Midnight Photo Studio (2024) K Drama Episode 3-4

Bom’s forcefield saves Ki-joo from the evil spirits that are trying to kill him and steal the magic camera, but she remains blind to the supernatural activity happening around her. She thinks he kidnapped the living orphan twin and has reported him to the police for it. At the police station, Ki-joo quickly realizes that the forcefield generates whenever he gets close to Bom (methinks it has something to do with the scar that wraps around her wrist, but for now it’s a mystery). Since there are a bunch of not-so-friendly ghosts hanging around, Ki-joo tries to stick to her side, to the point that he spills the truth about the Midnight Studio in desperate hope that she’ll believe him and he won’t have to spend the night in a cell. She doesn’t, and in the cell he stays.

He’s out by the next day, and tries again to convince Bom that he can see ghosts. For reasons even he doesn’t understand, she’s a walking ghost repellent, so he requests her protection for the 100 days that remain until the curse inevitably catches up to him. But though a visit to the studio convinces her he’s telling the truth, she’s not keen on becoming his personal “Safe Zone.”

She does, however, help out when the next Midnight Studio guest gets the team into a pickle. This ghost was a local priest, and his final request is for Ki-joo to take care of an embarrassing video he left on his laptop. Trouble is, he can’t remember his password, and once he does he’s ashamed to admit it, and Ki-joo gets caught trying to sneak the laptop out of his office.

At the police station (again), Ki-joo calls Bom for help. Finally, she convinces the priest to tell Ki-joo the password. Turns out, the password and video aren’t lewd; the priest was just too shy to share his love for K-pop girl group Aespa while he was still alive (lol). Thanks to Ki-joo and Bom, he leads the whole police station — officers, ghosts, fellow priests, detainees, and all — in a massive dance party.

Bom explains to Ki-joo over drinks (well, she drinks; Ki-joo can’t afford to have his wits inhibited) that she denied his request for protection because of the incident that got her fired from her job as a prosecutor. She let a man go free, only for him to turn up murdered soon after, and has blamed herself for his death ever since. To make matters worse, her verbally abusive ex-boss, PROSECUTOR LEE HYUN-OH (Yoo Sung-joo), made sure no one else would hire her. Hence her current unemployment. And her reluctance to become responsible for anyone else’s safety.

All this time, Grandma Geum-soon has believed that Bom quit, throwing away all of Geum-soon’s sacrifices and savings on Bom’s behalf. So when an acquaintance lets slip what really happened, Geum-soon is overcome with guilt. She brings Bom inside to live with her again and even offers to let her work the food truck. Then she buys an expensive gift box and marches over to Prosecutor Lee’s office, intending to beg for Bom’s job back. After being coldly turned away, Geum-soon slips while getting on the bus and falls to the ground. At first, it seems like she’ll bounce back, but no — her time has come.

Geum-soon visits the Midnight Studio, but asks Ki-joo not to tell Bom she’s there. Though reluctant, Ki-joo honors her request. He comes to Bom’s rescue when she dissolves into tears in the middle of the road, tries to comfort her by explaining that only those with lingering regrets brave the perilous journey to reach the Midnight Studio after death, and helps her make funeral arrangements. But he keeps quiet about the fact that Geum-soon’s spirit is currently bossing him and his assistants around and poring over her ledgers to see whether the funeral attendees’ gifts measure up to the gifts she gave in life.

It doesn’t take Bom long to catch on. When she does, she tries to convince Geum-soon to at least come with her to Jeju and view the flowers — something they kept putting off until “next year.” But Geum-soon only scolds her for abandoning her post at the funeral parlor and missing out on monetary gifts from the network she worked so hard to build. She (intentionally) comes across as wanting to cash in on her life savings, but really she wants to make sure Bom will have plenty of financial and emotional support now that she’s gone. To Ki-joo, Geum-soon explains that Bom saw her parents die in a car accident as a kid. She wants Bom to move on without the burden of another goodbye.

Ki-joo, however, understands the devastation of not being able to have that final goodbye. His uncle, SEO KI-WON (Park Ki-woong), disappeared after promising to come back. The lack of closure puts Ki-joo through constant cycles of hoping for a reunion (which I hope they get, if only because it would give *us* a Gaksital reunion!) and being crushed by disappointment. So, ultimately, Ki-joo breaks the rules for Bom.

Without Geum-soon knowing, he enlists Bom in setting up a flower-decked photo session for her and Geum-soon to meet and say goodbye. Not only is Ki-joo going against a guest’s express wishes, but he’s also taking a risk by doing the photos outside. But it’s well worth it to facilitate Bom and Geum-soon’s beautiful, tearful reunion and farewell. Bom apologizes for not measuring up to Geum-soon’s hopes for her career, and Geum-soon reassures her that she’s proud of her just the way she is. They spend their last few precious hours together. Then Geum-soon departs, and Bom sobs her heart out.

The next day, Bom thanks Ki-joo and informs him she’s his new landlord. She just has one question: how long until she stops seeing ghosts? See, most people lose that ability again as soon as they leave the Midnight Studio. Not Bom, though! Whatever powers her forcefield seems to have made the ghost-seeing permanent.

Although the shift in tone from ghostly dance parties to Geum-soon’s last days was a tad jarring, I’m glad we had those moments of hilarity alongside the heartbreak. Even though Geum-soon’s death was telegraphed a mile away, it still hit hard. Ki-joo has an incredibly difficult job — he deeply respects his duty to honor the final wishes of his guests, but he also understands exactly how it feels to be left on the other side — and I liked seeing him wrestle with what was the right thing to do for both Geum-soon and Bom.

Normally, it frustrates me when K-drama characters go against other characters’ wishes “for their own good,” but in Ki-joo’s case I thought it made sense. Because, really, Geum-joo was the one making decisions on Bom’s behalf — decisions that, ultimately, might have given Geum-joo peace, but they would have left Bom thinking for the rest of her life that her grandmother had the chance to visit one last time and didn’t care enough about her to take it.