Welcome to the episode of ever-changing hair! We pick up right where Episode 12 left off:
It's time to announce winners of the duet/proposal competition from last episode. In very anti-climatic fashion, we find that JB gets eliminated. Not surprising since the principal & director blatantly told him he'd be out if he chose anyone but Rian as a partner. But for some reason Shin Hae-Sung stays even though they were partners. The lame excuse is that she was apart of the winning B-Class team last week.
In the audience, A-Class Teacher Hyun Ji-Soo speculates with the other teachers about reason JB got kicked off. She thinks it's a ploy to garner sympathy for him by throwing Hae-Sung under the bus. Backstage, Jin Yoo-Jin is pissed about Rian's way of winning. He realizes that she wanted to perform after JB and cry so the student audience would feel bad for her, all while blaming JB for her tears. That ensured that the audience would vote JB off and her as the winner.
Rain: All that matters is that you and I weren't eliminated.
Yoo-Jin: I wanted to win, not shove them off.
Unphased, Rian says their has to be a reason he was eliminated, as the competition was rigged for JB to win from the start. She not so discreetly hints that Hae-Sung is that reason.Yoo-Jin: I wanted to win, not shove them off.
Hae-Sung runs to Producer Shin and begs him to eliminate her instead of JB.
Producer Shin Jae-In: You think JB being eliminated is based solely on his skills? ...The moment that JB chose you as his partner, it's no different than him giving up on this mission. ...JB wasn't eliminated, but disqualified. More than wanting to win, he was only thinking of standing on stage with you. That's not respectful to the audience or other contestants that participated.
On the walk between the stage and backstage, JB manages to somehow go from brassy, hydrogen perioxide color hair to a brown/blond highlight mix. He comforts Hae-Sung, ensuring her that this isn't the first time he's lost an audition. Hae-Sung cries anyway.
Rian sneaks into the guys' room and wakes up Yoo-Jin. She sneaks past the adorable Si-Woo and Park Hong-Joo snuggled up in bed together (not to mention Hong-Joo [played by Kim Ji-Soo] has changed his hair as well). After the requisite "OMG, you're a male topless in your own bed that I intruded on" hassle, Yoo-Jin teases Rian for wearing less makeup. She gets fake mad at him and tells him to come out for breakfast. On his way, Yoo-Jin knocks on JB's door. JB answers, sporting an overnight dye job. The writers make light of this by having Yoo-Jin comment on how JB looks different when he first wakes up.
The dormmates are astounded by the spread Rian and her mom have prepared for breakfast. This scene is kinda random, as Rian's mom has never come up to the school for any reason aside from harassing Rian to change agencies or harassing Principal/OZ Director Lee Kang-Chul to give Rian more work. JB takes out the spoon Hae-Sung gave him, and Yoo-Jin teases him for being a germaphobe for bringing his own silverware. The students wonder at Rian's niceness. Realizing that they don't have any chopsticks, Rian volunteers to run out and get some.
Outside, Rian rescues Hae-Sung from three mean girls who accost her for making JB lose. Rian asks Hae-Sung how she's going to protect JB if she doesn't even have the confidence to stand up for herself. Deflecting, Hae-Sung calls Rian out for hiding something from her. Rian relents and tells her how everything from the idols attending Kirin Art School to the missions is a giant project to turn JB into a super idol. Hae-Sung is shocked as she realizes:
"Everyone knew except for me."
Well, duh, you're not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Rian continues the guilt trip by asking Hae-Sung what she'll do if JB blames her for not being able to go on to bigger things.
New mission:
Producer Shin Jae-In: A song for one person. If you can move one person, you can move everyone in the world.
As an aside as he walks out of the classroom, Producer Shin announces that it's the final mission and there won't be any other opportunities. Everyone wonders if this means JB is out for good. Later, Nana catches Si-Woo & Hong-Joo watching her practice. They're concerned about her voice, but she's determined to not let it end her career. With a laugh, she deflects by pointing out that they're finishing each other's sentences now. They cutely deny it.
JB sulks around school since he can't attend competition-related classes. Yoo-Jin follows JB around, telling him he won't let him give up that easily; he's JB's pace maker, so he's gonna do his job as such. Seriously, if it wasn't for the studded uniform, I wouldn't be able to tell that was JB at a glance. Who decided that the two male leads should have the same haircut? In class, Teacher Yang lectures the kids about how to write original and artistic lyrics. Ui-Bong claims this is too hard. Yang relents and tells them there's another way: to write with sincerity.
Teacher Yang puts them into small groups to share sincere stories with each other. Rian starts off with a lame story about how in training they had to practice all of the time or else get kicked out. Hae-Sung is way too interested in the story. I don't know if it's overacting by Kang So-Ra or if the character is really written to be that gullible and naive. Rian eventually progresses into a sincere story about how she was able to tough it out because they were together, implying that she means JB, but of course Hae-Sung thinks she means the idol group as a whole.
JB & Hae-Sung go out for coffee where she stands up to another group of mean girls. She jokingly tells him it's hard being his girlfriend. Flipping through her poetry book, he asks if she's going to write a song about him for the challenge. She stutters, "Of course!" clearly not previously intending to do so. JB tells her that she has to win so it'll be worth him being eliminated. Cut to montage of everyone writing lyrics and acting in class. Some are horribly bad. Others are way too close to what's going on in their lives.
Yoo-Jin helps Hae-Sung with a bunch of boxes she picked up from the mailroom. He wonders what's inside and opens one to find it full of hate mail. He yells at her for putting up with this, since he suspects this has been going on for a while. He wonders what kind of boyfriend JB is to let this all happen, and what she even sees in him. In true kdrama fashion, Hae-Sung says that she can't control who her heart decides to like. Yoo-Jin says he knows the feeling all too well and declares to Hae-Sung that he will no longer hide that he likes her. He proclaims that he's going to become cooler and more famous than JB so she'll like him instead.
Yoo-Jin marches into principal's office with his super idol contract in-hand (which he's been in possession of for about... nine episodes?) and signed. Principal/OZ Entertainment Exec Lee cooly responds,
"You said we were lying scammers."
LOL! Yoo-Jin mumbles an apology and says he'll do anything to beat JB. He quickly bows and walks out. Principal Lee and Producer Shin muse that the look in his eyes have changed.
Worrying if he's done the right thing, Yoo-Jin runs to his confidant, Guidance Counselor Joo Jung-Wan. Yoo-Jin says at first he wanted to win but now he wants to beat JB so he can get to Hae-Sung. Counselor Joo reassures him it'll be fine, that he was once in a band just to impress his wife. With Yoo-Jin's conscious halfway cleared, cue montage of Yoojin's new idol activities.
Daddy issues between Principal Lee and Lee Seul are finally touched on, after being wholly ignored since Episode 2. Seul storms angrily out, blaming him for leaving her and her mom in pursuit of money. It's kinda sad because there's a scene where he happily watches Seul's B Class performance from Episode 11 (why he put his own daughter in B Class is beyond me), bursting with fatherly pride. But on the other hand I don't care that much because their issue has been completely forgotten since the day she arrived at Kirin. With only three more episodes left, I can't muster up the energy to care.
Rian and Yoo-Jin film a segment for a TV show that brings up embarrassing things from a celebrity's past (another kdrama staple). The host produces a poster of a young Yoo-Jin as Nuclear Man, but Yoo-Jin denies he was the child actor, and instead says he was just a kid playing dress up. He lies and says that his parents have died in order to divert the attention away from him. Meanwhile, Principal Lee gets a phone call at the same time the other students catch a newscast of Rian's mom being arrested for her involvement in selling counterfeit designer clothes & accessories. The students rush off to find Rian.
Reporters bum rush the set just as Rian & Yoo-Jin finish up their interview, and the students heroically hold them back while Haesung helps Rian escape. In their hideout, Rian and Haesung have a heart-to-heart where Rian reveals that JB broke up with her. While Rian explains to Haesung what we as viewers already know about the break up, I begin to wonder where this weird semi-friendship between the two began. All of a sudden they are almost-close-but-not-quite without any real explanation. Maybe if Rian's mom was already in jail and then she had a change of heart because of that, I'd get it. But Rian being nice out of nowhere just because? Illogical plot device for the loss.
Back to her mean girl persona, Rian says that Hae-Sung is the person that stopped JB from reaching his goals. Guilt cloud settles in above Hae-Sung and she goes to JB's room only to find out that he's not there. Si-Woo notes that he's been coming back late for a while now, but he just thought JB was always out late with her. Searching for him, Hae-Sung finds him in the dance studio hardcore practicing. Flashback montage of all the times he was with her and could barely stay awake. Hae-Sung realizes that he's still working toward his goal even though he's been disqualified and banned from any mission-related classes.
Cut to Haesung writing and composing her song "Together" for JB. In the morning she sends him a text suggesting they skip school and meet up at a concert hall. JB smiles goofily and tries on a series of outfits that make him look like a normal kid. Hae-Sung nervously dresses up and primps while the girls excitedly flutter around her because she's going out on a date.
Sitting in the empty concert hall, JB asks why she brought him there. Hae-Sung says she watched him perform here as a part of Eden and reminisces on how he looked on stage. JB asks if she'll stand on stage with him the next time he performs as his guest. She deflects by handing him the song she wrote. He notices it's a duet and happily remarks that they can sing it up there together. She says no, she belongs here in the audience and he belongs on the stage. She was disillusioned to think of him as normal Jang Ho-Jae instead of the star JB, and can't stand to see him lose his shine.
Hae-Sung: Let's break up.
JB grabs her arm to prevent her from walking away and says he'll get back on the stage for her. She repeats the words Rian said to her in their basement hideout:
"A star? It's nice when you look at it from afar, but seeing it up close, it's not that great."
She rushes off and JB goes to chase her. Conveniently, an elementary school class is out on the sidewalk boarding a school bus and a little boy drops his soccer ball. The little boy rushes out into the street and *shock, gasp* there's a speeding truck coming! Why, hello, predictable kdrama plot device. JB realizes he has to choose between saving the boy and stopping Hae-Sung, and he goes for the kid, of course.
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