EtoileNoire

Ep. 7 with subtitles now on Kocowa!

Episodes 4-6 were so dark. I kept trying to brighten my screen.

ETA: It turns out the problem is Hulu on my laptop. Everything is much brighter on TV. Weird.

That series of slaps at the start of episode 10 was even more satisfying than the flip at the end of episode 9 - maybe because the whole company saw it.

Yes, that was the show's biggest (only?) shortcoming although paradoxically I agree that life is worth living and pushing through the hardships. My eyes kind of glazed over during the scenes of hell TBH.

For anti-suicide messaging to work, the promise of life has to be greater than the relief of death and the show did not make the case. Then again, it's not Death's job to save us from ourselves, so maybe she was the wrong interlocutor.

Having said that, I enjoyed the show immensely and rate it as one of the better dramas I've seen in a long time.

Episode three was so intense that I had to take a break before going on to episode four.

S P O I L E R A L E R T
Proceed at your own risk












Oh Eui-shik plays Seok Jeong: Yeo-hwa's husband and Ji-sung's son who came back alive. Fifteen years ago, he went to the Qing Dynasty and fell in love with Anne Marin, an English woman. Currently, he appears in Myeongdogak under the name Yoo Joo-seop.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Flower

The minister of finance died in the hour of the dog, i.e. 7PM to 9PM for anyone who was wondering.

I know wickedness is on its way, but this show makes me so happy. I can't tell when last I felt this engaged by a show.

SPECULATION: The mustachioed newcomer is Yeo Hwa's fiance/husband making her not a widow at all.

Giri / Haji not included because not a Japanese production.

Minari would be on the list, but it wasn't a Korean production.

I thought I was the only one in love with his voice. I loved this movie and his melancholic sexiness and gravelly voice were just everything.

I would be intrigued by a Korean adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens series.

I think I would enjoy The Picture of Dorian Grey and Charles Dickens' novels through a Korean lens too.

I was thinking the same thing. A worldly man about town who's travelled the country definitely has more experience than an older widow who has known nothing but her family's home and her in-laws compound.

The butterfly pendant split in two at the beginning is kind of the first hint that the love story won't end well for our love birds.

Yes. Don't force yourself. Sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind to start a series. It's happened to me many a time - the ones I had a hard time starting, a year or so later I go back and it ends up being a fave of mine.

This show sent me down a rabbit hole looking up information about widowhood and societal norms. For the ignorant like me, this thread (& comments) might be a good starting point: https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/wzqxuu/womens_oppression_in_joseon_era/
The OP also listed their sources.

I found this on Google:

"In the Joseon era, widows who preserved their chastity were honored with chastity gates. The 1962 South Korean film The Memorial Gate for Virtuous Women, also known as Bound by Chastity Rules, is about these gates."

Further searches led to Chastity Arches - they were stone memorials built by local governments to honor the most chaste and honorable widows in neo-Confucianist China. Apparently it was done in Joseon too. Here's one in China: https://kinmen.travel/en/travel/attraction/280

If the DIL had come from a rich family that was still alive, there's no way MIL would treat her so badly.

He wrote "The Devotion of Suspect X". I saw the Chinese series on Amazon Prime and found it to be compelling, well-acted, & beautifully written (although one can guess the outcome, that's not too important).

Other random questions that come to mind after viewing episodes 1-4:
- I know Lady Cho said she's waiting for her brother but seriously? She could leave word with Lady Jang regarding her whereabouts and live as a merry widow or spinster in another region.
- Does Minister Seok realize that the king and Secretary Park are playing him for a fool? I'd be surprised that their subterfuge is actually working on him.
- Minister Seok keeps mentioning that Lady Cho is a poor nobody without family. Did he choose her as his son's bride to gain leverage over Lady Cho's brother? Otherwise why not form an alliance with another rich & powerful family and further cement his power?
- Who killed Seok's son?
- Who would kill the finance minister (besides his wife who seems to know what the petals are for)?
- How big is this town that the Capital Defense can't find a warehouse large enough to hold the missing children? Also, does the CD have spies and undercover operatives?
- As thin as the walls & doors are, why does everyone talk so loudly?
- Note that the kingdom has a Minister of Punishment, not a Minister of Justice. (Or maybe an MoJ will turn up later.)
- There have been hints that the ML is much more important than he is presented to be. Now I'm wondering about what or who he really is.