K-drama midseason recap: On the Verge of Insanity – character-driven workplace story blossoms into thrilling drama
- Grounded in reality and all the better for it, this series finds drama at every turn in the goings-on at rural engineering office of a home appliances maker
- There’s a villain, of course, and a resourceful woman with divided loyalties, both ably backed by a supporting cast that make the show thoroughly relatable
This article contains spoilers.
Vigilantes and young lovers are the drivers behind many hit Korean shows, but while their tales of injustice and aching romance, big budgets and major stars hog the limelight, some of 2021’s best series so far have eschewed fantasy for reality, and have been all the better for it.
Much like the thoroughly satisfying Navillera earlier this year, On the Verge of Insanity, a workplace drama airing on MBC, confronts life’s hardships in a relatable way. The villains and corrupt corporations are still there, but rather than being purely evil, the character of the human and corporate actors here is shaped by circumstance and personal traits.
The chief villain is team leader Han Se-kwon (Lee Sang-yeob), a well-to-do and talented engineer whose arrogance, prejudice and endlessly self-serving ways have made him a thorn in everyone’s side. He is a slimy and manipulative character whose treacherous schemes stem from a highly competitive personality, which we discover is fuelled by a deep-seated inferiority complex.
He constantly refers to his hit, million-unit selling dishwashers and uses his education at a prestigious university to place himself above others and, more importantly, to stop great engineers upstaging him.