Another Stranger

GC’s mom is the official comedian of the show at this point. She’s despicable & all her kids are also criminals who escaped punishment. Despite that this lady pampers herself in luxury, dreams of a rosy love & pushes her son into oblivion blinded by greed. Her justification for this inhumane ambition? They were poor. Seriously? I still can’t understand why they had to resort to such underhanded methods when they were clearly rich after GC’s marriage & he could inherit YL or a part of it through fair means & talent. If not him, Eun Woo would obviously be groomed to be the successor as JI’s parents favoured her.

Due to the hospitalisation, she might grow her hair & resemble the past/ pre-revenge mode JI. I liked both the looks but the short hair one makes her look more chic & sassy.
There’s been a lot of wailing & vehement emotions in recent eps, so I hope we get some comic relief or romantic vibes to soothe our nerves while tolerating a distorted narrative where everything conveniently but not convincingly rolls to SR’s feet (literally).

So Kang Mi Ran is pregnant? In drama land dizzy spells SPELL pregnancy. JI being alive & DY saving her are no surprise but how will she return? Se Ri will soon know that JI's mom is suffering from dementia & it smells like trouble.

DY should have let that tapping device be & use it against SR but these guys jump headfirst into GC's chamber after finding any evidence.

In drama land no one ever tries to jump out of a car with a failed brake. They would rather let the car collide/ turn over/ blast 💥

We know that she can’t be dead. But even if she survives the fire, can she retain her appearance? Will a new person with the same face but apparently no memories of JI appear according to drama logic? It seems like GC’s guilt & twisted love towards JI is making him regret his actions. So if she reappears without memories/ acts like she is a different person, we’ll get to see yet another twisted tale of love & vengeance. This drama is doing quite well, maintaining the right amount of tension & having a consistent plot flow with exciting cliffhangers. The character dynamics are very organic & well written. I liked how they didn’t rush JI & DY’s relationship. But soon it’s going to messy again with GC, GC’s sister & brother, Yu Gyeong, SW, DY, JI, SR & may be her ex husband all entangled in a complicated web of love, hate & envy. DY’s mom would prefer YG over JI & YG working right next to DY’s mom’s store doesn’t seem like a coincidence, it’s the script writer’s intention.

They can create a spin off of this drama with the kids. Ji Ho a.k.a James (who hides his real identity) becomes a director/team leader at YL after studying abroad & clashes with designer Bo Ram who is favoured by JI. Ji Ho & Bo Ram eventually fall in love but Ji Ho turns a cold shoulder when he learns Bo Ram’s identity. JI comes to like Ji Ho unaware of his past & begins to favour him.

Now comes a guy who resembles Eun Woo & works as a salesperson at YL’s store. Working his way up from poverty & supporting his family with 2 struggling siblings, he gets to work at the headquarters after winning an “open design contest”. As he lacks the credentials required he is looked down upon by everyone despite his talent. Gradually he win’s hearts but Bo Ram & JI feel unsettled by him due to his resemblance to Eun Woo. Following a series of misunderstandings JI comes to hate him while Bo Ram & EW start falling for each other. Ji Ho is also triggered by Eun Woo’s presence & doesn’t want Bo Ram getting close to him.

A complicated entanglement begins when Eun Woo’s memories come back & he realises that Bo Ram is his sister as JI adopted her after marrying DY. He doesn’t want to give up on Bo Ram & the warmth he experienced by spending time with BR’s grandmother & Seung Woo (BR’s uncle). Swallowing his internal turmoil he decides to hide his identity forever but begins to push Bo Ram away by friend zoning her & helping her rekindle her relationship with Ji Ho. Bo Ram is confused but Ji Ho doesn’t want to back down as he feels that despite the bad blood his feelings are sincere.
Eun Woo’s greedy adoptive parents discover the truth about his identity & now all hell breaks loose.

Please tell me that we aren’t going to have the grand cliche of “FL’s amnesia”. I absolutely abhor it & I suspect that for filler episodes we may have these classic drama twists. Se Ri getting away without any consequences for almost everything is hard to believe. I want SR & GC to turn against each other after SR’s lies are uncovered soon. Mi Ran is going to be forgiven & it seems like GC is going to get sick. I wish all the characters face legal & moral repercussions for their actions including JI’s mom, Yu Gyeong, GC’s mom, brother & sister, JI’s aunt, SR, that loan shark guy, the girl who faked her molestation by DY, JI’s mom’s lawyer & pretty much everyone involved (excluding DY’s family, YG’s dad, JI & the kids who are the unwilling victims of an ugly power struggle).

😂

All secrets can be known by eavesdropping. This is ridiculous. The villains don’t need to outsmart or trap them as these guys are gullible enough to not even realise that they have been trapped until it’s too late. They don’t attack the villains citing all lengthy reasons & even when they do, it feels like a childish retort. Despite discovering the schemes & ill intentions of people around them they are quick to forgive & bring harm upon themselves by trusting the wrong people again & again.
Though GC’s family is evil & beyond redemption, they don’t deserve the total blame. The aunt, Yu Gyeong, JI’s mom & many others who acted against their conscience for selfish reasons & harmed others intentionally also deserve their due karma. If aunt’s actions can be justified then it feels like hypocrisy & plot armour protecting her as she’s related to both ML & FL.

Loved your perspective & I totally agree that a villain without depth or main leads who don’t undergo a growth arc shaped by moral dilemma, water down the show. In that sense, this drama managed to flesh out strong characters & weave intriguing plots connecting them. The costumes, cinematography & the OST are brilliant & can be an example worth following for future dramas. But the editing could have been a LOT better. The narrative felt like a ‘buffering live soccer match’ where we see the start & the goal scoring moment but can’t feel excited as we missed the juicy part of ‘assists, defence & offence’.

The novel readers could connect the dots & resonate with the characters but in the drama we were robbed of that joy in more than one instance due to lacklustre editing & screenplay. Especially the 3rd Prince arc with the FL’s memory loss. This could’ve been an angst filled love & hate intertwined battle of wits scenario, testing loyalties but they let it crumble down to a plain old ‘ML turns soft & FL an indifferent damsel in distress’ plot. Many characters were left unexplored like Concubine Lan, SZY’s concubines, the Qin family/ 2nd Prince, Qian Mo Chen. & so on. They amplified the 3rd Prince arc & the poisoning plot so much that it overshadowed the tense 1st half & left little room for other characters to shine.

It might be a reference to the Butterfly Dream (Zhuāng Zhōu mèng dié) from the Daoist text Zhuangzi. Philosopher Zhuang Zhou dreams of himself as a butterfly 🦋 flying around but upon waking he questions if he is the man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man.

The idea is that if I believe that my dreams are real while I am experiencing them, then how can I tell that what I am experiencing NOW is really real and not just a dream?

Exactly. We can never truly understand people unless we are put into a similar situation. Given the FL’s & ML’s past they really out performed their circumstances but they too have their limitations & vulnerabilities. Honestly that “walking on thin ice” kind of life can get tiring & feel hopeless or sense numbing after a point. Can’t judge them for wanting/ longing for a person to trust/ depend on.

People are suffering under that Empress. FL’s brother is helping a few despite his vulnerability so if he is saved & becomes the rightful heir, the country could hopefully prosper & become stronger. So her rescue isn’t unreasonable & she ain’t a Goddess to save everyone. Even if the FL didn’t play along, they would lure the 4th Prince & his army to pull a similar stunt. The Empress doesn’t care for the common people or her loyal followers (like the 3rd Prince) so FL & ML eventually managed to save more people considering the big picture.

The FL’s character has been inconsistent & in the recent episodes she’s been reduced to play “a damsel in distress”. But given that she can’t live a long life anyway, risking her life (for even a tiny chance) to save her brother/ meet him for the last time before death seems reasonable on her part. She has QT & acquaintances in Beiyuan & knows that the real target is SZY not her. In her life she never had the upper hand & always fought against the odds for a glimpse of hope at survival. She knew that SZY would come & even if he didn’t, she wouldn’t regret dying for/ with her brother. Not being there would weigh against her conscience for the rest of her life.

I’m usually tolerant of SZY’s sister but her antics in Beiyuan are ridiculously silly. She’s there on a mission to rescue Qi kingdom’s refugees who could be alive/ dead/ are being tortured by the “bandits”. Every passing second is crucial & they have to evacuate quickly (in either case) so as to not leave any traces of infiltration. But she leisurely strolls the market savouring the local delicacies & goes on to fly lanterns in enemy territory. Is she on her honeymoon?

NO, NO, I didn’t see a 🐰 bunny masked NH on fake flying horse🦄 . Can anyone top this cringe worthy scene? NH either makes me cry my heart out or burst out laughing but now he’s making my toes curl due to second hand embarrassment. How can anyone hate him?
(Btw, I want to see the BTS clips of this scenario 😂)

Kang Mi Ran deserves SW’s reaction. SW now feels bad for JI’s mom. JI’s mom wouldn’t hate SW & her husband if she knew the truth. That pain shaped her personality as she understood that no one cared about her feelings. She didn’t want her daughter to be in a similar situation so she was over protective of JI & wanted JI to be the heiress. Her extreme & impulsive reaction to HGC’s mistress stems from SW’s false identity. So Kang Mi Ran is the seed of all these entanglements & troubles. Now she is in denial & wants revenge. Everything was fine without her & would be fine now had she been righteous & helped JI. To satisfy her greed she harmed her own niece & is using her son as a pawn/ proxy. Isn’t she utterly shameless & despicable? I don’t want her redemption arc where she lives happily with her husband & SW claiming that her previous marriage was for YL group. You can’t destroy people’s core identity & beliefs for decades & seek forgiveness by a few words laced with tears.

Despite knowing the truth, she harmed JI & her mother but JI’s mother wants to embrace SW as her child after the reveal. This speaks volumes about JI’s mom’s character. Which mother in this drama wasn’t ready to kill for their child? Would KMR care about SW if wasn’t YL’s heir? She doesn’t say “thank you for being my child/ give me a chance to redeem myself by never leaving your side/ I love & trust you so let me care for you & protect you” Instead she says “You have Kang family’s blood (though not a Kang by name) & you are the only son so the YL group is yours” His aim is to prove his worth to his family & gain their respect & love. Not the money/ power that KMR is desperately chasing.

Brilliantly said. Can’t agree more.

Exactly. As a general he should always have a plan B. Imagine a surgeon calling for help in the middle of a surgery & blaming the other surgeon for not helping him on time. If you're not confident, don't start. Once you do, you ought to take the responsibility. If CGH won the war by NH's assistance, would he share the glory? Or would he would merely see it as NH's act of repentance for his past mistakes? CGH will always claim the moral high ground despite being undeserving.

I suspect the wine that NR gifted NH. NR coincidentally stumbling upon the fact that SH was an escaped death row prisoner & listening to the confession of the tangerine guy and preventing CGH from killing him as he can be used as evidence is suspicious. CGH couldn’t protect the witness & NR conveniently becomes the new witness.