'It's Okay to Not be Okay' Epsiode 12: Kang-tae and Mun-yeong's love and families are at risk from past trauma
'It's Okay to Not be Okay' Episode 12 serves as a wake-up call for Kang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun), who's just managed to successfully convince his brother to approve of his relationship with Mun-yeong (Seo Ye-ji). He woke up to a new normal in which Mun-yeong and his brother Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se) began to seriously work together on a new book while he was left to his own devices. So he works on convincing his brother to take up counseling - to overcome his fear of butterflies. He hopes that this time, they won't have to move in spring when Sang-tae will be ridden again by nightmares of butterflies killing him.
However, Kang-tae did not expect that the unraveling of his brother's trauma would end up bringing him and Mun-yeong to an impasse which might end their relationship. Dr Oh of the OK Psychiatric Hospital manages to convince Sang-tae to think back to the time when he witnessed his mother's murder and narrate how butterflies were connected to the case. After Kang-tae hears his brother's story, he has a sinking feeling about the murderer and the butterfly lapel pin that Sang-tae had focussed on when he was confronted by the killer.
At this moment, he sees a family picture of Mun-yeong, in which her mother's face is scratched out and the lapel pin she is wearing is the same as the pin his brother described to director Oh. While Kang-tae is not sure if they are connected, he has a bad feeling about it; and just as he is trying to work out things about his relationship and his brother's relationship, Mun-yeong ends up asking him to be available for a family portrait.
All the conflicting feelings within him rise to the surface when he sees her. Initially, he tries his best to hold all of it in and even attempts to stay away from arguing, but he ends up lashing at her anyway. Mun-yeong is surprised and tries to find out why he is mad, but she isn't able to. She even tries talking to Jae-su, Kang-tae's best friend, about this and all he tells her is that she should give Kang-tae time as he is not used to confessing his thoughts or the conflicts that he feels since he was young. So for him to do that now would only be strange.
However, the force of conflict within Kang-tae is too strong, and momentarily, he is unable to see anything except for the pain that he is struggling with. Which is why when he breaks down in director Oh's presence, the scene destroys even the viewers. Everything that he had worked hard to build recently, even the family, is at risk now because of something in the past and this incident has so much power that it could not only destroy his life, but his brother's and Mun-yeong's too.
Despite all of this, what really brings Kang-tae around to pick himself up one more time is Mun-yeong and Sang-tae's acceptance, and the space that the two of them gave him. Instead of a family portrait, Mun-yeong decides to do a portrait for the upcoming book so that Sang-tae is not disappointed. This consideration and love is what will help the three of them come out of the conflict in one piece.
'It's Okay to Not Be Okay' originally airs on tvN on Saturdays and Sundays at 9 pm KST in South Korea and can be streamed on Netflix.