This was a good episode overall. But the thing that is dragging on this whole storyline is that the writers have failed to give us a reason to empathize with Ming Yicontinuing to lie about her identity to Ji Bo Zai. There is no apparent reason for her to continue to do so and it is hurting both of them that she is. It could be accepted if the story presented a compelling reason for why she continues to lie. But it doesn't. So it has become annoying and feels contrived. As if she is only doing so to drag the plot gimmick out. This is a pretty big flaw in this otherwise very entertaining drama, and the flaw is getting bigger as it proceeds. If they don't either explain it or conclude it, it could make the entire series unwatchable as the audience looses empathy with the heroine.
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A Female Student Arrives at the Imperial College Episode 18
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Zhou When Yuan, upon receiving his graduation honors, literally and verbally announces in front of everyone that he is willing to do evil in order to get what he wants?What a loser creep he is. But shouldn't his words have sent alarm bells in the heads of everyone at the ceremony? Or do we assume they were said so softly that only the Vice Principal could hear him?Smart enough to be the 'top scholar', but not smart enough to know he can't really ever get what he wants?.
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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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Out of all the characters in this bizarrely written drama, she's the only one with an ounce of social/emotional intelligence. She's not always correct because she's both young and sometimes not aware of all the information. But most of the time she's the only one with any common sense on relationship matters - both her own and also for others. The rest of the characters are written to be bizarre and mostly completely lacking mature social & emotional development.
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Shi Yan blocked pretty much every way for Shuyi to talk to him ... and then acts all hurt and upset that she doesn't talk to him? Shuyi finally gets the courage to go try to confront Shi Yan face-to-face ... but out of the blue the writers introduce a random new character - a young girl - and Shuyi sees him walking out with her so of course, we get YET ANOTHER MISUNDERSTANDING. Then, when she finally gets a chance to see him as part of her job ... he gets mad at her for trying to do her job and kicks her out? I'm sorry, but the character of Shi Yan that this writer has created is a FEAKING LOON. How are we, the viewers, supposed to empathize and support this character? Yeah, yeah, the writer will magically transform him into a likable guy again in a couple of episodes. But in the meantime this is all just stupid.
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and that makes this episode move along much better without getting too infuriated at the utter bizarre annoyance that his character brings. Seriously, in this episode not only does he encourage Shuyi to get drunk - while she is clearly suffering depression - he then also leads her to climb a tree while she's drunk! This stunt is so incredibly dangerous that if I was Shi Yan, after getting Shuyi safely down, I would have wanted to soundly pummel Yi Yang's face in. But that's just me.
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The aftermath is depressing, of course, as Shuyi is completely depressed and Shi Yan is angry and depressed. And then the writer - very predictably - starts injecting creepy Yi Yang into Shuyi's life in the most artificial and contrived way possible. My advice is to just start skipping scenes whenever Yi Yang is on screen. We know she will never end up with him no matter how much screen time the show gives him. Skipping all his scenes will move the story faster and avoid getting as annoyed while watching.
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And finally getting the truth revealed about uncles and nieces. But then the subsequent thinking and behavior by Shuyi is just maddeningly stupid and contrived. Her character makes no sense and it feels like the writer must have been drunk or stoned out of her mind when she wrote this. It seems like this script writer feels like you have to have lies or confusion or some sort of 'misunderstanding' in play constantly in order to have romantic tension? Because she keeps leaning into that trope to the point where it's just ridiculous. She further digs in deep with this trope by having Shi Yan get snippets of misleading information from Shiyue. So he probably won't even give Shuyi a chance to finally come clean and confess. This will bury them into a deep hole of 'misunderstanding' now, with 10 episodes to go, from which they have to climb out of. I don't mind that the writer has created a conflict to overcome over the last 10 episodes. That's sort of predictable for drama shows. But, again, just to repeatedly rely on this same stupid drama trope again and again is just so one-trick-pony and annoying.
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This strange drama world where over half the characters are hiding either who they are (such as ShiYue hiding that she is Shi Yan's niece) or hiding their relationship with some other character (most of all the other characters) is just so tired and exhausting and it shows up as pure stupid in the moment when Shu Yi walks into the conference and all three of Shi Yan, Yu You and Yi Yang surround her and want her to sit with them. It's supposed to be funny, I guess? Someone somewhere on the planet thinks it's hilarious? Mostly it just feels exhausting and boring as the same plot conflicts get rehashed again and again.
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Why did Shi Yan ignore her texts for so long after she got to the hotel? That was crazy rude and I don't blame her for being pissed about it. That whole sequence was like some bizarre throwback to the early episodes when Shi Yan behaved like a total jerk all the time.
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Not as bad as some of the earlier episodes, but the writer is still playing games with 'misunderstandings'. I really hope this show moves past that. I'm so tired of the way it is recycling the same plot circles such as "Mom forces Shuyi to go on blind date with Yu and so Shiyan gets jealous" and the "Shuyi thinks Lezhi is Shin's niece" and so on and so on. All these 'misunderstandings are just way over due to have been cleared up. As story devices go they are all stale and boring. And there are so many of them! And did we really need to have an obsessive stalker trope added to the show? I guess it means we get to look forward to Shiyan punching Yi Yang's face in at some point.
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This was a much better episode because for the most part the characters behaved like normal people for a change. A little annoying that the writer has decided to bring in a 'unrequited 3rd wheel' character out of nowhere. Clearly just to create some stupid annoying 'love triangle' drama. Hopefully they won't waste too much time and energy on that. The new guy is clearly an unethical creep so we the viewers know he has zero chance of being with Shuyi in the long run so any plot time spent on him will simply be wasted time, dragging out episodes.
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In this world, everybody keeps it secret that they know or even have a relationship with someone. They don't admit to already knowing someone. They hide that they are family with someone. Literally every character in this drama is either hiding a relationship they know about or being in a hidden relationship. Or (now) lying to their parents telling them that they are in a relationship that they aren't. And given that this show is now tracking 4 couples (and hinting at a possible 5th, with King Nan and Chen Sheng), this is getting absurd and exhausting. The show is just going so over-the-top with 'misunderstanding' drama trope that it isn't funny. or entertaining. It's just annoying and exhausting. I have to wonder if this is all a sadistic joke on purpose by the writer? She did similar crap in "As Beautiful As You", but it wasn't THIS crazy extreme. And mostly in that show the problems were isolated with the abusive behavior of the ML. This one has moved past the abusive behavior (which while bizarre, was never quite AS abusive as in that other show) but has totally gone crazy with the 'misundertanding' tropes with so many lies and confusion everywhere. Such a waste of a good cast.
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Insists on dragging out things, keeping the couple characters separated by 'misunderstandings', again and again. And the script keeps having characters -- especially Shi Yan and only slightly less so Shu Yi -- behave in bizarre, unnatural ways. This show has. great cast and the overall plot premise is fine and I like to complete things that I start. But this is a real grind to get through at this point because of the constant recycling or dragging out of the 'misunderstanding' drama trope. At least so far they have kept away from the dreaded, stupid, "love triangle" trope. But I wouldn't put it past this writer to go there.
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