Let’s get this out of the way first. All together now...”Where the bleep has THIS been for so long?!?”
Now we look for an explanation. Did they fire the insane head writer and bring back the other guy? No, we would have heard about that...Maybe it was temporary insanity, like the guy started to think he actually was The Black Assassin, and having to kill off the character snapped him back to reality. Maybe?
We can get back to that. For now, just an enormous sigh of relief. It was like somebody flipped a switch before this one started. Not only was it completely void of any of the insulting nonsense and silliness we had been getting, I actually thought it was a little on the stiff side! Everything was portrayed so safely and close to the vest—by far the most conservative episode of the series. Wouldn’t call it rushed but it certainly didn’t dawdle on anything. Not much of the more personal sides of characters that I do enjoy when it’s done well. But I’m not complaining, not one bit. It was very good, and with the silliness gone it was one of the best episodes.
Right from the start—the banquet didn’t end like I thought it would at all. It was shockingly quick and tidy. Kim Hoon didn’t die a hero—that would have been wrong, frankly—and Choi Jil got executed without any last words or big dramatic speech. And the same for The Black Assassin—wasn’t it a surprise that his end was so quick and so not-drawn-out? After everything the writers did with him, all of the over-the-top evil, he only shot one arrow—badly—and was killed instantly. Whew, thank you.
(click for full size) And at least Lee Jarim got SOME credit for the success here. He went out front and sold it 100 percent to the soldiers who could have come in and caused all kinds of trouble. That took cojonés. Well done sir.
(click for full size) Thank heavens. Now can we please GET ON WITH IT
“There will be no more conversations with the Khitan.” Yes the envoy did overstep his bounds, but throwing him in prison? Surprised at Hyeonjong; this was an overreaction. We’ve seen plenty of tricky diplomatic wordplay from that envoy before, this was just more of the same, flawed as it was this time.
Hyeonjong: “I will remain in Seogyeong and be with the troops. Just like the Great King Seongjong did.” Feel free to Google/Wikipedia Seongjong…but the bottom line is that Seongjong—the king before Mokjong, who we saw in the first episodes—was king when Khitan invaded the first time, back in 993. (It would have been helpful to get some content about that first invasion at the start of this series, but we didn’t get any.) He decided to move from the capital up to Pyongyang during the war to have better communication with his military. That’s it, very straightforward.
■ In the year 1015, Khitan invaded Goryeo once again. In the following year of 1016, and the next year of 1017, they invaded Goryeo consecutively. However, Goryeo drove out the Khitan forces in the end. And even while waging war, Goryeo built the Naseong Wall in Gaegyeong, trained armored cavalrymen, and came up with other long-term preparations. In the year 1018 AD, the 9th year of Emperor Hyeonjong’s reign, Goryeo was now setting out to their last battlefield.
A narrated text, only the fifth one so far. And a montage with it! Hooray! A shame that we haven’t gotten more of these. For contrast, by episode 29 of EWG we had gotten 59 of them.
Little bit of a time jump, only a few months...and some facial hair for Hyeonjong. Frankly it doesn’t suit him, at least not the way he has it.
Why was Gamchan so surprised that Xiao Paiya was named commander? Who else would he have expected? That was odd.
Once again, Jang Yeonwoo and Hwangbo Yu Eui deliver the best moment of the episode. The way Jang’s resignation was presented was terrific.
Why Hyeonjong doesn’t punish Wonjeong: “If I do that, I will cry all night. Just like the night when the Queen Dowager ordered me to leave the palace. I was so young. And even back then, there was only one reason I did not want to leave the palace. I did not want to be away from you. For me you were a good friend and like a sister sometimes. You were like a father figure when you scolded me and like a mother figure when you comforted me.” Terrific scene. Like I said last time, a little more knowledge of this relationship given to us earlier would have helped, because this does help us understand why Hyeonjong wasn’t more punitive or angrier. But this was very good.
(click for full size) And look who else we got back. Didn’t you smile as soon as you saw the two of them again? Sure ya did. “I am not criticizing you. I am trying to give you a piece of advice. A commander does not fight on the front line. He stays in the back and observes his soldiers to make sure they are fighting well.” Had to stop the stream, it cracked me up—how many times have writers of historicals put VIPs right up front where they absolutely never would have been in real life. Maybe KBS should give her a supervisor job.
“I will not lose, no matter what.” Dude, take her little piece of wood that she wants to give you. Don’t be a dick. I was surprised he didn’t reach over and take it afterwards. Not cool. The writers missed a chance for a nice moment there.
But after that, now finally we’re getting into the meat of the rest of the story. And big dramatic moments for Choi Soo Jong that we’ve been expecting, giving those speeches. Good stuff, written well for him, no doubt the CSJ crowd loved it.
“...now that Goryeo also has cataphract, we have nothing to fear.” Our word of the day. Cataphract is basically armored cavalry, as in both the rider and the horse have armor. It has a surprisingly comprehensive Wikipedia entry:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract(Funny inside moment here--the producers also might say they have nothing to fear. After what happened with that horse in the previous series, you darned well better believe these horses get armor!)
There also is a long Wikipedia entry for “pitched battle.” But this is important enough that I’ll quote the first paragraph of it here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitched_battleYou can understand why some of the Goryeo people would be uncertain about this. The success that the Goryeo army had before, it came from smaller-scale, more tactical stuff and counterattacking. Now all of a sudden Gamchan is talking about betting everything on one big all-or nothing throwdown. (But really, once they learn they have a 2-to-1 advantage on home turf, there shouldn't have been so much nervousness, not after all of the preparation that we learned has been done.)
They gave the empress a tasteful and appropriate sendoff. Made her a human being again. She didn’t say she was sorry but she at least explained herself and that was good. There should have been a little more content about her illness; having to infer it from the bitterness of the liquid Hyeonjong was giving her, that’s a little too far to have to stretch, and nothing more was said about it. But it was nicely done otherwise.
And we even almost made it through an entire episode without a fist-clench. Almost. 48:01 and the run ends...Gamchan with the fist-clench after hearing of the empress’s death. Really? THAT of all things?
Xiao Paiya: “The more, the better. If they have more soldiers, they will only move that much more sluggishly.” No that would not be his reaction. No way. In fact this was the best example of the stiffness I mentioned. The back-and-forth between XP and his emperor has been some of the most entertaining dialogue in the series. But here there was none of it. He got his orders, gave his orders, and when learning he’ll be outnumbered 2-to-1 in enemy territory he laughed it off. The XP we know would have gone right back to his boss to try to talk him into something different.
So that was not a good ending. But like I said, not complaining at all, very much the contrary, great to finally get away from fiction and ego. It would be interesting to know when this one was put together, because it sort of felt like the angry blowback from when the series started to stray, it scared the producers into submission and they completely changed course. Maybe not, probably these things are planned out well in advance, but it did feel like that. Either way, hopefully we get three more solid episodes and at least finish well.