While watching Episode 5 of “The Good Bad Mother,” we knew that the tears weren’t very far away. Contrary to our expectations, they did not start till the end of Episode 6, but here we are, with our heart in knots over what is to come. We have also come to understand why Young Soon’s character has been called good and bad. When she was supposedly bad, it was her desire to give her son a good life that drove her to be that way. We are not making an excuse for that because that wouldn’t be fair to Kang Ho, but we cannot help drawing comparisons between that time and now, when she is occasionally bad. For example, the way she tempted Kang Ho with food so that he would learn to use his own hands, or now, how she wants her son to get into the wheelchair by himself so that he will become independent soon enough. She was cruel all the time, but her intentions had always been regarding Kang Ho’s welfare. How she finds the balance is up to her. For now, here is a detailed recap of the sixth episode of “The Good Bad Mother.”
Spoilers Alert
What Happens With Sam Sik And Mi Joo?
Kang Ho is already undoubtedly in love with Mi Joo. He wanted a dog to impress her, and later, he tried to catch a fish so that she would be happy. Mi Joo gets some money from her mother to open a nail salon and goes into town looking for places that she could rent for her business. Lucky for her, she finds just the right place at a pesticide store where she doesn’t have to pay rent and can get a lot of visibility with her customers. While this endeavor of hers is a success, what Mi Joo doesn’t know is that Kang Ho has followed her into town to return the purse that she dropped while getting on the bus. He catches her looking at an aquarium and thinks that she likes fish, but Mi Joo is just recollecting some of their older memories. She meets Kang Ho at the same time as his mother, and the three of them drive back to the village. When Young Soon drops off Mi Joo at her house, she apologizes for being harsh to her in her younger days. But it is water under the bridge now, except for whatever reason, Mi Joo has to keep Kang Ho away from Ye Jin and Seo Jin.
When Kang Ho goes to the twins’ house and stays for dinner, we find more similarities between him and the kids, including their dislike of carrots. Mi Joo asks Kang Ho never to come to the house or meet the twins again. Kang Ho understands that he must have behaved badly with Mi Joo in the past.
In the meantime, Sam Sik is back in the village. After losing his job and being threatened by his employer, he has nowhere else to go but back to Jou Ri. When he sees Kang Ho, he doesn’t know yet that he has lost his memory. Sam Sik remembers how Kang Ho had given him money with an indirect message to not acknowledge him in public. When Sam Sik had gotten into trouble and was pleading with Kang Ho for help, he had denied it to him rather heartlessly. But we get another clue here. The stolen goods that Sam Sik had received belonged to an assemblyman. Could they be related to Oh Tae Soo? Will it turn out that Kang Ho was protecting Sam Sik after all, just like he was protecting Mi Joo by breaking up with her? We can’t wait for the day we receive this clarification since, right now, Young Soon is sending care packages to the woman protesting against Kang Ho outside the prosecutor’s office.
Do The Villagers Agree To Evict The Pig Farm?
Baek Hoon Ah, the composer, is actually a childhood friend of most of the villagers. He had moved out when he was in second grade, but the people still remember him. As he gets reacquainted with everyone, he proposes a plan to open the country’s largest trot music concert hall in the village, which would provide gainful employment to everyone. The villagers are really taken in by this picture painted by Hoon Ah and agree that the pig farm must go. But once they leave the meeting, they all start reconsidering as they think with cooler heads and understand that they don’t want to do such a thing to Young Soon after all. Mr. Song, the village head, even reminds Hoon Ah that he is bankrupt and probably cannot afford the hall anyway. This humorous chapter would have come to a close right here except if Young Soon hadn’t heard their conversation the previous night when they were plotting against her.
What Happened To Young Soon?
Remember the two men in Episode 5 who protected Kang Ho from the person sent to murder him? Turns out, they indeed worked for Song Woobyeok and were there to look for original documents of proof against Oh Tae Soo. They were not expecting a murderer to show up but were nevertheless instructed by the chairman to continue protecting Kang Ho. These two men show up at Young Soon’s pig farm but accidentally run into her. To cover up their identity, they lie and say that they have purchased a farm nearby and need pig manure. Young Soon is happy to make their acquaintance, but as she bids them goodbye, she faints and falls down. The men take her to the hospital, where Young Soon discovers that she has stage 4 stomach cancer.
At the end of Episode 6 of “The Good Bad Mother”, Young Soon is shocked and is initially in denial, but as reality sets in, her first thought is that of Kang Ho. He is a child in a man’s body and needs all of her help right now. Young Soon knows that she cannot die and leave him alone. That would be akin to her own childhood, where she lost her parents and her brother, moments after they left for a picnic, which she couldn’t join because of a test she had to give. She raised herself, and knowing the hardships of that, including the disparity in the situation, she knows she cannot let that happen to Kang Ho. That is why, when Kang Ho falls off his wheelchair, she asks him to get up on his own. In the preview for “The Good Bad Mother” Episode 7, we can see how she is teaching him to live by himself. We just have to see if Kang Ho is able to remember that.
Final Thoughts
Did we mention that Lee Do Hyun was awarded the “Melo-King” award for his performances in melodramas? We are usually cautious when watching melodramas because it feels like we have chosen something to cry over, and why would we do that when life is already so tough? But “The Good, Bad Mother” has us hooked, and with good reason. We dread it as much as we look forward to it, and if there isn’t an absolutely happy ending at the end of the series, we will swear off this genre for good. But for now, Episode 6 was fun—at least until the last ten minutes.
