The Good Bad Mother episode 4: A flashback of Kang-ho and Mi-joo's adorable relationship

The Good Bad Mother starring Lee Do-hyun and Ra Mi-ran has steadily gained fans. It is a unique story to come out of the K-drama industry, which has recently been showcasing thrillers or rom-coms. The Good Bad Mother, on the other hand, focuses on a mother and son’s healing relationship.

In episode 3 of The Good Bad Mother, viewers discover that Kang-ho’s (Lee Do-hyun) accident was planned by Oh Tae-soo (Jung Woong-in), former prosecutor and current presidential candidate. CEO Song Woo-byeok (Choi Moo-sung) is the only person who has figured out the truth.

In The Good Bad Mother episode 4, we see Kang-ho and Young-soon (Ra Mi-ran) come closer as the former returns to his seven-year-old self. Young-soon’s dreams also shatter when she discovers that Kang-ho lived as a corrupt prosecutor. Simultaneously, we also see Kang-ho and Mi-joo’s relationship.

---

The Good Bad Mother episode 4: Mi-joo and Kang-ho’s adorable back story raises anticipation for what went wrong, Young-soon discovers her son’s corruption

The Good Bad Mother episode 4 begins with a village worker asking Young-soon about Kang-ho’s health. We see that Kang-ho has recovered a lot but is still in his wheelchair. Mi-joo’s twin kids, Ye-jin and Seo-jin, treat Kang-ho as their playmate and accidentally push him too hard, leading to him falling off the wheelchair.

Back at home, Young-soon and Geum-ja scold the twins. Ye-jin, Seo-jin and Kang-ho have a funny back and forth where they establish that Kang-ho is a seven year old, just like the kids, and hence, is friends with them.

Kang-ho continues with his physiotherapy exercise by picking up beans from a bowl and putting them on a plate with chopsticks. He is only halfway done when he hears Young-soon come in and attempts to hide the remaining beans in his mouth. Young-soon figures it out and jokes that beans will grow in his stomach, making him spit them out.

Young-soon fondly smiles. She writes the number 35 on a notepad and reminds him that he is 35 years old and has become a seven-year-old for some time. Kang-ho says that it means that he’s stupid, after remembering Young-soon’s conversation with the doctor. Young-soon realizes and makes him understand that this is just a second chance for them.

Elsewhere, Mi-joo finds Sun-yeong’s mother at a fish market. The mother reveals that Sun-yeong has troubled her too. Mi-joo gets messages about her overdue rent. She looks at the passbook of a bank account she created for Ye-jin and Seo-jin and cries.

The Good Bad Mother episode 4 then shows viewers the budding romance between Kang-ho and Mi-joo as a flashback. Mi-joo sits in a restaurant with her new colleagues and stumbles across Kang-ho as the waiter. She slaps him and cries, asking him where he has been all this time.

It turns out that Kang-ho never contacted Mi-joo even once after moving to Seoul. He shares that he took his first bar exam recently. He also mentions that he is working part-time at the restaurant to take care of himself, as he gets free food, laundry, and some other privileges in return.

Mi-joo says she will help Kang-ho get his revenge (against fate by becoming a prosecutor). The duo starts living with each other. They grow closer with each exam and even celebrate together when Kang-ho passes the final bar exam. The Good Bad Mother episode 4 ends the flashback on a happy note.

In the present, Young-soon takes Kang-ho to the rehabilitation centre. Kang-ho panics and starts screaming for Young-soon as he finds himself alone after the exercise. Young-soon comes running and consoles a crying Kang-ho that she will never leave him.

Meanwhile, Oh Tae-soo continues campaigning for his presidential election. CEO Song Woo-byeok plays a clip of the hit-and-run truck driver’s widow saying that her husband’s accident and su*cide were part of the contract. She threatens to go to the police if anything were to happen to her or her child. CEO Song also presents evidence of Ha-young buying sleeping pills.

Former prosecutor Oh Tae-soo tells CEO Song that Kang-ho is the son of the man they killed years ago. CEO Song keeps a poker face and reveals that he already knew about it.

CEO Song works with Kang-ho because he tells him that his father is an "irresponsible" person who took his own life. CEO Song tells Oh Tae-soo that he only wants Kang-ho for his skills, and the moment he goes for revenge, he will drop him.

The Good Bad Mother episode 4 then finally opens Kang-ho’s true ways of living to Young-soon.

Young-soon gets a call from Kang-ho’s realtor informing her that his lease has expired. She leaves Kang-ho with the locals to collect his stuff from Seoul. She first goes to his office and sees several people protesting against Kang-ho. One even mentions that he took bribes from CEO Song Wo-byeok to frame her innocent son. Young-soon refuses to believe the allegations and defends Kang-ho.

In the village, the twins start playing with Kang-ho again. At one point, he recalls the larceny law and recites it out loud, as if in a trance. He later brushes it off. The twins tell him about their favorite bouncy ball that Mi-joo bought them from the USA. The sticker on it reads ‘Made in China.' They tell Kang-ho not to lose the ball, as their father is very scary and horrible. However, he loses it.

Meanwhile, on her way to the village from Seoul, Young-soon gets into a car crash. As she and the driver argue, she notices pure gold bars spilling out of one of Kang-ho’s boxes. Once she reaches home, she is distant from Kang-ho. Kang-ho pleads with her to let him go find the ball. Young-soon, who is devastated, loses her temper and shouts at him.

Young-soon blames herself for raising him into a power-hungry man. Frustrated, she starts beating herself. Kang-ho falls from the wheelchair to go towards her and apologizes for being a bad man. He then asks Young-soon if his punishment was disguised as a second chance.

Later, Young-soon brings Kang-ho’s plant and keeps it at the pigsty. When Kang-ho makes faces, she explains that pigs generally live in a clean space. She also tells him that they can only see the sky if they fall down. She relates this to them and says that although they have fallen, they can see the new world together.

The Good Bad Mother episode 4 parallels the struggles Mi-joo is going through. She starts work at a new place but is fired because her old customers create a ruckus. Sam-sik tries to cheer her up and says that he will help clear her debt. However, he is revealed to be working as a waiter.

Back at the village, Kang-ho leaves the house when Young-soon tells him to wait for her in search of the twins’ bouncy ball. He roams around the village and enters the artist’s (who had gotten into an accident with Young-soon earlier) house. He recites the trespassing law word-by-word when he hears him talking about a plagiarism suit and scolding him.

Young-soon discovers that Kang-ho is not at home and begins searching for him by following his wheelchair tracks. In the evening, Kang-ho trips and falls from the wheelchair in a place surrounded by trees. As he looks up towards the sky, he sees the ball stuck in the tree. He takes the ball to the twins’ place excitedly and calls out for them.

The Good Bad Mother episode 4 ends on an exciting note as Kang-ho reaches the twins' place to give them a surprise, but Mi-joo opens the door. They are both surprised to see each other.

---

Episode 4 of The Good Bad Mother showcased the adorable backstory of Kang-ho and Mi-joo, but it did not give away the reason why the two broke up. The identity of Ye-jin and Seo-jin’s father is also a mystery, which seems to be only known to Mi-joo.

The Good Bad Mother is a 14-episode series that airs every Wednesday and Thursday on Netflix.