Post by ajk on Mar 2, 2020 1:13:41 GMT -5
QUICK SUMMARY
It’s nighttime and our four travelers are resting from their journey. Mu-yeong wonders who Yeong-sin really is—the ID badge he carries is apparently phony, and his rifle skills show that he’s some sort of elite, highly trained soldier. Nearby, Seo-bi is searching for herbs to treat their minor wounds when she’s frightened by what she thinks in the darkness is a zombie stalking her. But look who it is—the magistrate! Cho Beom-pal. How the heck did he survive that boat? “Only I was able to make it out alive,” he says, after the disease spread through everyone else. And somehow the boat made it to Seongju...which is within range of Sangju, and there the whole country becomes accessible. Yikes. We need to head for Sangju immediately to warn them, the prince decides.
A glimpse of the boat. It’s a flashback from a previous night. It’s very dark but apparently what we’re seeing is Beom-pal left alone on the boat, along with some livestock animals. It’s not clear how he survived this. And then a sudden lurch, like the boat has run itself aground.
Sangju: What a lively town! Lots going on and it looks like a happy place...or it was, but now rumors of some horrible plague have a lot of people on edge.
Lord Ahn Hyeon is up in the mountains, grieving his mother’s passing. But he’s told of a strange rumor about a bizarre disease sweeping through Dongnae, and decides to return home to Sangju. He must be the lord of Sangju, seeing as how everyone steps aside and bows to him as he enters the town. His subordinates take him to see something bizarre: a large boat that’s been stranded on a riverbank. They board the ship and find blood everywhere. On deck, below deck, walls, floors, everywhere. But no bodies.
Our four—now five—travelers have continued their journey and reached a village. Guessing this is Seongju. They smell meat cooking. A village meal of pork and rice. Looks like very good quality food...during a famine? And Mu-yeong spots luxury goods that clearly don’t belong in this modest village. The villagers prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness, telling the prince that they found the boat and took the cargo out of hunger. That’s a government boat so this is a capital crime. And bodies, yes there were bodies, they tell him, but we took them all off the boat and buried them.. Take us to the burial place immediately, the crown prince says.
So the men of the village lead our five deep into a wheat field where the bodies are buried...but yikes, their intention is to kill them and add five more bodies to be buried. We won’t let you report us and get our children put to death, they say...but this tense standoff is interrupted because the sun has just gone down and those aren’t worms rustling up the soil, are they. The wheat is tall and lush and it blocks visibility, but here come the zombies, digging their way out of the ground and heading straight for the living. The prince, Mu-yeong and Yeong-sin manage to pick them off as they charge; the villagers do their best; and even Seo-bi manages to get one with a trowel to the head as it dives on top of a whimpering Beom-pal. Unfortunately they’re coming in waves—why so many?—until suddenly out of nowhere, flaming arrows! It’s Ahn Hyeon and his men, still all wearing their grieving white....
Flashback: A young crown prince, maybe seven years old, in front of the king’s palace. That’s a younger Ahn Hyeon with him. The boy is distraught because there are appeals pending for his deposition and he fears for his life if he’s deposed. Ahn comforts him and encourages him to be strong and fight for justice.
...so clearly the prince and Ahn have a bond. “It’s been a while, master,” says the prince, as Ahn’s men quickly dispatch the remaining zombies. In fact, remarkably quickly and remarkably effectively. They all go right for the heads, like somebody had told them what to do beforehand. How could they possibly know this?
Later, in a quiet room in Ahn’s home, the prince tells Ahn about his father’s passing and the resurrection plant that started this whole mess. Shows him the king’s medical log book, which he’s held onto all this time. Please help me, he asks Ahn, so I can remove Cho Hak-ju from power and restore the nation. Ahn doesn’t answer him, just basically tells him he looks awful right now and needs some sleep. Outside, Seo-bi asks Mu-yeong about what we observed before, how Ahn’s men knew exactly what to do to those zombies. It’s a great question...and another great question is whether or not Ahn can be trusted to help the prince. Let’s face it, Ahn has done nothing as Cho Hak-ju has been murdering scholars left and right. Could he be in cahoots with Cho?
The capital: Inside a jail, Cho himself is overseeing a grisly test of the disease. One prisoner in a two-man cell is fed infected meat, which he isn’t told is human flesh. He quickly becomes a zombie and then turns the other prisoner into one. Apparently Cho didn’t already know what we know about how the disease is transmitted. But he does now.
Morning: Yeong-sin arises before everyone else, grabs his musket and jumps over the estate walls, leaving his traveling companions behind. Apparently for good. In the nearby countryside he passes a memorial marker for something called the Battle of Unpo Wetland. It says, “To Commemorate the great victory of Governor Ahn Hyeon of Gyeongsang, who defeated 30,000 Japanese soldiers with 500 soldiers.” He spits on it. Something about this disgusts him, obviously. Nearby are the ruins of a village called Sumang. Apparently he used to live here—he has memories of promising a young child (looks like a younger sibling) that he’ll return, which we see in flashback. But nearby is something he’s never seen and is shocked by: a large group of neatly tended graves, with an incense pot in front of them and incense burning. So someone has done something very nice for...we’ll we don’t know who’s buried there.
The cargo from the boat has all been recovered and is at Lord Ahn’s compound. And word has reached here that the entire central army has left the capital and is headed this way.
And they’re definitely headed somewhere because we see them marching.
Seo-bi is out searching for herbs again. Beom-pal finds her, comes running up to her and begs her to run away with him. When you’re caught with the crown prince, he says, they’ll kill you. But she wants none of that and tells him to be brave for once in his life.
We’re watching a roomful of pregnant women eating. Commoners, but they’re not in a common village house. We’re not sure where what’s happening here, and neither are the women—“Who is taking such good care of us?”—but someone has gathered together a whole bunch of pregnant women from various places and is feeding them lavishly. All widows, we learn. And a surprise, too: one of them seems more refined and polished in manners than the others, and when asked who she is, well it’s Mu-yeong’s wife! She’s definitely not a lower-class widow but Mu-yeong was worried for her being left alone and told her to come here.
The queen enters a state assembly meeting and takes her seat. Her father reads an edict that she’s allegedly authored, asking for the authority to assume the role of Queen Regent. The compliant officials offer no resistance. Her first order, according to the edict, is to send the central army to seal off and quarantine Geongsang Province.
And that’s exactly what they’re doing, we see. Every fortress in the province is being forcibly shut and besieged from outside, and every road out of the province is being heavily barricaded. And anybody left alive inside the province, well...it doesn’t look good.
It’s nighttime and our four travelers are resting from their journey. Mu-yeong wonders who Yeong-sin really is—the ID badge he carries is apparently phony, and his rifle skills show that he’s some sort of elite, highly trained soldier. Nearby, Seo-bi is searching for herbs to treat their minor wounds when she’s frightened by what she thinks in the darkness is a zombie stalking her. But look who it is—the magistrate! Cho Beom-pal. How the heck did he survive that boat? “Only I was able to make it out alive,” he says, after the disease spread through everyone else. And somehow the boat made it to Seongju...which is within range of Sangju, and there the whole country becomes accessible. Yikes. We need to head for Sangju immediately to warn them, the prince decides.
A glimpse of the boat. It’s a flashback from a previous night. It’s very dark but apparently what we’re seeing is Beom-pal left alone on the boat, along with some livestock animals. It’s not clear how he survived this. And then a sudden lurch, like the boat has run itself aground.
Sangju: What a lively town! Lots going on and it looks like a happy place...or it was, but now rumors of some horrible plague have a lot of people on edge.
Lord Ahn Hyeon is up in the mountains, grieving his mother’s passing. But he’s told of a strange rumor about a bizarre disease sweeping through Dongnae, and decides to return home to Sangju. He must be the lord of Sangju, seeing as how everyone steps aside and bows to him as he enters the town. His subordinates take him to see something bizarre: a large boat that’s been stranded on a riverbank. They board the ship and find blood everywhere. On deck, below deck, walls, floors, everywhere. But no bodies.
Our four—now five—travelers have continued their journey and reached a village. Guessing this is Seongju. They smell meat cooking. A village meal of pork and rice. Looks like very good quality food...during a famine? And Mu-yeong spots luxury goods that clearly don’t belong in this modest village. The villagers prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness, telling the prince that they found the boat and took the cargo out of hunger. That’s a government boat so this is a capital crime. And bodies, yes there were bodies, they tell him, but we took them all off the boat and buried them.. Take us to the burial place immediately, the crown prince says.
So the men of the village lead our five deep into a wheat field where the bodies are buried...but yikes, their intention is to kill them and add five more bodies to be buried. We won’t let you report us and get our children put to death, they say...but this tense standoff is interrupted because the sun has just gone down and those aren’t worms rustling up the soil, are they. The wheat is tall and lush and it blocks visibility, but here come the zombies, digging their way out of the ground and heading straight for the living. The prince, Mu-yeong and Yeong-sin manage to pick them off as they charge; the villagers do their best; and even Seo-bi manages to get one with a trowel to the head as it dives on top of a whimpering Beom-pal. Unfortunately they’re coming in waves—why so many?—until suddenly out of nowhere, flaming arrows! It’s Ahn Hyeon and his men, still all wearing their grieving white....
Flashback: A young crown prince, maybe seven years old, in front of the king’s palace. That’s a younger Ahn Hyeon with him. The boy is distraught because there are appeals pending for his deposition and he fears for his life if he’s deposed. Ahn comforts him and encourages him to be strong and fight for justice.
...so clearly the prince and Ahn have a bond. “It’s been a while, master,” says the prince, as Ahn’s men quickly dispatch the remaining zombies. In fact, remarkably quickly and remarkably effectively. They all go right for the heads, like somebody had told them what to do beforehand. How could they possibly know this?
Later, in a quiet room in Ahn’s home, the prince tells Ahn about his father’s passing and the resurrection plant that started this whole mess. Shows him the king’s medical log book, which he’s held onto all this time. Please help me, he asks Ahn, so I can remove Cho Hak-ju from power and restore the nation. Ahn doesn’t answer him, just basically tells him he looks awful right now and needs some sleep. Outside, Seo-bi asks Mu-yeong about what we observed before, how Ahn’s men knew exactly what to do to those zombies. It’s a great question...and another great question is whether or not Ahn can be trusted to help the prince. Let’s face it, Ahn has done nothing as Cho Hak-ju has been murdering scholars left and right. Could he be in cahoots with Cho?
The capital: Inside a jail, Cho himself is overseeing a grisly test of the disease. One prisoner in a two-man cell is fed infected meat, which he isn’t told is human flesh. He quickly becomes a zombie and then turns the other prisoner into one. Apparently Cho didn’t already know what we know about how the disease is transmitted. But he does now.
Morning: Yeong-sin arises before everyone else, grabs his musket and jumps over the estate walls, leaving his traveling companions behind. Apparently for good. In the nearby countryside he passes a memorial marker for something called the Battle of Unpo Wetland. It says, “To Commemorate the great victory of Governor Ahn Hyeon of Gyeongsang, who defeated 30,000 Japanese soldiers with 500 soldiers.” He spits on it. Something about this disgusts him, obviously. Nearby are the ruins of a village called Sumang. Apparently he used to live here—he has memories of promising a young child (looks like a younger sibling) that he’ll return, which we see in flashback. But nearby is something he’s never seen and is shocked by: a large group of neatly tended graves, with an incense pot in front of them and incense burning. So someone has done something very nice for...we’ll we don’t know who’s buried there.
The cargo from the boat has all been recovered and is at Lord Ahn’s compound. And word has reached here that the entire central army has left the capital and is headed this way.
And they’re definitely headed somewhere because we see them marching.
Seo-bi is out searching for herbs again. Beom-pal finds her, comes running up to her and begs her to run away with him. When you’re caught with the crown prince, he says, they’ll kill you. But she wants none of that and tells him to be brave for once in his life.
We’re watching a roomful of pregnant women eating. Commoners, but they’re not in a common village house. We’re not sure where what’s happening here, and neither are the women—“Who is taking such good care of us?”—but someone has gathered together a whole bunch of pregnant women from various places and is feeding them lavishly. All widows, we learn. And a surprise, too: one of them seems more refined and polished in manners than the others, and when asked who she is, well it’s Mu-yeong’s wife! She’s definitely not a lower-class widow but Mu-yeong was worried for her being left alone and told her to come here.
The queen enters a state assembly meeting and takes her seat. Her father reads an edict that she’s allegedly authored, asking for the authority to assume the role of Queen Regent. The compliant officials offer no resistance. Her first order, according to the edict, is to send the central army to seal off and quarantine Geongsang Province.
And that’s exactly what they’re doing, we see. Every fortress in the province is being forcibly shut and besieged from outside, and every road out of the province is being heavily barricaded. And anybody left alive inside the province, well...it doesn’t look good.
