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Maestra: Strings of Truth: Episodes 11-12 (Final)
by mistyisles
Our story crescendos to an intense finale as secrets are bared at last — it’s time for our widely adored conductor, and the people who so adore her, to face the music. Some dreams may come true and others may shatter, but the only way to know for sure what the future holds is to step bravely into it.
EPISODES 11-12
Not only was Pil lured to the same riverside spot where Bong-ju was murdered, but his attacker injected him with the same poison that someone has been exposing Se-eum to. Since this rules him out of the main suspect list, the detectives and Se-eum focus on identifying women with the same blood type as Bong-ju’s murderer. There are three in the Han River Orchestra: Ah-jin, Ru-na, and another violinist who has a solid alibi and no motive. Se-eum declines a personal security detail from the police, but asks Jung-jae to have his people watch over her father and best friend, especially if something should happen to her.
While the investigation proceeds, Se-eum takes Tae-ho back as her assistant (so long as he genuinely wants the job and the spying stops) and confesses to the orchestra that the next concert will be her last as conductor. Ru-na objects to both decisions, so strongly that she can’t focus during rehearsal. When Se-eum asks what’s wrong, she explains that as a twice-abandoned orphan, seeing Se-eum perform on TV — and hoping to one day play alongside her — was the only thing that kept her going. If Se-eum has to leave, Ru-na begs to go with her.
Fortunately for the police, the poison that was used on both Se-eum and Pil could only have come from one of a few research labs in the city. It doesn’t take long to narrow down not only which lab it was stolen from, but also which employee was always on duty when miniscule amounts vanished from the records. His name is KIM JIN-YOUNG (Bae Jae-sung), and he’s engaged to Ru-na’s sister… or he was, until he was caught cheating. Ru-na was the first to catch on, and she used the knowledge to blackmail him into stealing the poison for her.
That’s right: Ru-na is our culprit. She cut Ah-jin’s brakes, killed Bong-ju, attempted to kill Pil, and has been poisoning Se-eum all along, likely intending to step in as caregiver. And when Tae-ho happens to overhear Ru-na arguing with Jin-young about the police coming after him, she lures Tae-ho into her house and smashes a flower pot over his head, leaving him unconscious in a pool of his own blood. Thankfully, Se-eum and Jung-jae put all the pieces together just in time to rush over with the police in tow and get him to the hospital (Jung-jae stays anxiously at his side for days, and Tae-ho eventually makes a full recovery).
In the aftermath, Ru-na’s sister confesses to Se-eum that a very similar scenario happened before. Their adoptive mother was hospitalized following a diabetes complication, and Ru-na dutifully stayed by her side until the very end. But it has since become evident that Ru-na manipulated her insulin doses to keep her in the hospital when she could have recovered, just so Ru-na could have their mother all to herself. Right after their mother’s passing, Ru-na latched onto her next obsession: Se-eum.
Ru-na has disappeared following her attack on Tae-ho, so Se-eum hatches a daring plan to draw her out of hiding. She announces publicly that at the upcoming concert, she’ll play a violin duet… with Ru-na. What’s more, she’ll play the very piece that caught Ru-na’s attention in the first place. There’s no way Ru-na will pass up the chance to make her ultimate dream come true. Se-eum plans to do the performance alone with a plainclothes police audience, but the rest of the musicians aren’t about to let her take such a risk by herself. Even Ah-jin insists on taking the stage with Se-eum this one last time.
The concert arrives with no sign of Ru-na. But as Se-eum begins to play without her, Ru-na appears at the back of the auditorium and plays as she walks down the aisle to join Se-eum onstage. It’s a breathtaking performance, emotionally and musically, and it leaves Ru-na in tears. She gushes thanks to Se-eum afterwards, only to realize she’s been betrayed when the police interrupt. Vowing to make sure Se-eum never forgets her, Ru-na grabs a sharp object, lurches toward Se-eum, and then stabs herself in the neck.
She survives, but lives out her days in prison with a horrible scar, and refuses Se-eum’s visit so Se-eum’s last memory of her will be their duet. Pil also survives, but his memory is stuck in the past for reasons that mystify the doctors, and he spends his days alone in the nursing home scribbling barely legible compositions (serves him right). Ah-jin apologizes to Se-eum, and the two part on somewhat amicable terms as Ah-jin leaves to start over far away.
As promised, Se-eum steps down from the orchestra, planning to travel the world and just enjoy her life, however long or short it may be. She waits until she’s alone at her mother’s grave to read the results of her Remington’s test, and though she doesn’t share the contents even with us, her expression suggests she’s at peace with whatever it says. It doesn’t change her travel plans, but when Jung-jae begs to come with, she gives a teasing, noncommittal answer instead of flatly rejecting him, which he takes for permission.
And that’s how it ends: open-ended and hopeful. At first, I was frustrated that we didn’t get an answer to the Remington’s question, but I think the point isn’t so much us knowing whether she’ll inherit the disease — the point is that Se-eum knows, and that she’s ready to face her future instead of running from it. Besides, given how many times her medical information was accessed or shared without her permission, I’m willing to let her have some privacy for once.
As for Jung-jae, my feelings about him haven’t really changed, but if Se-eum is happy with him now, I’m happy for her. I think the intent was to contrast Ru-na and Pil, who were outwardly considerate but secretly obsessive and selfish, with Jung-jae, who was outwardly obsessive but did truly seem to care about Se-eum. I just wish he’d done more growing over the past several episodes, so it would feel less like his controlling behaviors were being excused. There was a flash of vulnerability about him when Tae-ho was hospitalized that I think could have gone a long way toward making him sympathetic if it had been explored more and earlier.
But, to reiterate, if Se-eum is happy, I’m happy. I can’t believe I started this show thinking she might be anything close to unlikeable, because if there’s one thing that Maestra fully convinced me of, it’s that while Se-eum didn’t deserve to be surrounded by so many awful people, she certainly deserved all the admiration she received and then some. So, since we weren’t told definitively either way, I’m going to believe that she goes on to live a long, happy, fulfilled life doing whatever she wants.
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