Wow. This episode was just so emotionally intense and sad. It was bad enough watching all the trauma and abuse that Auntie Qin endured and her suicide attempt, the brutality of Song Cheng Zu on 1st Daughter, the resulting insane, sociopathic tantrum that the latter then inflicted on Old Madam - basically driving her own mother to death. This episode was just brutal. And man,, the scene when Hua Zhi crawls onto the bed to lie close with Old Madam Hua in her last minutes. If you weren't crying watching that, then you must be a robot. The performances by both Liu Jia and Zhang Jing Yi in that scene was just so intense. And god, poor Shaoyao - this was like losing her mother all over again.
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So, the 'bussom friends' thing doesn't seem to have slowed down Zhi's and Yanxi's growing affections for each other. But his mind is struggling with how to resolve all his secret conflicts that seem destined to get in the way. The family is starting to have to deal with more and more 'soft' issues such as jealousy and pettiness within the family and rumors and gossip outside of it.
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This episode did the most to move the plots along since the beginning. For the Hua family's Imperial punishment plot, this episode finally saw the men start their journey to exile. This episode also used that to trigger a final come-to-terms moment between Hua Zhi and all the rest of the women as they once again made a stupid mistake that resulted in brutal consequences for her. This pushed her to the edge of considering severing ties with her family. And the third major plot thread - the romance - gets a major boost as the two leads finally spend some 'quality time' together as the ML shows up to help her out when she is beaten and alone. All in all, because of all the forward progress on the three major plot lines, this is easily my favorite episode so far.
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The leads AND their supporting cast behaved completely contrary to what QianYu (the crappy scriptwriter) wanted to happen, leading to a massive, epic cluster-F with everybody dying! This is an awesome meta-criticism of the writer (who ALSO got killed - HA HA!!!!). I love this show and its relentless desire to smash every classic drama trope! They did so all the way to the end of this episode.
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This episode was great no matter what just because it ended with one of the best c-drama tropes ever: Surviving a cliff jump!
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In order to solve the crisis, saving all of the Night Wanderers & Shanguan He, and to sheild both Song sisters, Nan Heng gives up his uncle for the crimes he committed 3 years ago and throws himself under the bus to take all punishment which includes 60 lashes and giving up his title and going into exile. A side story we can see evolving is Minister Song is clearly coming to a new and respectful understanding of Nan Heng and also a less favorable one of Chu Gui Hong. That's probably going to be very important going forward. Meanwhile, Song Yi Meng is still terrified of the remaining, brutal 'iconic events' that are still left in the SCRIPT. And she also seems to still not be aware of the brutal sacrifices that Nan Heng has given both earlier, to save her father and now, to save all of the Night Wanderers. It would be nice if someone told her. It would probably change her thinking. A lot of viewers hate her character but she is simply operating from a different set of information than we viewers have. Oh, and this episode really hammers home that Chu Gui Hong is on full evil villain arc. He refuses to learn or change from his evil even when his hypocrisy and abuse are gently and clearly pointed out to him by first the Song sisters and later by Minister Song.
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Reading viewer comments during the stream on Viki,it's pretty apparent that a lot of viewers just don't seem to get it that this show is a comedy - indeed that it is a PARODY of asian romance dramas. The comments make it clear that a lot of viewers are taking things way too seriously. At the start, they were hating on the ML for his over-the-top violent behavior. And now viewers are hating on the FL for her over-the-top cluelessness and mistakes due to her not really understanding how the plot has changed from the OG script. I loved this episode because it finally started to clear up some of the confusion and maybe that will sooth some of the haters. And it featured a throwback to one of the early fun trope mechanisms to do so. To any potential viewers out there: I recommend you have first watched a lot of C-Dramas so you can recognize and appreciate all the tropes they are making fun of in this series.
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This episode dealt more emotional gut punches to Nan Heng as first, despite his having given up so much and suffered so much to protect Minister Song from punishment, the latter STILL didn't want to accept his marriage to Song Yi Meng. Next, while disguised as Li Sixteen, he receives very hurtful words from Song Yi Meng herself (who, to be fair, does not seem to be aware of what Nan Heng did to protect her father). These leave him very depressed. And then, finally, while this is less impactful, he gets into yet another scuffle with idiot, pathetic Chu Gui Hong that ends in an exchange of more hurtful words and at this point the final severance of any trace remnants of their long-ago friendship. The series so far has focused for quite some time on Nan Heng going through emotional growth and getting hit with stuff like the above. Feels like the series needs to now start showing some character growth on the part of Song Yi Meng, who still his stubbornly hanging on to her OG script presumptions about Nan Heng and fate.
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This was FL's turn to fail to establish control over ML. He had failed miserably and painfully in the prior episode. She failed in her attempts in this episode (though at least she wasn't getting injured in the process). But it was still hilarious! At some point they need to realize they have to stop trying to get the edge over the other. But I suspect lots more hijinks will happen before then.
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Oh my god. The comedy in this episode is over the top perfect! Lu Yu Ning is just brilliant as his character takes a beating again and again as he stubbornly keeps going against the script writer's intentions. His shell-shocked expression at the end is priceless.
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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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