because a LOT of activity happens around the book event, keeping all the characters busy and less time spent on recycling the ML-throws-a-fit-of-pettiness mini-plot that the show has regurgitated a zillion times. The end of the episode is a bit sad but realistic.
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Both the two male leads, Zhou Chuan and Jiang Yucheng, are both freaking idiot childish 5th graders. Neither of them really deserve Chu Li. It's really hard to root for a romance when there is no likable character to root for to be the FL's partner. At least Jiang finally bows out in this episode but not before acting like a manipulative jerk. Granted, Zhou continues to act like a petulant jerk, so isn't really any better.
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Other than maybe Mr. Xia, all the male characters in this drama are just awful in one way or another. Including and especially the first, second and even third male leads! The 3rd lead is just simply a child who has confused admiration for Gu Bai Zhi (the SFL) with love and is too immature to respect her choices so just keeps hanging around hoping Gu Bai Zhi will magically start to have reciprocal feelings for him. The 2nd male lead , Jiang Yucheng, is more complex, but ultimately is also childishly selfish and a coward. He obviously still has strong feelings for GBZ but is too scared of the emotions so refuses to resolve them with her and instead keeps running away. He feels 'relazed' with Chu Li and confuses that comfort with love. But he feels so relaxed _because_ she has no weight on his heart. His emotions aren't really threatened by anything she does so he's only gravitated towards her because she is a naturally safe emotional harbor. In this sense, he's a jerk because he is using her as a safe place. And even though he obviously knows that she has feelings for someone else, he doesn't respect her choices because he insists on continuing to pursue her. Finally, we get to the First ML, Zhou Chuan. He's just a wreck of a human. He's obviously traumatized by his upbringing into being an emotional coward who, just like his father, hides behind a shield of constant sarcasm and pettiness. It's just a made up act and not the full, 'real' him. But it is the manifestation he presents constantly to the FL, Chu Li. And it makes him a completely absurdly unlikable person. He has another shield, the Mr. Fox online-identity and he talks to her like a normal human being so we know he's capable. But once the latter identity is exposed and that shield is gone, will he be able to finally learn how to open himself up and communicate in real life to Chu Li without the absurd, constant sarcasm, criticism and pettiness? His father never learned. Chu LI's patience with Zhou Chuan's behavior to this point is almost as absurdly unrealistic as his behavior.
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Nothing really too different in this early setup episode. Establishes the characters. Esther and Yuxi both look great. Her future work challenges are foreshadowed by the various other characters with an early foil being the deputy editor who is obviously favoring FL's nepo-baby competitor at the intern spot. One thing that's a bit annoying is that this plot does exactly the same boring, cliche' trope as far, far too many c-dramas by starting off with the ML acting like a complete and total a-hole. Seriously, the way he is acting he is not a good person. Petty. Ignorant (of other's concerns). Self-centered and spiteful. Not at all a likable person. I understand that these plots love to overplay the 'enemies-to-lovers' drama trope but it's really kind of boring and silly. We all just have to grit our teeth and wait until events magically turn him into an empathic, good person who makes sense for the FL to fall in love with. This criticism isn't really at this show in particular. It's a stupid pattern repeated in drama after drama and it's getting tiring.
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This show started with a great premise and a fine cast of actors and characters .... and every now and then it teases that it could deliver on that early promise. But mostly it's just gone downhill steadily from the 3rd episode onward. The main problem being just how unrealistically _incompetent_ so many of the characters are and especially how frustratingly incompetent the script has made the female lead. Sigh ... annoyed that I'm vested enough to finish this out now.
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Not just because it heavily features guest roles by Gulnezer Bextiyar and Ryan Cheng. This episode has the smoothest and most coherent main plot advancement since the first two episodes - which were really mostly just expositional. Still had a sprinkle of cringe dialog bits (specifically anything that came out of Li Lun's mouth) but not a lot. The big plot reveal in this episode wasn't really a big surprise but the timing came sooner than I anticipated and that was cool.
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Last episode we got Ryan Cheng as the demon Changhuang. This episode we get Gulnezer Bextiyar as the Original Goddess. This episode really dragged through the painfully overly rehashed Pei Si Heng story. How many times did they have to keep basically restating the same sob-story in almost the same way? But the guest appearances were nice.
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Seeing Ryan Cheng playing a villain in a guest appearance totally made up for all the flaws! Wow. He's so calm and disturbingly pleasant to look at in this role that he really makes for a chilling villain!
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The script dialogue is very cringe in this episode. Pacing and editing are smoother, but still have a lot of scenes that seem to drag slowly. And the plot right now feels very cartoonish. The villains are all very Snidely Whiplash. Starting to have serious doubts about finishing this series. Are my expectations too high? The cast, sound and visual production quality are so high. The failings in the script and the editing are a big let down by comparison.
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This episode did a better job of managing transitions between scenes than the last couple of issues, but the pacing within scenes at times dragged to a slow crawl. Some of the conversations took forever yet conveyed only a tiny handful of useful information. There were less 'cringe' script moments, at least. But it was a grind to get through this. I also hope the script evolves to give a chance for this experienced cast to use their talents. After watching deep, sophisticated and powerful performance that Chen Du Ling gave in The Glory, her character here seems like a paper cut-out. Same with Neo's and, well, most of the characters.
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Once again the editing and scene transitions are just not well done and the story delivery just feels like someone is tearing pages out of a book and throwing them at us. And wow, the pretentiousness in the script - in particular every word out of the Lin Lu character's mouth - is so bad it's hard not to laugh at it ( and those lines aren't supposed to be funny ). Even the fight scenes look very staged and not continuous - camera switches look like they jump to a completely different fight. And don't get me started on just how cringe the script has been around almost everything to do with the Bai Jiu character. I really love the cast of actors so I'll stick with this for a bit but this is frustrating. Neo and Chen Du Ling are two of my fav actors and I really hope the script gives them more to work with. Both of their characters seem kinda boxed-in and almost stuck with robotic lines so far.
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The first couple of episodes, which were primarily world-building, established high visual production values and a very strong cast of actors. Quite enjoyable to watch and showed lots of promise. This 3rd episode starts down the path of the actual plot line and immediately some cracks are showing in the storytelling. The editing and scene transitions are very awkward resulting in a chopped up story and clumsy pacing. And some of the scripted lines were just ... cringe as they either reached too hard for humor or were too pretentiously dramatic. The episode wasn't all bad. Just kind of a let down.
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This show hasn't been too bad at it, but I really hate when these c-dramas spend too much screen time trying to build up some sort of sob story for the psychopath villain. This episode spends too much time on Prince Li to that purpose. Just a waste of time. He's a horrible psycho who has selfishly caused the deaths of tens of thousands and is about to cause many more people to die. There is no redeeming quality to him whatsoever and it is a waste of screen time to try to pretend that he is, 'complex' or that there is some sort of grey area to feel sorry for him. This screen time would be better spent on the leads or other characters who are at least interesting,
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On the surface, this episode felt like a lot of talking and not much happening, but there were a lot of important conversations, some reveals and some key events. The most important, of course, was the Empress Dowager's decision to invite Ye Li to stay at the palace, "for a few days". This move is clearly to keep her as a potential hostage against the threat that Prince Ding might rebel against the Court. But this ultimately is fine. It physically puts Ye Li in a very safe place where no one would dare harm her because that _would_ trigger Prince Ding to rebel. And she's now closer to her final straw doll target and can use this opportunity to learn more about the Empress Dowager.
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Not a lot happens in this episode other than the (not surprising) appointment of Prince Ding to go lead the army at Suixue Pass. All the rest is filler stuff, first with a mild Prince-gets-jealous-over-nothing story followed by a Sis-in-law-wants-FL-pregnant-before Prince leaves for war story.
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