Logging into DB for the first time in my life after lurking for five years because I’ve been compelled to write a wayyyy too long post about the current drama I’m watching, so spoilers/theories below regarding It’s Okay to Not be Okay! Obviously read at your own discretion~
So… since I refuse to believe with my entire being that Head Nurse is MY’s mother with everything that the show has given us, I came up with my own theory. It’s probably wrong, and this show is most likely making a clown out of me, but this is how I’m going to interpret the mother plot. I just cannot believe how any logical person would write about a woman surviving a fall, losing litres of blood, along with being stuffed into a bag, thrown into the bottom of a lake and think her audience would let that slide. No reasonable person would read that and think that it makes sense. I’ll try to format this to the best that I can, maybe add onto comments when I rewatch and feel like adding new thoughts.
This is obviously all just a theory, I could be absolutely wrong and just way too invested into wanting more than some generic plot twist. I hate this ‘plot twist’ because it undermines everything amazing the writer has done. She’s flipped so many cliches that I refuse to believe she would pull a 180ยฐ and make the most obvious choice.
Anyways, apologies for any mistakes regarding grammar and stuff! I’m not the best at writing down my thoughts, but this show has made me think a lot way too much and this is the result.
My theory is there were two mothers in MY’s life. The first one being her real biological mother and the second being HN, her aunt and mother’s sister/twin. If MY’s mom spent most of her time focused on her writing, HN might have cared for MY instead.
We’ve been presented with three family pictures. The first one being MY’s personal one in ep. 11, the second one being the one KT saw in ep. 12, and the third one being in this episode, the one HN burns.
MY and HN have the same family photo. The woman in their photo isn’t wearing the butterfly brooch whereas the woman in the photo KT saw is wearing it. These two pictures also have different background settings, yet MY and her dad are wearing the same clothes in both of them. It would make no sense for MY’s mom to take off the butterfly brooch in between shoots, nor would it make sense if she changed clothes because neither MY nor her dad did. There’s also the detail with the butterfly brooch being worn on different sides.
In short, HN is a mentally ill psycho who got jealous of her sister for whatever reason (her fame as a writer, her getting married and having a kid, Dad being in love with her sister instead of her), developed DID and pretty much became her. MY’s real mom is dead, killed by her father who developed a brain tumour at the time and either confused his wife for her sister/twin or got manipulated into believing she was evil. MY’s versions of events are correct as in she did see her mother in the basement, but also partially wrong in the sense that she couldn’t differentiate who her real mom was because of her trauma from the abuse. This show has also shown us that memory isn’t always correct ei: how KT thought of his mom and ST’s versions of events at the frozen river.
Following the writer’s usage of incorporating fairy tales, ep. 13th’s title ‘the father of the two sisters” would also come into play. There’s also the wicked witches of the east and west theme since MY’s mom wrote a crime mystery book titled ‘the murder of the witch in the west.’
Another big speculation I have is when MY is driving back home for the first time in ep. 3, there is what looks like a pickup/moving truck going the opposite direction and right as she sees it, a vision of her mom appears. Either the person in the truck is HN and she realized she needed to pack her things since MY came back, or it’s all just one fat coincidence that the show decided to show a jump scare of her mom there. There’s no reason why anyone would take that route either considering that it’s deserted and only leads to MY’s family home. The first nightmare of her mom also happens when she gets back, and part of it shows young MY seeing a woman who tells her to save her from a lake. If we take dad’s versions of events at face value, and he and MY did have a conversation about him going fishing, young MY could have connected her mom disappearing from the basement to being thrown into the lake by dad. The nightmare is a manifestation of her guilt of having known at the time and not being able to understand or compartmentalize it.
MY herself said in this episode what we as viewers also think, ‘I know that almost two decades have passed, but even if she had plastic surgery all over her face, I would’ve recognized her.’ The show has alluded to plastic surgery multiple times with patients KEJ and POR. In this case, if HN did get plastic surgery, it would make sense with her being from a prestigous family of doctors.
The writer has even made sure to tie past conversations together ei. ep. 3’s hypocrite dialogue to ep. 10. There’s also a bunch of other bread crumbs the show has dropped, the biggest one being ST and HN’s conversation regarding stepmothers caring for someone other than their own blood. It might of affected HN because she took care of MY even though she wasn’t her actual daughter. and hence HN is the ‘fake mom.’
MY’s mom also seems calculated. All the scenes we see of them together are of them only and without Dad, so she probably tried to hide the abuse from him. Along with the fact that mom forbid her from making any other social connections. MY said she’d always listen to her mom because of how much she scared her which means she most likely kept everything to herself.
Even when MY’s mom killed KT’s mom, the only person around was ST who she would have probably known has ASP due to her family background or maybe even from KT’s own mom from when they hired her and got to know her. If HN did spend time impersonating her sister, she would have gotten used to assuming new identities and keeping up a facade.
Thanks a lot for taking your time and writing all this down. We might just see your theories shown in ep15. Because otherwise, GT wouldn’t have simply said ‘lets all think of this as a nightmare and put this behind us.’ in the preview. Let’s see what happens 😃
Thanks for taking the time to read it and comment! I’m praying that they give us some reasonable answers. If not, this show has made me their official clown mascot 🤡
You and I both my friend. You and I both. The amount of love, dedication, and support I have given this drama in YT, here and other sites, I might as well get laughed at in dramaland if they kick logic through the door MY style at the 11th hour.
I really want this to be true! I completely agree that the nurse being MY’s mom wouldn’t make any sense, even if her father’s memories had been slightly distorted due to his brain tumour.
This drama has been super meticulous (MY’s house being built on set, the outfit coordinator giving an interview about how she planned out our leads wardrobe to show their growth), which is why I find it to be so uncharacteristic that they’d make such a huge blunder by simply forgetting the butterfly brooch.
First of all, congrats on becoming a registered beanie!!! Welcome to delurkerdom!
Second of all, that is one impressive, detailed theory! I did not notice the absence of the butterfly brooch in those photos. That is an interesting detail.
Iโm not sure what I think about the mom situation at this point. Ep 14 had me mostly convinced that nurse Park is MYโs mom, but like you, I donโt know how they would explain her surviving being thrown in the lake. Your take would definitely make things interesting, but would require quite a bit of explaining as well. In your theory who actually killed KT & STโs mom? HN or real mom?
Weโll just have to wait and see what the finale week throws at us!
Thank you so much!!
It’s hard because not all theories will be bulletproof and there’s going to be tiny plot holes no matter what. Regardless, the show is definitely playing with our heads because there are some psychological aspects incorporated and it’s hard to differentiate those from reality.
I think HN killed their mom, it would go in line with how clean the stab wound to her neck was.
Yeah, I donโt think Iโve met a plot hole-proof drama yet. The psychological aspect definitely makes it confusing. What is real and what is imagined/distorted memory/incorrectly perceived/a nightmare?
I like your theory of HN being the one who murdered, but what doesnโt quite line up for me is that in the flash back we were given, MYโs dad supposedly pushed his wife over the railing after she alluded to murdering the brothersโ mom and laughing evilly. So Iโm not sure how they would explain him mistaking identities.
Other questions: Was MYโs real mom aware that her sister was terrorizing her daughter? Was real mom a decent person, or was she just as terrible as her sister (which, if sister completely took on momโs identity then I guess so). Why would they take a photo of MY and dad with real mom then another one with aunt?
Man.. I really hope this theory comes true. Although it’d be a creepy dynamic since Nurse Park would have to have been in close contact with MY’s family to have developed/shared this unhealthy obsession with DJ. But I am willing to accept that than the looming alternative of Nurse Park being MY’s mom.
About MY’s mom final moments…She never really said anything about murdering the brother’s mom,just that she won’t be coming in anymore. She very well could’ve just fired her if she perceive her of overstepping bounds with lonely young MY. The sister then would’ve taken things up a notch and decided to straight up murder the person who dared to interfere in their combined masterpiece..construction of MY…Orr the housekeeper may not even hav been the Moon’s mother..Just another unfortunate confidence that tipped over an emotionally wrought DH who was dealing with his mortality+drunk+worried about leaving his young daughter solely in the hands of a decidedly unsuitable parent.
Orr crazy idea, was nurse Park the house keeper that DJ had fired and had hired Moon brother’s mom as the replacement? Nurse Park went berserk and literally slit away the competition????
That’s a fair point. She never explicitly admitted to anything.
Has the drama alluded to the brothers’ mom being the housekeeper, or is this just a conclusion we jumped to ourselves? I don’t quite remember.
That’s not a bad theory. If nurse Park isn’t DJ’s sister, her being the housekeeper would give her the proximity needed to pull off such a stunt.
I went back and rewatched dad’s sequence of events, and at the very beginning we get a voice over explaining his medical condition. I’m guessing this was his first time finding out about his brain tumor since he’s drinking to try and numb the pain he’s getting from his headache. The camera cuts to the laptop desk and we see three prism lights as if the director is trying to hint to us this is where everything becomes disoriented. (I could be completely wrong about this and just overthinking…) By the time dad barges into mom’s room, he seems drunk. With alcohol paired with his brain tumor, I doubt he’s in the right state of mind. He could have seen mom as a monster because that’s how his mind portrayed her, and thus mistaken her for someone she wasn’t.
As for the family photo, I don’t know if this has happened to other people, but I personally do have family photos of where not every single one of my family members was involved. For whatever reason, they might have not taken one together because it was an impromptu/taken in the spur of the moment, or maybe because having two woman who look exactly the same in one photo can be confusing? I have no clue, haha.
โโณ๐๐
August 3, 2020 at 5:45 PM
Logging into DB for the first time in my life after lurking for five years because I’ve been compelled to write a wayyyy too long post about the current drama I’m watching, so spoilers/theories below regarding It’s Okay to Not be Okay! Obviously read at your own discretion~
So… since I refuse to believe with my entire being that Head Nurse is MY’s mother with everything that the show has given us, I came up with my own theory. It’s probably wrong, and this show is most likely making a clown out of me, but this is how I’m going to interpret the mother plot. I just cannot believe how any logical person would write about a woman surviving a fall, losing litres of blood, along with being stuffed into a bag, thrown into the bottom of a lake and think her audience would let that slide. No reasonable person would read that and think that it makes sense. I’ll try to format this to the best that I can, maybe add onto comments when I rewatch and feel like adding new thoughts.
This is obviously all just a theory, I could be absolutely wrong and just way too invested into wanting more than some generic plot twist. I hate this ‘plot twist’ because it undermines everything amazing the writer has done. She’s flipped so many cliches that I refuse to believe she would pull a 180ยฐ and make the most obvious choice.
Anyways, apologies for any mistakes regarding grammar and stuff! I’m not the best at writing down my thoughts, but this show has made me think a lot way too much and this is the result.
โโณ๐๐
August 3, 2020 at 5:45 PM
My theory is there were two mothers in MY’s life. The first one being her real biological mother and the second being HN, her aunt and mother’s sister/twin. If MY’s mom spent most of her time focused on her writing, HN might have cared for MY instead.
We’ve been presented with three family pictures. The first one being MY’s personal one in ep. 11, the second one being the one KT saw in ep. 12, and the third one being in this episode, the one HN burns.
MY and HN have the same family photo. The woman in their photo isn’t wearing the butterfly brooch whereas the woman in the photo KT saw is wearing it. These two pictures also have different background settings, yet MY and her dad are wearing the same clothes in both of them. It would make no sense for MY’s mom to take off the butterfly brooch in between shoots, nor would it make sense if she changed clothes because neither MY nor her dad did. There’s also the detail with the butterfly brooch being worn on different sides.
In short, HN is a mentally ill psycho who got jealous of her sister for whatever reason (her fame as a writer, her getting married and having a kid, Dad being in love with her sister instead of her), developed DID and pretty much became her. MY’s real mom is dead, killed by her father who developed a brain tumour at the time and either confused his wife for her sister/twin or got manipulated into believing she was evil. MY’s versions of events are correct as in she did see her mother in the basement, but also partially wrong in the sense that she couldn’t differentiate who her real mom was because of her trauma from the abuse. This show has also shown us that memory isn’t always correct ei: how KT thought of his mom and ST’s versions of events at the frozen river.
Following the writer’s usage of incorporating fairy tales, ep. 13th’s title ‘the father of the two sisters” would also come into play. There’s also the wicked witches of the east and west theme since MY’s mom wrote a crime mystery book titled ‘the murder of the witch in the west.’
โโณ๐๐
August 3, 2020 at 5:47 PM
Another big speculation I have is when MY is driving back home for the first time in ep. 3, there is what looks like a pickup/moving truck going the opposite direction and right as she sees it, a vision of her mom appears. Either the person in the truck is HN and she realized she needed to pack her things since MY came back, or it’s all just one fat coincidence that the show decided to show a jump scare of her mom there. There’s no reason why anyone would take that route either considering that it’s deserted and only leads to MY’s family home. The first nightmare of her mom also happens when she gets back, and part of it shows young MY seeing a woman who tells her to save her from a lake. If we take dad’s versions of events at face value, and he and MY did have a conversation about him going fishing, young MY could have connected her mom disappearing from the basement to being thrown into the lake by dad. The nightmare is a manifestation of her guilt of having known at the time and not being able to understand or compartmentalize it.
โโณ๐๐
August 3, 2020 at 5:47 PM
MY herself said in this episode what we as viewers also think, ‘I know that almost two decades have passed, but even if she had plastic surgery all over her face, I would’ve recognized her.’ The show has alluded to plastic surgery multiple times with patients KEJ and POR. In this case, if HN did get plastic surgery, it would make sense with her being from a prestigous family of doctors.
The writer has even made sure to tie past conversations together ei. ep. 3’s hypocrite dialogue to ep. 10. There’s also a bunch of other bread crumbs the show has dropped, the biggest one being ST and HN’s conversation regarding stepmothers caring for someone other than their own blood. It might of affected HN because she took care of MY even though she wasn’t her actual daughter. and hence HN is the ‘fake mom.’
MY’s mom also seems calculated. All the scenes we see of them together are of them only and without Dad, so she probably tried to hide the abuse from him. Along with the fact that mom forbid her from making any other social connections. MY said she’d always listen to her mom because of how much she scared her which means she most likely kept everything to herself.
Even when MY’s mom killed KT’s mom, the only person around was ST who she would have probably known has ASP due to her family background or maybe even from KT’s own mom from when they hired her and got to know her. If HN did spend time impersonating her sister, she would have gotten used to assuming new identities and keeping up a facade.
Playstore, Okay Or Not Okay
August 3, 2020 at 8:48 PM
Thanks a lot for taking your time and writing all this down. We might just see your theories shown in ep15. Because otherwise, GT wouldn’t have simply said ‘lets all think of this as a nightmare and put this behind us.’ in the preview. Let’s see what happens 😃
โโณ๐๐
August 3, 2020 at 9:58 PM
Thanks for taking the time to read it and comment! I’m praying that they give us some reasonable answers. If not, this show has made me their official clown mascot 🤡
Playstore, Okay Or Not Okay
August 3, 2020 at 10:56 PM
You and I both my friend. You and I both. The amount of love, dedication, and support I have given this drama in YT, here and other sites, I might as well get laughed at in dramaland if they kick logic through the door MY style at the 11th hour.
LemonyLite
August 4, 2020 at 1:10 AM
I really want this to be true! I completely agree that the nurse being MY’s mom wouldn’t make any sense, even if her father’s memories had been slightly distorted due to his brain tumour.
LemonyLite
August 4, 2020 at 1:21 AM
And the missing butterfly on the picture really needs to be relevant or someone seriously messed up in the props department!
โโณ๐๐
August 4, 2020 at 4:26 PM
This drama has been super meticulous (MY’s house being built on set, the outfit coordinator giving an interview about how she planned out our leads wardrobe to show their growth), which is why I find it to be so uncharacteristic that they’d make such a huge blunder by simply forgetting the butterfly brooch.
LemonyLite
August 5, 2020 at 1:09 AM
OK this gives me some hope that there’s still a (good) plot twist to come!
snowy
August 3, 2020 at 9:11 PM
First of all, congrats on becoming a registered beanie!!! Welcome to delurkerdom!
Second of all, that is one impressive, detailed theory! I did not notice the absence of the butterfly brooch in those photos. That is an interesting detail.
Iโm not sure what I think about the mom situation at this point. Ep 14 had me mostly convinced that nurse Park is MYโs mom, but like you, I donโt know how they would explain her surviving being thrown in the lake. Your take would definitely make things interesting, but would require quite a bit of explaining as well. In your theory who actually killed KT & STโs mom? HN or real mom?
Weโll just have to wait and see what the finale week throws at us!
โโณ๐๐
August 3, 2020 at 10:00 PM
Thank you so much!!
It’s hard because not all theories will be bulletproof and there’s going to be tiny plot holes no matter what. Regardless, the show is definitely playing with our heads because there are some psychological aspects incorporated and it’s hard to differentiate those from reality.
I think HN killed their mom, it would go in line with how clean the stab wound to her neck was.
snowy
August 4, 2020 at 12:03 AM
Yeah, I donโt think Iโve met a plot hole-proof drama yet. The psychological aspect definitely makes it confusing. What is real and what is imagined/distorted memory/incorrectly perceived/a nightmare?
I like your theory of HN being the one who murdered, but what doesnโt quite line up for me is that in the flash back we were given, MYโs dad supposedly pushed his wife over the railing after she alluded to murdering the brothersโ mom and laughing evilly. So Iโm not sure how they would explain him mistaking identities.
Other questions: Was MYโs real mom aware that her sister was terrorizing her daughter? Was real mom a decent person, or was she just as terrible as her sister (which, if sister completely took on momโs identity then I guess so). Why would they take a photo of MY and dad with real mom then another one with aunt?
Ok, Iโm going to stop before I hurt my head 😆.
Ashes2Ashes
August 4, 2020 at 3:01 AM
Man.. I really hope this theory comes true. Although it’d be a creepy dynamic since Nurse Park would have to have been in close contact with MY’s family to have developed/shared this unhealthy obsession with DJ. But I am willing to accept that than the looming alternative of Nurse Park being MY’s mom.
About MY’s mom final moments…She never really said anything about murdering the brother’s mom,just that she won’t be coming in anymore. She very well could’ve just fired her if she perceive her of overstepping bounds with lonely young MY. The sister then would’ve taken things up a notch and decided to straight up murder the person who dared to interfere in their combined masterpiece..construction of MY…Orr the housekeeper may not even hav been the Moon’s mother..Just another unfortunate confidence that tipped over an emotionally wrought DH who was dealing with his mortality+drunk+worried about leaving his young daughter solely in the hands of a decidedly unsuitable parent.
Orr crazy idea, was nurse Park the house keeper that DJ had fired and had hired Moon brother’s mom as the replacement? Nurse Park went berserk and literally slit away the competition????
snowy
August 4, 2020 at 12:26 PM
That’s a fair point. She never explicitly admitted to anything.
Has the drama alluded to the brothers’ mom being the housekeeper, or is this just a conclusion we jumped to ourselves? I don’t quite remember.
That’s not a bad theory. If nurse Park isn’t DJ’s sister, her being the housekeeper would give her the proximity needed to pull off such a stunt.
โโณ๐๐
August 4, 2020 at 5:14 PM
I went back and rewatched dad’s sequence of events, and at the very beginning we get a voice over explaining his medical condition. I’m guessing this was his first time finding out about his brain tumor since he’s drinking to try and numb the pain he’s getting from his headache. The camera cuts to the laptop desk and we see three prism lights as if the director is trying to hint to us this is where everything becomes disoriented. (I could be completely wrong about this and just overthinking…) By the time dad barges into mom’s room, he seems drunk. With alcohol paired with his brain tumor, I doubt he’s in the right state of mind. He could have seen mom as a monster because that’s how his mind portrayed her, and thus mistaken her for someone she wasn’t.
As for the family photo, I don’t know if this has happened to other people, but I personally do have family photos of where not every single one of my family members was involved. For whatever reason, they might have not taken one together because it was an impromptu/taken in the spur of the moment, or maybe because having two woman who look exactly the same in one photo can be confusing? I have no clue, haha.
mugyuljoie is preciousss
August 4, 2020 at 4:35 AM
Welcome!
Origami
August 4, 2020 at 5:30 AM
I really like your theory. So much better than the show going down the path it seems to be going in right now!