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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At this point, we are just holding our breath, watching Xu Yan walk the narrowest of tightropes. She's been so good at keeping her balance for so long, but then along comes a creep like ZZY, scraping a knife against the rope.At this point, it is pretty clear that Hao Ming knows far more about her than he is letting on - and has been doing things to protect her. But the conversation where he prevents her from opening up and confessing the truth to him makes it seem more likely that HE has his own secrets he doesn't want to share.
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Good that Yun Xiang did indeed manage to capture Qi TianFeng without bloodshed, per his promise to Shu YaNan. However, the interrogation of Qi was an exercise in dissembling by the latter. If you paid attention closely, Qi didn't reveal anything about the Luo family massacre that Yun Xiang didn't already know. He repeated already known facts and simply claimed he was a weak young itinerant who had nothing to do with it. He threw Tang out as the main villain, but Yun already knew Tang was involved. So this was clearly just a ploy by Qi to get Yun to take down Tang, since Qi is mad at Tang for paying off the pirate Guan. So none of that provided real new information to Yun. The only 'new' info was implication of a connection between Tang and the Yuntai's rival sect. Elsewhere in the episode, more minutes were wasted on Su Mingyu's pathetic can't-seem-to-ever-grow-up subplot. It's really painful to watch the writers portray a character as stupid and pathetic as they are making MingYu out to be.
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This episode really filled in a lot of background info on Xu Yan and in particular painted a deeper picture of her relationship with her grandmother who is basically the single one person in her life who she fully trusts and loves. This brings on tears in a few scenes and, as usual, when Lusi starts to cry ... you can't help but cry with her.
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This series has been very tightly scripted up to this point so this episode was a big disappointment . The relay station battle had so many plot holes and contrivances that it was just not believable. First, the dragging of the "Su finally grows up to face the brutal realities of the martial world" sub-plot consumed a lot of boring minutes. I'll excuse that since most of this series Su has acted with the maturity of a 12 year old so maybe his behavior was realistic ... for a 12 year old. But other plot holes such as the fact that while they had numerous wounded who should have still bee staying in the building, magically at the key moment, no one was in the building and all stupidly hyper-focused on the front-gate with plot-induced tunnel-vision, and just the idiotic way they were trying to brace the gate and no one going up on the wall to take shots with arrows ... it all just felt stupid. It's fine that the bad guys won if that is what the plot requires, but the implementation of the plot here was just poorly written. A real disappointment after all the well-written episodes up to now.
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Her father is just horrible. To neglect the health of your child with a heart defect? And then later to throw away her chance at college? The cost of healthcare and college isn't the real reason since China has universal healthcare and also various financial aid means for people to pay for college - which can be MUCH cheaper than in the US. He used 'being poor' as an excuse to justify his brutal neglect. As a father, I just wanted to slap him and shake him. So hard to watch bad parenting.And man, what is it about Lu Si's acting? When she cries, I cry. How can anyone watch her cry and not feel like crying? Every single time in every show. She's amazing at projecting her character's emotions into the viewer.Her role in this show starts off very difficult - she has had to build audience empathy for a character who is scheming and deceptive and only now providing the background motivation for why she wants to wipe away her past and build a fake one. Unfortunately, it all feels very fragile, like a house of cards. The agave lifecycle as metaphor is a sad foreshadow.
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I'm really impressed with how tightly scripted and produced this show has been, at least so far through the first 7 episodes. They have avoided any lazy plot contrivances so far and every episode has made real plot progress. No dragging out of things to fill time. The action / fight sequences have been well choreographed and well paced. The cinematography, costumes and sets have been beautiful, resulting in some great visuals. And the acting is first rate - so many well-experienced actors in this cast. The nuances of the plot are being revealed very carefully. We get real information each episode yet the ultimate questions are still carefully buried. Hopefully this level of quality will continue throughout the rest of the series.
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Loved the bedside scene with Zuo Qing Ci and Su Yun Luo. This felt like the first, fully honest conversation from ZQC to SYL since maybe the first couple of episodes. So much lying and deception for so long. 'Could really feel the weight of regret in his words as he was crying in her lap, afraid of the death that is finally looming so close. And SYL's face, repeatedly squashing flashes of empathic despair to only show instead love and support. Great performances in that scene.And then, both Sima Lang and Shen Man Qing, making my eyes water over a damn jug of wine!I hope at least one of our two remaining couples can have some sort of happy ending.
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Ugh. That was painful. So sad and tragic. Kinda saw it coming the moment Chang Ge got captured.but it still was a gut punch. Poor Chang Ge and Jiang'Er. So sweet and both always trying to do the write thing. The writers are pretty brutal in this show and showed them no mercy. They had better truly hold Zhu Yan accountable for his crimes in the end. If they 'resolve' him by simply having him, "turn back to the good side", I'll be pretty pissed. It would be a total cop-out to pretend that his "dark side" is some other person. Both sides are part of the same, broken, psychotic individual and that individual needs to be held accountable for mass murder.
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ZQC finally gets a dose of, "Su Yun Luo has a mind of her own and can make choices that you can't control." Looks visibly upset at the realization. Will he finally learn what it means to love someone instead of control them? His character, as written, has steadily become one of the most un-likable ML characters I've seen in an asian drama for a while. His inability to trust even those who love him, his constant deceit of those that love him, his fatalism and penchant for self-harm do not make him a very sympathetic character. This series is still good because there are multiple interesting characters - indeed, HIS character is interesting even if not likable. But if the intent is to restore him to being a likable, sympathetic character before he dies, there are only a handful of episodes left.The contrast between ZQC's destructive fatalism and the way Jiang'Er approaches HER own impending doom with a determination to be happy with her loved one in whatever time she has left is pretty stark.
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