Zulfurium

My understanding was that she was rejecting him because she was afraid of what being with him would bring of danger to him. When she met with the Chief Lady, she learned that she was being groomed to be a consort and from the acting since she has very clearly been in a state of fear and shock. I read it as her not knowing if her feelings, and particularly his, were real, or just something manufactured by the Chief Lady through her machinations. Given that she has already come to see the Chief Lady in a bad light, anything that CL might want to accomplish seems likely to harm the CP, and as such she has tried to create distance between them. She wants to protect him, but is afraid that she could become the danger herself.

I read it as NJ being pretty deep in a depression, not giving a shit about anything, and finding some sort of meaning in CU's paintings and person. Her actions are reckless, and should be seen that way. At least that is my interpretation as of ep 2

Am I the only one left feeling like this is two separate shows in one? You have the light rom-com cross-dressing drama, very much in the style of Sungkyunkwan Scandal or Love in the Moonlight, and then you have this dark and heavy palace drama more reminiscent of Moon that Embraces the Sun or Six Flying Dragons in style.

It is to the point both sides have their respective sets of actors, with only Lee Hwi and Lee Hyun regularly crossing over between the two in anything more than superficial fashion. JJW is almost entirely rom-com, same for the 2nd and 3rd FL. On the other hand, Grandfather, Kim Ga On and the adults are entirely in the palace drama section.

Shows of this sort usually have a bit of a mix of the two, but I am honestly getting whiplash with this one. The tones are so incredibly far from each other, at times it almost feels like two entirely different forms of direction being used, and the actors are different outside of PEB (who does a great job switching between the two).

I am enjoying both sides of the show individually, though I feel the palace drama is the better directed of the two, but in conjunction it leaves me a bit confused when watching.

That was fantastic. Really enjoyed HHJ's character, particularly the last 15 minutes or so of the episode. Just the nonchalance at everything she experienced, saw and heard. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

I was worried that was the direction the show was turning in episodes 3-5, but I really feel like they are continuing to inject the dramatic elements from the first episodes into 6+ so far. Romance still fills a lot, but the political plots, royal family tensions and the like are quite good in this drama and are getting increasing amounts of air time.

Ah, shit. Sorry about that. Really hate to give spoilers like that. One thing that stuck out to me about the first episode was how brutal it was - from the first purge down to the chase at the end. It felt like they were very explicitly trying to show that this was deadly serious, which was why I made the assumption alongside the other stuff I mentioned.

Happy to help :)

The entire premise of the show is that FL ends up replacing the Crown Prince, growing up as though she were her brother. You can see them set it up in the preview as well, several explicit mentions of it, and the summary says the same. Of course, they could have a twist with him alive, but I was going off what has been revealed.

Dam-I gave CPR to Jung Ji Won, the ML. The FL is twin to the Crown Prince who was killed at the end. The twin is not the ML - the boy twin (Crown Prince) is dead and FL is set to replace him.

Hmmm, I enjoyed it for the most part, particularly the first half or so. That said I really found the games a rather significant let down. The world building, gritty social critique and at least some of the personalities (although I find the MC’s sudden personality shift rather abrupt and poorly played out) were great, but a lot of the behind-the-scenes action (the whole cop drama side of it tbh) and the games themselves weren’t all that interesting. A lot of the games were poorly explained, exceedingly biased and utterly reliant on luck, which drew away a lot of the excitement for me. Tbh I liked the games in AiB a lot more, but the world building in SQ was better.

The main romance and story is good, but honestly I am finding the whole love triangle with Na Ji Na as well as their characters more generally increasingly pointless - what role does it even play in the plot of the story? Feels like there are two separate shows being shown at the same time with almost no connection between them beyond the characters. Takes away from the supernatural romance and terminal illness aspects and just injects this cliche utterly unoriginal love triangle, not even involving the main characters but the side characters. Just... why?

I found the first 4 episodes a slog, and was watching an episode a day up until around episode 8, but then watched the entire rest of the show in a day. Don't quite know what it is about the show - it is trope laden makjang with just about no redeeming characters at all, but at some point I just started laughing at their meltdowns and enjoying their cruelty towards each other. The first couple of episodes are a pain to watch because it is mainly just rich stomping on the poor, but when they start eating each other it gets a whole lot more entertaining.

Just think of it as a Sunday-Monday show instead of Friday-Saturday. Subs are probably going to keep being slow given how things are set up with this show's distribution rights.

Would think they use the mid-season climax to do the reveal, and then spend the second half on resolution.

On some level, I kinda wanted Vincenzo to just kill everyone at the start of the episode then that be that for the show. Just a stark it is all fun and games until the big bad monster gets angry and kills everyone. Obviously it doesn't really work with the way the show is set up and everything, but it would have been interesting to see.

I replied with some examples just above this post. It is very much a real thing which changes shows prior to, during and in post-production.
Oh, another example - think of the way River Where The Moon Rises had to be changed, both script and production-wise, after On Dal's character was recast.

IIRC Black was changed quite significantly from what the scriptwriter actually wanted by production pressures. Haechi ended up having to remove Go Ara's character from the story for six episodes after she got hurt during shooting. IIRC Yi San was meant to be a 40 episode drama, but due to its popularity the show ended up getting continually extended until it reached more than 70 episodes. My Shy Boss also saw quite significant changes after the first four episodes aired because the response to one of the main characters was very poor. Hell, just look at Vincenzo and the way in which they paused production for a week in order to make changes to the script and production given how popular the show has proven to be. Those are just the examples that I can come up with off the top of my head, but I know that there are a lot more out there.

My understanding is that they often just get the 3-4 episodes and a rough outline. Dramas in Korea are often filmed even as they are being aired, since there is such a fast pace to it, and the script is written and rewritten during this period. That is probably one of the reasons KDramas have a tendency to suddenly shift in focus or quality - particularly if they start drawing input from viewers. There are some pretty famous and infamous instances of fan pressure/financer pressure/production pressures forcing the script to change.

I put off watching the Wednesday episode, and just binged the two episodes for this week, and I can't stop asking myself why the hell I waited to watch.

This feels so much like the comedic elements of Joy of Life, even has several of the same actors. Basically feels like they took all the really funny parts of JoL and made it into a show of its own while removing most of the complications and intrigue. A pure comedy, whereas JoL was more of a Dramedy.