Leap Day 1×03 Review: Episode 3

It’s only the third episode of Leap Day and already my theories are going up in smoke. Maybe I’m overthinking things, or trying to make them more complicated than they are. That doesn’t mean I’m any less invested in this story; in fact, I’m even more excited to see what happens.

Well, it looks like my speculation that the 2020 deaths would not be Ozone and Dream but would be someone else in Day’s and Night’s lives was partially right. Ozone and Dream did not die. But then, no one else did, either. It all comes back to what Ozone was saying all the way back in the first episode, before the accident happened: “Day and Night must meet.”

It looks like whatever curse has befallen these two is negated when they are together. It’s as Ozone explained, they don’t work separately. Which makes me even more convinced that some supernatural force pulled that Final Destination nonsense, bursting all the lightbulbs so that Ozone would run out of the house, thereby ensuring he would be crossing the road at exactly the right moment to get hit by Night’s car.

The coincidences go back even further, as Day discovers when he learns that Night’s uncle was killed in the same shooting that claimed Day’s sister. Not only that, they were hiding together, and were killed because Day and Night called them, causing their phones to go off and reveal their location to the shooter.

This makes me think that there may be more coincidences like that. From what I can tell, both Day’s and Night’s mothers died in childbirth, and then their fathers died on the next Leap Day. Then there was the shooting. It stands to reason that if they’re both under the same curse, it’s going to play out similarly for both.

I’m just so curious as to what is going on. I’m inclined to think that perhaps their parents knew each other, that they both did something that caused their sons to be cursed. But then Dream reminds Night that their professor also has a February 29 birthday. Night tries to subtly probe Wiwat for information, to see if he’s afflicted by the same curse, but Wiwat plays dumb. You know he’s playing dumb even before the flashback.

The flashback is a bit confusing for me, but only because of Wiwat’s complete lack of emotion regarding the death of the woman. He’s delivering the baby, so I don’t know that it’s his daughter, although that’s certainly what I suspect we’re supposed to believe. So is that his late wife, or did he, like, steal the baby and raise it? Because he’s completely unaffected when she dies. It’s so cold-blooded.

(Or could the woman be Night’s mother, or Day’s?)

Regardless, Wiwat knows something. Night seemed to believe that he wasn’t cursed because he mentioned celebrating with his wife and daughter; if he was cursed, surely he wouldn’t have a family. But I think Wiwat knows how to combat the curse. The question is, will he share his knowledge, or is he just that cold-blooded that he’ll let Day and Night suffer?

And then you have to wonder, what does Ozone know? He’s very surprised to discover that he’s alive, saying that he should have died – it’s his turn, there’s no one else in Day’s life. Plus, he is still hearing the stars. Even though Day and Night have met, the stars keep telling Ozone that “Day and Night must meet”. So it wasn’t just them meeting that’s important; something else needs to happen.

Does Ozone know anything else? Did the stars only just start talking to him? Is it because they tried getting Day and Night together before, and it didn’t work? In the first episode, they bumped into each other but didn’t speak. And we saw that on Leap Day 2016, they were at the cemetery at the same time, on opposite sides of the same wall. Are there other moments where they should have met but didn’t?

Of course, once Day and Night do officially meet, Night doesn’t seem to want anything to do with Day. Day is of the opinion that, since they’re suffering the same curse, they should work together to stop it. Night, however, believes that they should stay far away from each other lest they make things worse.

I’d like to know why Night is so opposed to trying to figure out what is happening. He does make a token attempt at investigating when he goes to talk to Wiwat, but he wants to stay away from Day and is kind of a jerk about it. It would be interesting to see if there’s something in his past that has led to this attitude, or if he’s just meant to be the antithesis of Day.

He does do an almost complete 180 in regards to his relationship with Dream. He’s determined to take care of her (I’m curious if he ever contacted her family, since they don’t make an appearance at all), and after spending so long trying to push her away, he does the opposite in this episode. He admits that he’s in love with her, even though he has tried not to be, and he tells her the truth about his life.

It does sound like a ridiculous story, but I’ve no idea why she seemed so convinced he was lying; she knows his parents are dead, and that his uncle died. It’s not like he’s lying about his family being gone. Why would he make something like that up?

I really loved this episode. I love Day and Ozone’s relationship; Day decorating Ozone’s hospital room was adorable, and the way Ozone covered Day with his comforter when he found him asleep beside his bed was so sweet. I also could not stop laughing at how excited Ozone was to have been hit by a car and broken his arm. (By the way, I meant to mention this earlier, but that car accident belongs in the Hall of Fame with some of the doozies from K-dramas.)

Now that Night and Day have met and the curse is out in the open, I suspect we’re going to move nicely along with the plot. I anticipate more flashbacks (we still haven’t seen what happened in 2012 – it sounds like Night lost his dog that year, but we don’t know who Day lost) showing other ways that Day and Night are connected.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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