Character Arc
So Baek-ho is the male lead of The Potato Lab, a rigid, by-the-book corporate director sent from the parent retail company to oversee the rural potato research institute. He measures everything by rules, efficiency, and results, and his buttoned-up, principled manner immediately disrupts the easygoing, communal culture of the lab. [flag: character details corrected against published cast listings; the original brief named this lead 'Kim Ki-ho' and described him as a laid-back new researcher, which does not match the sources, where Kang Tae-oh plays the strict corporate director So Baek-ho.]
His constant friction with the warm, instinct-driven researcher Kim Mi-kyung drives much of the show's comedy and tension. Baek-ho sees inefficiency where she sees care, and his attempts to impose order on a place that runs on feeling repeatedly backfire, exposing the limits of treating people like line items on a balance sheet.
As the season progresses, Mi-kyung's warmth and the slower rhythms of countryside life gradually soften Baek-ho's rigid exterior. His arc traces a guarded, principled man learning to value connection and authenticity over control, turning his clashes with Mi-kyung into the foundation of the series' opposites-attract romance.