They Don't Kiss Until Episode 16

My favorite K-Drama trope…wealthy people misbehavin’

So I saw the preview for Celebrity on Netflix and (ironically) saw different clips of the show making rounds on YouTube and Instagram, so I said, let me check this show out.

You have to let some K-dramas simmer before they get good. Some never do, but by the end of episode 2 or 3 a K-drama that started slowly finds its rhythm and you are buckled up for the ride.

I wasn’t sure which type of drama Celebrity would be and by the middle of the first episode, I was leaning towards the side that this drama would be one I could skip despite the social media hubbub. But good thing I waited until the end.

Where: Netflix

Episodes: 12

Synopsis: Fame. Money. Power. Seo A-ri achieves social media stardom overnight- but deadly consequences await in this glitzy, glided world of influencers.

What’s Happening:

This first episode sets us up for learning about Seo A-ri played by  Park Gyu-young (Sweet Home, It’s Okay Not to be Okay). Seo A-ri is an Instagram influencer with over 1 million followers. With just one photo she can turn a no-name business into a business that makes millions in revenue. But how did she get here? Seo A-ri narrating, asks us if we want to know. She pushes further, telling us she knows that though we may judge these influencers, we secretly want to be like them. She admits this was who she was; a person with a trashy dirt heap life that transformed through the power of social media fame. We see Seo A-ri in a dark studio, conducting a live stream, telling us to get some tea as she explains how to become successful on the Internet. From the dark background of the studio, you can tell this live stream is not your typical one. 

The majority of the rest of the episode is a flashback. 

Two conflicts set up the rest of the show.

Conflict #1: There is a massive catfight between some of Seoul’s top Instagram influencers. Honestly, I can’t tell you what the fight is about. I had trouble following but the gist is that the top of the top of the InstaCoven (as I will call them) is Biniimom. Biniimom is old guard social media. She started a blog, which turned into Instagram, which turned into an extremely successful business. Now the others in the group want Biniimom out. Apparently, Biniimom said something about the others online and the others are upset. In fact, one influencer Chae-hee wants to sue. Keeping the women from having a brawl in the streets and making the issue bigger is Yoon Si-Hyeon, a wealthy philanthropist and perhaps socialite who, despite being close with all these influencers including Chae-hee, her sister, is not on Instagram.

Conflict #2: Seo A-ri secretly wants to be wealthy.  As the episode goes into the flashback we learn that Seo A-ri is an industrious young woman who works as a door-to-door make-up salesperson, think Mary Kay. She is the top. But she doesn’t make a lot of money. She has a work friend named Jeong-sun who is obsessed with social media and the lifestyle of influencers. And a mother who runs an alternation shop, specifically in Gangnam so she can borrow the fancy clothes she alters. Her mother lives above her means, making ends meet difficult for A-ri. Despite her friend and mother, A-ri stays grounded and off social media.

Turning point #1: Ari, on a sales call goes to a wealthy home to sell her wares. Turns out the women she is selling to are employees of the true house owner – Yoon Si-Hyeon- the employees misjudged when Si-Hyeon would return home and send A-ri scrambling to hide. Where does she hide? In Si-hyeon’s walk-in closet. Really, it’s not a walk-in closet, it is a room, a full-sized room. While hiding in the room, we see that A-ri may be more affected by the fantasy of wealth than she pretends to be. Once she escapes, she goes home and thinks of downloading Instagram, but changes her mind. 

Turning point #2: While on an errand to get a gift for her boss’s wife, A-ri bumps into a former high school acquaintance. That acquaintance is Oh Min-hye, the number two of the elite InstaCoven. Min-hye likes to flaunt her enormous wealth and we learn from Min-hye that Seo A-ri used to be wealthy. She was even accepted to an Ivy League school in the United States. While Min-hye has social media wealth and fame, she wants access to whatever world she thinks Seo A-ri still circulates in. A-ri wants to correct Min-hye, that she is no longer wealthy. Her father ran his business into the ground leaving her and her mother penniless. He is also dead which makes life more difficult, but before she can change her story, her Insta-dazed friend Jeong-sun silences her, not wanting A-ri to ruin what she sees as a chance to rub elbows with the internet’s elite. 

Min-hye wants to get A-ri’s Instagram handle so she can contact her, A-ri tells her that she doesn’t have social media and offers to give Min-hye her number. Jeong-sun interrupts and tells Min-hye to contact her instead since she follows Min-hye and she will relay the message. Min-hye sees through Jeong-sun opportunistic offer but seems to agree.  Min-hye follows through and invites A-ri to the party for all of Seoul’s InstaElite. A-ri finally decides to download Instagram and creates the handle “_seoari.” Inundated with images of the lush, lofty world of the Instagram influencer, A-ri decides to go to the party. 

Turning point #3: But what to wear? At first, A-ri plans to wear whatever she owns but her wealth-obsessed mother and friend strongly discourage this. She wears a dress that her mother and her friend convince her to “borrow” from A-ri’s mother’s alternation shop. The show’s writers do something interesting and use the dress as a character to drive the plot. 

First, A-ri, arriving in a cab off to the side is mistaken for another person, leading a man familiar with the true owner of the dress to touch the bow on the back of the dress to fix it. This interaction puts A-ri on defense and she accuses the man of sexual harassment. They go back and forth and we can tell that this man knows that A-ri is faking it, but he is also instantly attracted and interested in her. At the party, Min-hye is excited to see A-ri and begins to introduce her as her Ivy League friend. Everyone at the table is asking about her Ivy League degree; when Yoon Si-Hyeon and Chae-hee join the table, Chae-hee notices that the dress that A-ri is wearing looks exactly like a dress that Si-hyeon owns. From what Chae-hee knows this dress is a limited edition and only a few people have the dress. Moreover, someone mentions that Si-hyeon too went to an Ivy League in America. The supposed similarities between A-ri and Si-hyeon: the dress, the education, and the lack of social media, makes A-ri more intriguing. They pummel her with questions about her dress. To be a formerly wealthy person, you would think A-ri would have come up with a plausible lie about a garment that was entrusted to  A-ri’s mother. But she doesn’t. Si-hyeon saves her and offers that A-ri must have gotten it in London. Satisfied but confused, the InstaCoven moves on to questions about A-ri’s Ivy League education. All of these women are married and want to know the key to success for their families.

Finally, A-ri breaks down and says she didn’t attend an Ivy League school. She was accepted but dropped out. Admitting that in short, she only has a high school diploma. 

Awkward.  

But just when the cringe moment can’t get cringier, in bursts Biniimom.

Biniimom is UPSET. Min-hye made sure that Biniimom’s name wasn’t on the guest list. Revenge. Biniimom slaps the crap out of her. Yelling at her, she tells Min-hye how dare she remove her name, how dare she treat her that way when the only reason Min-hye is popular is because of Biniimom. Min-hye used her follower base to catapult herself to fame. Without Biniimom there would be no Min-hye. At least that is Biniimom’s argument. You can see that while A-ri is stunned by watching a physical altercation between two adult women, she is drinking every word Biniimom says.

Now we cut to the present. A now Instagram royal, Seo A-ri, is still live streaming in the dark studio telling the audience that it was within that conflict that she learned the first key success: you get famous by being a leach. Find a famous person and use them.  During the live stream, we see a comment saying that the live stream is fake. Another comment from a Finsta account asks, “Who are you?” Cut scene, the InstaCoven including Si-hyeon are all texting and calling each other about A-ri’s live stream. They are in an uproar along with Seo A-ri’s livestream audience. How is she doing this? Who is this person live streaming? Because the Seo A-ri that everyone has come to know is supposed to be…dead.

Boom.

Worth Watching: …Yes?

This doesn’t get an ABSOLUTELY. As the episode continued, I wasn’t attached to any character. I didn’t care how the InstaCoven became popular. The characters of A-ri’s mother and A-ri’s friend irritated me with their obsession with money, fame, and the material trappings of wealth. I found them silly, which makes A-ri seem more grounded, but they just seemed so over the top to me. I was ready to give up on this show until the reveal of the supposed death/murder of Seo A-ri. Now this is a show.

The wealthy people who murder whodunit is a trope I like. It’s most effectively executed in Sky Castle (Netflix, Viki), but can be seen in shows such as Penthouse, (Viki) Mine (Netflix), and The Empire  (Viki). The “who killed the poor girl who lands in the inner circle of wealthy people that don’t want her there” trope can be really entertaining as you see these wealthy people, who are supposed to have the moral high ground, debase themselves to cover up their crimes. But the trope has to be executed right. It can be a letdown when the writers wind you up for 13 episodes only to pick the most obvious person to be the murderer. Or the writers drag out the reveal and thusly drag down the plot when opportunities for the characters to figure out who the culprit is, are purposely missed. 

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what will happen next.

Happy Watching.