Whether or not a show is directly about parenting, the school drop-off and pick-up scenes are usually tense. However, Big Little Lies amplified the primary school rivalries and tensions, laying the groundwork for future programs. A new Korean drama, Green Mothers Club follows five mothers whose children attend a prestigious elementary school in Seoul, all of whom have secrets.
During the session, she encounters a woman from her past, which causes her to worry. “Why did you do it?” the woman asks. “You had no chance against me,” she imagines slamming the woman with a coffee mug. Then she awakens, lying next to her kid.
The woman, Lee Eun-Pyo (Lee Yo-won), is last seen in a moving van. We then moved to four mothers preparing their young children for school. That day, they’re all on “green” duty, which is traffic safety duty. They are essentially volunteer crossing guards who wear green vests and hold flags instructing traffic to halt to allow children to cross. As Eun-moving Pyo’s van drives down the street, a child jumps into a crossing and is rescued by Byun Chun-hee (Choo Ja-Hyun).
A lecturer informs the assembled moms at a parents’ association meeting that they should begin intensive studies with their children as early as age 5, prompting other moms, Kim Young-mi (Jang Hye-Jin), to text the other mums’ chat that the ideology is too harsh. Another mother, Park Yun-Joo (Joo Min-Kyung), sends a derogatory message regarding the lecturer’s hair during that chat. Eun-Pyo is relocating to the area with the assistance of her mother; Yun-Joo is her cousin and close friend.
After finishing her doctoral dissertation in aesthetics, she was up for a teaching post, but a significant mistake cost her the job, and she’s trying to start over. Eun-Pyo is just hanging on until she runs into Chun-hee at a bakery, only to discover that they are neighbors.
She tells Yun-Joo not to bring up her husband’s police work at a birthday party because it has caused them trouble in the past. When she talks to the other moms, she gets on Chun-wrong hee’s side again, declaring she’s “not that sort of mom” when overseeing her children’s schoolwork. Then Eun-Pyo bounces on Chun-pricey hee’s daughter’s violin.
When Eun-Pyo buys an antique bookshelf from the woman who lives in the building’s penthouse, she is astonished to encounter her old friend Seo Jin-ha (Kim Gyu-Ri); they were best friends in France while, Eun-Pyo was in grad school. Something has happened between them because, while Jin-ha is happy to see her buddy again, Eun-Pyo is as frigid as ice towards her. Jin-ha is also the woman in Eun-nightmares, Pyo’s implying that something else is going on.
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Green Mothers Club is reminiscent of Desperate Housewives, albeit the tone is more mournful than Marc Cherry’s most renowned show. Big Little Lies comes to mind as well, albeit there haven’t been any killings yet.
Our Opinion of Green Mothers Club:
In the first episode of Green Mothers Club, writer Shin Yi-won keeps the lives of the five main characters a little too close to the vest. We know the most about Eun-Pyo and why she’s starting over in this new area, but the specifics of how she lost her teaching job remain a mystery. She wrote something about one of her mentors that one of her boys accidentally shared on a public board.
Eun-Pyo appears to be the one who becomes involved in the lives of the other four moms. By the end of the first episode, she has formed close bonds with all of her mothers except Young-mi. And we have a feeling that will alter in the first few episodes.
Despite what we said above, we don’t know most of the moms; they’re referred to as “so-and-mom” so’s for most of the episode. That’s certainly on purpose because that’s how you get to meet other school parents, and you learn their actual names afterward.
But that decision also distances us from the other four moms and puts us on Eun-side, Pyo’s, especially when Chun-hee virtually ignores Eun-Pyo during the birthday party.
We aim to acquire a better picture of the other moms as the series progresses, so we can get a better sense of their rivalries and the relative roles they play in the elementary school parent hierarchy.
There is no sex or skin.
- Parting Shot: Eun-Pyo arrives at school drop-off either unwell or drunk and collapses. Jin-ha tears up a picture of herself and Eun-Pyo from their graduate school days and flushes it down the toilet.
- Sleeper Star: Joo Min-Kyung appears to have the most enjoyable character, Park Yun-Joo, who loves her kid but isn’t nearly as preoccupied with things as the other mothers at the school.
- The most Pilot-y Line: Why would Kim Young-mi expect her children to eat broccoli at breakfast? Barf.
- Our opinion: Green Mothers Club moves slowly, but it promises to offer some interesting interwoven storylines involving five parents whose lives extend beyond simply caring for their children.
