Daily Dose of Sunshine (2023) KDrama Episode 2

Episode 2 of Daily Dose of Sunshine begins with a look at Da-eun in Internal medicine during the past. The other nurses are pretty standoffish and just go about their business, but for Da-eun she’s far more attentive. She helps out a patient having problems with her arm and switches the tube over to a smaller one to make her more comfortable.

The other nurses complain about their workload and the sheer number of patients they need to get through, but Da-eun’s caring nature, and taking “too long” with the bedside patients, is a detriment to the nurses who just want to get on with their own work without having to cover for Da-eun.

Back in the present, Da-eun makes a big scene when she accidentally knocks over a guy’s lunch in the middle of the room, right when she tries to make a quick getaway. As a result, Da-eun decides to get smashed and drink to her heart’s content after work. She’s had enough and shows up at Song yu-chan’s chicken shop. He teases her over the amount of alcohol she can handle (or can’t, as the case may be), before eventually taking her back home on his motorcycle.

Da-eun refuses to take a day off though and decides to continue working. On the bus the next day, she runs into finger-cracking Dong Go-yun once again. He’s certainly weird, especially when he takes an interest in Da-eun’s rice cakes and follows her all the way over to psychiatry. This could be just the thing to help him take his mind off his current predicament.

Da-eun hears the psychiatry ward nurses badmouthing a doctor in the hallway, before Yeo-hwan is brought in to to oversee one of the patients asking for writing utensils. Although the nurse is adamant he can’t, Yeo-hwan grins slyly and allows it. The nurses are not happy with this, given the division within the ranks, explaining the badmouthing earlier on.

Dr Im shows up and confirms to Da-eun that there’s a new patient in the ward now, Kim Sung-sik. He’s 40 and his stress levels have become extreme. He’s not sleeping and he’s been harassed by his new boss too. He puts it off to “adjusting to the work style” but Dr Im believes it’s gaslighting. It gets so bad that he bungles the big project speech, and is even told not to use the toilet at work.

Sung-sik developed a compulsive disorder surrounding public bathrooms, including jotting down all their interior features. Despite finding a bit of respite with a cat called Captain Hook, Sung-sik loses all will to live and heads up to the rooftop at work, deciding to jump.

Da-eun believes Sung-sik’s condition got so bad that he believed he was being watched in a see-through cage. There aren’t any physical conditions attached to this per-se but it’s all mental, explaining why it may not have got picked up by conventional means of medicine.

Da-eun continues to think everyone in psychiatry is talking about her, getting paranoid over the nurses whispering. She believes that they’re talking about her. She offers up some rice cakes for the other nurses, but they decide to go for the macarons on the table instead, further alienating Da-eun. That is, until Go-yun shows up and helps himself to one.

His focus to rice cakes is working an absolute treat, and he’s even snapping his fingers less as well.

After learning about the case, Da-eun returns to see Sung-sik. He’s concerned that he won’t ever recover, as even with prescribed medicine, his condition only got worse. And at work, his paranoia hit breaking point. He believes everyone hates him, and that’s what led to his breakdown on the roof.

Back in the ward, he pleads with Da-eun to let him leave and see Captain Hook. Instead, Da0eun decides to break the rules slightly and has a tablet brought in to see Hook on a videocall. Unfortunately, he starts to lose control, believing that the cat is doing better without him. He starts to lash out, throwing the tablet out the room and striking out.

The ward works together to get him to calm down but Sung-sik’s position at the hospital is now in jeopardy after Da-eun’s actions. Soo-yeon berates Da-eun for this and blames her.

However, the team head out for grilled meat after, with tensions between the doctors and nurses continuing to escalate. Da-eun though continues to feel awful, as one of the nurses decides that Da-eun should go through basic orientation again. Jung-ran chirps up and points out the snacks that the doctors have been eating.

A drinking game ensues between the two sides, with Dr Im and Ms Song taking charge. The nurses come out on top, with the doctors now on-course to buy them snacks. Outside, Da-eun speaks to Soo-yeon and contemplates whether she needs to move back over to the hospital again, given she’s in the way here and needs to handle Sung-sik better.

Soo-yeon sighs and points out that this whole thing was done in her honour as a welcoming party and Soo-yeon berates Da-euns behaviour. After lashing out at Da-eun, she gets a wake-up call from Ms Song, when the latter points out that Da-eun helped Sung-sik and was the only one to take the time to learn the name of his cat and how much he meant to her. Her judgment may be off but her spirit to help is something they need o treasure and nurture.

At the hospital, Soo-yeon shows up and is a little softer with Da-eun this time. The pair work together and begin phoning around different hospitals. The other nurses, Deul-re and Jung-ran, show and they all eat rice cakes together. Soo-yeon also tells Da-eun that she’s going to fit in well in the unit.

That night, Go-yun shows up on the rooftop with a couple of sandwiches after initially seeing Da-eun alone. However, he notices that she’s up there with the other nurses and decides to dip. The next day, he waits at the bus stop for her, intentionally missing the bus. As it turns out, it’s not the rice-cakes that he’s obsessed with, it’s actually Da-eun!

The next day, Da-eun speaks to Sung-sik and points out that only nice people end up in the psych ward. “I guess that’s why you’re here,” He says in reply. Eventually though, Sung-sik is transferred across to a new hospital.

Meanwhile, Song yu-chan shows up at work but an old colleague arrives and there’s tension between them. In fact, Yu-chan needs to take a moment as his chest feels heavy and he struggles to breathe. Go-yun shows up and sees this play out

The Episode Review

The second episode really starts to piece everything together in a concise and enjoyable way. Da-eun’s own paranoia and fear echoes that of Sung-sik, who is an extreme version of what some of us have had to go through at work. Overbearing bosses, fear of rejection, paranoia and overwhelming stress; all of us have gone through this at one point or another, and this episode captures that beautifully

The comradery between the nurses is a really nice touch ,and the way they all rally around Da-eun at the end, who just wants to do right by the patients, is a definite highlight of this show so far.