Post by ajk on Aug 13, 2017 11:38:55 GMT -5
Boy this one was a real sleeper compared to the last few. Understandable, sometimes you need calmer episodes to reset the direction after big events...but this one fell kind of flat. Wasn't bad, just sort of dragged.
"You said to speak frankly." THANK you! And to be fair, Choe U did calm down and accept what KJ was saying. Probably not the best idea to try to manufacture a cliffhanger there to end an episode.
So moving the capital to an island was KJ's idea? Kinda doubt it in real history...but it does seem to be a good way to keep KJ involved in the storyline.
"Don't inform the overlord of this." Huh? Choe U's sons have turned into villainous loan sharks and Yakson doesn't want their father to know about it? That makes no sense at all.
Two scenes I did like. One was Choe U's dinner with Yi Kyubo...Choe talking about all of the burdens on his shoulders but doing it without self-pity or sadness, you had to respect that. (Although, as the meal went on, more and more of it seemed to be alcohol-assisted.) And then the sermon that Soogi the head abbott gave at the religious ceremony. It was surprising at first that he even mentioned the Queen Jindeok story, hinting around the gossip about the Yakson/Songi marriage, but then the way he made a moral lesson out of it, it showed a lot of insight and wisdom. Two nice pieces of writing for character development.
Dae Jipsung: "So I made some mistakes. The overlord is overreacting." NOT.
Dae Jipsung: "I'm not sure I follow." Geez, how dumb is this guy....
Told to Dae Jipsung: "Your daughter is one of Koryo's great beauties." Well for her sake I hope she didn't inherit her dad's brain.
"This talk of age reminds me of the late Kim Deokmyong." Yeah whatever happened with that? We saw him taken out execution-style, clearly at Choe U's order, and the scene went to great pains to give us a witness who saw and heard the whole thing. But nothing ever came of it. Weird.
Uh-oh, here comes the scary music again...because KJ used Choe U's polo mallet? Please, please, enough of this. And now a big tense discussion over one simple drink pour? Yes there are etiquette and convention issues around these things but it's being blown way out of proportion. Yakson is just not the kind of person that we're going to be afraid of. Trying to turn marital tension into horror-movie suspense is silly.
So on those bodhisattva statues, the head abbot paints in the eyeballs? Shouldn't one of his pupils do it? Ha ha ha....
"There was a time when she was called the heroine of Koryo." Huh?!? Songi?? When was this? Need some explanation on that one, definitely.
Nice of KJ to let Yangbaek in on his business trip. But why the heck was he screaming like at the end, and getting all emotional? Ugh, acting like he hit the adult beverages too hard. More importantly, what we were shown, it wasn't at all consistent with the idea that Ganghwa would be a strong island fortress. Those guys reached it on horseback without any apparent difficulty, so it wouldn't be difficult for the Mongols to reach it either. This did happen in real history, Ganghwa chosen for relocating the capital, so I hope the next episodes give us a better presentation of why the decision was made and how the location was such an advantage.
"You said to speak frankly." THANK you! And to be fair, Choe U did calm down and accept what KJ was saying. Probably not the best idea to try to manufacture a cliffhanger there to end an episode.
So moving the capital to an island was KJ's idea? Kinda doubt it in real history...but it does seem to be a good way to keep KJ involved in the storyline.
"Don't inform the overlord of this." Huh? Choe U's sons have turned into villainous loan sharks and Yakson doesn't want their father to know about it? That makes no sense at all.
Two scenes I did like. One was Choe U's dinner with Yi Kyubo...Choe talking about all of the burdens on his shoulders but doing it without self-pity or sadness, you had to respect that. (Although, as the meal went on, more and more of it seemed to be alcohol-assisted.) And then the sermon that Soogi the head abbott gave at the religious ceremony. It was surprising at first that he even mentioned the Queen Jindeok story, hinting around the gossip about the Yakson/Songi marriage, but then the way he made a moral lesson out of it, it showed a lot of insight and wisdom. Two nice pieces of writing for character development.
Dae Jipsung: "So I made some mistakes. The overlord is overreacting." NOT.
Dae Jipsung: "I'm not sure I follow." Geez, how dumb is this guy....
Told to Dae Jipsung: "Your daughter is one of Koryo's great beauties." Well for her sake I hope she didn't inherit her dad's brain.
"This talk of age reminds me of the late Kim Deokmyong." Yeah whatever happened with that? We saw him taken out execution-style, clearly at Choe U's order, and the scene went to great pains to give us a witness who saw and heard the whole thing. But nothing ever came of it. Weird.
Uh-oh, here comes the scary music again...because KJ used Choe U's polo mallet? Please, please, enough of this. And now a big tense discussion over one simple drink pour? Yes there are etiquette and convention issues around these things but it's being blown way out of proportion. Yakson is just not the kind of person that we're going to be afraid of. Trying to turn marital tension into horror-movie suspense is silly.
So on those bodhisattva statues, the head abbot paints in the eyeballs? Shouldn't one of his pupils do it? Ha ha ha....
"There was a time when she was called the heroine of Koryo." Huh?!? Songi?? When was this? Need some explanation on that one, definitely.
Nice of KJ to let Yangbaek in on his business trip. But why the heck was he screaming like at the end, and getting all emotional? Ugh, acting like he hit the adult beverages too hard. More importantly, what we were shown, it wasn't at all consistent with the idea that Ganghwa would be a strong island fortress. Those guys reached it on horseback without any apparent difficulty, so it wouldn't be difficult for the Mongols to reach it either. This did happen in real history, Ganghwa chosen for relocating the capital, so I hope the next episodes give us a better presentation of why the decision was made and how the location was such an advantage.