It’s finally the day; the Korean entertainment industry has blessed us with the highly anticipated drama My Demon. Visual charm aside, this show does give off the same feeling as Goblin or The Tale of the Nine-Tailed in terms of incorporating strange fantastical creatures into the modern world. Both of those shows did incredibly well because, apart from being about mythical creatures, they also had interesting plots and kept us watching from start to finish. Of course, we can’t deny that star power is an added bonus for all of these shows, and My Demon is not lacking there either. The first episode is as slap-stick and absurd as one can imagine, but at least we’ve got a female character with a mind of her own (woot!).
Spoilers Ahead
Who Is Gu-Won?
200 years ago, Gu-Won shows up at a prayer, showing off his power, which somehow manages to manifest even in the presence of holy water and candles (how safe). The story goes that demons used to live with humans as their guardians at first. Of course, as a demon, to maintain his powers, Gu-Won has to convince lowly humans to enter Faustian bargains with him. He helps a hungry and poor fisherman catch fish in return for his soul 10 years later. 200 years later, in 2023, Gu-Won owns a company called the Sunwol Foundation. He’s obviously rich and magnificent (as demons are meant to be) and can afford to book entire restaurants for a meal for himself. He’s been getting by all this time by making deals with desperate humans (mostly on the dark side of humanity) and has clocks in this special room (picture something out of Harry Potter, but instead of wands or brooms, it’s clocks), which disappear when a contract has ended. In 2023, Gu-Won meets a gangster whose contract has just ended and leaves him lying dead in the sauna.
Who Is Do-Hee?
CEO Do-Hee is the adopted heiress of the conglomerate Mirae Group. At age 11, after her parents died, she was adopted by Ju Chon-Seok, the chairwoman of Mirae Group. In episode 1 of My Demon, Do-Hee wins the Best CEO of 2023 award (she’s got the queen card), showing off how proficient she is at her job. Chairwoman Ju is somewhat sick, and Do-Hee agrees to go on a blind date in order for “Madam Ju,” as she affectionately calls her, to get a full body checkup. Also in the family are Madam Ju’s children, one son and one daughter, much older than Do-Hee, and a nephew named Seok-Hoon (I wonder what his deal is, but he seems somewhat important).
How Do Do-Hee And Gu-Won Meet?
Oh, this isn’t your typical meeting cute, but you could say it is a fateful one. Do-Hee ends up at the restaurant that’s fully booked by Gu-Won and assumes he’s her blind date. On the other hand, Gu-Won simply wants to enjoy a fantastic meal on his own (as do we all), with no disturbances. It seems like Do-Hee doesn’t pick up on the hints, though, and even though he’s being quite disrespectful to her, she stays there for 30 minutes, as that would keep her promise to Madam Ju. The woman does seem clueless, though, because Gu-Won is showing no sign of any interest in her or even having any idea what this is meant to be. Just as Do-Hee’s about to leave, the thugs who were under the gangster Gu-Won’s control show up to exact their revenge. There’s a heart-fluttering moment when a cake almost falls on Do-Hee’s face, but Gu-Won saves her (insert heart eyes), except he is only bothered about his cake, which Do-Hee will learn later. She rushes to the washroom to miss the action of Gu-Won literally turning the thugs into images inside of the newspaper he uses to fight them. Do-Hee does feel attraction to this overly handsome “nutjob” and contemplates spending a little more time with him. It also happens to be her birthday, and again, she assumes the cake is meant for her. When she goes back out, the thugs and the cake are both gone (one of the guys crushed the cake to rile up Gu-Won).
Do-Hee leaves feeling insulted when Gu-Won tells her the cake was for him alone and there is no reason for him to care if it’s her birthday (very true, though). On the way out, Do-Hee gets a cryptic call from a man who claims he’s from the financial department of the Mirae group. He plans on selling some information to her to make some big bucks, but she’s obviously uninterested in inheriting the company (how modest).
Why Does Gu-Won Offer Do-Hee A Contract?
Do-Hee rushes to meet Madam Ju, who sends her a message saying she’ll see her in heaven. Obviously, Do-Hee is in distress, only to learn that it was to get her there to celebrate her birthday, something she hasn’t quite done since the death of her parents. We get a glimpse of her past with her family when Do-Hee visits the beach the next day. She’s actually there to find a woman named No Soo-Ahn, who works for the Mirae Group, but Soo-Ahn has already checked out of the hotel she’s meant to be staying at. On her way back, Do-Hee finds herself in hot soup when the application on her phone says that her driver is seventeen minutes away, but she’s already in a car. She’s too late to realize that the man who is driving the car has some flecks of blood on his neck. This man also killed the guy who tried to leak information to Do-Hee earlier.
Do-Hee tries to escape the man when he uses chloroform on her by pretending she’s unconscious, punching his face and running away. At the same time, Gu-Won is looking for prey, aka humans, who will be willing to sign contracts with him. Do-Hee is running down the middle of an unknown road until she finds herself in between the man trying to kill her and Gu-Won on the other side. Do-Hee has no choice but to ask Gu-Won for help, and he asks her if she’ll sign a contract for him to help her. She declines at first, saying she’s not crazy enough to agree to sign a contract without knowing what’ll go on it, but in her desperation to live, she has to agree. Gu-Won can obviously defeat the guy easily, and Do-Hee rushes to get in the car while he’s fighting the bad guy. Before she knows it, the body of the guy is ramming into the windshield. Suddenly, Do-Hee’s afraid of Gu-Won too, so she tries to hide behind the guardrail. Gu-Won finds her and puts out his hand, reminding her that there’s a contract she has to sign. When she grabs his hand, the cross tattoo on his, which stores all his demon powers, transfers to her hand.
The bad guy has managed to wake up within this time, get in the car, and speed it towards Gu-Won. Gu-Won tries to snap (this is how he makes things disappear and such), but it doesn’t work. In fright, Do-Hee falls into the water, and Gu-Won follows. Do-Hee starts to swim to safety, but she notices Gu-Won is unconscious. Despite the fact that she will not be able to save them both, she tries to grab a sinking Gu-Won, ultimately going unconscious too. At the end of the episode, they find themselves on the beach, both alive and well. Gu-Won notices his tattoo missing, and to his shock, he realizes it’s on Do-Hee’s hand.
