Netflix’s Oh My Ghost Clients is super fun, especially because, despite the heavy dark stuff, the show is still a lot of fun thanks to Jung Kyoung-Ho’s comic timing. The show is only 10 episodes long, too, and is an interesting break amidst the almost drab wave of K-dramas we’re getting right now. I’m hoping we get to see more ghost activity, though. While we are treated to some supernatural elements, I would be delighted to see some Ghostbusters style ghosts appearing out of the blue to make the whole thing more amusing. The show tells the story of a labor attorney who nearly dies while he’s going around scamming factories while also trying to do some good for laborers. But an angel-like person tells him that if he wants to stay alive, he must help some ghosts who were wronged while alive. Mu-Jin has no choice but to sign the contract, making him a slave to this angel. But I suppose he’ll soon realize that what he’s doing is actually good work and that this is how he should work on his actual job as well. But with that said, let’s get into episode 2.
Spoiler Alert
Who Is the First Ghost?
In episode 2, Mu-Jin finds himself saved from the steel beams falling on him. Seeing how terrified he is (he peed his pants in public), Hee-Joo decides to take him to the hospital. Mu-Jin starts to act extra strange when he sees a 4th person in the car. This person is his first ghost, Min-Uk, a student who used to work in that very same factory and ended up dead. The worst part is that the whole story got buried, and nobody knows what actually happened to Min-Uk. It takes him a bit, after checking with the doctors if he’s doing okay, but Hee-Joo eventually gives him the idea to ask the ghost who he is and what he wants from him. This prompts the ghost, i.e., Min-Uk, to tell him that he worked in the factory.
Min-Uk’s story is tragic, especially because all he was trying to do was be a good son and earn a living for himself. A student, studying to be able to take care of himself and his mother, Min-Uk, started working at the factory, but it didn’t seem like a regular job even. He worked too many hours, was put in very dangerous situations with no safety precautions, and was not even given Chuseok break. But Min-Uk labored on because he worried about his mom and his finances. In the process, he became friends with Nimal, whom we saw in the first episode. Nimal’s a migrant worker from Sri Lanka who had become good friends with Min-Uk because they were roommates. I suppose you could say the only reason he was managing was because Nimal was nice and kept him company. Min-Uk even taught Nimal some Korean. But one fine day, Min-Uk’s arm got sucked into the machine, and there was no way of bringing him out. We’re made to believe that’s when he died, but there’s more to it than that.
Feeling troubled by the vision that Mu-Jin gets of this whole situation, the team decides to solve the case of Min-Uk. Their investigation begins with a reporter who immediately dismisses the case, claiming something like he died outside of work hours and shouldn’t have even been there. Then they meet the person who sent Min-Uk to work there, but that is also a dead end. But finally, they go to the only person who really matters, Min-Uk’s mother. She’s already given up on life and is just waiting to join her husband and son in heaven. She doesn’t even have a use for a settlement. But surprisingly enough, it is Gyeon-Woo who manages to come up with a question that suddenly strikes her and makes her rethink her viewpoint. He asks her what she’ll tell her son when she meets him next, and she’s left dumbfounded. While Min-Uk is dead already, if they put his story out there, at least some other people may be saved from this terrifying fate.
What Does the Team Discover?
Eventually, they decide that Gyeon-Woo should go to the factory undercover, because he was in the bushes when Mu-Jin and Hee-Joo got caught, so nobody saw him. There’s a montage of him trying clothes on until they finally find his “disguise.” He doesn’t manage to get the camera he was meant to, but he decides to use his phone to record everything by keeping it in his jacket pocket. He gets the job; he’s told there’s no need to sign a contract, nor are there any safety regulations to follow. Everything’s caught on camera, and Mu-Jin is recording it all on his tablet because they’re on a video call. Gyeon-Woo then catches hold of Nimal and starts to question him because he was best friends with Min-Uk. Nimal tells him that he’s not going to give him any information at first, and that he should forget about it. But later he tells him that he could get deported over this. But Gyeon-Woo gives Nimal a book that contains drawings by Min-Uk, and he’s in quite a few of them. It’s about their favorite foods, about where Nimal is from, etc.
But finally, Gyeon-Woo is caught, because one of the boss-men finds him suspicious, and another worker claims that he was one of the scammers who visited their factory before. There’s a huge fuss, and Gyeon-Woo nearly escapes before they’re all caught by the police, who were called because of the ruckus. A fight breaks out between the factory workers and the “content creators.” Of course, the police side with the former, but Nimal can’t stand the lies anymore.
At the end of Oh My Ghost Clients episode 2 Nimal reveals that Min-Uk was alive while he was stuck in the machine, but because they didn’t call 119 on purpose, he died there. In fact, the bosses decided to let him die and left him bleeding in there without helping him at all. Finally, Mu-Jin comes forward and confronts the boss with all the laws he’s broken in this young boy’s death, right in front of the police. But then the boss also punches Gyeong-Woo, and he doesn’t dodge, giving him a big bruise and also getting the man arrested for assault. All the other factory workers back Nimal, and he has video evidence of what happened. In the end, Mu-Jin is delighted that he can’t see ghosts anymore, and they can go back to being normal before he notices an electric wire falling directly at him. I don’t think he’s going to have a near-death experience every time; also, he doesn’t get possessed until the person has gotten closure and needs to deliver a message to their loved ones. In this case, Min-Uk’s finger heart is for his mom.
