Post by ajk on Sept 1, 2018 2:11:44 GMT -5
This was the shortest episode so far. And that’s a good thing...because unfortunately, and I’m sorry to say so, this was the first bad episode. Not awful-bad, but very weak compared to the previous fifteen. Started off with three groaners in the first ten minutes:
--If the watchtower was so important, how come we never saw one arrow fired from it even after the ambush started? Oops.
--Those workers, all of them had their arms bound up but they managed to overpower the guards hovering over them with spears and swords? Blecch!
--Yeogu and his two assistants subdued and tied up at least seven elite soldiers guarding Prince Yeosan? How?
Then Yeogu takes out one of Yeosan’s eyes. That was awful. I don’t care if he had good reason to hate the guy, it made him less of a sympathetic character to lash out so violently and childishly like that. And it isn’t like the storyline needs to give Yeosan reason to be bitter; he’s plenty bitter already. And then Yeogu justifies it by saying I’m human and I got angry. No, that’s not justification, that’s just admission of a serious character flaw. “Why did you let him live? Humiliating a man is like putting a jar of oil next to a fire. You should have killed him. If you couldn’t, you should have just let him go.” Exactly. Goem understands this; why does Yeogu need it explained to him? A poor decision by the writers.
Then the Buyeo guys who say they aren’t pirates and never kill without cause, we see them start executing the captured enemy soldiers. And that annoying girl Hongran, she was the one who gave the rest of them the lecture about that stuff a couple of episodes ago, and she’s just sitting there watching it all happen? Terrible! Another screw-up in the writing there.
Oh and this business with Hongran not giving Yeogu his mother’s ring back, it’s already getting annoying. Give it back. Enough. Shame on you.
Two positives I can offer. One, Prince Yeohwi finally started to wake up and think for himself. Too bad that it takes alcohol to do it, but if it gets him seeing things permanently more clearly, it’s more than worth a few hangovers.
The other, and this actually stretches back several episodes now, is the subtitles being a lot better. They’re still the amateur subs but whoever did them for the last several episodes is much, much better at it than the person who uses all of the archaic words. Much easier to take.
That Achikai “I read books” Buyeo guy, that actor was King Mokjong in Iron Empress. Didn’t recognize him but I stumbled on the info and yeah that’s him.
Was Sayu really going to kill Yeohwa in the previous episode or was he just bluffing? Her attendants are convinced in this episode that he was serious but it wasn’t clear to me at all. People backswing swords all the time without striking to kill. (Like we saw Yeogu do three times in just this episode.) Maybe I misinterpreted and he really was going to kill her until that Mahul guy stopped him.
“Muronghuang is entering Modikkol with soldiers.” Had to look this up. Murong Huang was the leader at that time of the Xianbei Chinese state called Yan that was just to the northwest of the Korean peninsula. I couldn’t find anything that identified Modikkol, but obviously it was a location in or near the border with Goguryeo. The timing of this isn’t clear but it does look like the series fudged on this. I found two sources that say the Yan invaded in 342, but Gye didn’t become king until 344. Hmmm.....
Overall it felt like someone different was writing this episode, or at least the first part of it. The second half wasn’t as weak as the first, so hopefully this was just a blip.
--If the watchtower was so important, how come we never saw one arrow fired from it even after the ambush started? Oops.
--Those workers, all of them had their arms bound up but they managed to overpower the guards hovering over them with spears and swords? Blecch!
--Yeogu and his two assistants subdued and tied up at least seven elite soldiers guarding Prince Yeosan? How?
Then Yeogu takes out one of Yeosan’s eyes. That was awful. I don’t care if he had good reason to hate the guy, it made him less of a sympathetic character to lash out so violently and childishly like that. And it isn’t like the storyline needs to give Yeosan reason to be bitter; he’s plenty bitter already. And then Yeogu justifies it by saying I’m human and I got angry. No, that’s not justification, that’s just admission of a serious character flaw. “Why did you let him live? Humiliating a man is like putting a jar of oil next to a fire. You should have killed him. If you couldn’t, you should have just let him go.” Exactly. Goem understands this; why does Yeogu need it explained to him? A poor decision by the writers.
Then the Buyeo guys who say they aren’t pirates and never kill without cause, we see them start executing the captured enemy soldiers. And that annoying girl Hongran, she was the one who gave the rest of them the lecture about that stuff a couple of episodes ago, and she’s just sitting there watching it all happen? Terrible! Another screw-up in the writing there.
Oh and this business with Hongran not giving Yeogu his mother’s ring back, it’s already getting annoying. Give it back. Enough. Shame on you.
Two positives I can offer. One, Prince Yeohwi finally started to wake up and think for himself. Too bad that it takes alcohol to do it, but if it gets him seeing things permanently more clearly, it’s more than worth a few hangovers.
The other, and this actually stretches back several episodes now, is the subtitles being a lot better. They’re still the amateur subs but whoever did them for the last several episodes is much, much better at it than the person who uses all of the archaic words. Much easier to take.
That Achikai “I read books” Buyeo guy, that actor was King Mokjong in Iron Empress. Didn’t recognize him but I stumbled on the info and yeah that’s him.
Was Sayu really going to kill Yeohwa in the previous episode or was he just bluffing? Her attendants are convinced in this episode that he was serious but it wasn’t clear to me at all. People backswing swords all the time without striking to kill. (Like we saw Yeogu do three times in just this episode.) Maybe I misinterpreted and he really was going to kill her until that Mahul guy stopped him.
“Muronghuang is entering Modikkol with soldiers.” Had to look this up. Murong Huang was the leader at that time of the Xianbei Chinese state called Yan that was just to the northwest of the Korean peninsula. I couldn’t find anything that identified Modikkol, but obviously it was a location in or near the border with Goguryeo. The timing of this isn’t clear but it does look like the series fudged on this. I found two sources that say the Yan invaded in 342, but Gye didn’t become king until 344. Hmmm.....
Overall it felt like someone different was writing this episode, or at least the first part of it. The second half wasn’t as weak as the first, so hopefully this was just a blip.