Leap Day 1×09 Review: Episode 9

As we head into the home stretch, the situation is starting to look grim. The group is fracturing, and there may be no good solution to the Leap Day curse.

We saw in last week’s episode that Night had started to subtly pull away from Day. In this week’s episode, he’s way less subtle about it. He’s cold and distant with both Day and Ozone. When the two of them visit Dream, Day is finally able to talk to Night about what he learned from Kit. Unfortunately, Night has already basically committed to Wiwat’s method for “curing” the curse. 

Both Day and Night have good points about their argument. Night is correct in that Kit doesn’t have a way to stop the curse, and Wiwat does, horrific as it may be. Day is right about it being, essentially, murder and, you know, that’s generally frowned upon. Night asks Day if he would really be willing to let Ozone die in order to save people he doesn’t even know, and I couldn’t help but notice that Day didn’t really answer the question.

It’s a classic trolley problem. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and such. And it’s an ethical dilemma that many people have opinions on, because most of us have not been in that situation. I’m still unclear on the timeline and how long it’s been since Leap Day 2020, but Wiwat’s method takes time. Time that Night believes they currently don’t have. So he doesn’t have the luxury of trying to find anything else, or he’ll lose the opportunity he has.

To be fair, I think Day would do everything he could to find an alternative solution, and only if one wasn’t available would he accept Wiwat’s help – as a last resort. I fully believe he wouldn’t let Ozone die. His issue with Night is that Night so readily accepted that the transference method is the only solution when it clearly isn’t. Not to mention, he’s dismissive and condescending about Day wanting to find a better way, when their other option is murder.

It’s really starting to bother me that no one has managed to successfully argue against transference by pointing out the incredibly basic fact that no one died on Leap Day 2020. Ozone and Dream were rushed to the hospital but survived. So there obviously is another way. Night giving up when they’ve barely started researching is giving big “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” energy.

Unsurprisingly, once Dream learns the solution, she too is against it. She tries to talk Night out of it, but he refuses to accept her death, even as she tells him that she would not want to live if it meant so many other people dying. When he says, “I’m doing this for you,” she counters with, “No, you’re doing it for yourself.” I was so glad that she said that, because it’s true. He’s not taking her wishes into account at all, because it isn’t really about her; he just so desperately wants a normal life.

And you know what? That’s fair. Losing people is hard. Night has lost everyone at this point. He’ll continue to lose people if they don’t find a solution. I can see him clinging tightly to the only person he has left.

But to me, this would be like a terminally ill patient deciding to forego treatment and their family member continuing it behind their back. People should be allowed to make their own choices about their own lives, even if we disagree with them. Even if they’ll make us sad. Dream knows the risks and is willing to accept them to try and find a better way. Night has already concluded that there is no other way.

When she gets nowhere with Night, Dream goes to Wiwat himself to ask him to stay away from Night. Wiwat is cagey with her, and I fully believe he knows more than he’s admitted. Something about the way he looks at Night, the way he looks at everyone, says to me that there is still more to the story that he’s hiding. 

Of course, “what he’s hiding” could simply be the fact that he’s the one who hit Dream with his car, which I still don’t think was made explicitly clear but at this point, I’m almost positive that’s what happened. Especially given he was so involved with her treatment when he’s apparently an obstetrician. 

Wiwat basically tells Dream that she should feel honored Night is trying to save her life and that it’s important she support him. Dream asks if his wife knows what he did, and if she would support him if she did. Wiwat doesn’t answer, because he can’t. His wife doesn’t know what he’s done – and I’d wager she may not even know about the curse at all.

This brings up something interesting that stuck in my head. During Night and Day’s argument, Night compares the lives that Kit and Wiwat have as evidence that they should both accept Wiwat’s help. Wiwat has a good job, a nice house, and a family. Kit lives alone, seemingly has no job other than following them all around, and rents an apartment near Wiwat like a creeper. But when Night is at Wiwat’s house, his wife mentions that he spends all of his time brooding in his office. Why take such drastic actions for a normal life and then not take full advantage of that life?

There must be something else. I wonder if Wiwat is fully aware that there is another solution, but still chose to go through with the transference method. It seems insane to me that the only people who would be capable of “curing” themselves of this curse would be people with medical training. It’s such a convoluted “solution” that requires so much training and study. I find it very hard to believe that people didn’t discover another way.

Because as I said earlier, obviously there’s another way, and once again we return to Ozone’s drawings. He draws another one related to the upcoming Leap Day, this one featuring six stars. Everyone pretty quickly arrives at the conclusion that it must be referring to the six of them, which means that they must all be together. After all, when Ozone went missing, Day was having trouble with the GPS signal, but as soon as Night and Dream showed up to help, the signal stabilized.

Also, I’m going to need people to start paying more attention to Ozone’s dreams. Day sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t; I think he may not be sure which ones are important and which ones may be normal anxiety manifesting in Ozone’s subconscious. Repeatedly dreaming that Night was killed in increasingly ridiculous accidents was something that warranted a warning. But I guess dreaming once that Day kills Night in an argument isn’t enough of a pattern to be concerned about? Even though they later got into a fist fight?

I will say though that the relationship between Day and Ozone continues to be a highlight. (Ozone just full on stealing the towel off Day’s hips? Hilarious.) I’m glad they’re using that to inject a little levity in these episodes, because it’s a pretty dark series overall, and it’s only going to get darker the closer we get to Leap Day 2024.

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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