It is always the last few steps that are the most crucial, and no other genre story relies on them more than one that was built on a myriad of mysteries intertwining with each other like a web. It is difficult to pull off, often the biggest loose ends in stories, but luckily, The Act of Sarah not only delivers a finale, but it does it amazingly well. Promotions, jail, and the rise of an empire, it has it all, and among all this, it has this aftertaste of a succulent mystery that will ruminate in your mouth for weeks. 

A story that travelled through all the nooks and crannies of Seoul’s socialite circle, the dirt of the city sewers, and the sweaty lockers of the police station, finally meets a perfect ending in the finale of this limited series. However, if you are still pondering what exactly happened in the finale, let us take a tour into the ending of Netflix’s The Art of Sarah. 

Identity theft is not a joke, Kim! I am really sorry, but I had to get the The Office fan in me satisfied and crack this one joke (especially because Kim rhymes with Jim). Now that it is behind us, let’s dive into the finale. Right at the start, we are just as shocked as Detective Park Mu-gyeong, as the woman he has arrested, thinking she is Sarah Kim, confesses that she is in fact Kim Mi-Jeong. The woman whom Sarah hired to make the bags, which she then sold as Boudoir’s collection. 

Fueled by the anger and jealousy of her designs making millions while she literally survives on pennies ticks off the young lady living in poverty. She reveals the circumstances she has lived through, how she left home when she was a young girl and never registered as a citizen, thus not having an identity. And her big plan was to time her arrest in such a way that the police officers are not able to prosecute her, and once she gets a free pass from here, she will have an identity, the identity of Sarah Kim, which will then become hers. 

Kim Mi-Jeong also reveals that she had impersonated Sarah Kim multiple times in the past, using her banking cards to shop, and even went so far as to copy her entire personality, including her style, clothes, jewelry, and even her voice and tone. However, Detective Park Mu-gyeong refuses to believe that Sarah Kim is not her. 

What follows is an elaborate explanation of the events that conspired at the launch party of Boudoir and the night of Sarah Kim’s death. Mu-gyeong delineates how the events transpired that night, going into detail about how every single person who despises Sarah was present there that day, including the CEO of Nox and the prime investor of Boudoir, Yeo-jin, Samwol Department Store’s chairwoman Choi Chae U, Chae U's secretary Ji-Hwon, and Jung Yeo Jin, whom Sarah fired from her store. 

And to prove that she is Sarah Kim, Mu-gyeong reminds her of the kidney she donated to her fake husband and loan shark Hong Seong-sin, and plays the bluff of telling her that the hospital still has some tissue samples preserved and once they match with her, she will be caught and with that the name and fame of Boudoir will bite to dust, forever. 

Mu-gyeong charts how each person pushed Sarah further and further in a state of restlessness. Yeo-jin inquiring about her investments, Ji-Hwon betraying Sarah, whom he claimed to love, and Chae-U recruiting Ji-Hwon on her side and imposing a bigger cut on Boudoir. And according to his hypothesis, the final nail in the coffin was Mi-Jeong strutting into the party dressed exactly like her. 

And as Sarah pulled her into an empty room at the back, that’s where the altercation happened. The detective does believe that it was Mi-Jeong who came with the intention to kill her, and she came prepared with a weapon, but in all the ruckus and in a fit of rage, Sarah Kim ended up overpowering the young lady and ending her life. 

And with her adept nature and connection was able to strike a deal with Chae-U, move the entire inventory of her store to the Samwol Department Store along with the dead body of Mi-Jeong packed in a luxury bag, and with since she was very familiar with the store’s layouts thanks to the days when she worked as a saleswoman there, she was able to dispose the body through the trash management systems. But she did not realise that Mi-Jeong was in fact alive, and was able to drag herself to the light source from within the sewer, but succumbed before she could be rescued. 

Just as Mu-gyeong completes his version of the story, his phone rings, and his subordinates inform him about the absence of any evidence at the hospital. And how there are no tissues that can be matched to confirmed to match with Sarah Kim. Not only that, but it is also hinted that Sarah Kim/Kim Mi-jeong has something to do with it. 

We see Mi-jeong continue to claim that she is, in fact, who she says she is, and also confesses that she murdered Sarah Kim to take her place and live with all the wealth and status. And as the detective continues to disapprove of her confession, she begins to tell what happened that night.

She tells him how she did, in fact, have a stand-off with Sarah Kim in that empty room, and she did attack her with the leather cutting weapon, thus leaving the mark on the wall. Sarah Kim banged her head onto the table, and after getting scared, went out to the party, where she encountered her husband, Seong-sin. And rattled by this encounter, she rushed back into the room, told him that he had confusion, and she was not Sarah Kim, but Mi-jeong. Once back in the room, we see her smashing the face of the already lifeless, bleeding body multiple times, ensuring that her face is not recognisable at all. And this is where the story takes a surprising turn, as we see both Sarah's and Mi-jeong's faces merge into the killer’s, which further confuses us. Is she really Sarah Kim, or is that Kim Mi-Jeong? 

With the time limit ending and the police failing to present the required evidence to prosecute her, they have to rely on Kim Mi-Jeong’s confession that she murdered Sarah Kim for personal gain. And thus ends the prolific case of the death of Sarah Kim, with her look-alike in jail for murdering her. 

What follows is a ceremony to honour Detective Park Mu-gyeong and his amazing work in solving the crime. He gets celebrated among his peers, receives an award, is promoted, and seemingly gets to have the proverbial happy ending. But did he?

Amidst the entire confusion of the true identity of the woman who was arrested and put into jail for 10 years, we get just a brief 2-second shot that confirms it was, in fact, Sarah Kim who was alive and not Kim Mi-jeong. She murdered the young girl and used it as a sacrifice to make sure her dream, her Boudoir, lives on and becomes as big as possible. 

In the final scene of the show, we see Mu-gyeong visiting Sarah Kim in jail, updating her about how Boudoir is doing amazingly well outside, which fills Sarah with happiness. He asks her if she is satisfied after all this, to which she says, “The only satisfying thing in this world is the actual word satisfaction.” 

Mu-gyeong asks her one final question before he leaves, a simple question, which requires an even simpler answer: “Who are you?” the detective asks. And we see the camera cut to them walking away from each other, and as they are about to disappear from each other, we see their eyes meeting, and we see the woman’s face transition into Sarah Kim, thus confirming it was her all along; this entire con was The Art of Sarah.

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What do you think about the ending? Let us know in the comments!