Recap Korean Drama "Unlock My Boss (2022)" Episode 1-2

Despite its opening flashback featuring ominous warnings of Y2K and rats that will steal your face if they eat your nail clippings, Unlock the Boss quickly assures us this story will veer on the fun side — our young protagonist is overjoyed at the thought of making little rat clones of himself to do all his work.

We then catch back up with PARK IN-SUNG (Chae Jong-hyeop) in his late twenties, where he’s abandoned his acting dreams for his parents’ sake but struggles to land a well-paying job in return. After he’s let go from a kids’ character mascot gig (which looks pretty miserable anyway), he applies for a position at IT corporation Silver Lining, the CEO of which is his idol, KIM SUN-JOO (Park Sung-woong).

Silver Lining’s big feature product is the AI interface BARO, which can not only learn to speak with the voices of real people (like celebrities or family members), but can also potentially learn to make decisions as those people would. Sun-joo himself uses BARO to organize his life, rattling off instructions and notes to it throughout his work day. He has a human secretary, too — named JUNG SE-YEON (Seo Eun-soo) — though he half-jokes that her job may become obsolete before long.

Se-yeon isn’t fazed — by that remark or anything else —as far as anyone can tell. Sun-joo refers to her as “more emotionless than AI,” but it seems less likely that she doesn’t feel emotions, and more that she’s just really, really good at not showing them. Her big secret is that her mother is hospitalized, and she’s hounded by a loan shark to pay back (presumably) the money for those bills.

As for Sun-joo, his personal life is filled with work, work, and more work. He’s a single father, and though he clearly loves his young daughter KIM MIN-AH (Ki So-yoo), she’s basically being raised by the nanny and butler. Still, they make plans for a family camping night, and Min-ah excitedly picks out sweet potatoes to roast. But while Sun-joo is en route, his tech fails and he disappears.

Backing up a few days, In-sung’s interview at Silver Lining is a complete disaster. Just before he’s called in, he runs smack into Se-yeon, and the coffee she’s carrying cascades over his white shirt. In-sung panics, but Se-yeon just drags him wordlessly into the restroom and swaps shirts with him. His physique is quite a bit broader than hers, though, so he spends the entire interview trying not to move so as to keep the shirt from gaping open between the buttons (he fails).

Not only is In-sung uncomfortable and nervous, but he also leans into his adorkable side (taking a bite out of a literal apple as he proudly declares Silver Lining Korea’s Apple), and the interviewer is unimpressed to say the least. (The secondhand embarrassment is strong here!)

Discouraged and in the process of being forced out of his apartment by his landlady, In-sung decides to go back to his rural hometown for a while and think about his next steps. His father would prefer he pour his money and energy into the family orchard (and soon-to-be vineyard), but In-sung is tired of having his own wishes shot down in favor of his parents’.

After yet another argument on the subject, In-sung takes off into the woods to blow off steam, ignoring warning signs about snakes in the area. So, naturally, as he pauses to reminisce on happier times when his father supported his aspirations, he gets bitten by a snake. In-sung dramatically falls to the ground and resigns himself to his fate… only to be startled by a voice from a nearby cell phone claiming to be Sun-joo and demanding he charge its rapidly draining battery.

Of course, the snake wasn’t venomous, and In-sung only ends up in an IV drip because he freaked himself out so much that he fainted. First responders helpfully brought the cell phone along, assuming it belonged to him, and In-sung cringes in dismay that the talking phone wasn’t a venom-induced hallucination.

As he soon learns, the phone does indeed seem to hold Sun-joo’s consciousness. Sun-joo has no memory of the past week, but he has full control of the phone’s functions, including seeing through the camera, speaking through BARO, sending emails, scouring the internet for information, and so on. He offers a deal: In-sung will handle CEO duties while they figure out what happened to him for a reward of 1 billion won (roughly $760,000). To prove he’s serious (and real), he transfers 10 million won (roughly $7,600) to In-sung’s account upfront.

That’s not a proposition one hears every day. While In-sung processes the request, he breaks the fourth wall for a bit to ask if he’s in some sort of “The Truman Show” situation. Ultimately, however, he decides he’s been handed the acting role of a lifetime, and commits to it 100%.

After a shopping spree to make In-sung look the part, Sun-joo sends out emails paving the way for In-sung to breeze into Silver Lining and take over as CEO. And breeze in he does, though he also giggles to himself whenever no one is looking. But while Sun-joo coaches him through the day, In-sung isn’t about to let his newfound authority go to waste. Instead, he steps up to become the boss he never had — one who stands up for his employees when their superiors mistreat them and doesn’t force anyone to stay overtime.

There’s a lot of business scheming going on in the background amongst Sun-joo’s partners and rivals, but they decide In-sung doesn’t pose enough of a threat to worry about right now.

Meanwhile, Sun-joo’s chief focus is figuring out how he ended up inside his smartphone and who’s responsible. There are a few potential suspects, but no definitive answers, so he has In-sung sneak into his home office that night to retrieve an envelope from the safe.

With great effort (and not-so-great sneaking skills), In-sung makes it into the office, but the safe is empty. Then, he’s nearly discovered by the nanny and butler (the latter of whom is currently at the top of the shifty suspects list). But most disconcerting of all is the fact that someone starts calling and texting Sun-joo’s phone, insisting the phone belongs to them instead.

I’ll be honest, I was sold on this show by the premise alone — and these first two episodes did not disappoint! Wackiness aside, I can already tell that it’s going to tug at my heartstrings just as much as it takes me on a wildly entertaining ride. So while humanity vs. technology questions and overnight rags-to-riches shenanigans aren’t new, I’m looking forward to this story’s unique, quirky spin on them.