Behind Every Star: Episodes 11-12 (Final)

by DaebakGrits

Our peek into the behind the scenes lives of talent wranglers — I mean, managers — has come to an abrupt and unsatisfactory end. It may be fitting for this star-studded story to wrap up with an elaborate award show, but it seems unlikely that this particular drama will walk away with many accolades — or a second season.

 
EPISODES 11-12 WEECAP

Let’s jump right into the beginning of the end, with Hyun-joo and Tae-oh dealing with the aftermath of having their personal connection revealed to the company. Surprisingly, Tae-oh keeps his job because Hae-jun claims Tae-oh’s experience and expertise are indispensable and integral to his future plans of expanding Method Entertainment into a production company.

Hyun-joo, on the other hand, is the source of office gossip among the no-name background characters, but her close co-workers are copacetic with her birth secret. Well, that is until Hae-jun appoints Hyun-joo as the manager of his new team even though she didn’t apply for the position. Supposedly, despite her inexperience and numerous screw ups, she demonstrated that she has a particular set of skills that make her the right person for the job. (Okaaaaaay…)

Jin-hyuk, who actually interviewed for the position, is understandably miffed, but considering we’ve only ever seen him complain about the mound of paperwork on his desk, I’m not so confident he’s more qualified. He seems to think he is, though, and he views Hyun-joo’s appointment as a massive betrayal. He can’t believe her — despite her unwavering support for him throughout his application process — when she says that she didn’t use her connections to snag the promotion for herself, so he has an overly dramatic hissy-fit and precedes to ice out Hyun-joo.

Hyun-joo tries to turn down the new job because she doesn’t feel like she deserves it, but Hae-jun tells her to either accept the responsibility or hit the road. Unable to handle the social ostracizing and the feeling that she doesn’t belong, Hyun-joo packs her bags and returns to Busan.

Hyun-joo’s departure from Method Entertainment coincides with Myung-ae’s reinstatement — although the two events are unrelated. You see, Myung-ae’s former client LEE SOON-JAE (as himself) started experiencing bouts of memory loss as a side effect of his recent stroke, and during one particularly long episode, he forgets that Myung-ae is no longer his agent. Soon-jae refuses to work until she’s by his side, and with the film’s investor lurking around the set, just waiting to pull the plug on the production, Hae-jun eats some humble pie and rehires Myung-ae. He also puts her in charge of talent and casting.

I applauded Myung-ae’s triumphant return to Method Entertainment — especially Sunny’s plant-based bribe to get back on Myung-ae’s good side — but these scenes really emphasized how underutilized Myung-ae’s character was throughout the run of this drama. For a character that Hyun-joo once dubbed the “emotional anchor” of Method Entertainment, Myung-ae deserved better than having the most interesting aspect of her backstory (her past affair with President Hwang) casually tossed in the final hours like an afterthought. Not to mention, it seems like a large part of her return was so she could play the trope of the wise old woman, giving cryptic life advice to her younger peers and waxing poetic about regrets.

When it comes to regrets, Tae-oh’s have come crashing down on him. Eun-ha tells him to pick up his mail from their former home, and when he arrives, the furniture and all the personal touches that indicated it was once the home of a happy family have been packed away.

Say what you will about Tae-oh’s mistakes, but I have to applaud the director for the lighting and gorgeously shot wide angle views of Tae-oh as he toured his empty family home. The cinematography perfectly captured Tae-oh’s isolation, and when he broke down and mourned the end of his marriage, I felt for him — even if the cynical part of me was like, “Sucks to be you!”

Meanwhile, Je-in draws her on conclusions from Myung-ae’s sage advice and tries to rectify her one regret: Sang-wook. She waits for him along his favorite jogging path, and when he stops to speak with her, she apologizes for hurting him. Initially, he seems unmoved by her heartfelt too-little-too-late plea for forgiveness, but after first jogging away from her, he turns around and admits that he’d regret losing her more than he’d regret meeting her. (Dawwww! That awkward handshake that turned into a hug!)

It’s just the kind of reconciliation you’d expect to see in a series finale, and I’ve gotta say, it makes me happy to see Sang-wook happy — even if they’re mismatched and seemed doomed to repeat past mistakes. She’s a workaholic who still hasn’t found the appropriate work-life balance, and he’s a stalkerish puppy who shows up unexpectedly and takes bubble baths in other people’s bathtubs. But, to be fair to Sang-wook, at least Je-in is receptive to his obsessive interest.

The same can’t be said for Hae-jun, though, and we all know it wasn’t a “coincidence” that he showed up at the same restaurant where Je-in was on a date with Sang-wook. (Cue: Overly aggressive handshake between two men in love with the same woman.) Hae-jun doesn’t stand a chance, though, so he should just give up while he can still maintain his dignity — but yeah, that’s not going to happen.

As soon as he finds the couple rings hidden in Je-in’s desk drawer, he suddenly has a reason to join the rest of the Method Entertainment staff in Busan for the Busan International Film Festival and stick his nose into Je-in’s personal life. Je-in is too busy for his nonsense, though, because her actress, KIM AH-JOONG (as herself), is the sole host of the awards show.

All anyone wants to talk about is Ah-joong’s dress, which was sewn by a famous foreign designer. Hae-jun had to pull some major strings with one of his financial backers so that Ah-joong could wear it, too. Unfortunately, after pissing off said financial backer’s spoiled name-dropping daughter, Je-in and Ah-joong find themselves without a show-stopping dress — unless they’re willing to grovel. Ah-joong is prepared to toss aside her pride, but when the spoiled brat insults Je-in, Ah-joong goes to bat for her loyal agent. So much for getting the dress back.

But then Je-in remembers that a famous hanbok designer has an atelier in Busan, and she begs him for one of his designs. Her request is denied, but Je-in luckily runs into Hyun-joo at the workshop. Hyun-joo, whose competence really shines through when she’s on her own turf, knows exactly how they can bribe the designer’s mother and acquire a dress. Then she drives like a maniac through Busan traffic to ensure Je-in delivers the dress in time for the ceremony.

At the Busan International Film Festival, Ah-joong stuns everyone with her gorgeous hanbok and touching speech dedicated to all the behind-the-scenes staff in the film industry. As she praises their hard (and often unappreciated) work, we cut to our various characters, including the ones watching from home and the office. Tae-oh, however, is extra bougie and watches from his hotel room with Eun-ha, who surprised him in Busan and asked to start over with a clean slate.

As cute as their matching bathrobe cuddle session is, it’s a cuddle session of lies. Tae-oh didn’t own up to his most recent infidelity with poor besotted Eun-soo, who was kind enough to give her train ticket to Eun-ha so their whole Busan reconciliation could happen. But, let’s just ignore that for now because the speech combined with the shots of a our characters is thematically on point, and if our drama ended around this point in our story, I would feel better about our finale. But no — there’s an after party and more shenanigans.

At said after party, Hee-sun confesses to Joong-don that she likes him, but then almost immediately thereafter she learns that he was the source of the rumors that caused the investors to back out of her movie. Hee-sun runs away and promptly checks out of her hotel, leaving behind a despondent Joong-don. Not that I feel sorry for him. He dug his grave, and I’m happy to Spartan kick him into the hole if he needs it.

At the same time Je-in is approached with an offer to manage an agency in New York, but Hae-jun overhears her conversation and plots to block Je-in’s overseas move by buying up the company that offered her the job. And once he owns the other company, he plans to appoint Tae-oh as the manager of the American branch so he can keep Je-in by his side. Hmmmm… I wonder if he’d still pull the trigger on such a dumb financial mistake if he knew Je-in took a pregnancy test that (probably) came back positive?

Well, your guess is as good as mine because that’s how our drama ends. Clearly, the producers wanted to take advantage of the multi-seasonal format of the original French Call My Agent! and become one of the few (but growing in number) K-dramas to get a second season. Given the drama’s below average ratings, though, we’re unlikely to revisit Method Entertainment at a later date, and the uncertain future of this particular drama puts me in a bit of a conundrum. Do I view these last two episodes as a season or series finale?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question does slightly sway my overall opinion of this drama because even though I haven’t wholly enjoyed the behind-the-scenes chaos, I’m intrigued enough by the characters to want to see them grow into (hopefully) less toxic and incompetent people. And at the start of this week’s episodes, I sincerely thought we were building up to a point where all of our agents would find some sort of half-assed resolution that would allow us to say goodbye to them with a conclusive sense of what their futures hold for them in the entertainment business.

In reality, though, we had a lot of new potential story arcs introduced in the final moments, and while that makes for an interesting season finale, it absolutely sucks as the conclusion to a drama. But to be perfectly honest, as intrigued as I am about seeing these excessively flawed characters evolve into more likable beings, I don’t care enough to want a second season.

Instead, I wish someone in power had read the writing on the wall and adapted for the possibility that there would not be a second season. They could have easily cut the scenes so that our story ended with Tae-oh showing up outside Hyun-joo’s house to act as her fairy godfather, bringing her a dress and an invitation to the after party. It would have been a nice bookend for the drama, which began with Hyun-joo joining Method Entertainment against her father’s wishes. Although this drama had other main characters, ultimately it was this father-daughter relationship that held the story together and demonstrated the most positive growth, so if we began and ended our story with the two of them, I would have been more satisfied.

 
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