Thanks for the weecap @lovepark. I agree that Youngsoon needs to really be taken to account for her abusive techniques starving someone to make them speed up their healing process was a breach of basic human rights. It wasn’t that he was being lazy he literally had to build up his strength and techniques. It also made no sense when she was so upset when he wasn’t eating before.
The children are really living their best lives wandering around the village without adult supervision and treating Kangho as a live doll rather than someone with a significant injury. Every time he falls out the wheelchair whether at speed or not is a potential situation for life threatening injury’s as he has no feelings pain would not be a warning.
I also did not like the disrespectful way the two mums were talking about not wanting to wash him in his presence as it was a breach of his rights to be treated with respect in order to maintain his personal dignity.

“It’s frustrating to watch Young-soon sometimes because it feels like an endless cycle of abuse with very little accountability”. I absolutely agree.
The way she takes her frustrations out on her son, hitting him and blaming him, makes it hard to take her side. Does she not think she bears some responsibility for his actions?
I wanted to say how much I liked Lee Do Hyun’s acting. He is convincing as a 7 year old without overdoing it

The beginning is very promising and I think Kang Ho left Mi Joo after discovering his father's death story. He wanted to focus on revenge and did not put Mi Joo in danger. I suspect the twins are his children. I hope this will be a meaningful healing story.

It would be a big surprise if Kang-ho is not the father of the twins, everything points to his paternity.

I am still convinced that Kang-ho did not turn to the dark side, at least not completely. The murder of the mother and her child was certainly faked. But I'm not quite so sure about the conviction of an innocent man. Maybe he is dirty after all, or I just can't think of a solution how he could have protected the innocent man after all.
But that makes the drama all the more interesting.

However, I have a big problem with how Kang-ho regained the mobility of his arms. I understand that the mother doesn't change overnight and she sort of fell back into her old pattern of behaviour, but I'm bothered that the writers make it seem like willpower alone is enough to overcome paralysis.

I like the way Lee Do-hyun portrays a seven-year-old adult, it seems so believable and at all exaggerated and awkward.

So, Kang-ho is definitely Ye-jin and Seo-jin’s dad, right? I’m not completely sure that the timeline lines up, but it seems like it does, and that would make a few more of the pieces fall into place. It was so cute to see Kang-ho and Mi-joo when he was studying for the bar. And I’m excited to see their reconnection play out! In those few moments at the end, it did not look like anyone had told her what had happened, but even if they had I’m sure they’d still be off to a rocky start. So much history there.

I’m hoping that the newfound knowledge that Kang-ho was likely corrupt will be the awakening Young-soon needs to reconsider her methods. Her starving him to get the result she wanted (again) was just awful, but I’m hoping that she’ll realize that she was a big part of what led him into that mess of a life and be able to take a different tactic. I'm finding it hard to feel sorry for her at this point, especially when she's upset about how he has been living his life. But I'm also super interested to see what happened between the cute scenes we saw with Mi-joo and the life we saw him in in ep 1 and 2. Must have been something big for him to change that much.

This show is both interesting and frustrating at the same time. The mother's abuse is being both acknowledged but then glossed over. The villagers who keep talking about how great a mother she was and how ungrateful Kang Ho was even though they all saw and acknowledged how hard she was on him are strange? Why are we supposed to feel sorry for her being ignored or disrespected by him after it's been so obvious she abused him growing up?

Also, having her use food deprivation as a way to prompt him to try and move his hands was horrible, that was the same kind of abuse all over again. The show wants to get the sad moments and understanding, but then doesn't fully allow the bad things she did to be internalized, she did the same abusive thing again, this time just dressed up as her trying to help him.

However, Young Soon's abuse does not mean she is responsible for Kang Ho being a bad person as an adult, that is his own responsibility. Her abuse is just the reason for their bad relationship. I do think the awfulness we've seen so far is somewhat of a fake-out. He's clearly not blameless given how he allowed the grandson to go free because he wanted to get closer to Woo-Byeok, but I think some of the rest is just a long game he's playing to get the culprits in his father's case punished. I'm interested in seeing how they manage that.

I'm sad about Kang Ho and Mi Joo splintering apart because their relationship seemed lovely, both as kids and as adults. I suspect the kids are his but unless the writing is really strong on very high or dangerous stakes creating the divide and him not knowing she was pregnant, it might be hard to root for a relationship where a man abandoned his pregnant partner just to get revenge.

I find the villagers really one dimensional and annoying, these are all good character actors and I've liked them on other shows but they're not getting any depth or interesting moments, just hamming it up. They just seem to be filler, except maybe one or two touching moments. The little kids are adorable though.

Mi Joo and Kang Ho have the most realistic kdrama romance I have seen in a long time. They have intimacy, which is so very very rare in kdramas. From the little pecks to cuddling in bed. They were together properly, so adorable, I assume he found out about his dad as mentioned above and wanted to get revenge so he broke up with her. That being said I am also assuming the twins are his. They are disgustingly adorable and champion actors too.

As for Youngsoon and her parenting ways. I need her to come to Jesus or Buddha moment, because girl... No. I hope they make her take accountability for being a not so great mother

I haven't yet seen ep. 4, but lovepark, you definitely hit on the source of my frustration with Young-soon: she still has the same "the end justifies the means" mentality that led to her son not only hating her but also coming close to death (I understand that she's not directly responsible for the latter, but certainly, had she been a better parent, he would have never ended up in that situation in the first place).

My concern while watching was that the show, too, was condoning this behavior in some way by focusing on the triumph of Kang-ho ultimately feeding himself rather than Young-soon's abusive methods. The show is well done, however, so my worry is probably misplaced. And certainly, it's not at all surprising that Young-soon would fall right back into her former patterns of behavior; that's what most of us do, and abusers are no exception. So I do applaud the show for not suggesting this woman would magically gain understanding of the abusive nature of her former behavior AND be able to avoid doing what she's always done when she got desperate for a specific result.

At the same time, for this story to ultimately be successful, Young-soon has to radically change her view of herself and the world, and likely also confront her grief and anger, both of which led her to become the bitter, abusive parent she was and is.

And this is not surprising, of course, but Lee Do-hyun is doing such convincing work here, as is the actress playing his mom. They also have great mother/son chemistry.

Right before she sees that he moved the robot and then she withholds food, she took a call from the rehabilitation center saying that they didn't have time/space in their schedule available for his recovery. She expresses worry because she was told his bones would stiffen should he not start rehab.

I wonder if she didn't do the tough love with the food as some sort of rehab in lieu of access to a profession rehabilitation center?

During the scene when Young Soon left with the food as Kang Ho was calling for her, my mother was like "can she not hear him?" I guess she couldn't understand how a mother could ignore their kid crying out to them.

I'm liking the show so far and I'm liking the performances.

One thing that came to mind is is it Korean culture to lie about how things are going? I just thought there was so much needless lying. Why is it shameful that the daughter got divorced? Now wouldn't it be more shameful when it's discovered that you lied about her being happily married & living abroad when in actuality she's being chased by creditors due to being screwed over by a supposed friend? Same with Young Soon lying about Kang Ho's injuries.

Is anyone else wondering if Kang Ho is the twins' father? Like she got pregnant and before she could tell him, he broke up with her (for whatever reason. Maybe to start his trek to the darkside) and she decided not to tell him and came up with a "having a husband who then left her" lie for her mother? That way she wouldn't have been "unwed" at the time of conception.

The scene when the women were uncomfortable washing Kang Ho and then the mask wearing lady volunteered to do it was so creepy on so many levels to me. It kinda feels like it was supposed to be cringe humor but I'm not sure.

Objectively, it does make some sense they would be a bit weird about washing a 30 something year old man they aren't related to *however* them talking about him like he wasn't even there made everything creepier. Cause now it's like which old woman is going to be washing him. Even with the mind of a 7 year old, that was unsettling and uncomfortable. Especially with the mind of a 7 year old.

everything related to kang ho's condition is done in a terrible manner IMO. its like the writers didn't bother to research and be as realistic as possible. I dont expect this drama to be about rehab in itself, but how can they just let someone starve as a way to force them to get better. and it worked. what a terrible message to send. its so irresponsible. and how can he just go to the top of a mountain to play with kids. I'm all for him to have some agency but come on.

the drama is not doing anything for me so I will just keep reading the recaps for now. its like the story wants me to feel emotions but I just feel cold. the emotional scenes dont get any reaction for me. the acting is good bcs both leads are amazing actors, but I dont care about these characters. the villagers are awful, even when they're trying to help (the mask lady.. go away please)

I will be surprised if the drama doesn't make kangho the twins' dad.

While I didn’t like how Young-soon fell back to her bad habits with food, it does still make sense with her character, she still needs to grow. I liked how the drama has slowly changed her perspective. From calling her son stupid and being ashamed and hiding Kang-ho to then realising that he isn’t an idiot and relying on the villagers for support so she can take care of Kang-ho.

While she interacted with the villagers before she rarely asked for help, this is very much in line with how Kang-ho grew up, to always study and only rely on himself, since he was ostracised from his peers with Mi-joo being the only exception.

I LOVED the montage of Mi-joo’s and Kang-ho’s relationship (I also think this is the first time Lee Do-hyun actually has chemistry with his costar imo, the power of Ahn Eun-jin!). For the first time he relied on someone who didn’t demonise him, let him eat until he was full and unconditionally loved him. I also liked how the show actually portrayed the unpaid labour of one's partner. In this case Mi-joo’s paid and unpaid labour to support her boyfriend Kang-ho.

I really want to know what happened between them, because I’m guessing their breakup was the catalyst for why Kang-ho went to the dark side. While I don’t think he killed the woman and her baby (I still think he has a moral code), he did imprison people unfairly. Even if all this was to get revenge for his father it’s still highly unethical the say the least…

What can I say I’m very addicted to this show and have lots of thoughts! We have an anti-hero and a mother who raised him that way, even if it wasn’t her intention. The show heavily referencing the free pig and caged pig analogy. She caged her son and told him to only study to become powerful, and well he did but just not the powerful she expected him to be.

The fact she realised this AFTER her methods of depriving food from her son so he can be motivated to move his hands (I mean seriously that logic makes no sense, he needs energy from food to actually make progress…). I think is quite telling, she’s understanding her ‘love’ was actually abuse and a major part of why he became corrupt was because of her. So yeah I’m really hoping she’ll stop her food deprivation now.

Also eventually finding out her son Kang-ho wanted to be adopted to Chairman Song, the man who killed her husband is gonna be a major blow.

Lastly, can I just gush about Mi-joo! Unlike both Kang-ho and to a smaller extent Sam-sik, she never resorted to cheating, scamming or hurting people. She’s been through a lot, her business failure since her business partner betrayed her, owing creditors and having children from an unplanned pregnancy. She’s strong and faces life’s curveballs head on. I’m in love and I definitely want to see more of her!

Thanks for the speedy recap @lovepark! As others have said, Lee Do Hyun is doing a great job here - completely believable as a 7 year old. However, also want a shout out for Ki So Yu (the child actor playing the female twin) - she's doing a phenomenal job! She's outshining her fellow child actor (although he's not doing a bad job at all). She's having such fun with the role and is giving us a really 3D performance - I love the way she's playing her character. If Kang Ho turns out to be her dad, those two are going to have the BEST relationship!

Ahn Eun-Jin and Jung So-min look like they could be sisters. Drama gods , make it happen, cast these two together please.

Really appreciate the recap @lovepark. I wonder if I've missed something? The villains think Kangho is aware they killed his dad. Did I miss that? When did Kangho come to that conclusion? Maybe I should rewatch the first two episodes, which I wouldn't mind at all. I'm smitten with this drama.

Yes, Youngsoon has "control issues", and I can understand why, while not condoning her "rehab" methods. She's not oblivious to the harm she's caused. How can she be when the first words out of KH's mouth indict her?

BTW, I like how the drama shows the wait for an opening at the rehab center. Meanwhile, YS has to resort to homemade materials and online research to make sure his muscles remain strong during the wait. Very true to life.

Favorites:
I LOVED the line that formed for legal aid at the hospital. Hope that materializes later on. The Canadian pig farmer's a knotch above other foreign actors I've seen in most kdramas.
YS visiting every church and denomination for her son's healing. Just in case. LOL. The accupuncture session was hilarious.

Going to rewatch now.