11 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
The opening voiceover belongs to 삼신 (Samshin), the Korean goddess of birth, fate, and child-rearing. In folk belief she decides who is born, oversees a baby's first three years, and can intervene in life-or-death moments. Hearing her voice open an episode signals that cosmic fate — not coincidence — is steering what we're about to watch.
One of the loan sharks compares the grim, black-clad figures appearing out of nowhere to the American sci-fi comedy 'Men in Black.' The film was hugely popular in Korea and became a shorthand phrase (맨 인 블랙) for mysterious, dark-suited agents with supernatural authority. It's a bit of nervous humour from a very frightened man.
The Grim Reaper reads out a death record dated '병신년' (Byŏngsin-nyŏn), a year in the traditional 60-year sexagenary cycle used alongside the Western calendar in Korea. Each year has a stem-and-branch name; 병신년 corresponds to years like 1956, 2016, and so on. Official documents in Korea still sometimes include these cycle names alongside the Gregorian date.
Sunny tells Eun-tak to go to a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang) to wash up. These are large Korean public bathhouses that include gender-separated bathing areas, communal heated floors for sleeping, snack bars, and lounge rooms open around the clock. For someone with nowhere to live, a jjimjilbang is a cheap, safe option to sleep and shower — which is exactly Eun-tak's situation.
Kim Shin describes the man's past life as a 마름 (mareum), a land steward who managed a landlord's tenant farmers. Historically, mareum were often more exploitative than the landlords themselves, squeezing extra fees and free labour from poor tenants who had no recourse. Calling someone's past life a mareum is a sharp moral insult — worse than the landlord above him.
The woman selling hairpins from a small street cart is Samshin, the birth goddess from the opening voiceover, now walking among humans. In Korean folk tradition, Samshin can appear in ordinary form to nudge people toward their destined path. Her seemingly random encounters — pressing a hairpin on the Grim Reaper, then meeting Sunny — are acts of cosmic matchmaking.
Sunny casually mentions that 'Sunny' is her 예명 (yemyŏng), a stage name or professional alias. Many Korean entertainers, and even some service-industry workers, adopt a catchier or easier-to-pronounce name for public use. Her real name, which the Grim Reaper immediately responds to with visible emotion, is a key story detail that the drama deliberately holds back.
Sunny writes her phone number on the Grim Reaper's hand using her lipstick. Writing a number in lipstick — sometimes on a receipt, mirror, or someone's skin — is a well-worn romantic gesture in Korean pop culture and appears frequently in dramas and rom-com films. The playful confidence of doing it unsolicited is very much in character for Sunny.
Eun-tak recounts a belief she overheard from ghosts: that each soul lives four consecutive lives — sowing seeds, watering them, harvesting, then spending the harvest. This is a piece of drama-internal folk theology rather than mainstream Korean Buddhism or shamanism, but it echoes real notions of karmic accumulation across lifetimes that are widely familiar to Korean audiences.
Eun-tak explains she found the Goblin's house by asking ghosts — because she can see and communicate with spirits, something she has been able to do her whole life. In Korean shamanic belief (무속, musok), certain people are born with the ability to perceive the dead, often as a mark of a special or burdened fate. For Eun-tak it is simply a practical skill, which is part of what makes her character funny.
The drama's central mythology states that the Goblin (도깨비) can only be freed from his immortal curse when his destined bride pulls the magical sword from his chest. Eun-tak has just confirmed she can see the sword, which makes her the bride — but pulling it means Kim Shin dies. His monologue here is his first explicit acknowledgement that choosing her happiness means choosing his own end.