Song Ki-baek, the protagonist of Frankly Speaking, undergoes a personality shift after being electrocuted. Go Kyung-pyo plays Ki-baek.
Song Ki-baek is a hard-working news announcer who aspires to be promoted to the position of main news anchor.
He has all the qualities needed for the role—he is competent, good-looking, kind, and wealthy. To the outside world, it seems like Ki-baek has everything.
However, Ki-baek is living a lie. His life is not as perfect as it seems. Furthermore, an unfortunate accident ruins his chances of becoming the main anchor.
Polite to a fault
As Ki-baek lives in a big house all by himself, everyone believes that he comes from a rich family. However, the truth is that Ki-baek comes from a poor family.
His family asks him to pretend to be rich because they believe it will be easier for him to succeed in life if everyone thinks he comes from wealth.
Ki-baek does not get to see his family, who live off of his money. He believes that his family only cares about the money and not about him.
Despite this, Ki-baek never confronts his family; he bottles up his feelings and remains polite to everyone around him.
People around him take advantage of his politeness, making him do their work, and Ki-baek never protests.
The accident that changes Ki-baek
As Ki-baek never speaks his mind or asserts himself, his boss forces him to appear on a reality show. The show’s head writer is a woman named On Woo-ju.
Woo-ju believes that Ki-baek has the potential to be a star, but all Ki-baek does is cause trouble with a famous idol, PN, who mistreats the staff.
When Woo-ju talks to him about his aggressive behavior towards PN, Ki-baek accidentally touches a wire and gets electrocuted.
This results in a condition called disinhibition, causing emotional dysregulation and personality changes similar to symptoms of dementia.
Ki-baek, who is always polite to a fault, no longer has control over the things he says. He is unable to lie or keep his thoughts to himself. He ends up giving PN a piece of his mind.
Ki-baek changes overnight. He is now unintentionally honest, albeit rude, with his boss and coworkers, who can no longer take advantage of him. He even confronts his family.
However, Ki-baek’s newfound honesty jeopardizes his chances of becoming the main anchor, as he cannot keep his thoughts to himself.
On top of this, Ki-baek faces backlash from PN’s fans and is told that he will have to vacate his house because the real owner is returning.
Ki-baek’s life gets more difficult with each passing day as his carefully constructed image is shredded to pieces, but Woo-ju might just be the person he needs to help him get his life together.
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