GMA Network/Viu’s “Beauty Empire” – Episodes 5-8 Thoughts

Okay, I guess I’ll share my thoughts on GMA Network/Viu’s Beauty Empire every week. 😁

Episodes 5 through 8 were good. They essentially focused on establishing the central Noreen-Shari rivalry while expanding on the potential nefarious things going on at Velma Beauty involving Miss Velma herself and her husband Eddie.

This week’s episodes continued to show just how calculated every one of Noreen’s moves are. She has a mole in the company. She has a mysterious hooded and masked figure helping her out in the shadows. She’s planned everything out. She’s got her bases covered.

It was great to see that Migoy’s father is very much in the know, if maybe just on the surface, about Noreen’s plans. And seeing how he was silenced and him resigning instead of accepting the bribe was really great.

This all of course sets up the eventual moment where all of Noreen’s plans fall apart at the hands of the villains and she has to scramble to get herself out of whatever tight spot that might be.

But that’s still a ways away. For now, we see Noreen enacting one part of her plan. And that is to get herself inside Velma Beauty and take Shari’s spot as heiress apparent. That is, if she can overcome Shari’s sabotaging of her at every chance she gets. As well as Velma herself seemingly keeping a tight leash on both Noreen and Shari, all for her own personal reasons too aside from her company’s future.

Noreen’s plans will first play out as she and Shari battle to win an endorsement deal with the world famous Tara Park. A “beauty war” excitedly encouraged by Mama Clara (Gloria Diaz), partly to stick it to her daughter in law Velma.

Despite Shari doing everything she can to ruin her chances, Noreen is quick on her feet and manages to find ways to overcome the sabotage. With also a little help from Alex Jang (Choi Bomin).

This week’s episodes did a great job introducing us to Alex much better. From seeing his initial meeting with Shari where he reaches out to her at his bar when she was having a bad day to learning he is quite lonely even with all the wealth his family has.

Learning more about him allowed the scenes where he comes to Noreen’s rescue, or really, just helping her when she can use it, feel more natural rather than contrived. They never felt forced as a way to push a romance angle. Instead, the scenes added more to Noreen’s revenge journey while filling out this world Noreen will be engaged in moving forward.

Though of course we got the drinking scene in the barangay where we see Migoy being jealous of the Tagalog-speaking Korean guy. lol

But anyway, getting to know more about Alex also helped to add some details about Shari’s own background as well. I guess the show is going with the breadwinner angle for her. We’ll see if they can thread the needle with that story because you know we’re going to get Noreen feeling sorry for her or something like that. When, sometimes, it’s okay to just have a straight, full-on villain with a bad attitude and poor personality. Lol

At the same time, the faint smile/smirk from Shari when she was being arrested for Velma’s murder is still a question mark. And it is also still very possible Noreen and Shari team up somewhere down the line against Velma or whomever. So we’ll see about that.

Meanwhile, we meet the mysterious Marie Armani. A masked figure like something out of Squid Game lol who seems to be helping Noreen behind the scenes. It’s interesting since it’s not just Sylvester who has access to Velma Beauty for Noreen. And of course the mystery of Marie Armani with neither Noreen nor Sylvester knowing who the person is adds an extra element of excitement.

We of course don’t know if Marie Armani is truly on Noreen’s side or not. They could be yanking Noreen around for their own selfish goals.

As to who it might be. Perhaps this is where Chai Fonacier’s Kriselda comes in. I tried to match the distorted voice to one of the existing characters. I initially thought maybe it’s Velma. But maybe Kriselda is a more likely candidate. And again, the show wouldn’t have cast Chai Fonacier if she wasn’t going to play an important part in the story.

But how about if it’s Mama Clara? Tech savvy Mama Clara getting the video to go viral and hacking into the CCTV footage at the office lol

That said, Gloria Diaz was definitely the scene stealer this week!

And finally, the big revelations about Velma and Eddie’s marriage.

I am guessing Eddie was harassing (or worse) Helena and the self-absorbed Velma immediately thought it was Helena coming on to him. With the revelation of Mama Clara regarding Velma and Eddie’s struggle to have a baby, it could be Eddie went looking for someone to carry his child and he chose Helena.

And Helena must have refused, Eddie or Velma chased after her and thus she ran for her life and fell over the side of the balcony to her death.

I wonder if Noreen’s mother actually knows a lot more and in a moment of clarity, she is able to reveal what she knows and remembers.

One interesting part in this is Noreen doesn’t seem to be setting her sights on Eddie. Only Velma and Shari when it comes to her sister’s death. So that might be a shock to her when she finds out. But also shows that Noreen might not have ALL the facts just yet.

Overall, this second week of episodes were good. A bit of continued set up with the main plot thread of the series and getting to know our main characters a bit more. So a quick, easy four episodes.