K-Drama 
I can't say enough about Li Meng's performance as Xingtang. What an amazing actress doing an amazing job. This was a perfect acting seminar on rendering a very complex, tragic and yes, sympathetic,'villainess' character. Loved every minute she was on screen and it's sad that her arc is done now.
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My take on The Slap (tm) is as such. First off, he deserved it and he admitted as such. He broke custom and bypassed getting permission from her parents, causing them a lot of shock and distress. And that is something that is really, really important to her. She cares so deeply for her adoptive parents that it upset her deeply to see them scared and distressed like that. So she was rightfully very upset and she probably had bottled it up to a point where she just had to let it out. Second, by slapping him in front of most of the rest of the household, it established right off the bat that she was now at the same social status level as he was. That she was no longer a servant. So those two purposes were served by The Slap. Now, some commenters have made a big deal that he did this without ever asking what she wanted and that's true. But that isn't the key issue because, well, neither did Han Liang. He also did not ever ask FL whether she wanted to marry him. In fact, he blatantly admitted that he _knew_ she didn't have feelings for him but he went and pushed his the parents to quickly force a marriage. He pushed fast because he could see clearly that Jin Qi was already deeply in love with her and almost certainly going to ask for her in marriage. So if you ask me, Han Liang's motivations and actions were not one bit 'purer' or 'sincere' than Jin Qi's. And if anything, Han Liang's aggressiveness at forcing a marriage was a big reason why Jin Qi did what he did. He had originally planned to woo her gradually but because of Han - along with the circumstances of his duties taking him away from her for stretches - he had to act fast and in a way that could not be countered. At any rate, in either marriage proposal, Lan Xiang was never asked what she wanted. But because she loves her parents so much, she was probably going to be fine with Han's proposal because he went through her parents. That was the big difference.
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This show has been SO SO SO well written up to this point that what happens in this episode is just awful and disappointing. A total let-down as the writers lean into to a massive 'plot-induced-stupidity' moment, making Lin Jin Qi do something so absurdly stupid and out-of-character that I'm kind of left speechless. It makes no sense other than a stupid, cheep contrived way to create a much wider 'lack-of-trust' gap between the ML & FL that will now take many episodes for him to fill in. The purpose is so blatantly obvious and the means is so lazy and disappointing. Look, we see this kind of stupidity in a lot of dramas so it's nothing totally new. But when a show has been so well-written as this one up to now, for them to use this now is so glaring and disappointing. Like spilling a bottle of black ink on a white sheet. This is a stain on the show quality that is going to be hard to wash away. For that matter, the way that Xu Lan Xiang's character has behaved the last couple of episodes is also barely resembling the girl in the prior 25 or so episodes.
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Wow. The move by Lan Xiang to drop and pick up her Larkspur hairpin as a way to signal to First Madam to NOT trust Du Ciu Que was so cool. So brilliant. The pressure is building towards a reveal of the duplicitous schemes by the Du siblings but will it happen before they accomplish some serious danger? Poor, foolish Xiu Wan is like a baby deer about to be devoured by wolves, getting ensnared by the Du creeps.
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So this is definitely a 'ML falls first" story as Lin Jin Ci is clearly becoming more and more intrigued and interested in Lan Xiang (his former fiance'- not that he knows that). He's becoming more and more reliant on her smarts and capability.
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The high quality of the script of this drama is perhaps best demonstrated by what they DIDN'T include in this episode. This episode, with a banquet and all kinds of key guests, was the perfect setting for the classic stereotypical drama trope: The Honey Trap. But this show very gracefully avoided the usual way such a contrivance is implemented and instead used a more subtle mechanism - the Larkspur hairpin - for similar purpose. So much subtler and yet just as dangerous and in this story, very cleverly resolved. Everything was so much more 'adult' in the way both the trap was set by Du Chu Que and the way it was discovered and mitigated by Lan Xiang (with some assistance by others). No silly dramatics / drugs / couple locked in room/ etc., etc.. like the typical 'honey trap' scene usually entails.
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Make sure you have tissues handy because this first episode is emotionally brutal. Wonderful performances by the various ladies of the Shen household and Li Xi Yuan as the young teenage Shen Jia Lan.
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Zhao Miao has always seemed like a problem waiting to happen and he shows out for the snake he is in this episode, as he poisons the relationship between JJ and Du Juan. Otherwise, there area. lot of positive things that happen in this episode variously between multiple characters.
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First off - Mingyue's dad tells her that he and her mother are getting a divorce. So basically, both father and daughter are finally breaking free of the dominatrix. Second of all, over the course of the episode, Chen Ting's true colors - her hateful and psychotic nature - become more fully revealed. Her own daughter fully explains to Jian Jian just how much her mom hates JJ, her dad, Ziqiu, Ling Heping and even, it is implied, Ling Xiao. Then Chen Ting's own actions show her scheming nature - she executes a couple more of her passive-aggressive 'surprise visits' to manipulate people. This all leads to a blow-up, outright confrontation between her and her son, Ling Xiao who calls her out for her BS in front of JJ & his aunt. The amount of passive aggression poured out by Chen Ting during this argument would fill up buckets and buckets. Her hate even for Ling Xiao -- she still is blaming him for the death of her first daughter and even for the 'rebellious attitude' of her 2nd daughter - is plain to see. Finally, on a happier note: Li Haichao and He Mei are officially an item and it's so nice. This will finally tie up the remaining loose knots between ZiQiu and his family.
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Both of JianJian's besties are going through miserable times and crying their eyes out. It's a credit to JianJian's high EQ that in the midst of the "ZiQiu ran off" crisis she still immediately notices that both of them have been crying. Jian Jian and Ling Xiao seem to be more and more bonded. JianJian is no longer hesitant and even confident with it in front of her father. We get Li Dad on one hand finally able to expand his life past his children and entertain maybe adding Teacher Zheng into his life ... when He Mei shows up again .... WITH DONGDONG (who is unbelievably beautiful little boy!). Li Dad of course immediately is caring and gentile with the little boy. And He Mei scolds her ex-husband into financially helping ZiQiu ... but this backfires emotionally for ZiQiu who dives even deeper into his toxic self-pity-spiral. I saw that trend a few episodes back so not surprised. He needs to get slapped in the face and wake up to the reality that he is NOT abandoned and that he is surrounded by people who love and value him. It makes me angry that he is blind to that fact because so many people in the world truly would kill to have the loving support that he has.
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he's always been too self-absorbed and over-thinking and full of self-pity. And most of the time that has surfaced as humility and has been fine. But more and more it's becoming irritating as he is basically disrespecting just how much he is loved by so many people. Hearing him say that nobody wants him is deserving of a slap in the face. He's not a bad person. But his self-esteem issues are almost becoming toxic as he keeps pushing away the love and help that his friends and family want -- no, NEED -- to give him. This kind of self-destructive behavior is just pathetic and awful to watch.
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His conversation with Mingyue is just a masterclass in calm, powerful therapy that simultaneously challenges the other person to face and understand their issues while at the same time providing comfort and safety. When you see it on display finally, you realize why he is the true soulmate for the ferociously sincere Jian Jian.
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YueLing gets traded just awful by her horrible, over-controlling mother. Tang Can also gets treated awful by her horrible, exploitive mother - who we learn basically ruined Tang Can's career. All of Tang Can's relatives except her cousin Yan Yan all suck. The latter girl was so cool and yet also has to take horrible abuse from HER awful mom. My god the Mom's in this show are just so awful. On top of those brutal scenes, Jian Jian, fresh off an awful fight with Yueling before ending up in a horrible fight with Tang Can and, in the midst of feeling like she's losing her two brothers as they both transition to suitors, she's feeling like she's losing her two closest friends. I really was glad when she finally snapped at that stupid snarky boyfriend of her business partner to put him in his place. That jerk has been inappropriate and stepping way out of line for some time now.
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The script writing quality through the first 11 episodes was so good. Feels like these last two have slipped in quality as the writers have relied on the characters being a little stupid and doing too much pointless secret-keeping and fostering misunderstandings. It's not totally overdone yet and maybe this is just for this phase where they are all getting reunited. But it is nevertheless a bit of a let-down compared to the prior episodes.
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The quality of the script writing for this show is just plain amazing. I've become so used to lazy, trope-laden cheap script writing full of dumb contrivances in so many dramas that the quality of writing in the first 10 episodes of this show is almost shocking. So good. So adult.
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