Bowties are cool

Poor prince Zhao, he suffers from the same disease that the crown prince suffers from. Complete and utter stupidity! But he wasn't evil. He was set up. The crown prince sent him his loyal man as an advisor and would even write him letters to instigate him to misbehave. Remember what the advisor said, those two friends of his told him to kill the advisor and Zhao refused because it was a crazy plan.

It wasn't until somebody working for the a third party reported that to the emperor, against the advisor's wises that Zhao killed that the advisor. I suspect that it was that loyal man of the crown prince's who killed the advisor.

Seriously, the crown prince went through the stupid forest and got hit by every fucking tree!!!
He deserves what's coming to him for sure. Not realizing that he is a pawn.

Its actually the other way around, Prince Zhao was the rebel.
Prince Zhou is Fu Rou's stalker

I keep thinking of that song, Let's go by Queen. More and more bodies are pilling up!
https://tenor.com/view/the-sandlot-patrick-renna-ham-porter-kiss-kisses-gif-13702923

Where is a Wei Ying Lou when you need her? There are so many characters that would need some justice as only Ying Lou can provide! Fu Shui and the crown princess to start off.

Where the Hell did Fu Shui come from and why does he have a vendetta- (ok, I kind of know why but he seems like a plant to wreck everything in the Eastern palace)
-and why doesn't he mind how many people end up dead in his schemes!!

Can we say, if there was an award for stupidity then crown prince would win it without any help. Why does he automatically trust Fu Shui because he looks like your dead friend/lover/confidant. He should have already realized that he is nothing like him. Chen Ji was a sweet heart and this guy is a vicious snake.

lol. I still remember the silver pant suit that Evil witch was wearing from the earlier episodes. That was when I said, yep, this is a low budget show

What, you didn't believe that they could actually track her eye movements! For Shame.

Yes, and I am enjoying it so far. The bird is my spirit animal

I will take a break from this and wait to binge it when all the episodes are done airing.
This next arc is going to be painful. King Han and his wife are my fave pair and I don't want to see them get caught up in the stupid palace schemes.

I am not liking how the second female lead is being objectified. More power to her because the actress looks amazing. There seems to be a heavy emphasis on her body as a substitute for giving her character depth which I strongly dislike, the lack of depth that is. I really like her and I liked how all the characters I have wanted her to hit because of their shitty actions, she has.
That scene of her in the gym is something I will not be able to un see for a long long while.

My advice, give it a try and make up your own mind. ML is amazing and I liked how smart the FL was all the way through. It was like watching to smart people try to outwit the other. Sometimes she won and sometimes he won so it was fun. Together they are unstoppable.

I just caught the first 10 episodes on netflix. This was such a good intro to the story. I was in a bad mood and those quick episodes fixed that immediately. I am liking this way more than the Kdrama.

She is such a joy, definitely my favorite character in this drama

The makeup artist for this drama leaves a lot to be desired. Dylan's face does not need to be caked in whatever that powder stuff is. Somebody who knows more about makeup will probably be able to describe it better, I just know that it looks WRONG!

That was my feeling too when I first started this drama. The idea of a palace drama with no scheming seemed farfetched to say the least.

I think a large reason why there is on overt powerful tensions in court is because the power is firmly in the emperor's hands. There are no clans that are so powerful that the emperor has to keep them happy like in the case of concubine Gao. Also here, the empress is firmly in charge of the harem even if she is sickly.
I think it was very telling that the grand emperor had always harbored resentment to the emperor and the empress for the death of his son's. Which is why he spoils that little shit Liang so much. It speaks to a bloody time before the era currently shown.

We haven't seen a lot of evil scheme's yet because none of the princes were going out of their way to fight for the throne. Its actually more a case of them being surrounded by incompetent evil minions that twist everything to their disadvantages.
I suspect that all of that will change if Zhou finally starts to make real moves. He has been playing defense but I think if should start playing offense he is certainly more adept than the crown prince.

On a separate note, I like that the schemes are down played in this drama. They seem more human and like real people.

Yes, the trailer show quite the number of dead females. Even the crown princess's sister is lying lifeless in the youngest Sheng family's son's arms. Sorry, I haven't learnt their names and I probably wont before this story is over.

Its funny, I thought that the crown prince is the one who set that up so that he could clear himself of the suspicions since he was sending letters to Zhao. I actually think that the Crown prince has taken a turn for the worse and wants to kill all of his brothers so that he's position is secured.

Now am sure that Zhou has his own shenanigans going on but I think he may be innocent in this particular case.

I don't feel bad for Zhao because it was obvious that he was played by his brother and he helped himself along that path. In what universe did he think that raising an army and rebelling was a good idea. As the saying goes, show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.

I like that the emperor is strong and a dedicated leader but I don't like him.
He maybe what his country needs for peace and development but he is not a good father or son or husband for that matter.

lol, plagiarism is probably not a serious offense there.

Probably the crown princess! That pair of imbeciles deserve each other.

He had her marry a chicken!! Dude is cold!!!