Mask Girl – K-drama Episode 6 Recap & Review

Kim Mo-mi

Episode 6 of Mask Girl starts with a flashback of Mo-mi being taken into prison where she has a hard time bonding with her cellmates. The women in the prison are all curious about Mo-mi but she keeps to herself. There, a woman named Ahn Eun-suk is a powerful personality.

Mo-mi learns that Eun-suk has a lot of wealthy connections outside the prison and has a connection with the wardens too. Mo-mi also learns that Eun-suk is known to grant favours at the prison facility and was incarcerated for abetting the murder of her husband and his mistress.

Mo-mi is summoned by Eun-suk and the latter slaps Mo-mi, claiming she looks quite similar to her husband’s mistress. At the prison, Mo-mi breaks the rules by letting an adultress eat her share of the food and poses a direct challenge to Eun-suk’s authority. Eun-suk’s minions start hazing Mi-mo but Mo-mi fights and is injured.

However, she is the only one being sent to solitary confinement for picking a fight with Eun-suk’s gang. Mo-mi is released after a while but she starts following a new pattern of beating up Eun-suk’s gang members, after which she is sentenced to 15 days of solitary confinement one after the other.

The warden tells Eun-suk that things are not looking good for her as the minions could get roped into an investigation due to Mo-mi’s aggressive outbursts, which would harm her future in prison.

After being beaten up by Mo-mi, Eun-suk’s minions start getting scared of our Mask Girl. Eun-suk agrees to a truce and asks Mo-mi to leave her and her minions alone. Years go by and Mo-mi is still serving time in prison where she attends the welcoming ceremony of the new warden.

The new warden tries to change things while Eun-suk still remains the most powerful prisoner, befriending the warden. A new young criminal sits with Mo-mi and praises her for still being popular among young girls. One day, Mo-mi gets a letter from an alleged fan in which she finds an article about her daughter.

The article is the same one that Mi-mo’s fried Ye-chan was reading and it investigates if violence is genetic or not, discussing how Mi-mo’s aggressive behaviour at school is a result of the fact that she is Mo-mi’s daughter. Mo-mi reads a note from the sender that reads something along the lines of her finally feeling a mother’s pain.

Mo-mi is certain that the sender of the letter is connected to Kyung-ja while she reads it. She decides that she wants to get out of prison and starts hatching plans to escape. She starts collecting items she can use to escape. Mo-mi sets up contraptions, including a makeshift rope to a sickle in order to run away.

The guards catch wind of Mo-mi trying to escape and take her back in. She is put into solitary confinement for a month despite the limit being 2 weeks. Mo-mi is given a bible to read during her time in solitary confinement and is left in there. After a month in solitary confinement, Mo-mi is a changed person and tells Cellie, her cellmate that she had seen a vision while in solitary confinement.

She claims that the lord had spoken to her and had promised to save her. Mo-mi starts preaching about the lord and his ways in prison and everyone has a hard time trusting her. Mo-mi learns that Eun-suk’s daughter needed a kidney transplant and agrees to help her by donating her kidney to save the young girl’s life.

One day, Mo-mi meets the prison ministry from a local church who were there to talk to inmates. There, she runs into the tteokbokki grandmother who finally reveals herself to be Kim Kyung-ja, Oh Nam-ju’s mother. Mo-mi is shocked to learn that the fan letter with the article and the note was from Kyung-ja.

A flashback from 13 years ago shows Kyung-ja drowning in the car after Mo-mi pushed her into the water. Kyung-ja manages to escape and swims her way out of the lake. She claims that she has got a new life to make Mo-mi pay for her wrongdoings.

The cops discover the car and Bu-yong’s body, while Kyung-ja also gets plastic surgery to escape the cops. She changes her name and purchases a new house. Kyung-ja looks around the country to find Mo-mi but is shocked when she learns that the girl has been imprisoned.

She then spots Mo-mi’s daughter, Mi-mo, and decides to make it her job to ruin Mi-mo’s life. After befriending Mi-mo, Kyung-ja starts showing up at the same church. She also spreads the rumour about Mi-mo’s mother being Mask Girl and instigates Mi-mo to be aggressive.

She also starts sending the anonymous tip about Mi-mo’s aggressive personality to prompt the article about her connection to Mask Girl. Kyung-ja reveals that Ye-chan hadn’t spread the rumour about Mi-mo being the daughter of Mask Girl at her current school, but it was Kyung-ja who did it. After her fight with Ye-chan, Mi-mo started living with Kyung-ja.

Present-day, Kyung-ja tells Mo-mi that she wanted her to feel the same pain that she did all those years ago and wanted her to experience the disappearance of her child. Mi-mo tries to attack Kyung-ja, and is tamed by the guards as the episode comes to an end.  

The Episode Review

The episode was overall great but I am still unsure what to make of the part where Mo-mi suddenly ends up religious. This show has a lot of religious undertones, a lot more than necessary, and one could argue that this is the only controversial takeaway from the show.

Mask Girl is an intense watch but it is interesting nevertheless. Now that we know that the tteokbokki grandmother is none other than Kyung-ja, I cannot wait to see how things turn out. She could very well kill Mi-mo now that the little girl is in the palm of her hands. With one episode left in the show, anything is possible!