This was a good episode, maybe the strongest one so far. Far from perfect, but the good outweighed the bad and there were parts that were excellent.
The invasion was well done. The coincidental simultaneous assassination attempt on the princes wasn’t necessary at all, but the way the invasion was staged and presented was very good for the most part. Except at the city gate; that thing fell like kindergarteners were guarding it. Should have made that more believable.
Lady Min faked the illness...might have been wise for them to call a physician to really sell it.
Ha Ryun: “I have a million men up here (pointing to his head).” Seokbeon: “You are still shameless.” That was funny—not goofy-pretend funny like Lee Jiran’s kid. This is an interesting version of Ha Ryun. Let’s see more of him.
So Lady Min shows up in full armor, brandishing her sword and exhorting soldiers. At first I just sighed and groaned...typical force the women into the story for the sake of 21st century TV. But actually this time it was more justifiable, for two reasons. One, she’s personally been so heavily invested in this whole thing, even to the point of hoarding weapons, you can understand her wanting to see the results and not just wait at home for news. And two, she did all of that cooking and cleaning for those soldiers and now it was time to cash in on that. So she wanted to make sure they remembered her. So okay, they can have this one.
That is, all except for her armor. I know nothing about authentic armors like some of you guys do, but she definitely looked too cosplay-convention-ish for the situation.
The angle with Jo Yeongmu was absolutely terrific. We just had something exactly like it in EWG with Jang Il, the Royal Guards commander. In fact I wondered if they took this directly from EWG, it was so similar. Just the idea that so much of the main character’s fate is going to turn on what one other person decides to do, and we don’t know the other person well at all so there’s no way to know what will happen, it’s a great angle.
click for full size The episode went along and the assassinations start happening. And the only thing I wanted was for them NOT to end up with Bangwon and JD in one of the forced one-on-ones that this series leans too much on. Well guess what. JD is running and running and ends up in a totally deserted neighborhood, and then somehow Bangwon is also running around and ends up in that same neighborhood. And the confrontation. It goes on and on and on...
...and on and on...
...okay yeah it was touching and well-written and everybody probably enjoyed it. But it felt awfully manufactured and inauthentic. To be fair, the final confrontation in the JD series went on for a while too, but there they were actually trying to negotiate a compromise. This was just dramatic prose and too much of it.
And then the final image after JD’s body is dragged away:
click for full size Oh come on! You could slaughter a dozen black angus cattle and not get that much blood out of them. Good heavens.
Bangbeon: “The crown prince should have been me.” What a great scene that was! Totally unexpected and very well delivered by the actor. We saw some of that resentment simmering a while back, but to have it show up and pour out just at this moment, it was perfect. Whoever came up with that, bravo. Loved it. Sayonara brother!
Then they had the final sword-battle in the palace yard. And I’ve never seen anything like this before: probably one-third of the troops in the yard were simply carrying torches and walking around briskly, like they were there specifically to stay out of the way of the action and provide lighting for it. Did anybody else notice that? Go back and watch it again. Once you notice it you can’t even look at anything else. I have no idea what the director was thinking there, it was so ridiculous. Besides, those guys looked to be Bangwon’s soldiers—shouldn’t they have been poking the torches at the enemy soldiers to help their comrades? Wow that was almost surreal.
Banggwa: “They are all soldiers that Bangwon has gathered? How did he manage to gather so many?” He asks a good question. I wish they had built up a good explanation for how Bangwon got so many soldiers on his side. The Jeong Dojeon series didn’t explain this well enough either. Obviously the real Bangwon got them, but especially considering how seven years had passed with Bangwon out of the limelight, it’s hard to understand how he pulled it off.
And then the ending...there they go again. LSG is barely even able to eat, he’s so sick and weak, and he’s surrounded by people looking after him...but now there he is wandering around outside all by himself. And now here’s Bangwon wondering around all by himself—the area had just been crawling with assassins, is this really a good idea?—And they’re staring each other down. After such an eventful episode there was no need to stage this. A disappointing ending.
And now as truth has pointed out, we step forward in time beyond the events of the Jeong Dojeon series.