As series about an abusive parent, it lacks a bit of self-awareness. The mother is mostly bad and horrific with very little good and redeeming qualities. During the story she does reflect a bit and becomes remorseful about certain things but we as the audience see that it happens only in her head - even when she regrets her past actions, she does not learn from them, she literally does not learn anything from her past mistakes.

* In the past she is very strict and overbearing with her son's education (and overall life), in the present her methods for his rehabilitation are very strict and overbearing (to take away the food when he can not control his arms, to dump him in the lake when he can not stand up).

* In the past she burns almost everything that shows his love and accomplishments for drawing, in the present she burns almost everything that shows his work and accomplishments as a prosecutor (carrier path chosen by her).

* In the past and in the present she makes all the decisions for him, in other words she is not raising a son, but a submissive, accommodating robot, to do and be as she dictates. It is called out only once or few times but very briefly, and she never apologises for taking away a lot of agency from her son. (She does, however, apologise for other things on few occasions, which is commendable).

The main message of the show now reads as "mother is always right" no matter how psychotic or abusive. It would have been more believable, if the son hated his mother more, and would come to realise that along the hate there was also love, only AFTER he found out that she was dying. Better yet after her death. (Death and end of things are good drives for introspection).

In my eyes, mother was too glorified and judged too little for her terrible actions towards her son, because as much as we would like to believe that it's always "the thought that counts" it is actually "our actions that show who we really are".