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and deal mainly with the impact of Guan Zai's health problems on his family. While the performances are excellent, it's a real downer plot-line and I worry that the point of it is just to paint all the negatives that can happen to someone working in Yu Tu's field who tries to have a family. And that he will use this as an excuse later to reject Jingling. But it's kind of over-the top and frankly there are a lot of flaws in the storylines the last few episodes. Assuming China's rules around who can get clearances for confidential work are at least remotely similar to those of other countries, one of the requirements is disclosure of things like, well, financial problems and severe health issues. The requirement to disclose these things is not to be punitive, but rather to protect the employee from becoming vulnerable. It's just not credible that YuTu would not have informed the Institute of the stressors on his financial situation and if he hasn't then he's probably in violation of his contract. So the storyline has been very irritating that so many of YuTu's colleagues and superiors are pressuring him about work .... when Yu Tu himself has simply not been honest and fully disclosed his financial worries stemming from his mother's health. And similarly, Guan Zai fails to disclose his obvious health problems to anyone until he ends up collapsing. Avoiding problems like these are why disclosure rules are put in place. So your employer and colleagues can help. or at least be understanding. The last couple of episodes are overall extra frustrating because of the many points where the righters have characters (mainly YuTu and Guan Zai ) purposely withhold information or outright lie to others about various problems in their lives. And Shen Jing also does it to hide things from her son. And later, when YuTu finally joins up with Jingling again, does he bother to let her know at all about his sick friend and how he's been spending time in the hospital with him? No. He keeps it to himself and says nothing about it. AAAAGH!!! This is simply not how real adults interact. It's like the last two episodes are a celebration of lies, half-truths and misinformation among friends! WTF are the show writers doing here? I really hope this isn't something the show keeps using as a plot device.
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Yu Tu was sort of sleep-walking through much of this to this point, clearly lost in his thoughts about whatever is going wrong in his career. Even seems depressed and vulnerable about it - which comes to a head at the little 'reunion' dinner where he gets ridiculed about it. But after his magical rescue from that situation by Jingling's clever wine trick she not only saves him from that awkward situation, but also just lights up his admiration for her. She's so sensitive and responsive to his emotional state that he clearly starts falling hard for her. I mean, yes, he's a math/science/tech/gaming genius (oh, and basketball stud, apparently) ... but she's clearly the master of people skills between the two of them and her game is in high form as she draws him into her web.
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The chemistry between Dilraba and Yang Yang is immediately do cute. Their back and forth quickly hinges off their each having certain strengths - his being intellectual and her's being socio-emotional. There is an undercurrent of tension running though, with Yu Tu clearly at some sort of career crossroads that is bothering him.
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Yu Tu's obvious struggle with what life goals to pursue - his science ideals versus practical $$$ concerns - really touch home. The different ways society values careers is just as problematic in the West as it is in China. And the dichotomy between his math, science & technical genius against her obvious emotional / social genius plays out quickly as she starts to manipulate him into helping her.
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She not only orchestrates the loss of her own pregnancy, but then poisons her husband? How is this supposed to help her positioning in the palace? And can we at least get a hint was to who the mastermind is behind her?
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It starts off with the aftermath of Cui Jun Bai and Bu Shu Lin spending a night together, drunk at the nightclub. He wants to go further but she rejects him. This seems realistic because she has spent her whole life playing this particular role and her very life depends on sticking to it at all times so it's not surprising that she pushes him away for both their own good. Unfortunately, bad folks (2nd Prince and the younger Gu sister) have started to figure out Bu's secret and plot to use it with a nasty honey trap plot. The good guys foil it but there are sad consequences. Xi He finally has had enough and draws a stark, cold line in the sand in front of Gu Qing Shu, but it's not clear if the latter is smart enough to understand and stay in her lane. And finally, Xi He starts to finally melt and show softness and concern towards Hua Yong.
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It's such a tired, over-used plot device where C-Dramas spend all this screen time giving us the maudlin, sad sob-story history behind some psychopathic unrequited love interest, as if to make us feel sorry for him (or her). I absolutely hate this trope because it is so disingenuous. In almost every case whatever trauma they have endured is nothing compared to that which millions of others have endured and yet THEY didn't turn into obsessed psychopaths. So it completely fails as an excuse for their behavior. And even in the (rare) c-drama cases where the character goes through redemption and turns into someone who isn't a villain and maybe even helpful, it's just not that interesting because we _know_ that this character is NOT going to end up with the lead and so it all feels like a giant waste of screen time. Love triangles in general are almost always nothing but a plot drag. All that said, Jeremy Xu is doing a masterful job of playing a creep. He's being so good at this role in this show that I think I need to go watch one of his dramas again where he played a sincerely good guy just to wash this icky feeling away. Time to rewatch Legend of the Phoenix.
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Man did his presence just drop a load of fun into the show! Really love his protective attitude. And the interactions between he and Hua Yong as dad sizes up his prospective son-in-law skeptically are just golden! On the subject of fathers, this episode also gives strong hints that maybe things aren't as we were first told with respect to Hua Yong's father.
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Most of the basic exposition is in place and as far as the romance storyline, we are set with the basic conflict as follows: Shen Xi He is (understandably) emotionally guarded to the extreme due to her traumatic experiences. In her past life she watched her family get caught up in evil palace politics to the point where even though she sacrificed herself to loveless forced marriage to the psycho 5th Prince, still watched them all get slaughtered and then only managed to get revenge on the Fan family (but not her husband) by committing suicide. And then she came back to life in the body of a girl, Shen Xi Hi, who had just been murdered! So she is understandably very reserved and cautious and has sworn off getting remotely close to fooled by love or married to someone who could do to her family what 5th Prince did. Fine. So this is the wall that the already love-struck Xiao Hua Yong has to overcome. So what has to happen is Xi He has to eventually heal enough from her trauma to be able to open up emotionally again. We still have 21 episodes to go so I think it may take a while. Oh, and we need a cure for Hua Yong's poison while we are at it. That also probably won't happen right away.
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We get Xi He trapped in a fire by assassins (who weren't actually after her!) and rescued by The Boy Idiot, Prince Lie. We get a steamy yet also frosty interacting between Hua Yong and Xi He. We get a tense face off between Hua Yong and the two Rong Princes. Then we get a whole SML & SFL side quest started as Bu Shu Lin and Cui Jin Bai both go on undercover missions on the same case. And their convergence naturally brings Xi He and Hua Yong into convergence as well. The only dumb glitch in the episode is the bizarre leap to conclusion that 5th Prince makes that ML & FL are having relationship issues. That extreme jump to a conclusion is almost as bad as the earlier one he made about his dead wife coming back to life as Xi He. Regardless of whether he's "correct", there is just no way he should be making these conclusions. It's absolute plot contrived silliness.
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Any experienced c-drama watcher would expect a downturn about now and the writers have delivered, with finally revealing to Xi He that Hua Yong is the "Tagara Incense". Given her past life experience of being forced into a loveless marriage to a man that ultimately wiped out her whole family, her subsequent suicide and then being reborn as a woman who was just murdered due to court schemes, she just does not want a part of any marriage where she is the weaker party. Plus she's probably a bit angry at being deceived. However, one has to hope that she will ultimately come to the realization that even though CP's capabilities are far more terrifying than she had realized, he is still her safest bet. Might take an episode or two. Or three. Hopefully not too many.
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Most importantly, we have Xiao Hua Yong winning the good side of Brother-in-Law Shen and then the approval of the marriage by the Emperor. We also get a clearly drawn line of rejection by Shen Xi He between her and the psychopath 5th Prince. Ignoring some of the harmlessly silly aspects (the crazy use of cats again and again!) the only negative is the show at the moment is spending too much screen time dwelling on the emotional background and state of the psychopath. A lot of shows go wrong when the devote too much screen time to such characters as if to build some sort of empathy for their sorry, pathetic existence. This is a mistake because frankly, not only do most viewers not care about the back story of such sickos, we usually find it just a time-wasting drag and annoying. We just need enough info to know that the guy is sick and deluded. More than that is not useful and not entertaining. Screen time is almost always better spent on the two leads. So I hope the show doesn't waste too much screen time on the psycho going forward. We don't need any more evidence he's delusional - we know already - nor do we need a bunch of sad-sack sob-story showing how something in his childhood led him to his sorry state. He killed the entire Gu family and tried to keep Gu Qing Zhi as a trophy possession. No way we are ever going to feel sorry for him.
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When Psycho 5th Prince's man reports that Shen Xi He fell in the river, the fact that the guy adds the astrological details is just silly and stupid. Then, the fact that Psycho 5th jumps to the conclusion that this means his wife has magically been reborn is just beyond silly and stupid. It truly makes nonsense whatsoever. Oh well. We get it, because it's part of the plot. But it was just ... silly. And no more silly than, of course, another main-character-falls-off-a-cliff event that we know they will survive. This show definitely has to be taken with tongue firmly in cheek! Little things like the piece of red cloth that only the color-blind CP noticed - not all the other search parties! And then, all these events just happen to take place near the special secret path that ONLY the former Gu Qing Zhi would know ... so silly! Oh well.
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because this episode got rid of most all remaining 'misunderstandings' and just let characters be normal characters. The only cringe part is the contrived 'business leadership crisis' near the end that is obviously to setup the main conflict for the final episode. It's silly and the two instigators are like bad cartoon characters but it's such a minor part of the episode that it doesn't outweigh all the good stuff in the rest of the episode. I know some commenters just do not like Shuyi's character and complain about her behavior towards Shi Yan in these late episodes. Because she's supposed to be this elite journalist but acts silly and cutesy and spoiled with Shi Yan. But they forget that she figured out long ago, in the very early episodes, that he liked when she acted outrageous, cute and silly. So their play-fighting and her ditzy cute act are all part of their flirting with each other. You don't have to like it. But it's consistent with what the characters established early on.
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So in terms of character behavior, this episode was far, far better as all the main characters acted like normal human beings for a change. We even got some refreshingly open & honest talk between the leads. Still, this writer just couldn't resist inserting some more 'misunderstanding' stuff in, though this time it is in (a) the relatively harmless forms of Shi Yan not yet revealing who is sister is to Shuyi and (b) the more harmful form of vicious office gossip about Shuyi's mysterious 'boyfriend'. The latter is kinda stupid though, because there are so many scenes of Shuyi getting into Shi Yan's car with him out in front of Financial Introduce's office building that it makes no sense that her colleague's wouldn't have seen and know that Shi Yan is her boyfriend. But the writer wanted to make one last Yuling-is-a-schemer subplot and only knows how to make plots involving misunderstandings & misinformation so whatever.
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