Mouse · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 3 March 2021
S1E1 Mouse Trap
THE MOMENT A parliamentary hearing turns a scientific hypothesis into a moral nightmare, setting the entire show's stakes in a single scene.
The premiere opens decades before the main timeline, framing the core question with a psychologist's testimony before a parliamentary committee: if a foetus tests positive for a genetic psychopathy marker, should the pregnancy continue? The structural gamble of pre-history first pays off - the atmosphere of dread is established before a single murder occurs.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
Mouse Season 1 Episode 1 'Mouse Trap' aired March 3, 2021 on tvN as the premiere of a 20-episode thriller that became the highest-rated Wednesday-Thursday drama on the network in over two years. IMDb audiences scored the series 8.6. The South China Morning Post identified plot-line proliferation as the show's later weakness; the premiere avoids that by focusing its opening act on a single compressed provocation: a parliamentary committee hearing a psychologist's testimony on a foetal gene test for psychopathy. The timeline-fracture structure - opening decades before the main plot, establishing the central moral question before a murder has occurred - is the episode's formal strength. Lee Seung-gi's eventual performance earned the Grand Prix at the 2021 Asia Artist Awards for a role the premiere only glances at.