Name: The Good Bad Mother season 1 episode 3
Director: Shim Na-yeon
Released: 2023-05-03T23:17:11

The third episode of The Good Bad Mother focuses on the aftermath of Kang-ho’s accident. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.

Recap

Kang-ho is brought to the hospital after his accident. He is still alive, but the doctors tell Young-soon that even if Kang-ho wakes up, he will not be able to return to his normal life for some time. Young-soon does not lose hope and waits for him to wake up.

It is shown that Young-soon never let Kang-ho eat as a child because she always told him that eating would make him sleepy and he would not be able to study then. Kang-ho had to resort to eating secretly when she was not around.

Chairman Song finds out about Kang-ho’s accident, but he does not come face to face with Young-soon. He is told that the driver who hit Kang-ho is nowhere to be found. Additionally, he was driving a burner vehicle, which was then set on fire, and there are no fingerprints.

Assemblyman Oh visits his daughter, Ha-young, who is also in the hospital. He tells her that Kang-ho would probably die and praises her work. It turns out that the accident was planned by Assemblyman Oh.

Ha-young drugged Kang-ho to make him fall asleep. She then asked him to let her drive when the drug started affecting him. She got out of the car according to the plan and watched Kang-ho get into an accident. Assemblyman Oh assures Ha-young that he will take care of everything.

Mi-joo’s salon is doing well, and she is making a profit. At night, when she is walking home alone, she is followed by a man. She attacks him, but it turns out that it is Sam-sik, who has come to meet her after getting released from prison.

He was able to find her salon because he remembers everything that she told him about her dreams. He went to prison because he was used by other men, and he now believes that being used by others is the worst crime.

He plans to work on a fishing vessel and bids her goodbye to do that. However, he dupes his mother again and gets money from his parents. When they go to pick him up on his release day, they find out that he was released a week ago and has left with their money.

Young-soon takes care of an unconscious Kang-ho in the hospital. After a long wait, he finally wakes up, but he is paralyzed from the neck down. He might recover after receiving the treatment.

However, he has also lost his memories and has only retained his childhood ones. He is now the same as a seven-year-old child. Young-soon returns home with him but does not tell anyone in the village about his condition.

Meanwhile, a man named Andrea, whose father has a pig farm in Canada, is going to be working with Young-soon, as he wants to learn about Korean pigs.

At home, Young-soon tries to feed Kang-ho, but he refuses to eat. She brings him all kinds of dishes and tries various methods to get him to eat, but to no avail.

Sam-sik’s mother, Sung-ae, and Mi-joo’s mother, Gum-ja, help Young-soon with the chores. They find out about Kang-ho when they go to her house, and then the news spreads everywhere. The villagers try to show their support to Young-soon in their own way.

Young-soon promises Hae-sik that she will make sure that their son walks out of that room on his own. She prays everywhere, works at the farm and at home, and takes care of Kang-ho at the same time.

She goes through Kang-ho’s old belongings and brings out his favorites for him, which include the robot Hae-sik bought for him before his death. Kang-ho still does not eat, and one day, when he passes out, a doctor tells Young-soon that he might be suicidal.

After this, she tries to force-feed him, and he reveals that he had refused to eat because he was told that eating will make him sleepy and he would not be able to study. Young-soon cries and tells him that it is okay to eat. Kang-ho finally eats.

Chairman Song’s men investigate and find out that the driver, Mr. Yang, who hit Kang-ho’s car, killed himself. Chairman Song suspects that this was Assemblyman Oh’s doing, who is now getting rid of all the people and businesses related to the Woobyeok Group.

However, Ha-young is traumatized after the accident. She sees the scarf that she was wearing that day and has a breakdown. Assemblyman Oh once again assures her that nothing will happen.

Kang-ho is fascinated by the robot, and when Young-soon is on the phone, he is able to move his hand to reach out for it. Young-soon returns and forces him to move his hand again, but he keeps failing.

At the same time, Mi-joo’s business partner, Sun-young, steals the money they had made and sells the salon to someone else. Mi-joo realizes that she has been betrayed a little too late, and the customers ask her to return their membership money.

When Kang-ho fails to move his hand again, Young-soon decides to take drastic measures. She refuses to feed him with her hands and leaves the food for him to eat on his own. She takes it away when he is unable to eat on his own.

At the same time, she continues his physical therapy. She was earlier not able to get a spot for him at the rehabilitation center, but when she finally gets the spot, she finds him eating his food with his own hands, much to her delight.

Review

This episode sees Young-soon realizing that she has been a bad mother to her son and how it has affected him. The scene in which she discovers why Kang-ho refuses to eat is heartbreaking.
Young-soon’s extreme measures to get Kang-ho to move his hand are not only cruel but very similar to the ones she adopted to get him to study when he was a child. It is hard to believe that her character can change when the writers make her act like this.
The show continues to be unpredictable. Ha-young’s involvement in the accident as well as Mi-joo getting betrayed by her partner were unexpected revelations, but twists like these make the show interesting.