Jin-Sook (TV)

**Dr. Jin-Sook (Jinny) Gwansun** is a character appearing in the first season of the Apple TV+ series *Shining Girls*. She is portrayed by Phillipa Soo.

## Throughout Series

In Cutline, it's 1992 and Dr. Jin-Sook (Jinny) Gwansun, a scientist, finds a dead, wingless bumble bee on her desk. The bee is the same one that Harper Curtis pulled the wings off when he first met Kirby in 1964. Jinny goes up to the observation deck for a smoke, but while she is there, the door slams shut, trapping her outside. She notices that her red umbrella is inexplicably sitting on the ledge as she had left it behind in her office. It starts to rain and she opens the umbrella.

The next day, Jinny is sitting in the auditorium watching a presentation. After it ends, Harper takes a seat behind her and strikes up a conversation trying to find out if she knows him. She says that she has never seen him before. Later, while Jinny is using the large telescope in the observatory, Harper appears and attacks and brutally murders her.

In Overnight, Jinny is still alive, meaning that her murder shown previously was set in a different timeline. Kirby arrives at the planetarium and shows the picture of the key that was found next to the body of Summer Francis, who was murdered in 1972, to a security guard, who identifies the object as a staff locker key. She can also see the number and says it belongs to Jinny, who still works there. Kirby locates Jinny and shows her the photograph of the key, which Jinny says she lost the previous week. Jinny also reveals that they just got staff lockers that year, meaning there’s no possible way her lost key could’ve ended up in a crime scene from 1972. Kirby then begins asking Jinny if she knows any of the other women who were killed. She even throws out her former name (Sharon Leads) to see if that rings a bell, but Jinny doesn’t recognize any of them. Feeling even more confused and desperate, Kirby asks Jinny to take a closer look at the picture, explaining that it couldn’t have been her key since the photograph is from 1972. Jinny politely explains that she can’t be of any more assistance and departs.

In Attribution, Abby tells them that they need to make a show of offering to the police and a chance to comment before running the story. As they head out toward the commissioner’s office, Kirby decides to hang back so she can warn Jinny about what might happen to her. Harper observes the trio’s interaction from a distance. When Kirby breaks off, he follows her to Jinny’s house. Instead of attacking her, however, he stands outside in the rain and watches the two women through a window. Jinny tells Kirby that she hasn’t experienced any weird phone calls and doesn’t feel like she’s in any sort of danger. Kirby reveals that she didn’t think anything was wrong either until a man attacked her six years ago. The same man who somehow stole Jinny’s key and placed it at a crime scene almost 20 years ago. Kirby can’t explain what it all means, but still encourages Jinny to be on guard at all times. She also encourages her to carry a knife like she does.

As the two women depart, Jinny asks what was found inside of her. Kirby reveals that it was a matchbook from a bar that doesn’t exist. Jinny responds that just because something hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t in the future (like a new bar opening). She encourages her to keep looking into the bar even if it feels like a dead end.

In Screamer, after reading Dan’s article in the *Sun-Times*, Jinny decides to talk with Sheila, the *Adler Planetarium* security guard about her missing/stolen key. The logs show that someone had still been using it to enter and exit the building. As if that weren’t creepy enough, the times were almost always a few minutes after Jinny entered. Sheila also notes that the old key’s activity stopped a couple of days ago. This leads her to assume that it was simply being used by another employee who just recently noticed they had the wrong one. Jinny, on the other hand, realizes that Kirby might have been onto something when they spoke the night before.

Later, Jinny visits Kirby at the *Sun-Times* and reveals her theory that someone has been following and watching her at work. Kirby tells Jinny about being attacked the night before and shows her the police sketch, but she doesn’t recognize the man. Kirby then asks if she’s ever experienced bizarre shifts in reality. When Jinny says she hasn’t, Kirby wonders aloud why she and Harper seem to be the only ones who do. Jinny then provides an astronomy-based theory on how Kirby’s situation is potentially similar to the way particles behave across space and time. Later, Harper travels back in time to the previous evening when Kirby visited Jinny (which was before the attack at the laundromat/bar). Despite being inside the apartment with her, he’s able to stay out of sight thanks to knowing exactly where Jinny will walk and look. When Kirby comes over, Harper sneaks out via an exterior door to watch them through one of the windows. Their conversation plays out almost exactly the same as it did before until Kirby hears a door (the same one Harper left from) opening and closing. Jinny assumes it’s due to the storm outside and a faulty latch. After closing the door, she heads into another room to get ready for work. While she’s gone, Kirby walks over to the window. She can’t see Harper, but can feel his presence. Kirby looks down and sees that her clothes have changed. Harper notices this as well and steps forward, making his shape visible without completely revealing his presence. A fluttering sound is heard, which is followed by Kirby’s hair going back to the short length it was before she met Jinny, which causes Harper to smile.

In Offset, it's 1992 and Kirby is relaying the details of her attack to Jinny while Dan sits with them. When Kirby says it felt like Harper was one step ahead of her, Jinny replies that her encounter with him the night before felt the same. In Jinny’s case, however, he wasn’t there for her. Instead, he was there to send a message to Kirby. Jinny relays Harper’s message that whenever he feels something, Kirby will know. After learning that he said this around the same time Dan’s car changed, Kirby realizes that Harper is the primary force behind her shifts in reality. When Jinny asks what Harper meant about coming back, Kirby explains that he took her old museum key and left it inside the body of another woman he murdered. He also isn’t “going” to kill her. He already has, but not just yet.

Elsewhere, Gary, who is Jinny’s coworker at the planetarium asks why she was so freaked out the night before. Jinny explains that a man stalked and cornered her on the roof, but doesn’t tell him much else. Gary then asks if she wants to get lunch. Jinny is about to reject him like she initially did, but realizes that going against her instincts and saying yes may change the future. She accepts Gary’s invitation and heads out with him. At the same time, Harper takes in a show at the planetarium, where a narrator explains that “all it takes is one star to change the course of the galaxy.” When the show concludes, Harper is simultaneously shocked and infuriated to discover that Jinny isn’t in the audience, which is the place she’s supposed to be prior to him killing her. Later, Jinny does a soundcheck with Theo, who is one of the planetarium technicians for a big presentation she’ll be making that evening. During the rehearsal of the presentation, Jinny’s microphone suddenly stops working. When she asks Theo if he can fix it, there’s no response from the motionless silhouette inside the sound booth. Instead, the song “Lonesome Lover” by Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln begins echoing through the room, which was the same song that was playing at the dinner party Jinny attended minutes before she was killed originally. The music is soon replaced by a recording of her own murder in the future. While Jinny doesn’t specifically know what she’s listening to, the sound of her own voice screaming in terror as she’s being attacked and gutted is obviously terrifying. She runs outside and finds Theo, who profusely apologizes for stepping out to go the bathroom. When he came back, the door to the studio was locked.

Jinny flees back to her office, where Gary reports that her phone has been ringing nonstop for the past several minutes. Jinny picks up to hear Kirby asking if she’s okay and if Harper was there. Jinny confirms that he was, but refuses to leave work on account of having to make a big presentation that evening. Jinny struggles to keep her focus at a dinner party preceding her big presentation. Theo arrives to tell Jinny that there is an issue with the big telescope and Jinny rushes out to see if she can fix it as it is vital to her presentation. The scene is similar to when Harper attacked her previously, and an ominous shape appears at the top of the stairs, but it is only Kirby, who is watching out for Harper.

Jinny rushes back inside the planetarium to give her presentation. When she arrives, however, everything is completely different. Her clothing has changed from a formal dress to 90s casual. No one knows who she is, including Theo, Gary, and the security guard. Gary is now the one giving the presentation instead of her. Completely stunned and disoriented, Jinny walks back outside to find Kirby.

In 30, back at the planetarium, Jinny is understandably freaking out over the major shift in her reality. Kirby takes her wallet and explains that the information inside (where she lives and works) is her life now. After seeing that she has a much less prestigious job and lives where she used to during grad school, Jinny isn’t ready to accept that her former life is gone. Kirby replies that she has to; just like she’s done countless times before. Not going to work, calling the police, or trying to explain what happened will result in her getting committed to a psychiatric hospital. Kirby assures Jinny everything will be okay before heading over to Dan’s house.

Kirby collects Jinny and they head over to the *Sun-Times* only to find that things have completely changed from just a few hours ago. The staff is now filled with people she doesn’t recognize. Kirby sits Jinny down at her desk (or at least what’s supposed to be her desk) and tells her to begin looking up records on the battalion Harper was in (the 28th Infantry Regiment), which she learned after getting a look at his tattoo back in episode 4. She then goes to look for Marcus to see if he can help her. Back in the newsroom, a reporter (Lakshmi) asks Jinny what she’s doing at her desk. When Jinny says that Kirby told her to be there, Lakshmi doesn’t understand why someone who works in the archives would tell a seemingly random person to sit at a reporter’s desk.

Reporters begin surrounding Jinny as she struggles to explain her presence in their newsroom. After she gets up to leave, a shudder of reality shifting before police officers show up out of nowhere and take her into custody is heard. A few minutes later, Kirby returns to the newsroom and sees that Jinny is gone. She spots Marcus talking to one of the reporters and asks what happened. He tells her that a woman came in off the street and had to be removed by the police. He then asks Kirby who she is.

After Kirby gets control of The House, Jinny's original timeline is restored and we see her making her big presentation at the planetarium.