'The School Nurse Files' is an absurd mix of a Rick Riordan fantasy and kids' treasure hunting shows
Imagine a Rick Riordan's novel meets a kids' treasure hunt series -- at first glance, that is what Netflix's latest Korean original show -- 'The School Nurse Files' looks like. There are jelly shaped monsters, a few that look extremely disgusting and a few that look like kids' playthings. Then there are nerf gun-like weapons, and lightsabers that look like it was made in a neighborhood toy store. These are the weapons that are used to slay the jelly monsters that are fed by human desires. These desires could be born out of love, friendship, animosity among other things, and the lead character of the show, Ahn Eun-young (Jung Yu-mi) is able to see all of these desires take the shape of different jellies.
What is only visible to her eyes, ends up leaving her lonely and with no friends as she busies her days and sometimes even nights in fighting these jelly monsters. For slaying every monster, the creatures that are brought down burst into a million heart-shaped skittles like things. Yes, skittles. As absurd as all of this sounds, what makes this show intriguing is the seriousness with which these monsters and slaying them is treated. The more serious Eun-young is, the more comical each episode gets. The first episode's theme is very close to a zombie movie as the jelly monster that appears is one which fed on humans who died by jumping into a pond. This monster holds the same characteristics as that of a pond -- as it attracts young kids and has them jump in only to drown. The students in Eun-young's school end up getting inflicted with the same condition when one monster from this pond escapes from the basement of their school.
It is while apprehending and killing this monster that Eun-young realizes that one of the teachers, Hong In-pyo (Nam Joo-hyuk), who happens to be the grandson of the school's founder has an interesting condition similar to hers. While he is unable to see the monsters, he seems to have some kind of invisible protection against them and when he touches Eun-young, this aura transforms into a weapon of sorts. The majority of the show is about how these two work together to bring different kinds of monsters, ghosts among other evil creatures down. Then, it is when we move beyond the third episode that the show gets interesting as it introduces characters who are interested in making money off of selling these desires which could then be used to attain different results. These could be humans manipulating and hurting others, or it could be a corporate structure that uses people like Eun-young to do things that could help them use other humans to do their bidding.
One such person is Mackenzie, who is also a teacher at the same school that Eun-young works at. For some reason, be it the basement where we saw Eun-young fight the jelly monsters for the first time or the cute creatures that seem to live on the school walls, Mackenzie wants to collect it all and sell them in exchange for money. However, Eun-young, who doesn't work for anyone understands how dangerous this could be and she attempts to stop Mackenzie and the people that he is working for with In-pyo's help. However, neither In-pyo nor Eun-young are aware of the fact that one of his close friends also happens to be a member of the same organization that Mackenzie works for.
While Eun-young battles against the organization that Mackenzie works for, she also tries and helps others. From a mite eater who arrives in school after the appearance of mites, to a friend of hers from school who is days away from his death. The fact that the Apji Stone was messed with, has resulted in all kinds of creatures arriving at the school and Eun-young is dealing with them one after another. In the process, she also falls for the Chinese character teacher In-pyo. However, she has faced heartbreaking losses in the past and this might not really let Eun-young express herself as freely as she would like to. Towards the end of the six-episode season, we also see how Eun-young is betrayed by the one person that she had believed was her family. Between the school, safe happiness and the ever-spreading negative desires, the one thing that keeps us interested in the show is the absurdity of it all.
'The School Nurse Files' premiered on Netflix on September 25.