Episode 12 - Can Someone Recommend a Good Roofer?

[ajk]

Sorry for this one being ridiculously long but there’s a LOT to cover.


Plague zombies are pushing at the walls of the council hall, and the walls are thin so soon enough they break through. But just at that moment Seo-bi, who’s standing alone in a corner, notices something from seeing their reactions to the soldiers’ musket shots. “Bring fire! They are afraid of fire!” She knocks over a lantern, manages to rig up a torch, swings it around at the zombies that corner her, and manages to escape through a window using a big piece of cloth that’s ben lit afire and that she bravely drapes herself in. And not only that, she’s saved the queen’s baby too! Why does she have the baby? Because zombies have charged and killed the queen! The queen sat calmly on the throne and accepted her fate, and as the zombies charged her the baby slid from her arms and ended up on the floor, still wrapped in its blanket. Seo-bi flees and gets a good head start on the zombies, but they’re not giving up.

Meanwhile the prince and soldiers are trying to figure a way out of there. The rear garden seems to be the only possibility, but they don’t have enough bullets or anything else to kill every zombie. But the prince has an idea...They head outside and all get up on the roofs of buildings and use some of their own blood to draw every single zombie in the palace complex to follow them. Eventually some of the zombies manage to climb the walls and get onto the roof...but for the moment the prince and most of the soldiers are killing their pursuers and staying safe.

Seo-bi has managed to barricade herself in a nearby building but they know she’s in there. And then...now wait...their snarling is fading away...and in moments there isn’t a single zombie in the area. Apparently the soldiers’ blood is a bigger draw. Whew. Not all good news, though: there’s blood on her hand. It’s the baby’s blood.

The prince and soldiers set fire to a gazebo in the rear garden, for illumination, and set themselves up for an all-or-nothing last stand. It just so happens that they’re standing on the big, deep pond in the garden—which happens to be frozen for the winter. Some gunshots to the ice...okay now we see the idea here, and it’s a darned smart one. Here come the zombies. The first wave is successfully fought off, but there’s a second, larger wave that’s led by the zombiefied queen! There are so many of them that they overwhelm everyone and the prince and all of the soldiers are bitten! Finally the ice breaks and hundreds of bodies all hit the freezing water underneath it. The plague zombies all sink—we’ve seen this before, they sink—but somehow the prince and Yeong-sin and at least two of the soldiers get the same de-worming that we saw happen to Cho Hak-ju, and they revive and float up to the surface, cleansed of the infection. They have no idea how they survived, and neither do we since Cho was bitten by a sterile zombie, not a plague zombie.

The next morning: The gates to the inner palace are opened, and the councilors who were locked out during all of the chaos inside kneel in obeisance to the prince. And now everyone available is rounded up for the grim task of decapitating every single zombie body in the area. Including the ones in the pond. Unfortunately no one can find the baby “prince,” dead or alive. This is a problem because there are still rural magistrates who support the Haewon Cho clan and could revolt if the baby is around to support.

The prince is alone, walking through the ancestral shrine that has been totally trashed. Then he hears something. It’s a baby. Seo-bi emerges from a dark corner and brings the child forward. The prince draws his sword—let’s face it, the kid has to die to bring peace to the nation—but hang on just a minute. Seo-bi shows him that the child was bitten by a zombie, as we suspected, but has not turned into one. She asks the prince to spare him. Her maternal instincts and medical inquisitiveness are compelling her to save the child...which they both know isn’t really the queen’s anyway. And now through a flashback we learn something new. The baby is Mu-yeong’s! Not sure how they know that for a fact, but wow. And on top of everything else, also remember how Seo-bi did the prince a huge favor by putting herself in danger to volunteer to be the queen’s physician. In fact, knowing that the baby was his guardsman’s son is a big part of why he asked her to do it. So with all that, he considers letting the child live...but no, he says that the nation’s suffering will not end while it lives. He raises his sword....

Suddenly we’ve fast-forwarded three months, and we’re looking at Sangju. It’s springtime. So the danger has passed, at least during the daytime. Zombie bodies are being rounded up all over the countryside and brought to bonfires for burning. There’s a feeling of calm and relief around the city that suggests the plague might actually be over.

And now we’ve jumped ahead seven full years. Seriously! We’re at the renovated Jongmyo ancestral shrine, and some sort of ceremony is taking place. A lot of it seems to be revolving around a young boy who’s dressed in bigshot ceremonial garb. “Highness,” an attendant calls out, and he’s escorted home after the ceremony. The boy has been asking to see records of the events of seven years ago, so that he can know what happened to his parents. Seems like a nice kid, and it pains everyone around him to see him sad about this. But all records of the plague have been sealed and not even kings can see them. We see Beom-pal among the retinue; looks like he has a high position now, and we eventually learn that he’s the second state councilor. How about that. And apparently this boy is the king. Is this the baby that the crown prince was about to kill? And where the heck is the crown prince?

As Beom-pal heads home that afternoon, look who’s come to see him: Yeong-sin! They go inside and have dinner and wine. Both of them are smiling and more relaxed than we’ve ever seen them. “Order has been restored,” Yeong-sin says, and “Gyeongsang has recovered.” I’ve seen it myself, he adds, so obviously he’s been doing his share of wandering. And he credits Beom-pal for his role in all this. I’m doing the best I can, Beom-pal says, accepting the compliment. And adds with a twinge of sadness, “that’s what His Highness would have wanted.” Huh?

...we’ve jumped back seven years, the crown prince raising his sword over Seo-bi and the child...but no he can’t do it, and we never really thought he would anyway. Seo-bi tells him she bathed the baby in water and saw the worms leave him, so she’s positive that the child is plague-free. Just then the scholar Kim Sun shows up, along with the Royal Commandery head and Yeong-sin, and demands that the baby die. “Only one can rule,” he argues. The prince agrees...but then adds, to our amazement, that the baby is more worthy! I’m not the queen’s son, he says, and I killed my own father. The country needs a fresh start and the baby is the one to give it. The commandery head protests—what if the child isn’t the king’s son? But the prince lies and says he is, knowing full well otherwise. “Please write that the war killed my father,” he says, and the queen, and myself too. Seems to think that this will be good for the country, though it’s hard to understand how. And with that he leaves the shrine alone, apparently having decided he’s going to become a recluse and never be seen again. Wow.

Back to Beom-pal and Yeong-sin, seven years later, we learn that the prince isn’t alone after all. Seo-bi went with him, and Yeong-sin has kept in close contact with him. In fact, Yeong-sin is here for a reason: to give Beom-pal a medical journal that Seo-bi has written, with all of her knowledge about the plague. As he hands it over, we see a sort of flashback that includes images of Seo-bi writing the journal and conducting research on the plague worms, and in her voice we hear some of the journal’s contents:

The plague began when a handful of dead were revived with the resurrection plant. The eggs of the worms on the plant seize control of the brain, thus raising the dead. The resurrected lose all ability to reason, they feel no pain, and quickly develop an insatiable hunger for human flesh and blood. A bite from these monsters transfers the worms into the new host’s bloodstream, but it does not transform them. However, it will lower the body’s temperature until they eventually die.

The disease initially began spreading at Jiyulheon in Dongnae. The people there cooked and ate the flesh of someone who had died after being bitten by a plague victim. Those who ate that person suffered convulsions before dying, and became monsters themselves. After this particular interaction, all those who were bitten immediately turned into mindless beasts.

Not everyone who is bitten turns into a monster. If a bite victim plunges their wound in water before death, it will remove the worms before they can reach the brain, thus eliminating the disease. In addition, newborns are immune to the disease even if they are bitten because their brains are not fully developed.

The worms thrive in colder temperatures, so they lie dormant in the spring and summer. In autumn and winter, their active hours are limited to when the sun is up. Then from winter solstice to the first day of spring, the monsters remain active throughout the day and night.

But in all my research, I still have not found the answer to one question. It is a certainty to me that the worms favor cold temperatures, but for some reason, extreme heat causes them to thrive, and spread even more viciously. There must be a secret. Something still hidden behind the resurrection plant.

And then Yeong-sin reveals an immensely disturbing piece of news. While the plague itself was wiped out seven years ago, the resurrection plant has been found since then growing in other places besides the Frozen Valley where we saw it.

Now we see the prince, Seo-bi and two guards—presumably soldiers who survived previously—in what must be a fairly recent flashback. They’ve reached a mountainous site that has signs of human activity. And they find the resurrection plant growing there. So this apparently is what they’ve been doing over the last seven years: searching the country for the plant. Yeong-sin arrives at the site along with an elder from the nearby village and the elder’s son. Turns out that the son had been in the north, near the Yalu River border with China, and someone had sold him some of the plant’s seeds. He was told that the plant would raise the dead, so he and his father figured they could make money cultivating the plant. But no one would believe them so their idea failed.

Back to Yeong-sin and Beom-pal. So someone is out there selling the plant and even instructing people on how it’s used. Yikes! The prince wanted to give Beom-pal all of this knowledge in case there is ever another plague. Good decision. And now that they have a solid lead, he and his associates are headed north to try to find the person who’s selling the plant.

And now look at this, the group has gone north and darned if they haven’t found the very place! It looks deserted now but there were people here recently. In one of the empty buildings Seo-bi looks down and finds a cutting from a resurrection plant at her feet. Yep, this is the place. Now a strange noise that they all hear: a couple of little jingle bells shaking. What an odd thing to hear. And then suddenly out of the misty darkness runs a zombie! The prince easily kills it, but good heavens who put jingle bells on a zombie? Now more jingle bell noises. They head for the source of the noise and in another abandoned building they find two zombies caged in small boxes, a bunch of loose chains and jingle bells...and a person standing there.

A quick visit to the young king, sleeping peacefully at night. Just beneath the skin of his face, a worm is moving.

It’s an unexpectedly normal-looking young woman who turns around and stares at the prince.

[ajk]

When they extended the series from eight to twelve episodes they threw that daytime-zombie swerve at us and it stunk because it completely contradicted what we had seen previously. Here in this episode they’re obviously setting up a third season, and give them credit this time for at least trying to clear things up and not leave holes in the plot. Not entirely successful, but they did try and it was much more successful.

The zombie-battle opening went on way too long and I thought was too comic-bookish at times. A story like this is at its best when it leaves you wanting to see more. The frozen pond idea was great, and so was the imagery of it. Looked great. But enough already.

But wow, talk about a shocker, sure never saw the queen’s death coming. Especially not with a third season. Seemed like she was going to be the obvious villain going forward.

We know very well that the prince wasn’t going to turn his sword on Seo-bi while she held the baby. That was just stupid. The production has been so consistently good, you wonder why the director didn’t have the baby placed anywhere else besides in Seo-bi’s arms.

Question: Did we actually ever see the body of Mu-yeong’s wife? The prince knew that the baby was Mu-yeong’s and I’m not clear on how he was so certain of it. There were a lot of pregnant mothers in that compound.

So we jump ahead three months and somehow the plague is gone. How? Zombies were overrunning the entire province. Felt like we were deprived of a huge story here, about how the whole place managed to be cleansed of every zombie.

A couple of problems came up real quick after the seven-year jump. For one thing, where has the money been coming from to support the prince and Seo-bi and the rest for the last seven years? They’re working on their own so who’s paying for it? And then we’re supposed to buy a seven-year-old king—with no apparent regent—who’s already read The Four Books and The Three Classics. Seriously? Stop it.

I thought a lot about the prince’s choice to have the entire plague story buried and the truth not be told about how the king and queen died. On one hand you obviously don’t want people all over the country goofing around with that plant. But the whole country must know about the plague by now, and the corruption angle is certainly a cautionary tale that would be a valuable lesson. Can see both sides of it.

So having seen all twelve episodes, I think they should have let the original story go the planned eight episodes and stand alone. You can always re-start with a new story that builds off the first one. But there was too much filler in the second season and it wasn’t as good as the first one. Same old problem with trying to stretch an existing story. But they did a pretty good job in this episode of making a clean break with the first story, and now I guess the prince and his group are going to be crusaders chasing zombies and villains all over the place. Well it certainly opens up a lot of options for material. We’ll see what they do with it.

[ajk]

Okay and just to support my point about a seven-year-old reading those books, here's a description of what those books actually are. We've heard mention of the books in other series so I thought it would be useful to have some information about them on record here.

This is taken from a book called Korea: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary, by Keith Pratt, Richard Rutt and James Hoare (Curzon Press, 1999).

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From the 15th to the 20th centuries Koreans studied Chinese classics before all else, usually in editions prepared and commented on by the great neo-Confucian Zhu Xi....The four books were:

(1) Lunyu (K. Nono), the Analects of Confucius, records conversations with his disciples; it was the best known book in Korea, providing rules for daily life as well as moral attitudes. The Analects introduce the earliest Confucian concepts, including human relationships as the basis of the theory of government....

(2) Daxue (K. Taehak), “Great Learning”, a brief treatise on the fundamentals of humanist ethics and government, much beloved by Korean scholars, for whom it was fundamental....

(3) Zhong young (K. Chungyong), “Doctrine of the Mean”...develops the Confucian doctrine of dao, dealing with the unity of nature and man as well as the ideas of moderation and harmony.

(4) Mengzi (K. Maengja), “Mencius”, the teachings of Mengzi (372-289 BC)...is composed mostly of teachings by the gentle Mencius given in the form of brief conversations with regional rulers during a period of great cruelty...it develops themes from the tradition of Confucius, introducing the idea of ui “duty” or “right behaviour” and the theory that man, though flawed, is fundamentally good.

The three classics, pre-Confucian in origin, were:

(5) Yijing (K. Yokkyong), the Book of Changes, in Korea usually called Chuyok (C. Zhouyi) “Changes of Zhou”, from its core document, the 64 hexagrams with their oracles...The whole text was considered a book of wisdom.

(6) Shijing (K. Sigyong) or Shizhuan (K. Sijon), the Book of Odes...contains 305 ancient, but doubtless much edited, songs: 160 regional folk songs...the rather earlier 31 daya and 74 xiaoya more formal compositions...and the 40 even older ritual hymns called song, which may date from the end of the second millennium B.C. In Korea they were always given a neo-Confucian moralistic interpretation.

(7) Shujing, Shangshu or Shuzhuan (K. Sogyong, Sangso, Sojon), the Book of Documents, contains speeches and declarations...believed to have been written largely in Eastern Zhou (771-221 B.C.).

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[Knov1]

I thought S1 was better but still enjoyed S2. From the moment I heard that Jeon Ji Hyun was going to make an appearance in S2, I figured there was going to be a S3. You don't cast someone like her for a 5 sec cameo.

[truth]

Apr 17, 2020 0:09:34 GMT -5 ajk said:

The country needs a fresh start and the baby is the one to give it. Beom-pal protests—what if the child isn’t the king’s son?

It was actually the original Head of the Royal Guard who got jailed for investingating the queen who said this if I remember correctly, not Beompal.

Apr 17, 2020 0:10:34 GMT -5 ajk said:

For one thing, where has the money been coming from to support the prince and Seo-bi and the rest for the last seven years? They’re working on their own so who’s paying for it?

All the aristocrats chose the prince's side at the end so they are probably funding him. Even if most aristocrats aren't, there's Beompal who is very loyal to the prince.

Apr 17, 2020 0:10:34 GMT -5 ajk said:

And then we’re supposed to buy a seven-year-old king—with no apparent regent—who’s already read The Four Books and The Three Classics. Seriously? Stop it.

Yeah I didn't like the kid becoming the king as well. It does make sense that the Crown Prince chose not to become a king for the reasons he listed. Joseon was a very strict neo-Confucian society that put filial piety as the top core value and beheading your own father even if he was a zombie would not be very great for your image. I know zombie doesn't exist and this is a fantasy drama, but this drama seems to be very historically accurate when it comes to depiction of the common thinking and social norms of the era unlike most romance fusion dramas that claim to be historicals out there. Therefore, I understand the Crown Prince's decision to not become a king, but it doesn't make sense that he'd choose a child of a commoner who has zero royal blood to be a successor because of the same neo-Confucian value that led him to not become a king. He's basically putting an end to the Lee dynasty by giving the throne to the commoner baby here, I mean come on, I know they did this to make him look like a great hero who doesn't care about bloodlines, but no prince would do this, no matter how great they were. It would have made much more sense if he gave the throne to his relative living in Ganghwa Island. I mean what was the reason for him visiting the island if he wasn't gonna give the throne to his uncle?

But judging by how the young king still had worms inside his body at the end, it looks like the young king will turn into a zombie in Season 3 and will probably die. Sorry for the kid but Crown Prince will probably take the throne or enthrone his relative from Ganghwa Island at the end of Season 3.

Apr 18, 2020 0:45:56 GMT -5 Knov1 said:

From the moment I heard that Jeon Ji Hyun was going to make an appearance in S2, I figured there was going to be a S3. You don't cast someone like her for a 5 sec cameo.

Exactly my reaction. She is one of the most high-named actress out there and I knew there was going to be S3 the moment I saw her at the end. They wouldn't cast her just to show her for 5 seconds at the end.

[ajk]

I took your word for it and corrected the summary on the Royal Commandery head. I'm sure you're right and I don't feel like rechecking it...plus Beom-pal isn't the type to step forward and protest like that.

Had the very same reaction about the prince abdicating: what about the guy on Ganghwa. The king is dead, the queen is dead, the ruling family clan's leadership is dead and its name disgraced beyond repair. The crown prince is the one remaining rock of continuity in the country and he just walks out? No he's far too sensible and too concerned with the country's well-being to do any such thing. And everybody apparently knows about the uncle/cousin/whoever on Ganghwa, and that person has the unquestioned bloodline. Plus, even if the baby really were the queen's, it would be a Haewon Cho baby. Would anybody really feel comfortable putting a Haewon Cho on the throne after all this? Baloney. This was done to set up Season 3 and not because it made sense. Blecch!

I had a different speculation about the boy king. It reminded me of an Enterprise episode where Captain Archer got exposed to a mind-altering chemical that compelled him to nurture and protect abandoned alien hatchlings, to the point where he endangered the ship's crew and its mission. What if the king starts making bad decisions that allow the plague to spread (and not trying to make any analogy here but the comparison is hilarious) because the worms are controlling his mind? That would be pretty darned interesting. Oh well, we shall see.

Wasn't familiar with that actress but I hope they didn't bring her in to overshadow Seo-bi. She's one of the best female characters we've seen in any historical we've watched here. It has the smell of a ratings gimmick to it. Hope I'm wrong.

[truth]

Apr 18, 2020 15:59:06 GMT -5 ajk said:

Wasn't familiar with that actress but I hope they didn't bring her in to overshadow Seo-bi. She's one of the best female characters we've seen in any historical we've watched here. It has the smell of a ratings gimmick to it. Hope I'm wrong.

She's a very pouplar actress in Korea. Any drama or movie she takes part in is an instant hit.

Some of the dramas and movies that she's known for are...

Dramas - SBS My Love From The Star(2014. Highest rating was 33% which is very difficult to acheive in the age of internet), SBS Legend of the Blue Sea(2016. Highest rating was 22%)

Movies - My Sassy Girl(2001. The movie that put Jeon Jihyeon on stardom), The Berlin File(2013), Assassination(2015)






Now that this series is over at least until next year around this time, do you have plans to do any other series or will you just be focusing on EWG for now?

[ajk]

I don't know, you have any suggestions? When the Call the Midwife season ends in a few weeks we can do something else here if you or anybody else has something good in mind.

Actually I was going to watch that contemporary drama that knov1 was talking about watching...Would You Like To Have Dinner With Me or whatever that was. That's coming up next month. But we can do something else, during it or after it.

[Knov1]

Apr 20, 2020 21:27:07 GMT -5 ajk said:

Actually I was going to watch that contemporary drama that knov1 was talking about watching...Would You Like To Have Dinner With Me or whatever that was. That's coming up next month. But we can do something else, during it or after it.

Would You Like To Have Dinner Together should start on Monday, May 4. It replaces 365: Repeat the Year which ends on Tuesday, April 28. Did you want to put up a board for it? I'll be watching.

[truth]

I recommend Mr. Sunshine which you can also watch on Netflix like this drama.

[ajk]

Yeah I can toss a board up for Have Dinner. Looks like it will run for eight weeks and then we can consider doing Mr. Sunshine.

Mr. Sunshine is 24 episodes and they're long episodes. But we might try it. We've never done such a recent historical here.

[MTR]

I just watched the whole thing (season 2 )yesterday, first two episodes were good, then it declined, by the end I was glad it was over.I do not think it has enough gas in the tank for a third season.

[sageuk]

I had fun with Kingdom all the way through.

I did notice flaws here and there (I felt it started getting a little sluggish in the middle of season 2 and I do question the decision to keep pretending the baby is a royal) but I was definitely entertained. That's all that matters.

[bird11]

Finally took the time to finish this-- guess that shows that I was not that into S2 and I was in S1.

Overall, I enjoyed this series. I thought Seo-bi was the best, she really thought on her feet and thought things through.
I've said it before-- I really liked the zombies, not as much in S2 as in S1-- but overall they did a great job. I was glad that even though this was a zombie movie, it was not a blood fest. Even when the one guy got bit on the check, you saw the skin, some color-- but no obvious blood spilling all over the place.
I agree that the last zombie fight on the ice was drawn out, but how could only 4 people survive when they all fell in the water? Did catch what looked like a few guys slipping on the ice, which made it more realistic.
Even though the worm in the boy Prince's face was a set up for S3, it was well done.
Look forward to S3, if it can mantain a good story