Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Hera Palace gives its wealthy residents a private world above Seoul, while Cheong-ah Arts School decides which children can turn talent into status. Oh Yoon-hee pushes her daughter Bae Ro-na toward an opera career despite their limited means and the hostility of school families. Min Seol-ah enters as a tutor to Joo Dan-tae’s twins, Seok-hoon and Seok-kyung, but her poverty makes her a target. After residents and students bully her, Seol-ah falls from the building to her death, and the adults conceal what happened to protect their names.
The murder connects school rivalry to the adults’ bargains. Cheon Seo-jin, a powerful soprano, uses her influence to keep Ro-na from gaining an advantage, while her affair with Dan-tae pulls her into the Hera Palace families’ orbit. Yoon-hee fights to keep Ro-na at Cheong-ah and grows more willing to use the residents’ methods. Su-ryeon, Dan-tae’s wife, searches for the truth about Seol-ah and turns against the husband who controls their home; Logan Lee, Seol-ah’s adoptive brother, arrives to confront those involved. Seok-hoon’s growing affection for Ro-na unsettles Seok-kyung and tests the twins’ loyalty to their father.
Su-ryeon learns that Seol-ah was her biological daughter, making her pursuit of justice personal. As the investigation exposes the lies around Seol-ah’s death, Dan-tae and Seo-jin protect their positions and Yoon-hee becomes further entangled in their world. In the finale, evidence makes Yoon-hee appear responsible for Su-ryeon’s apparent murder. Yoon-hee admits to killing Seol-ah, then stabs herself in the throat; her fate is uncertain as Logan stands over her. Dan-tae returns to the palace, while Seo-jin moves ahead with her plans and Seok-hoon and Seok-kyung decide to leave Hera Palace.