Behind Every Star: Episodes 7-8

by DaebakGrits

Both the company and our agents’ personal lives are in chaos, so it’s almost a relief when a new boss steps up to take control and put forth fresh and innovative ideas. But is he actually Method Entertainment’s savior? Or will he destroy everything our agents have been striving to protect?

 
EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP

There’s a proverb that states “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know,” and in the case of Behind Every Star, Tae-oh is the devil everyone knows — for the most part. This week we saw a softer side to Tae-oh’s character, and while I’m still not his fan, I did feel a little twinge of sympathy at the sight of him laying in bed, unable to fall asleep at his new bachelor pad. His separation from his wife has triggered more than insomnia, and his regrets seem to have softened and humbled him a tad bit.

He’s making an effort to spend more time with Hyun-joo, and his suggestion that they reveal their father-daughter relationship to their coworkers indicates that the time he’s spending with her isn’t just because he’s lonely and feeling adrift without his “real” family by his side. It’s Hyun-joo, though, who decides they should keep the true nature of their relationship a secret because she’s worried about how the news will affect their professional relationships.

Tae-oh may be making some progress with Hyun-joo, but Method Entertainment is still a sinking ship. Without Eun-ha’s family money to finance Tae-ho’s ambition, he can’t swoop in to save the day — not officially, at least. Unofficially, he remains seated in the captain’s chair and tries to keep the company afloat by making drastic budget cuts — starting with employee salaries. Ahhhhh, there’s the devil we all know and love to hate.

As you can imagine, the (supposedly temporary) pay reductions don’t go over well with the staff, and without much incentivizing his loyalty, Jin-hyuk decides to accept a position at a rival company and burn bridges on his way out. Too bad the offered promotion was rescinded when the other company realized that he wasn’t the Jin-hyuk that they were looking to hire. At least he managed to eat his words — literally — and dispose of his scathing tell-all resignation letter before Joong-don read it.

Jin-hyuk isn’t the only one whose loyalty to the company is waning, as we see with the first of this week’s celebrity cameos. Tae-oh’s marriage troubles and company woes are reflected in his management of married musical theater actors KIM SO-HYUN and SON JUN-HO (as themselves). When So-hyun fears that she was caught hugging a male friend that Jun-ho had forbid her from seeing, Tae-oh advises her to be honest with her husband, a sign that Tae-oh has matured and learned from his past mistakes.

Unfortunately, the new leaf he’s turned over does not undo all the wrongs of his past, such as the fact that he helped Jun-ho hide his failed investments from So-hyun. So even though the couple eventually reconciles, So-hyun no longer trusts Tae-oh as her manager. She and Jun-ho leave Method Entertainment and sign a new contract with Star Media.

Meanwhile, Je-in visits her rural hometown to accept an award for being a distinguished and successful member of their community. At the ceremony, she’s reunited with KOO HAE-JUN (Heo Sung-tae), who had a very obvious crush on Je-in when they were younger. In the present, he’s an extremely successful business man who invented the very dating app Je-in has been using. When they cross paths again, Je-in sees dollar signs — not hearts — and a possible investor for Method Entertainment.

She invites Hae-jun to a nearby filming location where one of her actresses is shooting a movie. On set, it quickly becomes apparent that Hae-jun has absolutely zero understanding of the entertainment industry. He tries to be helpful and loan out his car to the film crew so that their schedule won’t be delayed while they try to fix the broken stunt vehicle, but Hae-jun doesn’t take kindly to the fact that his generosity is rejected. Who gives a damn about insurance policies when you’re a rich guy trying to flex your wealth, amirite?

Even though Hae-jun made an absolute ass of himself on set — and caused a stage light to fall on Je-in’s face and chip her tooth — he decides to buy the majority shares of Method Entertainment, much to Tae-oh’s annoyance. The other senior agents are equally wary of the new leadership, but Hae-jun wins over the younger employees with his innovation and promise to not cut salaries. (I literally laughed out loud when Hae-jun asked, “Who’s the idiot that decided to cut salaries?” and then Tae-oh walked into the room with a resounding ta-dah! sound effect.)

It’s commendable that Hae-jun views salary cuts as a last ditch effort to save money, but he’s still a businessman whose primary focus is making a profit. He doesn’t give a damn about the old management style or how things traditionally work in the Korean entertainment world, so it’s still to be determined if his fresh perspective will save the company. At the very least, his objectivity does allow him to make decisions that the agents are otherwise too biased or emotional to make themselves, as is the case for Joong-don who hasn’t done well managing Hee-sun.

The excessive lengths Joong-don has gone through to promote Hee-sun and try to get her auditions has caused people to misconstrue his (completely platonic) desire to see her succeed. Instead, they assume she slept her way into his favor, and one casting director in particular seems out to get Hee-sun.

When the director openly accuses Hee-sun of sleeping with her manager, Hee-sun throws objects at the director and further ruins her reputation. It doesn’t help matters that Hee-sun does have a crush on him, and despite being aware of her feelings, Joong-don is hesitant to resign as her manager. Hae-jun, however, quickly settles the matter and tells Joong-don to give her up to a junior agent and prioritize his attention on his more experienced actors.

Another one of Hae-jun’s first acts as president is to retaliate against Star Media and send out the message that the new Method Entertainment isn’t going to sit by and idly let another agency steal their actors. He tasks the senior agents with poaching Star Media’s highest grossing actor: KIM JI-HOON (as himself). Only Je-in is up to the task, and after a not-so-stealthy gym infiltration — helllllllllloooooo excessively long shirtless workout session — and a completely amoral exploitation of a junior manager’s resemblance to a Japanese casting director, Je-in makes some headway.

Ji-hoon has wanted to break away from the repetitive safety of his usual acting roles, but Star Media doesn’t want him to take risks or deviate from his consistently profitable dramas. So when he finds out that Star Media turned down — on his behalf and without his knowledge — a part in a Japanese film that went on to receive high praise at the Cannes Film Festival, he realizes that Star Media only sees him as a commodity.

Je-in, despite her professional ambition and inclination to lie in order to reach her objectives, genuinely cares about her clients, and her campfire heart-to-heart with Ji-hoon reveals her sincerity. Her ability to empathize with Ji-hoon’s dissatisfaction with his career also hints at her own wavering priorities as she struggles to balance her job and her personal life. Sadly, even though she’s still heartbroken over Sang-wook’s departure, when she’s presented with an opportunity to finally choose Sang-wook over work, she accepts a phone call from Ji-hoon and potentially dooms any chance she has at reconciling with Sang-wook.

Just when it looks like Ji-hoon will sign with Method Entertainment, the president of Star Media CHO GI-BONG (Kim Won-hae) swoops in to sabotage Je-in. Pissed off by President Cho’s intervention, Je-in blows up and dumps a drink on him, but her parting words are to Ji-hoon: she doesn’t care who he signs with, but he shouldn’t renew his contract with Star Media because they don’t truly value him.

The next day, Hae-jun appears in Je-in’s office with a gift-wrapped box, but it’s empty inside — because he’s firing her. The box is for her to pack her belongings. It’s a particularly cruel — and entirely unprofessional — method of terminating someone’s employment, and it reeks of petty revenge. So it begs the question: Did he buy Method Entertainment as part of a personal vendetta against Je-in?

Right after Hae-jun makes his dramatic exit (with Je-in’s fancy nameplate in hand), Je-in’s phone rings. It’s Ji-hoon, and while he isn’t a fan of Je-in’s dishonesty, he believes she has his best interests at heart. He wants her as his agent, and he agrees to sign with Method Entertainment. Hae-jun sheepishly brings back Je-in’s nameplate and negates his previous dismissal, but I wish she’d thrown it in his face and gone off to be a free agent with Ji-hoon as her first client.

If there was any doubt before that Tae-oh was the lesser of two evils, then look no further than Hae-jun’s next act as president: he fires Myung-ae. After appointing his loyal lackey SUNNY LIM (Choi Gyu-ri) as the manager of his newly created Strategic Planning Team, he instructed her to identify the weakest link among the staff.

Sunny then intentionally befriended Hyun-joo in order to pump her for company gossip, and during an after work hangout session, Hyun-joo let it slip that Myung-ae has a relatively easy workload because she manages middle-aged actors who get casting calls without her assistance. The part that Sunny failed to report to Hae-jun was the bit where Hyun-joo called Myung-ae an emotional anchor that most of the other agents seek out for advice. What will they do without her?

But as she packs her belongings, Myung-ae compares herself to a dried, useless leaf that needs to be pruned so that the rest of the leaves can thrive. She seems to agree that her departure from the company is for the best, but it’s hard to believe that the same woman who keyed President Cho’s car would passively accept that she should be put out to pasture, so to speak.

While the shakeup is going on at the office, no one can get a hold of Tae-oh, who has gone into self-imposed hiding after learning that his wife is selling their home. Eun-soo is so concerned that she calls for a wellness check, but when the emergency workers break down his door, they find a very confused Tae-oh. Poor man was just trying to destress and enjoy a bubble bath.

Eun-soo’s excessive concern touches Tae-oh, and as he bandages the scrape she incurred during her rush to check on him, the moment becomes charged. Eun-soo confesses her feelings, and Tae-oh leans in close. The scene cuts to the television behind them, where the couple on screen engage in a passionate kiss — leaving us to assume that Tae-oh and Eun-soo are doing the same.

Thankfully, we aren’t subjected to a Tae-oh and Eun-soo kiss because I was not rooting for that particular pairing. In all honesty, I was hoping Tae-oh would reconcile with his wife because this week’s episodes added another layer to his character that made me sympathize with him. He may be an ass when it comes to business, but he seems to genuinely love his wife. Well, it appeared he did before his implied kiss with Eun-soo.

I just wish we were seeing a similar evolution in Hyun-joo’s character. Instead, I’m growing increasingly annoyed with her meek personality. I thought in the beginning she’d have some hidden spunk in her, but the more the story progresses, the more bland and incompetent she seems.

The only time I genuinely like her character is when she’s interacting with Eun-gyul, but — assuming that there isn’t another plot twist — it’s pretty messed up that the writers are still intentionally teasing at a romantic relationship between them even after it’s been revealed that they’re siblings. Like, that whole bus scene was super cute, but when the most appealing romantic pairing in a drama is between a brother and sister — you know there’s some serious writing issues.

 
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