im gets her some coffee and they sit outside, discussing the disassociate disorder she used as a defence mechanism to Seo-wan’s death.

Ms Song chimes in too and decides Da-eun should stick to a schedule and take her time to heal. Song knows that she needs a few days and offers her up some time away from the hopsital. Da-eun though would rather work through this and distract herself rather than wallow with her thoughts at home.

Go-yun bumps into her in the hallway and she asks him to give her a month to let herself mourn and then start again, feeling like the old Da-eun again. That way he can ask the question about dating again when she’s ready. At that point, she should have enough time to make her decision .Go-yun is ecstatic and admits that he’d wait a year if need be. They shake hands and agree to this.

However, Go-yun strugglers to wait all that time without seeing her, and he even reverts back to the finger snapping as well. As for Da-eun, she starts sticking to her schedule, and has a new patient to handle in the ward too, Jae-hui. She’s obsessed with lotions and other sanitizers. However, she begins causing discomfort for the other patients when she uses the lotion without their consent. Eventually though, she lashes out and sprays lotion everywhere.

Jae-hui is a difficult patient to handle, and both Mr Yoon and Jung-ran contemplate whether Da-eun will handle her case of bipolar in the midst of everything that’s going on.

The situation involving Yeo-hwan and Deul-re continues to blossom, with the pair even holding hands in secret inside the elevator together. The former buys her a whole bunch of different gifts, including special rings, but none seem to be the right fit for her, given what she ends up saying during their little dates together, so Yeo-hwan decides against making a lavish gesture of love.

Go-yun tries to busy himself with different activities, including a whole bunch of puzzles. He even rings and manages to get a month worse of custom jigsaws to take his mind off things. If that wasn’t enough, Go-yun has even been marking off the days on the calendar too! And the picture for the puzzle? It’s only of Da-eun and Go-yun together at the beach.

All this time though, Da-eun and Yu-chan start to get closer together while they’re practicing their ping pong. Da-eun is certainly starting to perk up, although when Jae-hui tries to self-harm again, she offers her some words of wisdom. She also ends up playing with Da-eun at the playground like old times, before they go out and do karaoke. Things are fine…until they’re not. Da-eun suddenly stops and lets it all out, crying hysterically and admitting that nothing is okay and she’s still not over what’s happened, even now.

As Da-eun begins crying, Yu-chan holds her and lets her grieve. Da-eun feels like she’s the only one stuck in the same spot, while everyone else has seemingly moved on. She definitely needs some time off, and she speaks to Song to confirm as much.

That evening, Deul-re gets some inspiration and after learning she has a new apartment and her luck is finally turning around, she gets Yeo-hwan a matching jumper so they can properly mark their relationship. They even get a couple’s dinner too!

After, they head home but Deul-re’s parents show up. Deul-re is awkward and coldly retorts to her parents that this is not her business, nor does she need them to get involved in this. Deul-re points out to her mum that she’s got a scholarship to try and help her life but she’s been swamped with debts, and she’s just not helping matters.

Da-eun takes a different approach and decides to just sleep in and not bother going out and doing anything. In the end, Yu-chan takes drastic measures and picks her up out of bed in her duvet and decides she needs to get up and do something. He opens up and tells her she needs to think of everyone else and try to do things for them. Da-eun coldly slaps his hand away and points out that she doesn’t care if she dies or not, pushing her friend away.

When he drives off, Da-eun continues to wallow in her own grief. His words resonate with her though, as she realizes that her being in her apartment is causing harm to others. But the grief threatens to swallow her up whole, and seeing Yu-chan angry like this, causes her to spiral.

Yu-chan confides in Yeo-hwan about this, but the latter believes that Da-eun has depression. Asking her to get up and leave, not to mention forcing her to go outside and do stuff is not helping anyone, and Yu-chan realizes that he’s caused even more damage to Da-eun by trying to force her out.

When Go-yun shows up in a suit and flowers, given a month has now passed, he decides to head over to Da-eun’s place and see her. He does also learn about her depression too, but still decides to give it a shot.

Go-yun says his part but decides not to ask her out and confess his love. Instead, he asks her to go and see a psychiatrist to get help and go back to that selfless, bubbly nurse she always was. However, Da-eun’s mum shows and berates him for his words. As they stand at the crossroad, Da-eun decides to step out into traffic, with no regard for her own life. She’s lucky to be alive, especially when the white truck of doom shows up.

Thankfully, her mum manages to rush over and push Da-eun to the other side before she’s struck. As for our protagonist, she’s out of it and very clearly needs help.

The Episode Review

The white truck of doom shows up yet again in another K-drama (this is a recurring trope where a white truck either kills, hurts or nearly strikes our protagonist or an important character).

Thankfully this time, it doesn’t claim another victim. However, the episode itself tackles depression pretty well and shows just how this can eat away at even the most bubbly and happy of people. We all suffer through hard times but anxiety, depression and grief can really eat away at those nuggets of sunshine that keep us from going completely insane.

Unfortunately, Da-eun is in a big depressive state and in danger of going the same way as Jung-in and Seo-wan. We’ve seen what depression has done to these two and Da-eun definitely needs help to try and work through her issues, even if it’s finding someone to talk to about her issues.

Go-yun’s selfless act at the end, deciding to sacrifice his own happiness in order to make sure Da-eun is okay is a really nice touch and big contrast to Yu-chan, who tried to force Da-eun to get up and do things for him. Naturally, he didn’t know it would cause her harm, hence why he reacted the way that he did.

Either way, the ending certainly leaves everything wide open for the next chapter, which looks like it’s going to focus much more heavily on depression too.