Summary
The Potato Lab continues to thrive on the chemistry between its leads in Episode 4, while developing other characters and subplots in the meantime.
There’s an easy charm to The Potato Lab that feels like alchemy; narrative gold from leaden rom-com tropes. That’s true in Episode 4, even if it’s perhaps less true than it was in the previous hour when it felt like everything was really coming together. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe everything is coming together, but this episode gets a bit wider-ranging with its subplots and character focus, clearly setting things up for later more than delivering a payoff right away.
Which is fine, to be clear. There are a lot of hours to fill and it’s important to fill them with meaningful stuff, otherwise you end up with the ghost of a show like When the Stars Gossip. And nobody wants that, let alone me, who has to write about it twice a week.
What remains true is that the essential blend of The Potato Lab just flat-out works. It’s a lovely mix of comedy, drama, and romance, using each genre to inform its character dynamics and peppering all of that with an eccentricity that isn’t purely performative. I mentioned this in the previous recap, but the reason the weirdness of this show improves it is because the show itself wants to justify that weirdness. Nothing is happening here just for the sake of something happening.
If stuff like Ong-ju and Hwan-kyung and Ki-se and his wife feel a bit like table setting, though, the core dynamic between Mi-kyung and Baek-ho, especially given the latter firing the former at the end of the previous outing, is very much the glue binding everything together. And that chemistry continues to crackle. Mi-kyung starts out aghast at the development, despite Baek-ho trying to let her down gently and keep her on until the onboarding of Mr. Kwon has finished, and while we flit around here and there to develop Ong-ju and Hwan-kyung’s clumsy romance, Mi-kyung’s reaction to this news forms the core dramatic throughline of The Potato Lab Episode 4.
In the process, we learn a bit more about Mi-kyung – her father’s a monk – and see some payoff for earlier characterization. Because we have already seen how stubborn Baek-ho is, we know that Mi-kyung’s varied attempts to change his mind about her position are going to fall on deaf ears. It’s a small thing, but it’s consistent, organic storytelling that works. So many shows forget that kind of thing.
This also provides a more natural way for Ki-se to ingratiate himself into that main relationship. As Baek-ho’s superior, he could undermine him by reinstating Mi-kyung, but she doesn’t want to go that low. It’s nice to weave Ki-se’s rivalry with Baek-ho into his history with Mi-kyung, and it’s complicated welcomely by the introduction of the oft-mentioned Yoon Hee-jin, too.
The obligatory rom-com hijinks ensue when the office learns of Mi-kyung’s dismissal and turns against Baek-ho, slagging him off in group chat messages that they – all together now – send to the wrong group, the one he’s in. This leaves Mi-kyung in a pickle, racing around trying to delete the messages from Baek-ho’s phone and then, when that doesn’t work entirely, from his desktop. Naturally, Baek-ho catches her in the act, but he takes it well, turning his back to play along. This clearly isn’t a guy with a fragile ego or a pathological need to be liked.
But even though it’s clear Baek-ho has no real intention of punishing Mi-kyung any further, that doesn’t mean he’s totally disinterested in her on a personal level, and the ending of The Potato Lab Episode 4 makes that pretty clear in another weather-based longing-stare scene. There’s still plenty more to unpack between these two, and with the other subplots percolating nicely in the background, I think the show just might grow into something a little special.
