Good Grief

Wow this is how a office drama should be written wow

His family has never asked for help - it was his brother who needed the money because of a fight he go into. In Ep. 7 - spoiler - brother asks for $$ for a flim-flam business opportunity so Eun-tae said no. But then he gave a significant sum of money to his sister-in-law to help pay for his niece's private school/tutors.

After patiently waiting through 38 episodes, all that anticipation finally leads to what should have been the most defining and emotionally rewarding scene of the series, only for it to be reduced to a mere passing moment before an untimely three year time jump. No heartfelt confession, no proper buildup, no emotional payoff, nothing. Just a fleeting scene and then suddenly, three years have passed. What an absolute waste of 38 episodes of anticipation!

This is exactly what's so hard to understand. It's like watching Star Wars and instead of seeing any of the build-up and climax, we're told, "So anyway, Darth Vader died, and now three years later..."

Why would any writer even WANT to skip something that's clearly meant to be a climax in a long story? I don't understand

Exactly, there is a distinct lack of emotion with these updates.

Well, AtC. You spent almost forty episodes earning these moments. Why are you rushing through them now?

Ep 39 isn't too fast because time passes. It's too fast where it matters. Several significant developments are presented almost as plot updates. They arrive, register, and we're already moving on before much of their weight has had time to settle.
Not the time skips. The loss of weight. And I'm not convinced this needed more screen time so much as a better use of the screen time it had.

The drama has been patient with the ordinary and suddenly impatient with the important.

Listen to that poem again and you'll realise that child is talking about how everyone is an enemy to the crown, no matter how loyal, no matter how talented, no matter how much hardwork you put to become a helper to the crown, the crown will get you one day and you will never be able to escape. It tells you that the royal palace stands because of all the people who die to make it stand in the first place. So basically a poem on criticism of monarchy. This poem accompanies the big realisation by jinqi. You can see that in the scene where he walks through the capital wearing the red robe of the highest ranking official. Where he is imagining and reflecting upon the sacrifices of his fellow soldiers who gave their life so the palace can stand and how that is futile which you can understand from the lines of poem, 'all are folly' and 'royal palace is built on bones' and ' grass grows where palaces burnt down'.

They never really showed her falling in love. We know he is, but we never had any major moments showing her falling for him. Even the grave scene is more about her letting go of past pain. Because of the weird progression in the past episodes, but especially 39, it kind of feels like once he quit he became a convenient husband so now she's like: "Ok, sure, I don't have anything better to do anyway, so let's go for it"

Wanted to add that for the entire journey, we have seen JQ realizing how much he cared for LXQ and wanted her to be in his life. But they did not show the same trajectory of changes in LXQ towards JQ. The buildup was not present and if it happened behind the scenes without presenting on screen - the love / admiration that LXQ that they are showing on screen now, feels hollow.

like many of you, felt like ep 39 was not giving enough time for viewers to accept the changes and sleep with it. I usually watch the teasers on WeTV and for ep 39, the teaser was LXQ telling JQ about non submission. We see that that is the highlight of the episode. But the production team added the romance in the previous episode and everyone was waiting for it and it was a dud. It was presented as an back-yard depiction vs. being in the front. There was too much packed into the episode. They added more of the coming of age or dowry for Xinru Vs. any explanation from JQ to LXQ about his change in behavior / attitude / returning to her or whatever. If everything happened behind the scenes and one is shown just the after effects of it, it is hard to believe the movement of two characters on scene.

For instance, if they did not show the death of the ladies on screen and just LXQ moving and living with the adoptive parents and just mentioned it as a passing with a couple of sentences on screen - would it get ingrained in the viewers mind. This romance after waiting for so long felt empty . Then her getting pregnant was worse. They even did the 2nd brother (jinlan?) 's fatherhood better than the ML. Why did they side line this? Was it that unimportant? Was it more about the journey of the ML and getting accustomed to FL 's way of thought. And more of the future previews I see have nothing to do with the ML - more to showing how LXQ becomes the head of the household and ML figuring out that LXQ is the Shen family daughter.

was more romance between the late brother Jinlan and his wife

Hmmm…what did I miss in ep 39? Just like that Lan Xiang and Jin Qi…after 2years? What and how did it happen between their relationships…just like that with all the set up and just like that…such an unusual way of writing them.

Ohh that makes sense now.

Great detail

Great observation!