The first episode of Jung Kyung-Ho’s Oh My Ghost Clients is finally here, and it’s actually quite fun. The show, which also stars Seol I-Na, tells the story of a dejected man who’s out of a job and has lost all his savings after making a stupid decision, fixing it all when he ends up in a life-and-death situation. I’m not entirely sure, but based on the title, this show might as well be considered a spin-off of the popular show Oh My Ghost. In Oh My Ghost Clients, No Mu-Jin finds himself at his wits’ end when he loses all of his money in crypto and needs a new qualification to get a proper job. Finally, after hearing the advice of some of his colleagues, friends, and acquaintances, No Mu-Jin decides to get a law degree so he’s able to get a job, trusting a close acquaintance. Obviously, this isn’t possible so quick, so he ends up passing a qualifying exam instead. But while the shocking montage of him qualifying in a year passes super quickly, the close acquaintance of his ends up getting called out for sexual harassment, leaving Mu-Jin back at square one. So, how will Mu-Jin get his life back together? Let’s find out in the first episode.
Spoiler Alert
How Does Mu-Jin’s Business Take Off?
Mu-Jin doesn’t just go bankrupt; his wife also walks out of his life because he can’t keep it together. Mu-Jin ends up getting a labor attorney license, only for him to learn that the job that was waiting for him isn’t waiting anymore, because the person who offered it is a prick who sexually harassed one of his employees. Looking back, Mu-Jin realizes he was a victim too, but didn’t realize what was happening. Mu-Jin’s left now with a glorified piece of paper and no job to show for it, so what does he do next? He starts his own firm, which offers help to workers. Of course, very unlike the usual K-drama setup, where the lawyers are high profile and never interested in helping the locals, eh? But you can still call out the stereotype because Mu-Jin doesn’t really care that he has the power to help people; all he really wants and needs is money. He’s a selfish man, and he’s also quite aware of that, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
On the other hand, we’ve got Na Hee-Joo. Hee-Joo works for Mu-Jin, essentially for free because she’s also his sister-in-law. In a realistic portrayal of the grind, Hee-Joo is a content creator, but she hasn’t really blown up. Still, she’s got 500-odd subscribers, which is a pretty good place to be. She has a fellow content creator living with her named Gyeon-Woo, who makes super-patriotic content. I’m not sure what that means, but it gets demonetized for spreading misinformation. So they’re all basically in a bit of a soup, so what can the trio do?
The big plan that Hee-Joo and Gyeon-Woo come up with is to help Mu-Jin inspect factories that are making employees work in terrible conditions, not following safety regulations, and basically going against labor laws, and then essentially get bribed by them. So if they went around giving these factories some tips and tricks on how to keep their workers safe, t’s like the factories are paying a small amount to keep Mu-Jin and his team from posting videos online about their mistreatment of their workers, etc. While Mu-Jin is initially very skeptical of this plan, it works pretty well, because the second the camera is out, everyone freaks out and complies. Until they end up at one particular factory where the chief isn’t one to give in so easily. This happens to be a factory that has had the highest number of accidental deaths of workers on the job. When they get there, Mu-Jin immediately saves a migrant worker from getting a Final Destination-esque ending right in front of Mu-Jin.
The team splits up, because Gyeon-Woo needs to take care of his bowel movements, and Hee-Joo goes to convince the chief that what they’re doing is going to help him, it’s not something illegal, like bribing. But Mu-Jin carries on with his work, meeting with the laborers and trying to tell them what to do to keep safe. However, while doing this, there’s another Final Destination moment, and a bunch of steel beams are about to fall onto Mu-Jin before the screen blacks out.
What Is Mu-Jin Going To Do Now?
Mu-Jin’s eyes open in an old celebration of his birthday, one where he can see his child self celebrating with his family. But the scene shifts rapidly to his wife visiting his mom and telling her that Mu-Jin’s going to die soon, and he’s still worthless. I think Mu-Jin knows he’s a flawed human being; that’s why he’s seeing his faults play out as conversations between his wife and mother, the two people who are meant to love him unconditionally. Anyway, suddenly he’s in a place where a man much younger than him stands in front of him and speaks informally. He’s not an angel, though; he’s someone who works for ghosts. This man, Bo-Sal, is tired of doing this job and offers Mu-Jin his place, but of course, there’s a condition: if he replaces him, he’ll be able to live; if he doesn’t, he’ll be dead. Mu-Jin has no choice but to sign the contract that floats in the air in front of him, without fully reading it. He’s now going to be a labor attorney for ghosts. Also, I suppose the statue that Mu-Jin placed his card in the hands of back when his friend puked on it was Bo-Sal himself, which gave him the idea of finding a replacement.
Episode 1 Review
The first episode of this series is super fun and doesn’t waste any time getting into the action. We already know the lead actors are going to be fantastic, but there are cameos from the doctors of Hospital Playlist too, reminding us how deep that bond goes. But we haven’t seen any ghosts yet; we’ve only seen Mu-Jin nearly dying, so that’s the thing I’m most excited about. I think we can expect a Jo Jung-Seok cameo, considering Oh My Ghost was his drama. Also, no, this is not a romance show, and I don’t even think there will be a side plot for romance, so keep that in mind if that’s something you’re considering when picking out a new K-drama. Honestly, I’ll be tuning in every week for some fun comedy-ghost stuff, because it’s rare for it to go wrong. I think there’ll be some fun jump scares, and the relationship between Mu-Jin and Hee-Joo is a funny one that I look forward to seeing more of. I’d give the first episode of Oh My Ghost Clients 3.5 out of 5 stars.
