Netflix Mask Girl recap guide: All seven episodes explained (spoilers!)

Mask Girl episode 5 recap: Kim Mi-mo

Mask Girl episode 5 starts by showing us what happened to Kim Mo-mi’s daughter. Before surrendering to the police, she gave birth and convinced her estranged mother to take care of her baby, Kim Mi-mo.

Mi-mo had a difficult time growing up. Mo-mi had promised to return for her daughter but never did. When she turned herself in, Mo-mi became infamous. The story of Mask Girl being a murderer became a sensational true crime tale. Mo-mi was sentenced to life in prison.

Once that happened, it didn’t take long for the rumors to spread to Mi-mo’s school. She became a social outcast and would get into fights with other students who bullied her about her mom.

Eventually, Mi-mo is kicked out of school. She and her grandmother are forced to relocate. At her new school, Mi-mo remains isolated from her classmates. Only one student, Ye-chun, shows an interest in her. The two slowly become best friends, maybe even romantically involved. Ye-chun confesses to Mi-mo she has trouble at home. She claims that her dad is abusive, regularly beating her stepmom.

Ye-chun is the first person at her new school that Mi-mo tells about her mom being in prison for murder. Once Ye-chun learns this, she searches for more information and learns Mi-mo is Mask Girl’s daughter. In light of Mi-mo’s own violent scandals at school, several online articles speculate if Mask Girl passed her murderous streak down to her daughter.

Ye-chun and Mi-mo decide they want to run away together, but they’ll need money to do it. Ye-chun sells her young sibling’s baby walker and tries to convince a middle schooler to purchase one of her idol photocards. Some of the school bullies catch her and torment her. One girl says she’ll hit Ye-chun whenever she lies, so Ye-chun threatens her by revealing her best friend’s mom is the murderer, Mask Girl.

Forced to retrieve Mi-mo from the police station again, Mi-mo’s grandmother slaps her and kicks her out of the house. With nowhere to go, Mi-mo asks Ye-chun if she can stay with her for the night. Ye-chun claims that her father just lost his temper and trashed the place, though we know that’s not true. It seems like Ye-chun has been lying about her dad’s abuse.

Since Mi-mo has no other options, she spends the night at school. Come morning, she overhears classmate’s gossiping about her while she washes up in the restroom. Realizing Ye-chun must have told someone about her connection to Mask Girl, Mi-mo runs away from school. Her grandmother shows up later to ask if Ye-chun has seen her, since Mi-mo hasn’t returned home (lady, you kicked her out of your house!).

Mi-mo ignores all of Ye-chun’s calls and messages until that night when she requests a meet-up at one of their hangout spots. There, a betrayed Mi-mo attacks Ye-chun in retaliation for her spreading the rumors. Given that it was also Mi-mo’s former best friend who started everything at her old school, Ye-chun’s betrayal is particularly painful.

A mysterious stranger watches the violence unfold between the two girls but doesn’t intervene. When she walks into the light, the woman is revealed to be an older Kyung-ja—and she looks quite smug about the entire altercation between the two girls.