It's crazy how often C-Dramas use the 'unlocked phone/computer' trope to allow some schemer to mess with the FL or ML. If this was any reflection of realtity it would mean no one in China locks their electronics! Aside from that silliness: What a nice, romantic reveal, finally of their feelings for each other! The sequence of her going from pissed off & jealous because of Qiao Na's dirty trick to finding his momento box and ultimately reading his letter of confession was wonderfully paced and acted out by Bai Lu. And then, finally a very romantic embrace and kiss, along with her own confession to him.
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Jiang Jun and Yuan Shuai ending up as a perfect match is of course expected and ended up very cute.. The theme song seemed extra apropos during that scene. Glad Xu Li finally walked away from the emotionally clueless Li Xiaochuan. He needed an emotional scare. A kick in the pants was needed to start paying attention to the humans around him - especially her. But it seems dubious that just this one instance is enough to truly make him a grown-up yet.
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Bai Lu just kills me! That line made me spit up laughing out loud! She and Luo Yin Xi are so freaking funny on screen together! And then later the freaking Giant Red Lips bit!!!!! The show is a 10 when those two are on screen and .... sadly otherwise falls so flat whenever they are off it.
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God how pathetic Du Lei is! He's come to stand like a lost puppy outside her apartment building? My god, is he 14 years old? Thank goodness she ran off to take care of YS and avoided even seeing him or she might have thrown up her breakfast. Loved her body-language running through the hospital! Why do so many modern c-dramas repeat the trope of "ML is a master cook but the FL is lousy at cooking"?? Still both of them are so good with each other that the scenes with the leads are great even when implementing a trope. Sadly the episode then devolves into some cheap situational comedy around Su Chang's relationship. Not terrible stuff. But not terribly funny either. It does lead to some great bits between the leads as they squabble over sharing her apartment. The fun thing now is we get a 'living together' plot trope! And the very, very end of the episode is pretty sweet. There are otherwise some more skippable minutes spent on the not-compelling Li Xiaochuan + Xu Li storyline.
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You can see a steady progression forward in the relationship between Jiang Jun and Yuan Shuai, especially as she asserts her authority over his care when he needs to go to the hospital. Some really funny moments. The only thing spoiling this episode is, yes, still more gobs of screen time spend selling the sad sack sob story of Du Lei. Yes, he had some tough things happen. Yes he is probably permanently psychologically broken by the abuse of his adoptive father. But that doesn't make him a good person. And the fact is, his life is far better than billions of other people who hav had it worse and yet didn't turn out to be rotten creeps like him.
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Episode just barely starts and I'm already agitated and irritated. The idea that her 'friends' basically trick FL into going on a hiking / camping trip without warning is just insane, given her special health risks. And that's not even accounting for the fact that creepy stalker Du Lei is there and Yuan Shuai has no idea where they are. My god this event is already pushing so many buttons to make viewers triggered. Thank god Yuan Shuai found out about it and reeled everyone back before it became an overnight. And man, Liu Yan Xi was totally channeling his Till The End of the Moon role of Devil Lord Tantai Jin as he sat on the couch in his apartment in the half-dark when Li Xiaochuan walked in trembling! LOL! That scene saved the episode! Otherwise, this episode spends far too much time trying to sell Du Lei as somehow sympathetic and a worthy 'other love interest'. He's not. He's objectively a terrible person based on the things he has done. And we also find out that HE was involved in driving her father to his death! Far too much screen time spent dwelling on his sad-sack, I-feel-sorry-for-myself face. This episode requires constant use of the 'skip' button. Just skip to the final nice scene between the two leads at the end.
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After all the icky cheap plot gimmicks of last episode this one starts off with a nice and sensible reconciliation between JJ & YS and hopefully sets the stage for no more deceptions and a a start to an actual equal-footing romance. But .... then she immediately lets herself get lured right back into creepy Du Lei's manipulations!!!???? I just don't get why she is so stubbornly stupid about how dangerous it is to keep associating with this creep. It doesn't make sense and feels so manipulative by the writers. Fortunately, once Du is off screen again, the rest of the episode is charming. It's kind of a fundamental about this show: It's extremely enjoyable when both leads are on screen and otherwise kind of tedious. The other side stories are either flat or cringe.
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This episode is all about the writers leaning into all kinds of very annoying plot tropes to contrive drama. We have an absolute ton of misunderstanding-fueled over-reaction trope. We have plot-induced stupidity in large doses as the FL stupidly falls back into the influence of creepy Du Lei, as the latter blatantly stalks her and pumps air into the should-be-flat tires of his wanna-be-love-triangle. How can she be so stupid as to not see through this lying piece of crap by now is ridiculous and requires a suspension of disbelief. She's just plain acting so stupid and foolish for trusting this creep. And we have noble idiocy in play by the ML as well. A whole bunch of contrived drama with a current purpose of to separate the leads simply so we can watch them come back together again. Oh and of course we get another awful aggressive toasting-to-get-people-smashed scene to put the FL in danger so the ML can rush in to save her. The aggressive toast/drinking trope is one of the most disgusting tropes that keeps getting used in c-dramas. I guess the shows collectively are trying to impress on people just how awful this 'tradition' is?
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I never like to victim blame and she's not at 'fault', but Jiang Jun was incredibly foolish to go visit Wan Shan alone and then come back on foot alone in the dark. Her character never struck me as this stupid before so this feels like plot-induced stupidity to create the drama moment. This whole sequence just seemed contrived and poorly written. Then the next sequence with Xu Li going to campus to stalk Riley Wang's character was also stupid. No savvy computer nerd walks away and leaves their laptop screen unlocked like that. And really, the whole Xu Li + Xiaochuan storyline is just not interesting. Too carrtoonish, cringe and weird. This episode goes further south with the cheap setup that Du pulls off to get Jiang Jun mad at Yuan Shuai and sympathizing for him. So obviously contrived and the writing makes JJ look more stupid again. The writers have totally suspended her common sense and critical thinking in this episode. The funny/romantic/cute scenes at the end of the episode between JJ & YS almost make up for it, but it's hard to forgive that much junky plot shenanigans.
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Not too surprising, the show has started to build out a sad-sack sob-story for Du Lei to build sympathy in you for the creep. Whatever. I will probably skip through most of his scenes from this point forward. The truth is, in every drama with his type of character, it just feels like a waste of time when shows spend a lot of minutes trying to make you feel sorry for the unrequited love interest when he isn't someone I can feel sorry for at all and you _know_ he is not the one who is going to get the girl. Plus, Du is just creepy and pathetic to look at. And clearly a lying snake, stalking her and contriving to 'save' her from someone (probably his own man) with a car ride. And he's morally compromised. He obviously knows that Wan Shan is an abuser of women but does nothing about it, only warning FL - a woman he cares about - to stay away. Du could care less about all the other women who that scumbag has raped.
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Any bets on whether Du Lei will do the psychopathic delusional thing of so many 'unrequited love' SMLs and misconstrue her simple gift of a plain old tie as if it is some expression of her undying love for him? I really hope we don't have to suffer through an excess of screen minutes devoted to this creep. Especially if it's at the expense of time that could be spent on the two leads. Also what's the deal between Du Lei and Du Ling ('Linda')??? Are they siblings? Why does she seem to have the hots for him? Lots of hints of past intimacy between them!! Is there really an incest vibe going on here? Or will they be revealed as adopted or step siblings? Probably, to get past the censors. Nevertheless that got freaky. Later, Bai Lu does drunk Jiang Jun in absolutely hilarious fashion! Her chemistry with Leo is crazy good and especially when they get comedic!
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Unexpectedly, Yuan Shuai gets some really solid advice from his assistant, Su Chang. In so many dramas, the cold, dominant ML's assistant is too much of a clown or too socially challenged to offer decent relationship advice. Su Chang, who does come across as a little clownish, nevertheless gives his boss so really sensible advice regarding Jian Jun. Then we get some "I'm sick take care of me" hijinks by YS (drama trope) which leads to a great, steamy moment when JJ reads a very steamy passage from a book! The only downside to this fun episode is that we have to suffer through another appearance by the creepy Du Lei. I guess he's just going to be around because some writers just don't know how to write a story without a 'love triangle'. Grit teeth and skip. It's funny just how pretentious the restaurant and fragrance chamber places he takes her to are - especially after Yuan Shuai took her to a place that made a noodle dish that specifically emotionally evoked her father's homemade noodles. The contrast in her reactions to the food on each 'date' was stark. The end of the episode ending with a face-off between Du & Yuan was oozing with testosterone but it at least revealed Du for who he was so JJ now knows honestly who she has been dealing with.
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Credit to actor Gau Han Yu, His portrayal of Du Lei just oozes creep. It's cringe to watch our innocent FL get caught up in his sticky slime.I hope they don't drag out some awful love triangle with this creep for very long. It was cute to see how jealous Yuan Shuai got when he saw her get out of the car with a rose! Side observation: For someone who is allegedly golf-obsessed. Deng Ke's golf swing is absolutely awful. The race car match was ... silly and cringe. And made no sense within the time constraints. This contrived 'suspense' was awkward and almost ruined the episode for me. But getting more of the backstory about what happened with her speech in high school was good.
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Superficially, the ML comes off as an abusive, obnoxious bully and she is justifiably pissed at him for not just his current 'unfair' behavior towards her but a long held grudge over him apparently having stolen her speech way back in high school. But then this is interwoven with him taking complex steps to 'take care of her' both in the current time (subsidizing her to have a new apartment near him, trying to force her to take a less stressful career path) and also in the past, when they were young. The problem is, his care has almost always focused solely on preventing her from being in situations where she might cry. This is his legit mission that he seems dedicated to. But this means he's also been super-controlling and she quite naturally resents that control because she wants freedom to live her own life. Further, it is his over-protective dominating control that has actually often been the trigger for 'crying events' in her life and so she has come to associate him with her medical issues. BUT ... she also literally grew up with him closely involved with helping and caring for her and she's weirdly quite used to him not only being around her but physically doting on her, touching her, fixing her shoelaces, adjusting her clothes. He may be (probably is) wrong in his 'control everything' approach to caring for her. Because it does harm to her. But his core intentions are strangely legit. Oh ... and ugh. What is it about Gau Han Yu (Du Li) that makes him look like such a creep as the SML? How can he be handsome and so pathetic looking at the same time? I can already tell he's going to be the type of character that I kinda hate watching screen minutes wasted on. I predict some sob story background that tries to build viewer empathy for him (to create a fake 'love triangle') but in the end he will still be an evil creep. A very annoying trope.
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This was a much better edited and paced episode than episode 1. Still a little bit rushed and contrived such as with how fast the whole 'get her to move to my next-door apartment' scheme played out. And the Du Li / Li Taimo face-off moment in the library was weird. Other than those nitpicks, the feisty chemistry between the leads is so entertaining. The fact that these two actors are such good friends in RL is definitely energizing them to get fully into their roles.
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