Kang Tae-Oh’s highly anticipated comeback drama, The Potato Lab, has finally arrived. The Netflix original tells the story of a woman named Kim Mi-Kyung who works at a potato lab, having quit her corporate job in the past. Baek-Ho is at the director level in the Wonhan group, but one day, out of the blue, he’s sent to the Potato lab as the chief to judge if it should stay running or get shut down. The two of them cross paths, and it looks like a romance will bloom very soon. While the basic premise is reminiscent of a lot of healing K-dramas – a stressed-out protagonist moves to a village and changes their entire outlook on life – I feel like there was really no point to the first two episodes except for us to get to see Kang Tae-Ho’s charm. It’s a very typical comedic show that doesn’t really focus on anything else and makes comedy its defining trait. But here’s me trying to break down all the important things that went down in the first two episodes of The Potato Lab.
Spoiler Alert
What Is Mi-Kyung’s Relationship With Wonhan?
In episode 1, we are introduced to the family that runs the lab. This includes Mi-Kyung, our protagonist; Jae-Joong; Seung-Hee; Jung-Ae; Seul-Gi; Chung-Hyun; and Hee-Dong (the newest member). Though this family has been working really hard to do good research and deliver great potatoes, the Sunnyo group is struggling to keep the company afloat. Finally, Wonhan agrees to buy it, thanks to Baek-Ho’s special skills. Of course, at first, it looks like everybody is going to lose their jobs, but it seems for the time being Wonhan is planning on keeping the lab to see if it’s of any use or not. The gang is then invited to Seoul for the HR procedures, and Mi-Kyung tells them all to overdress, because big companies look down on people like them. On the other hand, we are made to realize that Baek-Ho is a stone-cold capitalist and will do anything to guarantee Wonhan’s success. The HR meeting goes badly, as expected, but what’s worse is that Mi-Kyung encounters Ki-Se, her ex-lover and now successful director at Wonhan. It seems he broke her heart, and so she’s extra angry to see that he’s living a successful life now. Later we learn that he’s not as successful as he makes himself out to be because he’s divorced and he’s insecure about Baek-Ho.
Mi-Kyung lives with her younger brother, Hwan-Gyeong, and her friend, Ong-Joo. Mi-Kyung also owns a guesthouse next door, which they refer to as “Ward B.” Also, I’m not sure yet why the place is called USB Guesthouse. I suppose Baek-Ho’s competence lands him in some trouble because he’s sent to the lab as the new chief after the previous one is fired for (presumably) being too old. Baek-Ho doesn’t make a good impression on anybody, doing a sudden inspection of the lab when the guys are in Seoul for the HR team. So, Mi-Kyung yells out to the sky that she wishes for him to get smacked on the head. The lab’s bird, Sunnyeo, ends up hearing her pleas and decides to attack Baek-Ho (it is a comedy). This leads to the guy rolling onto the potato field and needing to go to the hospital.
The next thing you know, Mi-Kyung learns that he’s the new tenant in their guesthouse. She’s only recently quit smoking, and because she’s so angry about everything, she decides to take a smoke, but it starts to rain. This is when he shows up with an umbrella. Guess he’ll help her stay away from smoking too, eh? Anyway, Ong-Joo is a romantic web-novel writer, and she’s already created scenarios in her head of Mi-Kyung and the “hot director” Baek-Ho. Ironically, her manifestation seems to be working, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Will Baek-Ho Get In The Good Books Of The Villagers?
In episode 2, Mi-Kyung thinks it’s a good idea to turn the village against Baek-Ho by telling them that he replaced the old chief. The villagers then start treating him like an outsider, not letting him get to the lab, demanding money from him, even going to his lawyer because that’s the language he speaks, and they’re willing to tango with him. Mi-Kyung drives him to work every day and troubles him further by driving rashly and putting him in the back of the truck. The guy has too much pride to cave. On the other hand, it seems there may have been rumors at Wonhan that the CEO was the reason So Baek-Ho was in his high-ranking position in the first place and that she has some sort of unrequited love towards him. Or at least, Ki-Se claims that that is the reason he sent Baek-Ho to the village. Why do I have a feeling both leads have grown up as orphans? Well, at least Mi-Kyung seems to be that way, but I could be wrong.
At the end of The Potato Lab episode 2, there’s a crisis in the field: pests. Because the field workers have gotten food poisoning, it’s the research team that needs to clean up this mess. Mi-Kyung drags Baek-Ho along too, and instead of being a cool guy who is good at everything, he’s actually quite hilariously bad, and there are a few blunders with him, as he falls on people and gets pulled around by a hose. Finally, to make themselves feel better, the team has a work dinner. Baek-Ho gets drunk and falls asleep. Mi-Kyung calls for a designated driver, and on the way home, she falls asleep wrapped up in Baek-Ho’s arms. When she wakes up, she can’t help but imagine the tale Ong-Joo spun about Baek-Ho and Mi-Kyung. At the end of the episode, she grabs Baek-Ho’s shirt and kisses him after calling him “The Hot Director.” There’s definitely going to be some drama here, seeing as we’ve already got a love triangle. Most likely, Ki-Se will try to win Mi-Kyung back, even though whatever he did before has made her absolutely furious. I wonder if we’ll see the show turning the tropes around, but it’s too early to figure anything out just yet.
