The scene of FL falling backwards towards the water, when time stops and you can not only hear the sudden, loud clacking of typewriter keys but also see the actual hands of the script writer reflected off the water behind her, pounding furiously on the keys, doing a re-write of the plot to account for her and ML's deviations was absolute comedy gold! This series just continues to nail it with being not just funny, but cleverly funny. And what a cast! So many talented, recognized actors in this so far. Oh - and the music! The soundtrack is extremely clever and well correlated with the scenes. This is one of those shows you watch where you can tell that everybody involved must have had a blast.
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I will forgive the writer's for pulling out the stupid 'heart devouring powder' plot gimmick last episode by this time having Kuo Lianyi be clever and smart enough to anticipate and neutralize it. Loved how she turned the tables on that creep Nangong Fang. She also later gets revenge on her psycho brother for killing their mother.
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Typical of c-drama plots, as we near the end, the villains keep winning and the good guys keep losing. Another awful death as Yun Xiang is forced to deliver poison to his best friend Mo in order to trick Fu into trusting Yun Xiang. Meanwhile, NanGong Fang and Kuo Yaun Je plot to take out Madam Kuo and Kuo Lianyi (YaNan). Unfortunately, the writers dip once gain into their most irritatingly lazy plot-device again by having Lianyi poisoned by the stupid 'Heart Devouring' poison. This poison is so stupidly OP and it's just absurd that they have included it as a plot gimmick. Its mere presence in the story earlier already seriously downgrades the story quality and the writers using it yet once again at this point, for this purpose, is extremely disappointing.
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This episode leads with the tragedy of Jin's death and Yun Xiang feeling absolutely crushed emotionally by it. But the whole event was really strange. Why did Yun behave so shell-shocked when the assassins were pursuing he and Jin? Why didn't he do anything? He already should have anticipated everything that was happening yet he acted like a deer-in-the-headlights. It really seemed out of character for Yun Xiang. It's also left a little unclear as to whether Jin really truly is dead. He might be. But he might not be.Despite these questions, the episode is very good. Painful emotional scenes for both Yun and, goodness, poor TinaHu. And lots of plot reveals regarding Prince Fu.
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I really like the way the tension and the action are ramping up. This episode really moved along. Hopefully the pace of this episode is how they will carry out the final 5 episodes!
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After meeting and talking with Kou Lianye (Shu YaNan), Yun Xiang finally seems to be sobering up and getting back to his old manipulative, scheming self. Su family and Mr. Mo are both in deep trouble due to NanGong Fang's manipulations. Kou YuanJe shows up to make a, "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" deal with Yun Xiang to try to take out NanGong Fang. YX promises KY that he will eliminate NGF quickly, but it doesn't seem like that's realistically going to happen as of the end of the episode. Prince Fu comes to town and clearly has ties to NanGong Fang.
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This episode could have scored a higher rating from me until the very end. The massive smithworks would be near impossible to hide within the city. The idea that they had it on the ship, way out far from anyone to see solves that problem .... but it's ridiculous. They didn't even know they were going to do this melt-down process until AFTER the silver had been stolen and so no way such a huge smith works could have already been built inside that ship. And building that type of smith works of that size on a ship is a pretty major project in itself. You have to engineer it carefully to not burn down the ship. It is a massively heavy structure so the ship has to be huge, buoyant and stable. And you also have to have a ton of fuel to burn in it. It's just not believable.
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This episode basically just covered the two subplots of (a) Hao Chen's traumatization and slow recovery with the help of Hao Ming, Xu Yan and Yan's Grandmother and (b) Lin Tao blackmailing Qiao Lin into leaving Yy Yi Ming and returning to the scumbag. The latter sub-plot is pretty disgustingly evil on the part of Lin Tao. Shen, Sr., is still in the hospital, being watched by Yu Lan. Not too much happens on the main villain plot of Qu taking over Jinda other than it's clear the bad guys intend to tear the Shen family down even further. No one in the Shen side currently seems to be able to do anything regarding the corporate battles since they are pre-occupied with dealing with all the trauma they've been. hit with.
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Finally, some actual, mutual, positive growth in their relationship and understanding of each other. The two independnetly go to Gubei, a living museum town and naturally run into each other. After they get past her initial (understandable) suspicion that this is more manipulation by him, they end up spending a lot of time together and actually talking about relationships and his early life and what the town means to him. Hopefully, they can continue to move in the forward direction from this point. It will be annoying if the writers contrive yet another backward step in their relationship.
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This episode was a big let-down in quality again as the writers have Xy Yan acting very stupid and gullible. She allows herself to be influenced by Steve's obviously slanted take on Shen Hao Ming's actions. She also mysteriously acts like she wasn't aware of the whole Jinda + Barakin deal that SHM has been working on. And finally when they talk about how someone is aggressively targeting SHM she stupidly says, "That's not my concern". That makes no sense to say because whomever is targetting Hao Ming is using HER to do so! So of course it is 'her concern. And it's also why it means he has a _responsibility_ to help protect her from those attacks. This is all pretty simple and obvious and yet the writers are making her act stupidly just so we can have another episode or two of mistaken intentions and drama. The 'drunken hijinks' to start the episode were also kind cringy and contrived and didn't really work all that great. This is only the 2nd really dumb episode so far. Hopefully they will bounce back after this and restore the script quality.
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For once, Jin and Shu get to engage in combat with A Zhong and Mei Zhu, respectively, without being outnumbered or caught in a trap or otherwise put at some horrible disadvantage. And this time the results are very satisfying.This was a mostly very fun episode as all of Yun's schemes worked out as he planned. The one thing I don't understand, though, is why Ke MengLan burned her Elevation Document. After all that everyone had put in to get it, why did she do that? It just doesn't really make sense.
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This episode is spiced with several horrific examples of just how depraved and cruel Tang Xiao is. His penchant for preying on, abusing and controlling women is shown in several key scenes, including and perhaps most heartbreaking in a scene he isn't even in, when Ke Meng Lan confronts Tian Hu. Both are under his control in different, cruel ways at that point the feeling of helplessness - indeed, hopelessness - must be overwhelming. It also is implied that at least one of Tang's two bodyguards - notably the female, Mei Zhu - is probably being controlled in a similar way and she clearly feels sorry for Tian Hu. Unfortunately, Tang quickly becomes aware of her sympathy. As a viewer, one can only hope that the writers will deliver suitable karmic justice upon Tang.
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This was one of the weaker episodes. The whole thing with the weird "Steve" character who was spying on them was just awkward. The fact that they didn't have him arrested by the police right away was already bizarre. That they then went to dinner with him was even more bizarre. This part of the episode just didn't really make any sense. The rest was good, though.
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And it was still painful to watch. Hao Ming clearly has major trust issues and so only is willing to deal with people as pawns to be manipulated - including Xu Yan. The fact that he purposely kept preventing her from telling the truth to him several times in the past only to coldly throw her lies in her face as if it excused his lies was pretty cold and, well, illogical. If he applied critical thinking and acknowledged that she had tried to come clean to him, he would be able to realize that his assumptions are wrong about why she lied about her past. But he won't budge and remains cold, even after she makes a very clear and honest appeal. This implies that his trust issues are pathological, probably caused by some trauma in the past. At this point, he is just treating Xu Yan like a possession. Watching her painful tears as she submitted to his unyielding coldness and sat down to eat the steak was so painful to watch. But she goes along with the now-faux marriage at first because she clearly feels trapped by him (and her own lies), but towards the end of the episode starts to lay the groundwork for how she will escape the trap.
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Emotionally depressing episode, but it also revealed a lot. In particular, we learned that Hao Ming is pretty ruthless and currently is treating his wife like a possession, not a partner. And we learned that Fang Lei is a psychopath who needs psychiatric treatment instead of being manipulated the way she was by Hao Ming. And of course we learned that Hao Chen is actually Hao Ming's son, not brother (Fang Lei's late sister, Fang Yu, was his actual mother).
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