Psychopath Diary (싸이코패스 다이어리, Ssaikopaeseu Daieori) is a South Korean comedy/thriller series starring Yoon Shi-yoon, Jung In-sun and Park Sung-hoon. It aired on TvN from November 2019 to January 2020.
Timid office worker Yook Dong-sik witnesses an attempted murder. He picks up a diary belonging to the murderer, but then he's accidentally run over by patrol officer Shim Bo-kyung and ends up developing amnesia. Assuming the diary in his possession belongs to him, Dong-sik comes to believe that he's a serial killer responsible for the deaths detailed in its pages. The diary really belongs to Seo In-woo, Dong-sik's boss, who now wants his diary back through any means necessary.
The series can be watched on Viki
with English subtitles.
Psychopath Diary contains examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Played with. Dong-sik and Mu-seok fall down the stairs while fighting with each other. When Dong-sik wakes up he finds Mu-seok dead with a knife in his chest. He assumes he accidentally killed him in the fall. Actually In-woo killed Mu-seok while Dong-sik was unconscious.
- And I Must Scream: Everything that happens to Shim Seok-gu. He walks into his home one day and finds his daughter talking to the serial killer who almost killed him. The shock causes him to end up in hospital, unable to talk and forced to watch as In-woo continues to hang around Bo-kyung. Made especially horrifying when In-woo gloats about the situation and threatens Bo-kyung, knowing Seok-gu can't do anything to protect her.
- Axe-Crazy: As a child, In-woo was willing to murder his infant half-brother simply because he had to switch rooms with him. He just gets worse from then on.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Seo family. In-woo is a serial killer, his half-brother Ji-hoon has people beaten up for annoying him, Ji-hoon's mother hates In-woo, and their father is dismissive of both of them while later revealing that he's gotten his own hands dirty when needed.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In-woo is a male example. He pretends to be kind and friendly to hide his true nature as a serial killer. Best shown when Dong-sik phones him and In-woo pretends to be sympathetic while laughing at Dong-sik behind his back.
- Black Comedy: Much of the series' humour is dark. Highlights include Dong-sik planning to kidnap Ji-hoon only to realise an adult is too heavy to carry around in a bag, and Dong-sik preparing to kill Ji-hoon only to be interrupted by a phone call from his dad.
- Bookcase Passage: In-woo has a room full of weapons hidden behind his bookcase, accessible via pulling out a certain book.
- Chairman of the Brawl: Dong-sik briefly uses a chair as a weapon against In-woo.
- Clothesline Stealing: After escaping from prison Dong-sik has to get rid of his prison uniform, so he steals clothes from the nearest clothesline.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Seo Chung-hyeon admits to having killed people himself and doesn't care that his son is a serial killer.
- Cute and Psycho: Subverted. Dong-sik is very cute and not at all psycho, but he thinks he's a psycho.
- Danger Takes a Backseat: In-woo hides in Mu-seok's backseat. As soon as Mu-seok gets in the car In-woo sedates him.
- Death Faked for You: Dong-sik pretends to kill Ji-hoon as a ploy to make In-woo let both of them go. He stabs himself to cover the knife with blood then tells Ji-hoon to play dead.
- Destination Defenestration: In-woo accidentally defenestrates himself when his fight with Dong-sik leads to him crashing into an already-cracked window. He survives thanks to a passing garbage truck.
- Disguised in Drag: After escaping prison, Dong-sik needs to sneak by Bo-kyung's police escort. She helps him do this by dressing him up like her mother and stuffing him in her car before the escort can look too closely.
- Easy Amnesia: Dong-sik gets amnesia from being hit by a car and knocking the back of his head. It's by knocking his head around again that he's able to resurface some of his old memories.
- Evil Gloating: In-woo indulges in this when he taunts the nearly-comatose Detective Shim.
- Extreme Doormat: Dong-sik starts out as one, completely unable to stand up for himself and getting screwed over by his workplace as a result. He stops being one once he becomes convinced he's a psychopath.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: In-woo doesn't look dangerous and — when other people are around — he acts normal. He's also a psychopath who enjoys killing people.
- The Glomp: In order to knock In-woo unconscious as part of his plan, Dong-sik glomps In-woo to distract him while he switches their drinks.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Used when In-woo tries to kill the homeless man. We see him approach the victim, then cut to blood on the floor, then cut again to outside. Downplayed, though, since we see the silhouette of In-woo beating the man while blood splashes on the glass door.
- Hand Stomp: Heights aren't involved, but In-woo stands on Dong-sik's hand to make him drop his knife.
- How We Got Here: The series starts with Dong-sik being arrested for seven murders. Then it flashes back to before he found the diary that details the crimes in question.
- Interrupted Suicide: A variant. Dong-sik plans to commit suicide but is too scared to do it. So when he sees a car arrive at the building he uses the possibility of being caught to convince himself to go home.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In-woo gets hit with it twice.
- He tries to kill Dong-sik and Bo-kyung, leading to Bo-kyung trying to shoot him and hitting the window instead. Then In-woo crashes into the window, falls through it, and ends up in a vegetative state.
- Later on, In-woo tries to kill Dong-sik again. He walks right into the trap Dong-sik and Bo-kyung set for him, gets arrested, and ends up in prison.
- Man Bites Man: During their fight in the escape room, Dong-sik bites In-woo's leg.
- Missing Mum: Both Dong-sik and In-woo lost their mothers years before the series starts. Dong-sik takes advantage of this information to rile up In-woo during their confrontation, accusing him of having an inferiority complex as a result of his mother's absence.
- Mistaken For Crazy: Bo-kyung's Inner Monologue takes the form of her father showing up in strange places. Sometimes she responds to him out loud. Everyone else is very confused to see her apparently having a conversation with herself.
- Mistaken for Gay: One of In-woo's "friends" assumes Dong-sik is In-woo's lover.
- Mistaken for Murderer:
- Played with, since in this case a character mistakes himself for a murderer. Thanks to In-woo's diary and a case of amnesia, Dong-sik becomes convinced he's a serial killer.
- After a few misinterpreted words and Dong-sik trying to play up his supposed psychopathy, Chil-sung also comes to believe that Dong-sik's a murderer.
- Mugging the Monster:
- Sung-cheol threatens In-woo with a knife and tells him to drive where Sung-cheol tells him to. In-woo goes along with it... for a while. Once he becomes bored with Sung-cheol's posturing, he forces him at gunpoint to hurry along a dark, busy highway, leading to Sung-cheol brutal death.
- Mu-seok attempts to blackmail In-woo with photographs of a murder he committed. In-woo hides in Mu-seok's car, knocks him out, and kidnaps him.
- Never Suicide: In-woo's modus operandi is to make his murders look like suicide. Bo-kyung is the only person who suspects foul play.
- He causes a gas leak in an elderly woman's home and gets her to lock herself in by standing outside with a knife.
- He drugs the homeless man and sets fire to his home. The police put it down as suicide by arson.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Ominous Korean chanting shows up on the soundtrack for especially dramatic moments.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In-woo tells Dong-sik he knows what he's doing and he can't deal with Ji-hoon on his own. Dong-sik is planning to kill Ji-hoon and thinks his plan has been discovered. In-woo actually means the anonymous post Dong-sik made about Ji-hoon.
- Out-Gambitted: In-woo plans to kill Bo-kyung and make it look like suicide. Dong-sik realises his plan. No one will take Dong-sik's warnings seriously because they all think he's a serial killer, so he exploits this by pretending to threaten Bo-kyung. The police assume he really means to harm her so they immediately start looking for her. In-woo has to flee and Bo-kyung survives.
- Patricide: In-woo shoots his father.
- Plot-Triggering Book: Dong-Sik witnesses a vicious murder and stumbles upon the killer's diary, which details a horrifying record of the crimes committed by a Serial Killer. He flees in panic but gets hit by a car and becomes amnesiac due to the accident. He then falsely believes that the diary is his own, and that he's a serial killer. What follows are his darkly hilarious attempts to act like one, which inevitably fail due to his innately good nature.
- Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: In-woo drugs Dong-sik's drink. Dong-sik hugs him then switches their glasses around while In-woo's distracted.
- Psychotic Smirk: In-woo has a very unhinged half-laugh half-grin that he uses when planning to kill someone.
- Sadistic Choice: In-woo gives Dong-sik one. Either Dong-sik kills Ji-hoon and In-woo helps him start a new life abroad, or In-woo kills Bo-kyung and frames Dong-sik. Dong-sik solves the dilemma by pretending to kill Ji-hoon, instead stabbing himself non-fatally and whispering to Ji-hoon to play dead.
- The Scapegoat: Once In-woo realises that Dong-sik believes himself to be a serial killer, he jumps on the chance to frame Dong-sik for his own crimes.
- Secret Diary: The titular diary. Unusually it belongs to a man in this case.
- Serial Killer: In-woo has killed at least six people before the series begins.
- Shadow Discretion Shot: The characters' silhouettes are all that's shown when In-woo beats a man nearly to death.
- Share the Male Pain: Bo-kyung kicks a mannequin between the legs. Her colleague and Dong-sik react with horror and agonised groans.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: In-woo is rarely seen wearing anything but a suit, even when threatening and killing people.
- Sibling Murder: In-woo attempts this by proxy when he tries to make Dong-sik murder Ji-hoon. He fails because Dong-shik only pretends to kill Ji-hoon.
- Sibling Rivalry: Between In-woo and Ji-hoon. It goes all the way back to their childhood, as shown in the flashback where In-woo tries to smother an infant Ji-hoon.
- Slasher Smile: In-woo has a truly terrifying grin.
- Spanner in the Works: Dong-sik constantly ruins In-woo's plans just by existing. Shown especially when In-woo is about to murder Bo-kyung, then learns Dong-sik has got the police looking for Bo-kyung.
- Staircase Tumble: Mu-seok dies after he and Dong-sik fall down a flight of stairs.
- Throw the Book at Them: Dong-sik hits In-woo with a book. A book containing a camera that just filmed In-woo's murder attempt, no less.
- Took a Level in Badass: At the start of the series Dong-sik is an Extreme Doormat. By the end he's outwitted In-woo repeatedly.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: As a child In-woo planned to kill Ji-hoon because Ji-hoon had taken In-woo's room.
- Villainous Crush: In-woo possibly has one on either (or both) Dong-sik or Bo-kyung. He's very interested in Dong-sik, and he strokes Bo-kyung's face while saying he has feelings for her. But then he's also willing to kill both of them, so it's up for debate if he's sincere.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The final episode takes place a year after the climactic confrontation between Dong-sik and In-woo, and shows what all of the main cast are up to now that the grisly case has been solved. However, there's a conspicuous lack of information on what happened to the Seo family after the patriarch's murder and the arrest of the eldest son. Particularly noticeable with Seo Ji-hoon, who had just suffered through a highly traumatic experience last time he was seen.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: In-woo sets up a scenario in which Dong-sik is forced to kill Mu-seok, who has been knocked unconscious so that Dong-sik has an easy kill. In-woo then has to watch in disbelief as Dong-sik approaches the sleeping body, Screams Like a Little Girl, collides with several barrels and ends up on the floor.In-woo: What? Are you kidding me?
