episode 175

[ajk]

Not as much to discuss about this one as most, just sort of building up to what's going to happen next.

“I do not hate you. It is your flaws and weaknesses that I hate…I still love you.” Well give Kyun-hwon some credit. This was years and years overdue but he finally cleared the air. And give Choi Seung Woo big credit for making it happen. One way or another we finally are going to get a resolution to the succession issue. This was a very unexpected scene—maybe a little sappy but not a big problem, and anything unexpected is always welcome.

Mrs. KH: “I never expected the vice prime minister to help my Shin-guhm…I guess one never knows what is in another’s heart.” I agree with her--for some reason I’m not entirely sold on this. Maybe it’s just suspicion but doesn’t it feel like Choi is holding something back? Maybe not….

“He had begun to change somewhere along the way. I think it was when Geum-kang lost his eye. He swallowed his own eyeball saying it was a precious gift from father. How could any father not adore such a son?” Um…well it seems like it would be pretty easy, frankly. But yeah it isn’t just KH changing, that was a significant moment in the series, and not necessarily in the best way. We’ll talk about that at the end.

KH to Shin-geum: “Do not return if you fail.” Wow, talk about unexpected, that was a shocker.

(click on each for full size)

They must be using some CGI in here but it sure does look good. IYSS used a lot of it and frankly I don’t remember it looking this good. It was more obvious than this is. Well done whoever did this.

Gee it looks like Shin-guhm is in for bad luck, with WG visiting up north. No head for you! Shouldn’t somebody have scouted for that ahead of time? If the whole point was to kill the enemy king, you’d better be darned sure that the enemy king is where you’re headed. Sounds like Choi made a rare mistake overlooking this. Or did he? Seems like a very obvious thing to overlook….

[mugwump]

I agree, I think Choi is holding something back, or has some kind of ulterior motive. He always has that little smirk on his face.
I thought the opening scene between father and son was one of the best in the series.

[ajk]

The more I think about it the stranger it all is. It's not like WG is traveling incognito; everybody can see that he's up north, and so presumably the trip was no secret to begin with. And certainly Bekjae has people in Song-ak keeping an eye on the rival government. And traders gossip and spread news across borders, we've seen that repeatedly. You'd think this stuff would be routinely reported one way or another to multiple people in the Bekjae government. So how is it that WG's trip is completely unknown to everyone else?

And nobody even thought to ask about the possibility, despite their having seeing their own king make multiple trips of his own. I guess they're just trusting Choi to get this right. This series certainly has a good record of explaining things properly, so we'll see...but there's plenty to explain on this one.