Name: The Good Bad Mother season 1 episode 7
Director: Shim Na-yeon
Released: 2023-05-18T14:09:24

In the seventh episode of The Good Bad Mother, Young-soon receives yet another bad news, which convinces her to take extreme measures. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.

Recap

Since Chairman Song’s men lied to Young-soon, they are forced to buy a field in the village. Additionally, Sam-sik came to the village to run away from the men who were demanding that he pay them for getting into a fight. These men finally find him and reach the village.

Young-soon was told by the doctor that surgery will probably not be effective in treating her cancer and that she should get her affairs in order. Due to that, she starts training Kang-ho so that he will be able to take care of the farm when she is gone.

She also starts teaching him how to stand up to bullies and deal with people who might try to take advantage of him. Kang-ho is still meeting the twins, even though Mi-joo asked him to stay away from them.

After lying to each other about their lives, Mi-joo and Sam-sik come face to face in the village and find out the truth about each other’s lives. Sam-sik asks her if she still likes Kang-ho, but Mi-joo fails to give him an answer.

Young-soon’s condition is getting worse, but she keeps hiding it from Kang-ho. When Baek Hoon-ah comes to her with another complaint about the farm, she gives him a piece of her mind.

Minutes later, she finds out that a nearby goat farm had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, so all animals within a 3 km radius must be killed, which includes all of Young-soon’s pigs except Lion. Young-soon, Kang-ho, and the villagers mourn the loss of the pigs.

This is a loss that Young-soon cannot recover from easily, so she buys herbicides to kill herself and Kang-ho. However, she changes her mind when Kang-ho talks about repopulating the farm with Lion’s help. Mi-joo also figures out Young-soon’s plans and takes away the herbicides from her.

Mi-joo then asks Kang-ho and Sam-sik to take Seo-jin, who had been crying about not going to the public bath with his father, to the public bath. Kang-ho bathes Seo-jin like a father, but when Seo-jin says that to Ye-jin, she gets upset, as she wants her father to be a rich and successful man.

Kang-ho also sees Assemblyman Oh on TV and remembers what he had said to him. Assemblyman Oh is getting Ha-young married into a rich family. This will boost his political career.

Chairman Song’s men search Kang-ho’s house and find out that Kang-ho was dressing up as a woman to expose the Woobyeok Group. He created messes and then cleaned them up to earn Chairman Song’s favor.

Chairman Song is not angry about that. He just wants his men to find something on Assemblyman Oh before the elections.

Young-soon makes all the arrangements and takes Kang-ho to the rehabilitation center. She tells him that he will be staying there from now on. He cries and begs her to take him home with her, but Young-soon refuses.

She goes home and hangs herself. At the same time, Kang-ho manages to run away from the rehabilitation center and come home. He reaches there just in time to save his mother from dying. While doing that, he is able to stand on his two feet.

Review

Young-soon’s anxiety and fear of dying are felt by the audience in this episode. Her actions are those of a desperate woman who has a lot to do for her child but very little time.
After everything that has happened to Young-soon, her character development is quite evident in this episode. She is now teaching her son to stand up to the bullies when in the past, she used to punish him for doing that.
It is not a light-hearted episode by any means. Young-soon’s losses prevent her from getting back on her feet like she always does. The ending of the episode, especially, contains dark themes and is heartbreaking.