Summary
Miss Night and Day comes to a satisfying if predictable conclusion.
A happy ending was always an inevitability for Miss Night and Day, but it was still important for the show to stick the landing. Episode 16 wasn’t left with much to do after the penultimate episode handled the remnants of the murder plot, but there were still some matters unresolved, including Mi-jin’s relationship with Ji-woong, and all that business with the cat.
Like most Netflix K-Dramas these days, Miss Night and Day has been billed as a limited series, so we thankfully don’t have to put up with a lack of resolution to beg for a continuation. That helps a very well-liked show bow out gracefully, which is all fans really want at the end of the day.
Mi-jin Resolves To Appreciate Life
You’ll recall that at the end of the previous episode, Mi-jin’s body-switching predicament was revealed to her family, which is something of a pain point. A lot of the show’s themes – grief, loss, yearning, etc. – are bundled up in this, as Mi-jin’s mother is forced to reckon with both the longstanding loss of her sister and the reality of her daughter channeling her for purposes as yet unknown.
It’s not a comfortable scenario for anyone.
The fact that Mi-jin continues to morph into Lim Sun implies that the transformation’s purpose hasn’t yet been fulfilled, despite Lim Sun’s killer having been discovered and apprehended. She’s still due to stand trial, which might be the ticket, but in the meantime, Mi-jin tries to embrace her life and spend her time wisely and in a fulfilling way.
As far as messages go, this isn’t a bad one. Time is something we all eventually run out of, and it’s important that we pack our lives as full as we can with things that are worthwhile, both to us and to others.
This, it turns out, is the lesson that Lim Sun wanted to impart through the cat, which Mi-jin finally spots. The realization reconfigures her worldview. She’s taking the civil service exam again, for her own sake this time, inspired by the work she did with Ji-woong. She has resolved to value her youth and be happy, and in a final, parting dream, she and Lim Sun thank each other for the lessons they have shared.
Na Ok-hui Receives The Death Penalty
For closure’s sake, it’s worth mentioning that Ok-hui gets the death penalty, statute of limitations be damned. The killer remained remorseless to the bitter end, but the families of her victims were able to at least get some satisfaction from the verdict. Mi-jin even participates in the trial and contributes to the sentence.
Byung-duk Proposes to Ga-Yeong
In the first of the finale’s two romantic happy endings, Byung-duk proposes to Ga-yeong.
It isn’t a big moment, really. It is for the characters of course, but it’s a low-key proposal and the outcome is inevitable. The only slight drama comes from Byung-duk almost getting scammed on the rings, but Ji-woong is once again there to save him right before he’s called away urgently to Seoul.
Needless to say, this relocation does throw a spanner in the works of his relationship with Mi-jin.
Do Mi-jin and Ji-woong End Up Together?
The ending of Miss Night and Day closes out six months later, with Mi-jin and Ji-woong reuniting in Seoul, where the former has also become an investigator. Despite a brief moment of pretending not to know one another, they both get their romance together.
Theories still abound. The show is deliberately a bit ambiguous about whether the cat is actually Lim Sun somehow, or it’s just a cat that becomes symbolically representative of the show’s themes in Mi-jin’s mind. Because Miss Night and Day didn’t do a great job with its more fantastical elements, it’s difficult to say either way.
Does it matter, though? I’d argue not. The point is obvious; the cat is a means to an end. Plus, I like cats, so that helps.
