Maestra: Strings of Truth lacks depth as a story. When you think about how the story started, the issues and subplots it has been addressing, and how the ending is going to pan out, you are left wondering whether the writers even liked what they were writing or were they simply masters at disguising low-effort work as something with a lot more ‘quality.’ Regardless, this is the recap of the episode.
Spoiler Alert
Is Kim Phil dead?
Kim Phil was injected with scotilla-min in an attempt to kill him, but he is very much alive. He had gone to the riverside because of an anonymous message that someone was going to tell him Seeum’s secrets. Instead, they had tried to kill him with poison. The timing of this removes any suspicion that may have ever been on Seeum, and the police are now investigating with her instead of against her. Seeum refuses police protection since that would alert the culprit to the recent developments in the case. As Seeum had suspected, the poison was in the perfume, but it is hard to say how it could have gotten there since she always kept it with her. This means that this was the work of someone in Hanphil or someone who had access to her at all times.
Seeum’s father knows about this, and he is worried for his daughter. Seeum wants to move out so that they don’t come in harm’s way, but he wouldn’t hear anything about this. However, Seeum decides to do something in her own capacity to protect them, and she asks Jeongjae to help her out with this problem. Seeum asks Jeongjae to protect her family should anything happen to her, and he immediately deploys bodyguards for her.
Back in Hanphil, people are talking about the documentary and remembering how Seeum had said that she would divorce Phil if he was guilty of the affair. Considering that Ajin is pregnant, the members put two and two together and understand what must have happened. They all boycott Ajin, and for the first time, Ajin feels a sting that she hadn’t felt before.
Seeum announces to her members that she will be leaving Hanphil after the upcoming performance, and her reason is that she wants to go while she is still capable of getting a standing ovation. Seeum was the one who brought everyone back, and they came back because of her reputation and work ethic. Therefore, her leaving was a blow no one was prepared for, but they all understood that she needed to go. Ajin is very happy with this news, but it is to no avail. After all, Seeum has lost nothing, and Phil is already out of her life. Ajin can’t even get the satisfaction of taunting him since he was blackmailed to sue for custody. At this stage, Ajin also doesn’t have any friends, so she decides to leave. It is unclear whether she is leaving the orchestra as well, but she is moving out of her house, and she doesn’t mind selling it for a loss. Maybe she wants to go abroad or just go somewhere quiet, but Ajin is desperate.
Why Does Luna Poison Seeum?
Jeongjae figures out where the scotilla-min is coming from by obsessively studying the recorded quantities of the poison in the few labs that deal with it. The police take it further and find that the quantities differed only when one particular person, Kim Jinyeong, dealt with them. Seeum doesn’t know who Jinyeong is, but she is told to watch out. After some thinking, she remembers that she had seen the name ‘Hyun In’ on one of the posters in Luna’s room. Additionally, the girl had a cut on her arm, which reminds Seeum of the blood found near Bongju. Hanphil, Luna, Ajin, and Sujin were the ones with the ‘B’ blood group. These are too many coincidences, and Seeum’s suspicions are on Luna. As expected, Jeongjae and Seeum find the scotilla-min in Luna’s office, hidden in one of the plants.
Earlier, Luna had told Seeum that she was her only source of comfort when she had been abandoned by her adoptive father. This had happened after Luna had already been abandoned once by her biological parents. It was Seeum’s music at that time that had given her the comfort and confidence she needed to go on in life. For a broken mind, this could have easily turned into an obsession.
Jinyeong was Luna’s future brother-in-law. Luna had caught him cheating on her sister and blackmailed him to get her some scotilla-min in exchange for her silence. Since Luna’s sister discovered his affair and called off the engagement, he had no reason to stay silent anymore, and he tried to confront her as to what she did with the poison. Since Luna saw the breakup happen, she understood that the confrontation was not far away. Also, Luna saw that Taeho was asked by Seeum to stay back. She was confident that Taeho, and by extension, Jeongjae, could not have been the people trying to poison her. This surety could come only if she was close to the truth. Luna could see her carefully constructed game falling apart, and that is probably why she tried to run away and would have if Jiyeong had not come in her way.
At the end of Maestra Episode 11, Taeho ‘saves’ Luna from Jiyeong, and she invites him back home for a cup of tea and to talk to him. One thing is clear, which is that Luna is deeply disturbed. She wants to be the only person in Seeum’s life and is killing and framing people to achieve that goal. Maybe if Taeho had picked up his phone, he would have known what her truth was. But he was more focused on smoothing things over with Luna, and when his back was turned, Luna hit him with a flower pot, knocking him out. Honestly, there was no need for this. Luna should have just escaped. But her mission to eliminate the people from Seeum’s life was not over, hence the attack.
Final Thoughts
We have mentioned this before, but Seeum has terrible luck with people getting obsessed with her. First was Jeongjae; next was Phil; and then came Ajin and Luna. Each one of them couldn’t keep their eyes off Seeum for different reasons, but they were hooked on her. She is lucky that at least one of them was nice. To think that this is the conclusion of the story about a world-class maestra battling personal demons borne out of a hereditary disease.
