Latest / Daebak K-Rambles Podcast: K-drama Reviews / The Double | Full C-drama Review / Ep. 81

Transcript

The Double | Full C-drama Review / Ep. 81 · Daebak K-Rambles Podcast: K-drama Reviews

• 0:19
  I'm Jessica and this is Teba K Rambles where a couple of
• 0:21
  friends review Korean dramas. Except today we are not going to
• 0:25
  review Korea drama. We are going to review a Chinese
• 0:28
  drama, another sea drama. For this episode, I am joined by
• 0:33
  the drama trio. Hey Caitlin.
• 0:36
  Hey, Liliana. Yay.
• 0:39
  And Naz from the Swoon Diaries podcast.
• 0:43
  How are you, Naz? I'm good.
• 0:45
  I'm so excited to be here and to record with you guys.
• 0:48
  It's an honor. I'm so excited.
• 0:50
  Girl like this is going to be so much fun.
• 0:53
  Why is it the drama trio and Naz?
• 0:55
  Why are we doing AC drama? Why are we going to cover the
• 0:59
  double, which was a huge C drama for 2024?
• 1:04
  I'll tell you, I basically got peer pressured into doing into
• 1:06
  hosting this episode. So I really wanted to watch this
• 1:12
  show. It was on my queue in my watch
• 1:14
  list for months. It came out earlier this year
• 1:18
  and so I was talking to the drama trail.
• 1:20
  I was talking to everybody. I was like, I'm going to watch
• 1:21
  this show Q4 of 2024. And Caitlin was like, bet are
• 1:27
  you going to do an episode? And I was like, I don't know,
• 1:31
  like I think the podcast will be on break by then.
• 1:34
  Season 5 will be wrapped, Halloween spooky season will be
• 1:38
  over. So I don't know if I'm going to
• 1:40
  do an episode. I kind of just, you know, I
• 1:41
  don't know. She was like, you should do an
• 1:43
  episode so. And then I was like, if you
• 1:49
  don't do an episode, I will do an episode.
• 1:52
  And I was like, OK, OK, I guess I could do an episode.
• 1:57
  And then Caitlin was like, yo, Naz is watching The Double as
• 2:01
  well. And I was like, Oh my God,
• 2:02
  that's so awesome. She goes, Naz has never seen AC
• 2:06
  drama before. And I was like, wow, so The
• 2:09
  Double is her first C drama. Yeah.
• 2:12
  So she goes, we should get Naz on the episode then.
• 2:15
  This is how like this kind of evolved into me hosting a lot of
• 2:20
  people on this review. And then we told this is months
• 2:25
  later. Like this is weeks.
• 2:26
  We established a group text, so to speak, a group DM on
• 2:30
  Instagram with me, Naz and Kayla.
• 2:33
  And I was like, hey, Naz, I don't know if you know this, but
• 2:35
  I am posting like a review episode.
• 2:39
  You're on it. And so then Liliana, I told her
• 2:43
  about it. I was like, hey, we're going to
• 2:45
  record this on this such and such date.
• 2:47
  It's going to be so much fun. I know you love the double.
• 2:50
  If you have any pointers, whatever.
• 2:51
  And she was like, oh, OK, and kind of quiet.
• 2:55
  Later, she's straight in. Should I just?
• 2:58
  Come like. Can I come?
• 3:03
  So that's how the drama trio ended up here with Naz on the
• 3:08
  offseason of Tebag reviewing a Chinese drama that some of us
• 3:13
  have seen before and reviewed before Liliana, because Liliana
• 3:17
  also has done an entire podcast review of The Devil on Her Feet.
• 3:23
  So all this to say. And I actually also kind of got
• 3:26
  Naz on here because in a separate chat I was like, you
• 3:29
  know, Naz, you watch maybe like 15 episodes of this drama.
• 3:34
  Well me and Jess are reviewing it so you should finish it so we
• 3:39
  can have you. All that was just like working
• 3:42
  all angles like she's like, this is going to happen.
• 3:47
  Yeah, so now we're here. We've all finished the show.
• 3:50
  We've caught up to Liliana, who has had this in her back pocket
• 3:54
  for many months now. Yeah, so this is going to be
• 3:57
  fun. Before we get into it, if this
• 3:59
  is your first time listening, go ahead and subscribe on your
• 4:01
  favorite podcast app or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google
• 4:04
  Podcasts and many more. And if you like us, please give
• 4:07
  us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify that goes such a long
• 4:10
  way. Come check us out on social
• 4:12
  media to stay up to date on our latest episodes and reviews.
• 4:14
  You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
• 4:18
  at Debakpod. Lastly, if you're a fan, please
• 4:21
  consider becoming a patron. It is such a great way for you
• 4:23
  to get involved and show your support for as little as $2.00 a
• 4:26
  month. You can check out the page on
• 4:28
  patreon.com/tabakpad. And I think I might move this to
• 4:33
  the end of the show because we're we have amassed some a
• 4:37
  number of patrons and so this is getting to be a little long, but
• 4:41
  here we go. Shout out to Janet, Curtis,
• 4:43
  Bale, CD, Alana, Grace, Lorna, Adya, Sami, Caitlin, Julia,
• 4:47
  Michelle, Tanmir, Marta, Delphia, Maria, Sarah and Maven.
• 4:52
  Love you guys. Thank you so much for supporting
• 4:54
  the show And here we go we are going to get into the double.
• 4:58
  Here is my PSA for every single C drama review we do on the Teba
• 5:03
  K Rambles podcast. This will be a spoilerithic
• 5:08
  review. There will be no non spoiler
• 5:11
  section. I think there's a little bit of
• 5:13
  a barrier when it comes to C dramas.
• 5:16
  They are longer. They're kind of a little, maybe
• 5:18
  a little more niche than K dramas.
• 5:20
  And so if you press play on a full ass review of the double,
• 5:25
  I'm assuming, hey, you might have watched the double.
• 5:29
  So we are going to spoil the double OK from jump.
• 5:34
  We're going to spoil it without further ado.
• 5:36
  We are going to talk about the synopsis, when it aired, the
• 5:40
  cast, and then that's it. Like all bets are off.
• 5:42
  We're going to we're going to jump right into it.
• 5:44
  I vote that Nas gives her opinion on everything first.
• 5:47
  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Every question is going to go
• 5:50
  through Nas 1st and then we're going to open it up to the drama
• 5:54
  trio, basically. I just wanted to say that and
• 5:58
  establish that, but. I like that.
• 6:00
  I like that rule. I like that rule.
• 6:03
  So my drama list synopsis is it tells the story of Shui Feng
• 6:08
  Fei, the daughter of a well off county magistrate who lost
• 6:11
  everything after a major upheaval.
• 6:14
  Saved by Jiang Lee, the daughter of the Secretariat director, she
• 6:18
  took on the identity of Jiang Lee and returned to the capital
• 6:21
  with the help of Duke Xiao Hong and others.
• 6:25
  She overcame numerous hardships, tirelessly fought against
• 6:28
  injustice, rescued her father who had been wrongly imprisoned,
• 6:32
  assistant Xiao Hung and upholding justice, and protected
• 6:36
  the common people. I don't like how that's written
• 6:38
  in like, past tense. It's not written in literary
• 6:41
  present anyway. Whatever.
• 6:43
  This show is adapted from the web novel Marriage of the The
• 6:47
  Daughter by Xian. I'm already messing it up, Xian
• 6:52
  Shan Cha. OK.
• 6:55
  Thank you. All Right.
• 6:56
  Aired in June of 2024. It's a summer show.
• 7:00
  It's 40 episodes long. It has three directors, Bai Yun
• 7:04
  MO, Lu Hao Gigi and Ma Shige. Bai Yun MO has directed Scent of
• 7:10
  Time, Handsome Siblings. Lu Hao Gigi has directed Go
• 7:15
  Princess Go. This one is also a Chinese
• 7:18
  actor, director and photographer.
• 7:20
  He's the son of famous writer Hai Yan, and Ma Shige has also
• 7:25
  directed My Kung Fu Girlfriend, Unattackable Women, and Mr. and
• 7:29
  Missus Trouble. Obviously, this is just a
• 7:30
  smattering of things that these people have worked on before
• 7:34
  this show. The Double is written by Ren
• 7:37
  Yanan, who also wrote Scent of Time, so this writer has also
• 7:41
  worked with the director before, and they wrote Delicacies
• 7:45
  Destiny. These two shows both star the
• 7:48
  male lead from The Double. Yes, O, who is the male lead?
• 7:55
  Wang Xing Yue stars as Xiao Hung slash Duke SU.
• 8:00
  He's the male lead of the devil. You might have seen him in other
• 8:05
  shows like Amidst the Snowstorm of Love from earlier this year,
• 8:08
  2024 story of Kooning Palace, which is where I really
• 8:12
  recognize him from. And judging from the way that
• 8:16
  one of my Tik Toks from two years ago is popping off when I
• 8:19
  first watched Delicacy's Destiny, which is available on
• 8:22
  Disney Plus here in the States. Yeah, he's trending, and he's
• 8:26
  also in Delicacy's Destiny. I totally forgot that he starred
• 8:30
  in that show and I watched it two years.
• 8:33
  I watched that shit two years ago so.
• 8:36
  I was just going to say I think it's also important to mention
• 8:40
  that one of the reasons he is trending is the fact that nobody
• 8:44
  believes that he's 22 years old. I cannot believe that he's 22.
• 8:49
  Like when I found that out last week I was shook.
• 8:52
  I thought that was like a 32 year old man like.
• 8:55
  He's incredibly young. He's very young like my friend.
• 9:00
  I've been following him for quite a while now and all of a
• 9:05
  sudden my FYP is just people shocked at this fact and I was
• 9:10
  like no no he is. He is 22.
• 9:15
  Yeah, which is shocking because I saw, I saw like news about
• 9:17
  like how people didn't really. They were like, oh, there's this
• 9:20
  age gap done. I was like, what age gap?
• 9:22
  Like they're the same. They have to be the same age.
• 9:24
  And I felt his age and I was like, what in the world?
• 9:27
  Yeah, shocking. Yeah, so he's just a little baby
• 9:32
  at 22 years of age. He's already leading giant
• 9:36
  productions like The Double, which you can tell is very well
• 9:41
  funded and, you know, still supporting in other roles, like
• 9:44
  amidst the Snowstorm of Love. And I think he was, he was the
• 9:48
  second male lead in Story of Kuning just exploded.
• 9:51
  He's only been acting, I think, since 2019.
• 9:54
  That was his first movie role, and then he's steadily been
• 9:59
  working through, you know, the past few years, past five years.
• 10:03
  He is classically trained though, so that does make a
• 10:05
  difference because he went to to school like for acting so and
• 10:11
  he's he's like graduated from from that.
• 10:15
  So he he works, he basically works for the same company that
• 10:19
  Biolu belongs to. So they go in the same circles.
• 10:23
  They run in the same circle, so to speak.
• 10:25
  That's why she's he does like quite a few roles with her.
• 10:31
  You can tell how young he is in Delicacy's destiny, I will say.
• 10:36
  Yeah, you can. Tell how much he's improved as
• 10:39
  well since Delicacy's Destiny, which was just a couple of years
• 10:43
  ago. Obviously Delicacy's Destiny was
• 10:45
  likely filmed in 2021, but yeah, so massive, massive leaps and
• 10:51
  bounds he's taken in the past few years and then now he's
• 10:54
  basically an A Lister. His Co star in this show is Wu
• 11:00
  Jin Yan. She plays Jiang Li Shui Feng
• 11:04
  Fei, and she is the female lead of this show.
• 11:07
  She's been in about 25 TV shows, including Story of Young Shi
• 11:11
  Pals. When I saw that on her resume, I
• 11:13
  was like, oh shit, that's right. Like she was in Story of Yung
• 11:17
  Shi Palace with Shukai in 2018. She had another show come out in
• 11:23
  2024, Kill Me Love Me, which I think just finished airing.
• 11:27
  And that one had a delayed schedule because she announced
• 11:31
  her marriage just before. And they're kind of the Chinese
• 11:40
  industry is a little bit flighty when it comes to that sort of
• 11:43
  stuff. So they were like, we're going
• 11:46
  to hold off on kill me, love me until.
• 11:49
  It's because they want all the focus to be like on the main
• 11:53
  couple of the show and people can't get in their minds.
• 11:56
  But it's also trending that she's probably pregnant and
• 12:00
  though, and that news is probably going to drop at some
• 12:03
  point because it's very obvious, like she's done some of the
• 12:08
  promo and she's like protecting her stomach and she's like in
• 12:11
  this very oversized blazer. So there's a lot of like, it's
• 12:16
  fairly obvious that every well, at least everybody thinks that's
• 12:19
  why they think she announced her marriage very quickly.
• 12:24
  It's because they think, you know she's pregnant and that
• 12:27
  news is probably going to follow, which probably means
• 12:30
  she'll be out of the acting game for a little bit until.
• 12:33
  Yeah. Which was interesting because I
• 12:37
  think the double was a role. So she she did after a big break
• 12:44
  like before the double, I think she wasn't like getting scripts
• 12:48
  or wasn't accepting something for a while.
• 12:51
  Like I think it was at least two to four years if I'm not
• 12:55
  mistaken. Wow.
• 12:58
  So with that being said, I'm not going to go into any more detail
• 13:01
  about who's in the cast. This is a large cast, just like
• 13:04
  a many see dramas and historicals especially.
• 13:07
  So I'm going to toss it over to Naz to see how she like, this is
• 13:13
  your first exposure to Chinese dramas.
• 13:16
  And even though we kind of forced you to finish the show
• 13:20
  because of the podcast and peer pressure, what did you think of
• 13:24
  it? How did you approach it?
• 13:25
  Did you have any questions? Just tell us everything.
• 13:30
  Yeah, so I've tried to watch C dramas for a while.
• 13:34
  So like I think I watched like 5 episodes of Go ahead, which I
• 13:37
  really, I really enjoyed. I just I couldn't I got
• 13:40
  distracted. Same thing with hit and love.
• 13:42
  I think I got to episode 7, I got distracted.
• 13:44
  I was like, OK. And then I was like OK, the
• 13:46
  double and 1st episode, literally I that was the most
• 13:50
  thrilling 1st 10 minutes of any show I've ever seen.
• 13:54
  And I was like, I need to see how this is going to end.
• 13:57
  And I was just captivated by the the outfits and just the set and
• 14:03
  just the story that they set up. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
• 14:06
  invested. But yeah, it it definitely was a
• 14:08
  lot to get used to because I just think the sheer amount of
• 14:12
  like characters that are introduced and like the way
• 14:15
  they're introduced. And then like the plot lines, I
• 14:19
  was like, whoa, there's a lot. So I feel like I have some
• 14:22
  questions for you as we go through this, because I'm like,
• 14:25
  is this kind of like the standard for a drama like this?
• 14:28
  And also, is this drama considered a Shanshya or a Wu
• 14:31
  Shia? This is just plain up.
• 14:33
  Historical. Neither.
• 14:34
  OK, this is just plain up. Historical.
• 14:38
  OK, that's good to know. OK.
• 14:40
  So, yeah, it was thrilling. Like it was really.
• 14:42
  I just felt so accomplished when I finished it.
• 14:46
  So you like the pacing, you like the characters, you like the
• 14:49
  costuming. It seems like the production
• 14:51
  design really thrilled you. And of course, the first episode
• 14:55
  hooked you. Yes, yes.
• 14:57
  Absolutely. What did you think of this slow
• 15:00
  ass burn of a romance? Yeah, this is like the slowest
• 15:04
  burn I think I've ever watched. I was like, wow, like, I because
• 15:10
  I don't even think they kissed until the last episode, right.
• 15:13
  And it was like kind of like a pan away type of situation.
• 15:16
  We yeah. So I was like, oh, like, yeah,
• 15:19
  it was a slow burn. But honestly, it was also very
• 15:23
  rewarding because like when you have a like a slow burn like
• 15:26
  this, every single tiny development feels like the
• 15:29
  biggest thing in the world. So it makes it really fun.
• 15:32
  Like, oh, their hands brushed. Oh, he looked at her a little
• 15:35
  long. Oh, he's doing this for her.
• 15:37
  So like, every little thing I was celebrating because I was
• 15:40
  like, this is this is a win. We're moving in the right
• 15:42
  direction. But yeah, it was a slow burn,
• 15:45
  but it was still like, it was very, still very fun to watch
• 15:49
  because there was so much other plot line happening.
• 15:51
  So it didn't feel like, Oh my gosh, I'm so irritated with this
• 15:54
  romance because there were so many other things that were
• 15:55
  happening. Yeah, I thought, I thought each
• 15:58
  development in terms of their there was multiple revenges
• 16:03
  happening throughout the show and that kept you engaged as an
• 16:08
  audience. So even if the romance wasn't
• 16:11
  wasn't happening like progressing necessarily, you
• 16:15
  were invested in if the shit was going to hit the fan, you know,
• 16:20
  every couple of episodes or so. So I'm opening it up to the
• 16:24
  drama trio because it seems like Naz really liked the show.
• 16:28
  What did you guys think of it? I know what Liliana thinks.
• 16:30
  But Caitlin, how did you find the devil?
• 16:35
  Oh, I loved it. Yeah.
• 16:36
  I mean, revenge shows, I always love a good revenge show.
• 16:39
  So and the fact that we got multiple revenges in terms of
• 16:44
  multiple families and multiple characters wanting to get
• 16:47
  revenge, I think it was satisfying for me.
• 16:51
  I feel like the revenge part was very satisfying, but also the
• 16:55
  planning and the hoops everybody had to go through, the make sure
• 16:59
  the revenge happened in the way that they wanted to and just how
• 17:04
  everybody executed everything was very satisfying to watch.
• 17:08
  So I was very happy with this drama, yes.
• 17:12
  Liliana, in case folks didn't listen to your deep dive.
• 17:16
  So I really loved it and I think I just need to highlight
• 17:20
  something that is very different for me than it is for you guys.
• 17:23
  I watch this on air like live. So that was a whole different
• 17:28
  experience. The fact that this show kind of
• 17:31
  came out of nowhere because this isn't like a S plus kind of
• 17:35
  drama in the sense at all. Like the budget is fairly low
• 17:39
  and if we're comparing. Oh, wait, wait, pause here.
• 17:41
  Pause here quickly. SparkNotes What is an S plus
• 17:44
  show for Nas? And thank you anybody listening
• 17:47
  to. This sorry so and when we say an
• 17:50
  S plus show, it just means that it's a show that the company
• 17:56
  that is making it. So whether that be one of the
• 17:59
  big ones, whether it be Yoku Aichi or Tencent, they are
• 18:03
  investing a lot of money like it is the cream of the crop kind
• 18:07
  of, you know, dramas where they are pumping a lot of money.
• 18:11
  It'll have top billing artists that are all over the place.
• 18:15
  It'll have magnificent sets. It'll have like top notch
• 18:20
  costumes. That's, you know, for something
• 18:23
  like, for example, lost you forever that they built these
• 18:27
  sets right from the ground up. That's an S plus drama.
• 18:31
  So it's basically the ones where a lot of money is pumped into
• 18:35
  them, and this one wasn't like this one was not that.
• 18:40
  So nobody was really expecting this to be that.
• 18:45
  You know that good and wanching you.
• 18:48
  Yes, he's steadily been gaining popularity, but he's.
• 18:53
  He's new, he's fresh. He's new, he's fresh.
• 18:55
  And you know, when he's done other shows, like a Midst a
• 19:00
  Snowstorm of Love, for example, which is the show that came out
• 19:03
  in January of this year, he's the second male lead and he's
• 19:07
  next to Wooley. Like, I mean, it's Wooley.
• 19:13
  So I think not a people weren't expecting a lot.
• 19:16
  I think they were expecting a lot because a female lead, this
• 19:19
  was her return to the screen. And then all of a sudden.
• 19:23
  Yeah. And then all of a sudden the
• 19:25
  first episode airs and you just see this flurry of activity on
• 19:30
  social media and everybody is like, what the heck, Just.
• 19:34
  And then like gradually more and more people start watching it.
• 19:38
  And then out of nowhere, Netflix picks this up.
• 19:42
  And it's like, what? While on air, this is like, not
• 19:46
  the norm by any means. Like Netflix picks up Chinese
• 19:50
  dramas when they're fully aired normally.
• 19:53
  It's very rare that they pick up dramas that are currently airing
• 19:57
  for Chinese dramas, so. It was so exciting to watch this
• 20:02
  online while, you know, live and with everybody else because it
• 20:07
  just, honestly, this was the dark horse of the year.
• 20:10
  Like, nobody expected this to, you know?
• 20:14
  And everybody was like, oh, thank God this came out.
• 20:17
  This saved our year so far. And the sentiment is still very
• 20:21
  much the case. Like, a lot of this will be on a
• 20:24
  lot of people's top Chinese dramas for 2024.
• 20:27
  I'm sure of it. Yeah, So I hope that kind of
• 20:30
  clears up how this was a sleeper hit in terms of Chinese dramas.
• 20:36
  It was not predicted to be #1 It had a large, largely untested
• 20:42
  cast. Like, even though the female
• 20:45
  lead, Wu Jinyang, had been in the industry for many years, she
• 20:49
  had, like we just said, been taking a prolonged break,
• 20:52
  whether she wanted that break or not.
• 20:56
  So this was a big comeback for her and Wang Shingwei.
• 21:01
  Again, kind of an untested male lead.
• 21:05
  The production looks amazing. I'd still think it looks
• 21:07
  amazing. But yeah, if you break it down
• 21:09
  in terms of how many times did they use this set, how many
• 21:13
  times do we see the same room? What's so special about this
• 21:16
  room? Is it ornate?
• 21:17
  Is it large? All of these things play into
• 21:19
  how much money did it cost to put this together.
• 21:23
  It's likely recycled from some other production.
• 21:26
  It likely didn't cost that much to create.
• 21:29
  And that's what we mean by it's not an S plus show.
• 21:32
  You know, we see them wearing very similar outfits throughout.
• 21:34
  It wasn't as ornate as other shows as maybe Shianches, which
• 21:38
  is a different genre. And you can tell, like, when you
• 21:43
  look at it, they put their effort behind other things,
• 21:47
  right? Like the cinematography looks
• 21:49
  amazing. The writing on this show was
• 21:53
  amazing. And the acting, even though the
• 21:56
  actors were not predicted to be anything special necessarily.
• 22:02
  You know, people weren't tuning in necessarily for Wang Shing
• 22:05
  Yue or Wujin Yan. They knocked it out of the park.
• 22:09
  Absolutely. So I freaking love this show,
• 22:12
  guys. I was so invested.
• 22:15
  I was angry whenever I had to go back to work after watching an
• 22:18
  episode on my lunch break. I would be super tired after
• 22:21
  work and I put on an episode and then three episodes later I'd be
• 22:25
  like, well, shit, now it's like 12:30 in the morning and I have
• 22:27
  to go to bed. And I'm like angry that I have
• 22:30
  to shut this off because like shit just got good.
• 22:32
  Like every few episodes it would be building to a new, the
• 22:36
  resolution of a revenge or the resolution of something and
• 22:40
  you'd be like, well, shit. Like I don't want to shut this
• 22:44
  off. And that addictive quality of
• 22:47
  the good, good Asian dramas like that is this show.
• 22:51
  And I freaking had a fantastic time watching this show.
• 22:56
  Was a great watch experience and I'm just only sorry that I
• 22:59
  couldn't watch it as a binge necessarily because I had to
• 23:04
  like stop watching. I had to move my life and I was
• 23:09
  like weeks not watching it and not like upset me greatly when I
• 23:13
  returned to it because then I was like, well shit, I could
• 23:14
  have been watching this shit the whole time.
• 23:16
  And that's my only regret is that I couldn't just like sit
• 23:20
  there and binge it as I would love to do if I was just a child
• 23:25
  with no responsibilities. So yes, I binge this and that
• 23:34
  should tell you something. You bitch.
• 23:35
  OK so Caitlin never binges shows she is not a binger.
• 23:40
  So this is a huge deal. I think I finished this in like
• 23:43
  2 1/2 weeks. What the?
• 23:45
  That is crazy. That's crazy.
• 23:49
  I'm going to circle back to Naz. What kind of questions did you
• 23:53
  have for us at all? Like what kind of questions were
• 23:56
  they like specifically about the plot or just about like, does
• 23:59
  this happen in all sea dramas? Yeah, I think, well, one, I was
• 24:04
  wondering if in all C dramas is this how is this how characters
• 24:08
  are introduced? Cuz like a lot of times, like
• 24:09
  when a new character came into the fold, like they would put
• 24:12
  their name and then like they would enter and look, hey now
• 24:16
  this is a new character entering the story.
• 24:17
  Like is, does that happen a lot in C dramas?
• 24:21
  For historicals, yes. For Xiangshu, yes.
• 24:24
  For modern, no. I think it's because like when
• 24:28
  you think about historical period dramas, whether that be
• 24:31
  Wushu, whether that be a Xiangshu, any of those, there is
• 24:35
  a lot of characters and I think they do it so you can kind of
• 24:41
  see. And also the way Chinese names
• 24:44
  work is it can be that the character itself can mean
• 24:49
  various things just depending on like a certain kind of stroke.
• 24:54
  So they will put it up and like for native speakers or, you
• 24:59
  know, for people who know, who know Mandarin, that they will
• 25:02
  know what character that comes from.
• 25:05
  This is actually actually, there's one scene in the double
• 25:09
  where this is quite obvious because they're doing like word
• 25:12
  play almost. And it's a scene where the male
• 25:15
  leader, the female leader talking.
• 25:17
  And so her real name, I'm going to read it because I got this
• 25:21
  off Twitter tweet because I don't know Chinese.
• 25:24
  I'm learning. And basically it's a scene where
• 25:27
  they're going backwards and forwards.
• 25:29
  And the scene just reads, She says, I'm a restless spirit from
• 25:33
  the Ching Chong mountain. I'm not Jiang Lee.
• 25:37
  And he says to her, you are just a little leopard cat.
• 25:41
  And what they're doing, like to us that means nothing.
• 25:44
  But what they're doing is they're playing with like the
• 25:47
  Lee character and like changing it from Jiang Lee into like the
• 25:52
  Lee character of her original name.
• 25:55
  So it's him telling her that he knows who she is.
• 25:59
  And I think that's why they also put like that names on screen
• 26:05
  that comes from that as well, so that people know like where the
• 26:08
  characters come from. So in historicals that's I think
• 26:11
  that's fairly normal actually even in Chiasha that's fairly
• 26:15
  normal for that to happen. It's funny because I never
• 26:17
  thought about it in my life that that's weird.
• 26:21
  Yeah, that they put the character.
• 26:24
  Name on. I'm just used to it, like it.
• 26:26
  Just I'm used to it. Like my, it just goes overhead
• 26:29
  for me. Like it's just.
• 26:32
  Yeah. Did you have any other
• 26:33
  questions? This is.
• 26:34
  Actually very interesting. Yeah, No, that was my main
• 26:36
  question. And also you, but you answered
• 26:38
  my other question. What as you explain that
• 26:39
  Liliana, cuz like the the sheer amount of characters, I was
• 26:43
  like, is this the standard? Because I was like there I at a
• 26:46
  certain point I was even talking to Caitlin about it.
• 26:48
  I was like, I can't, I don't know everyone who's on the show,
• 26:51
  Like I don't know anyone's name. Yeah, I'm lost.
• 26:54
  Like she was like, it's OK, but I was like, there's too many.
• 26:57
  People in the show. Nicknames.
• 26:59
  I told her to use nicknames. I was like, I don't know every.
• 27:02
  His name? Yeah, I love you this person as
• 27:05
  well. Yeah, nicknames, but also pretty
• 27:08
  much every historical drama and whatnot, they will have like
• 27:12
  character maps where they will put all the characters and
• 27:16
  they'll like, say their name and a little explanation of who they
• 27:20
  are and how they're linked to each other.
• 27:22
  Like that always comes out with the dramas.
• 27:24
  So a lot of people use those. OK, OK, well they will, K.
• 27:29
  Dramas sometimes do that too, but yeah, with historical K
• 27:32
  dramas, they do those as well, yeah.
• 27:35
  Yeah, any costume drama is going to have like 50 characters, and
• 27:41
  it's going to be a little more prohibitive because it's not
• 27:45
  going to be as easy. You're going to have to pay more
• 27:47
  attention and you might get a little confused, especially
• 27:51
  because it's not the same as if we were a native speaker of the
• 27:56
  language and we can just easily understand, like who they're
• 27:59
  talking about in conversation and they're naming names.
• 28:02
  And one character could have three names, right?
• 28:05
  Chief Secretariat and this, and then their actual real name and
• 28:09
  then another name. Like they could have three each,
• 28:11
  one character have three names. And we're just struggling to
• 28:14
  keep up. But if this was an American
• 28:16
  show, it would be John, the president and whatever.
• 28:21
  Like, you would just understand what they were saying.
• 28:24
  But everything is obviously in their language.
• 28:26
  So you're like, just struggling, and then you're reading.
• 28:29
  And so it's a little bit more difficult.
• 28:32
  And that might be why a lot of people don't like to watch
• 28:34
  historicals. Yeah.
• 28:36
  I also think it has to do with the genre too though, because
• 28:39
  this had a lot of politics involved.
• 28:41
  A lot of politics. Along with like revenge and
• 28:44
  historical. So like you might have an easier
• 28:48
  time. For example, a mystery
• 28:51
  historical might not have a lot of politics.
• 28:54
  You might still have a lot of characters to deal with, but
• 28:57
  you're not dealing with politics and families and stuff.
• 29:02
  Or like a modern does not have any type of politics usually
• 29:06
  when it comes to C dramas. So like, I think it also has to
• 29:09
  do with like the genre that this drama was as well.
• 29:13
  Yeah, they're just inherently more complex.
• 29:15
  So I applaud you for getting into the double at like your
• 29:19
  first complete C Drama is a historical and it's one that.
• 29:23
  Yeah, You know, even though it was popular, at the end of the
• 29:26
  day it is still pretty difficult to understand if you're not used
• 29:31
  to watching this kind of thing, right?
• 29:33
  So good on you. I'm fine with you, I did it.
• 29:37
  Yeah, This is why I told her I was proud of her.
• 29:39
  I was really proud of her watching this.
• 29:43
  So where I put an APB out for what people wanted us to talk
• 29:48
  about specifically and we can hit these as we go through the
• 29:51
  episode. As I said, no non spoiler
• 29:54
  section. We are going to spoil it and
• 29:57
  talk about specifics as much as we can.
• 29:59
  We have no notes, but we do have some questions from the
• 30:03
  audience. I asked the question on
• 30:05
  Instagram. What do you guys want us to talk
• 30:07
  about on this episode? One person said.
• 30:09
  The final episode. Exclamation point.
• 30:11
  Exclamation point. So let's get into it.
• 30:15
  The final episode, I thought, because everyone was bitching
• 30:20
  about the final episode, and I saw this months and months ago
• 30:23
  about how what, what what the hell was that final episode?
• 30:27
  The vitriol. Not vitriol, but just the
• 30:29
  tension online because people did not like the final episode.
• 30:33
  And I was like, what could they have possibly done in this final
• 30:36
  episode other than kill everybody off?
• 30:38
  And when I finally got to the final episode, I was like, that
• 30:43
  was it? Yeah, that was it.
• 30:45
  Y'all were messing around like crying, screaming, sliding down
• 30:51
  the walls for this. Final episode.
• 30:55
  Oh OK, so talk to me guys. Like did you guys have any?
• 31:00
  I have thoughts, but talk to me. So I think a lot of people will
• 31:05
  match because it wasn't necessary.
• 31:07
  So if we're talking about the death of his two servants, that
• 31:12
  does not happen in the novel. That it was something they did
• 31:16
  and they changed and it was not needed.
• 31:20
  Gotcha. That's why people were so mad.
• 31:22
  It's because I got you. It wasn't something that was
• 31:25
  taken out of the novel and put into the drama.
• 31:28
  It was just something they decided to do and.
• 31:30
  It was just for shock value. Yes, and a lot of people believe
• 31:35
  that I talked about this on my episode as well, but a lot of
• 31:39
  people believe that one of the reasons was, did they?
• 31:44
  Make enemies on set or something that they like in.
• 31:47
  The yeah, I don't know the the. Creators were like, we're gonna
• 31:50
  fuck them all up and just kill those two off.
• 31:53
  You know, because. It's happened.
• 31:54
  It means. It well, it has.
• 31:55
  Dirty. But you know that shot of Wang
• 31:58
  Shing Yu in the battlefield with her covered in blood with like,
• 32:03
  her necklace in his mouth? Yeah.
• 32:05
  So that shot. So sexy and hot, yeah, but keep
• 32:09
  going. That shot has been been being
• 32:14
  used since like the beginning. That shot has been promoted like
• 32:20
  crazy, right? And I think they got to the end
• 32:24
  and they were like, crap, We need to put this in because
• 32:29
  we've been promoting it since day one.
• 32:32
  And if we don't give people this shot, they are.
• 32:35
  Gonna be, you know, I'm incredibly much.
• 32:39
  I would have Ryan and if they didn't give me that fucking shot
• 32:41
  too, because it's so good. It is so good.
• 32:45
  Yeah. OK.
• 32:46
  Talk to me. Is there anything else?
• 32:49
  No, so I I was not mad about it. Like when I first watched it, I
• 32:53
  was like, it's not necessary. And the reason it also, I don't
• 32:57
  give this show any grace in the terms that I did a year ago
• 33:01
  because they know they need to be 40 episodes or under.
• 33:04
  Like there is no reason for them to mess up or to even go that.
• 33:10
  But I was like, I'm not that mad about it.
• 33:12
  Like it is what it is like. They should have done it, but
• 33:16
  like if they wanted to kill someone off, they were the two
• 33:20
  people that they should have. Like if they were set on killing
• 33:24
  anybody. My thing is, like, why did you
• 33:27
  have to do both of them Exactly. Like, like, like my thing is
• 33:31
  like, yeah, OK, it makes sense that those two would probably be
• 33:35
  the people to die. But like like why did you have
• 33:38
  to do both? Yeah, it was over Can.
• 33:41
  Overkill. Pun intended and.
• 33:44
  Her maid and her maid, like, yeah.
• 33:48
  She also does not die in the novel.
• 33:50
  Like that was a choice. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
• 33:55
  wait. Yeah, so Tongar doesn't die in
• 34:01
  the book. You'll get the fuck out of here,
• 34:04
  bro, because that's my goodness. So let's sit here for a minute.
• 34:10
  Let's stay here for a minute. I'm trying to get my thoughts
• 34:13
  together because I'm like just reeling.
• 34:14
  So I was upset. Like I was shocked.
• 34:17
  You should have seen me last night when I was seen watching
• 34:20
  the final episode and one guy gets skewered, the other guy's
• 34:24
  crying over his body. And I'm like, Oh my God, I can't
• 34:29
  believe they did this in the final 20 minutes.
• 34:31
  And then he gets just filled with arrows and I'm like what
• 34:37
  the fuck is going on? What is this?
• 34:40
  And even though I was shocked in the moment, I was like well
• 34:44
  fine, OK, I guess shit fine, take, take them, take them then
• 34:48
  like jeez. But Tonger.
• 34:52
  Yeah. She So this one took me by
• 34:55
  surprise and it shouldn't have because at that point in the
• 34:59
  story, those two sit down, the female lead and Tonger her maid,
• 35:04
  sit down and have a little heart to heart.
• 35:06
  And she's like, I bought you this property and I bought you
• 35:10
  this house. And so if you ever want to leave
• 35:15
  my, you know, servitude and go back to your hometown, like you
• 35:18
  have a way of living. You can live off this land.
• 35:22
  And I was like, that's so nice, yada, yada.
• 35:25
  And I was like, after she died tragically in that stupid ass
• 35:30
  exorcism, I was like, I should have, I should have seen it
• 35:34
  because they were made. You can't make these beautiful
• 35:37
  plans for the future without someone dying.
• 35:41
  Like you can't do. That's like a trope, you know?
• 35:45
  So I was like, I should have seen Tonger dying within that
• 35:49
  same episode. Like, she was marked for death
• 35:51
  as soon as she was making plans for her.
• 35:53
  Yep. Yep.
• 35:54
  And then I saw that scene. I was like, she's a goner.
• 35:57
  I was like, I was like, they better not.
• 36:00
  Say I was. Like they better not touch her.
• 36:02
  I was like, because literally after they had that beautiful
• 36:04
  moment, I was like, they better not touch this girl.
• 36:06
  And I was like, I knew they would because I was like, I
• 36:09
  know, I know where this is going.
• 36:11
  They're making plans and I'm like, no, they're going to do
• 36:13
  it. And I just, I was so devastated.
• 36:16
  It's literally like if you're watching a war movie and they're
• 36:19
  having a sit down and then someone goes, what are you going
• 36:22
  to do when you get back home? Oh, I'm going to open a No,
• 36:27
  forget it. You're, you're he's dying.
• 36:28
  He's dying. He's dying.
• 36:30
  I'm going to marry a cute girl and I'm going to open a what?
• 36:33
  Nope. Nope.
• 36:34
  Dying. He's dying.
• 36:36
  That's what happened here with Tonger.
• 36:38
  And they never foretold it in any trophy way with the two
• 36:43
  servants of Duke SU. So it really did come out of
• 36:47
  left fields. I don't think that they should
• 36:50
  have if it wasn't written in the book.
• 36:53
  I'm like, why deviate? Neither like none of those were
• 36:57
  written in the book. And This is why people were so
• 36:59
  incredibly mad because like everybody was like, Oh my God,
• 37:05
  because while we were watching, people were like saying, oh,
• 37:08
  we've read the novel. It's fine.
• 37:10
  You know, unless they deviate from it, everybody's going to be
• 37:13
  OK. And then everybody's like crap,
• 37:16
  Everybody's like, what? So she dies and people are like
• 37:21
  what the I almost was going to swear, but I was like, what
• 37:24
  they? I've been swearing.
• 37:26
  It's fine, it's fine. It's like what?
• 37:28
  What? I can see why people were upset
• 37:32
  if they didn't think that the ending was going to have any
• 37:35
  surprises. This is like people watching
• 37:38
  Breaking Dawn Part 2 and not realizing that they were going
• 37:41
  to do that whole sequence. Yeah, yeah.
• 37:46
  So yeah, yeah. But they never turned around and
• 37:49
  said like just kidding like they did in Breaking Dawn.
• 37:52
  So I feel, I feel like I have multiple episodes where I
• 37:55
  reference The Twilight Saga now and it's looking.
• 37:59
  I just want people to know I never watch The Twilight Saga
• 38:01
  and I haven't read those books since I was a teenager.
• 38:03
  So don't put me down for like any Twilight Saga marathons
• 38:07
  anytime soon, because. There's no judgement here.
• 38:09
  It's. Just I think I hear the song.
• 38:13
  Ha ha ha. Oh my God, yeah.
• 38:16
  On TikTok too much so then it's like continuously in my.
• 38:22
  I will have some. Constantly, like Twilight.
• 38:25
  If you if we're talking about the final episode, oh, I don't
• 38:28
  think did any of you watch this on the Yoku app?
• 38:32
  No, I watched. It I did not see the special
• 38:35
  episode after. Yeah, I was gonna say that
• 38:37
  nobody would have watched a special episode.
• 38:39
  There's a spec. OK, what is in?
• 38:41
  The special they got, is it a backlash with the last episode?
• 38:44
  They had because basically, yeah.
• 38:46
  So they had to do a special episode.
• 38:48
  So they bring in like literally a week before this stops, they
• 38:53
  bring in wanching you and Guccienne like from whatever
• 38:58
  they're doing. They bring them back in, they
• 39:00
  throw them in costumes again and they record like a 10 minute
• 39:05
  special where they like do various scenes in this one room
• 39:10
  because that was all that was left of the set.
• 39:13
  Why? Because people were mad that,
• 39:17
  like, he literally just ran up the hill.
• 39:19
  Yeah. And that was Yeah.
• 39:20
  So. They didn't even see them.
• 39:22
  As like a. So they come back and basically
• 39:26
  you get to see them with a little girl and you get to see
• 39:29
  them married with like this little child.
• 39:31
  And it's hilarious because first of all, so in the in the show,
• 39:35
  Wang Shing Yu dubs himself, it's no problem.
• 39:38
  But Wu Jian, she is dubbed by somebody else.
• 39:41
  But but because there's no time, there's no time she does her own
• 39:46
  voice and people are like 2 plus.
• 39:49
  Two like take it out, take it out, wrap it up.
• 39:52
  It's so like it, it's so funny. Oh my God, I will have to watch
• 39:58
  it. Oh, you.
• 39:59
  Absolutely do you absolutely do. It's just him like being a dad
• 40:04
  to this like kid and her being a girl boss basically.
• 40:09
  Like it's it's in him being a puppy and just wanting all of
• 40:13
  her attention. It's very funny.
• 40:15
  So yeah, there's like a 10 minute special episode.
• 40:18
  They literally were like reshoots.
• 40:20
  But it's fanservice. Yeah, basically.
• 40:24
  So if like basically Nas with Chinese dramas, this.
• 40:27
  Oh yeah. We have to explain this.
• 40:29
  Yes, with with Chinese dramas this tends to happen.
• 40:34
  They'll either have special content already pre prepared.
• 40:38
  If it's like like we were saying, if it's an S plus drama,
• 40:41
  they will have content prepared that's going to be released
• 40:45
  after the show is done. And that can be like an
• 40:47
  alternative ending. It can be like what happens
• 40:50
  after the show wraps up up what happens to the characters.
• 40:53
  It can be anything like that, like.
• 40:55
  An epilogue. Yeah, an epilogue basically, and
• 40:58
  they will do variety shows together.
• 41:00
  They will promote the heck out of it.
• 41:03
  But basically because this one was so out of left field that
• 41:06
  they didn't really do anything together.
• 41:08
  They didn't do any of the Prime or anything.
• 41:11
  So all of a sudden they're bringing them back together for
• 41:14
  this special episode and it's like, and normally you have to
• 41:20
  play together. Yeah, Yeah, normally you have to
• 41:22
  pay to get access to like the special episodes and it's like
• 41:26
  it'll be like £0.99 or $0.99 or whatever to get access to the
• 41:31
  special stuff. But it's normally, sometimes
• 41:35
  it's worth it because sometimes you'll get really, really cool
• 41:38
  scenes. But I'm still laughing like I
• 41:40
  think this is still better than the Love Between Fairy and Devil
• 41:44
  special episodes because that was horrendous.
• 41:47
  Like that was just, Oh, no, so bad.
• 41:51
  If if you guys don't know, they did like a special episode for
• 41:54
  Love between Fairy and Devil where it was just basically
• 41:58
  themes from the show, but with like the female lead and the
• 42:02
  male lead narrating over it with new dialogue.
• 42:05
  It was Yeah, yeah. So, OK, yeah.
• 42:11
  It well, you know, see drama land is is.
• 42:14
  A wild side, yeah. You just kind of have to go with
• 42:17
  it. So the look at the end, at the
• 42:22
  end of the day, did it happen? Yes.
• 42:25
  Were we shocked? Yes.
• 42:28
  Was it devastating? Absolutely.
• 42:30
  That they killed off the two guys from Duke Zoo, that they
• 42:32
  killed Pumar like earlier in the show.
• 42:35
  Did it need to happen according to the source material?
• 42:37
  Absolutely not. I think of the of the deaths, I
• 42:42
  think I was more cut up about Pumar earlier in the show.
• 42:47
  There's three deaths, but the two sets, right?
• 42:50
  One in like the middle of the show and one at the end of the
• 42:52
  show. And at the end of the show, I
• 42:55
  think the the one that they should have not had at all was
• 42:58
  the ones at the end of the show. Yeah, those two.
• 43:00
  Guys, I I think I wasn't surprised because I like Naz.
• 43:03
  I was like, oh, she's a goner. So like, I totally expected it,
• 43:07
  but like, yeah, the two at the end, the two at the end.
• 43:09
  Z Cummings. I was like, why?
• 43:12
  Yeah. And then I really also, I did
• 43:14
  not mind the ending where he was like running up the hill or not
• 43:18
  running, but like riding up the hill or whatever.
• 43:21
  Yeah, same. But I will agree it would have
• 43:23
  been nice to, like, have them. I don't know, be a couple for
• 43:29
  like 5 minutes or something, but I understand why they couldn't
• 43:34
  because you had to have 40 episodes and that was the cutoff
• 43:36
  or whatever. But see, I I don't think that's
• 43:39
  an excuse anymore. At this point.
• 43:41
  They know they've got 40 episodes, so right, they know
• 43:46
  the rule is there. So here's my thought process on
• 43:50
  the final episode. And I this is, this is all true.
• 43:53
  Like when they had their wedding, I was like, Oh my God,
• 43:56
  this is so sweet. Oh my God, they're probably
• 43:58
  together, oh yada yada. And they looked really happy and
• 44:02
  sweet. And I paused the show because I
• 44:04
  was like, what's going on? This is like happening too early
• 44:07
  in the show and we were halfway through the final episode and I
• 44:11
  was like shit, this is what people were talking.
• 44:14
  I'm like we're about to just going to hit the fan.
• 44:16
  Somethings going to happen that's going to derail this
• 44:19
  happy ending because we're halfway through this episode.
• 44:22
  Still got to go. Always the ending from then on,
• 44:26
  it is sort of montagey, right? Like you kind of go through
• 44:30
  large swaths of time in these montages and he goes to war and
• 44:36
  she's alone and he's on the battlefield.
• 44:40
  And I was kind of like, this doesn't, even though it doesn't
• 44:43
  fit right with the rest of the show.
• 44:47
  There is no discernible A to B to C plot.
• 44:50
  They are not there's no machinations right that they are
• 44:55
  exacting on other people. It's just a waiting game almost
• 45:00
  for this couple. It reminded me of reading an
• 45:03
  epic poem like reading the translation of Mulan.
• 45:08
  Like I don't know if you guys have read the translation of
• 45:10
  Mulan, but it's it's really hard to describe.
• 45:12
  But this wonderful, grand, sweeping story that's full of
• 45:17
  romance, yes, like between two people, but just romance in
• 45:23
  terms of like the vibe, the feeling, the atmosphere of it.
• 45:27
  And then the long-suffering, the years of toil and war returning
• 45:32
  from battle being such a huge triumph.
• 45:34
  And this goal, I thought that feeling that I had of reading an
• 45:40
  epic poem and them kind of invoking this, this feeling for
• 45:44
  me was beautiful. And so I was like, all right.
• 45:47
  Bet. Minus those two guys getting
• 45:50
  slaughtered on the battlefield, I was perfectly fine with that.
• 45:54
  This left turn that they took halfway through the episode and
• 45:57
  then taking this approach for the finale episode.
• 46:02
  So that's maybe that's a hot take, but that's me.
• 46:05
  I see you nodding Naz. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I agree.
• 46:08
  I for me and the finale. Okay, so to be completely
• 46:11
  transparent, I spent 80% of this show being completely lost.
• 46:15
  Okay. So I was confused for like a lot
• 46:18
  of it. So we guess the finale revenge
• 46:22
  has been exacted. Everything should be fine and I
• 46:27
  was like not understanding if you guys can explain this to me.
• 46:29
  I don't know what battle he was fighting and why he went to war
• 46:32
  in the 1st place. I was so confused.
• 46:34
  I was like, how did we get here? Yeah, sure.
• 46:36
  OK, So what happened was you know how the eldest Princess
• 46:40
  Waning was taken, was given as a hostage to the Kingdom of Dai
• 46:46
  Dai. Yes.
• 46:48
  So Dai looks like some sort of nomadic tribal society that is
• 46:54
  wildly different from their country and their border
• 46:57
  country. So they're constantly at odds at
• 47:00
  war. And when she returned, when she
• 47:04
  was delivered back, whatever fragile peace they had between
• 47:09
  great yawn, which is their country, and die, fell apart.
• 47:12
  So then the brother, which was the treasonous brother who was
• 47:17
  at the border, fighting at the border, he's the one that's
• 47:19
  basically keeping that shit the Kingdom of die at Bay because
• 47:24
  he's fighting all of these skirmishes and, and keep Border
• 47:27
  Patrol, right? He's maintaining the border.
• 47:30
  So when the coup happened at the end and the brother came back to
• 47:35
  the capital with all of his troops and they fended off his
• 47:40
  coup and killed the brother, all of the troops that were loyal to
• 47:45
  the brother, they had to basically clean house, clean up
• 47:49
  the military and make sure that all of that was set straight.
• 47:53
  Meanwhile, they still have to protect the border because now
• 47:56
  that's what that's what Duke Stewe was saying he was like.
• 47:59
  Now that we have taken heavy losses and this brother, this
• 48:05
  treasonous brother is no longer defending the border, this
• 48:08
  country of die is going to immediately take advantage of
• 48:11
  our weakness and try and invade and try and cause shit at the
• 48:15
  border is what he This is happening so fast.
• 48:18
  Like he says this in like a sentence.
• 48:20
  OK, because I because it just came together really fast and I
• 48:23
  was like. Hold on.
• 48:25
  So that's why he says I am going to go take over the the what was
• 48:29
  it the long woo Army like my because his family is a military
• 48:34
  family. Right, right.
• 48:36
  So he's like, I'm going to do what my father and my
• 48:38
  grandfather did, and I'm going to protect the border and
• 48:41
  basically go to war because this is not going to end in like a
• 48:46
  month. So that's why it takes years,
• 48:49
  right, for him to fix up all the shit that's happening at the
• 48:53
  border, which is very believable, right?
• 48:56
  According to history, the border like that border crisis likely
• 49:02
  took a really long time for him to set straight.
• 49:06
  So does that clear it up for you?
• 49:08
  Like why the Kingdom of Die was so?
• 49:11
  And you can see in the flashbacks with the eldest
• 49:13
  Princess it must be manga if they're keep saying it's north.
• 49:17
  So to me, it's got to be like Russia, Mongolia, like that
• 49:20
  area. Right, right.
• 49:23
  OK. Northern.
• 49:24
  China. Yeah, yeah, OK, that makes sense
• 49:26
  because I was like how? Why is he in war?
• 49:28
  OK, yes, so I really appreciate you explaining that.
• 49:33
  Yeah. But yeah.
• 49:33
  So you know, him going off to war and kind of like the same
• 49:36
  thing with that. You said just like halfway
• 49:38
  through the episode, I was like, hold on.
• 49:39
  Like they're married. Like there's still so much time
• 49:42
  left, like what's going to happen?
• 49:44
  So yeah, the with the war and everything.
• 49:47
  And the two, I called them the two besties the whole time.
• 49:50
  So when they died, I was devastated because I just to
• 49:55
  hear that they didn't die in the novels, really disappointing
• 49:58
  because they were just there and so loyalty and and for them to
• 50:02
  like pass away the way that they did and have to be both of them.
• 50:06
  And I was like, I don't know why we needed this.
• 50:08
  It was terrible, I guess. They were like, let's go.
• 50:11
  Very believable. What are the chances that all
• 50:15
  three of them make it through this like years long campaign?
• 50:22
  Yeah, at the border, Yeah. But again.
• 50:25
  Unfortunate, so unfortunate, but I you know, but the seeing him
• 50:30
  kind of like you know him like him writing like you.
• 50:33
  Know. No, no, that's the thing.
• 50:35
  Yeah, like. Is the.
• 50:36
  Cinematography, yes, yes, and yes.
• 50:38
  And that's what like really captured me because we see him
• 50:42
  just like riding across the hill, like as audience.
• 50:44
  I'm like he's riding back to his wife.
• 50:46
  And it's like Darcy coming across the field, yes, at
• 50:50
  sunrise. Like, are you fucking kidding?
• 50:52
  Like him astride this horse? Yes, and it was low motion and
• 50:58
  then her red billowing. Yes.
• 51:00
  Robes and like, are you kidding? So yeah, hats off to the
• 51:05
  cinematography. Slow motion was popping off.
• 51:08
  The win machine was a character in and of itself.
• 51:12
  The colors were so vibrant. Yeah, I also thought so.
• 51:16
  That finale shot, it was 10 out of 10.
• 51:18
  Yeah, it was beautiful. And just to see like I, I wasn't
• 51:22
  even mad that like, you know, it ended with them not necessarily
• 51:24
  being physically together because I knew that he was on
• 51:27
  his way back to her and they were going to be fine.
• 51:28
  It just kind of gets his attention.
• 51:30
  Exactly. So like the fact it just ends
• 51:32
  with her, like with her face to like, you know, I hope, I'm
• 51:35
  hoping that that is when he actually arrived.
• 51:37
  But like, it was just so epic to me.
• 51:39
  And I'm like, OK, like it didn't feel incomplete to me.
• 51:41
  It just felt very epic and dramatic and I liked it.
• 51:45
  I think, I think also The thing is, a lot of people, when we
• 51:48
  were watching it live on air, when that scene finally aired, a
• 51:53
  lot of people were like, this can be classified almost as like
• 51:57
  an open ending because is he really there?
• 52:00
  Is she imagining that he's there?
• 52:03
  Like you don't know. You don't know because they
• 52:07
  chose to go with them not physically touching each other.
• 52:12
  You can almost go along the pathway of thinking she's just
• 52:17
  been waiting on that damn hill so long that she might be just
• 52:21
  imagining him coming back to her and.
• 52:26
  And they did have that scene of her.
• 52:27
  What was she doing? She was brushing her hair and
• 52:30
  imagining that he was there and brushing her hair for her.
• 52:34
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:35
  And then it was all he died. Exactly, which is what a lot of
• 52:39
  people are so full like this is what you know, it's.
• 52:43
  Interesting, because, like, one of my followers DM me and
• 52:46
  because I put up a story saying like, I finished the double.
• 52:48
  Like if you watch it, let me know.
• 52:50
  And she was like, yeah, I just hate that he died at the end.
• 52:52
  And I was just like, I don't think he died at the end.
• 52:55
  I was like, I was just like, I was like, is that what people
• 52:58
  think? I was like, did he die?
• 52:59
  I have to answer, maybe question everything.
• 53:00
  It's like. I mean, it's a valid theory.
• 53:04
  I personally don't think he died even without knowing that they
• 53:07
  did. Obviously this special episode
• 53:10
  where they, like, drag these people out from whatever project
• 53:13
  they were doing, slapped a wig on them.
• 53:14
  And they said, do your own dub and like, I'll get this kid in
• 53:18
  here with you guys. Play with your your child for an
• 53:22
  hour so we can get 10 minutes of footage.
• 53:25
  Yeah, I knew that thing. He was alive and they were going
• 53:28
  to have a happy ending. So that's just me personally.
• 53:31
  I think also see dramas this year especially have been
• 53:36
  leaning so much into open endings and people are just over
• 53:40
  it. So people are just like, just
• 53:43
  just give me, just give me. They're dead, they're alive,
• 53:47
  they're together. I just want to know.
• 53:49
  So I think that's also why people were mad at it because
• 53:53
  like. I just think people are going to
• 53:54
  be mad no matter what. Oh yeah.
• 53:57
  Feel like you cannot please everybody.
• 53:59
  Somebody's going to bitch about something and whether they were
• 54:02
  together, if they ended up together and it was a classic
• 54:05
  happy ending, they would have been like, oh, we didn't see the
• 54:08
  child. We didn't see enough of the
• 54:10
  wedding. We didn't see this what happened
• 54:12
  to her, her brother and her dad that we didn't know about that
• 54:15
  what happened to her cousin. Like it would have been some
• 54:18
  other thing that people would have bitched about that we
• 54:20
  didn't see. And I'm of the opinion that
• 54:23
  like, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.
• 54:26
  And if the trend, the trend now is open endings, whatever, at
• 54:31
  least you got a 10 out of 10 drama.
• 54:33
  Like, you know what I'm saying? Like you're going to nitpick
• 54:36
  about everything about the ending.
• 54:38
  Because I think in the West we have this in our culture that if
• 54:43
  you have a perfect piece of media like movie, show,
• 54:47
  whatever, and you ruin the ending, the the whole thing is
• 54:51
  tainted. Yeah.
• 54:52
  The entire piece of media is tainted, and I just think that
• 54:57
  I've divorced myself from that feeling over time that if the
• 55:01
  ending is a little squishy, I can, like, still jive with it,
• 55:07
  you know? There's still some merit in what
• 55:09
  I just watched. So you know, it's not a waste of
• 55:12
  my time just because the ending is a little open.
• 55:16
  Just to clarify, I didn't mind the ending, I'm just throwing
• 55:20
  out there like what was being talked about.
• 55:23
  I'm just saying look as we're 4 chronically online people and we
• 55:30
  see a lot of shit. So I'm really just like talking
• 55:34
  about these people, like these people that like you cannot
• 55:37
  believe them for anything. Like to me the ending was fine,
• 55:42
  like I didn't mind it at all. I.
• 55:45
  Love how you're like please don't equate me.
• 55:48
  Don't let me in the same. Basket.
• 55:51
  Don't put me in it. Because like I've seen, I've
• 55:54
  seen a lot of good shows that have bad endings and I still say
• 55:59
  to people watch them like, you know, to be a bad ending or a
• 56:04
  sad ending or whatever it may be, open ending.
• 56:07
  I think people. Think bad equals sad.
• 56:09
  No, I mean bad as in it's just a terrible writing, whatever it
• 56:15
  may be, right? A sad ending is different.
• 56:17
  Like a sad ending, it's just tragic.
• 56:20
  That's that's. Different to me, like sad equals
• 56:22
  sad, not sad equals bad, yeah. Well, I think for that, I think
• 56:26
  that's a different definition though.
• 56:28
  A lot of people don't want sad endings.
• 56:30
  They want the happy we're a family.
• 56:33
  So like, if you're not, if you don't get that at the ending,
• 56:36
  it's ultimate like it's automatically a bad ending.
• 56:41
  So I think that's what is equated to this is the fact that
• 56:43
  they did not get the he's back from war.
• 56:47
  We're a happy family five years down the road ending.
• 56:52
  It's automatically a bad ending. And I think, I mean, I think
• 56:56
  that's what a lot of people are mad about with these open
• 57:00
  endings that are very and I mean, they could be doing open
• 57:03
  endings and see dramas for various reasons.
• 57:05
  One of them I know is if they ever want to do a season 2 and
• 57:10
  allows them to do a season 2 or they don't want to do a close
• 57:16
  the book ending because it might be bad and then it would taint
• 57:19
  the entire drama as we were talking about.
• 57:21
  So they that's two reasons I've seen on the Internet.
• 57:24
  So I think that's one of the reasons why people are mad at
• 57:27
  this ending is because they did not get the happy family
• 57:32
  together ending in the drama. The.
• 57:34
  Contact. So that's just, yeah, that's
• 57:37
  just what that's automatically a bad ending to a lot of people.
• 57:42
  See, I don't mind not having the family happy picture together,
• 57:48
  but if you give me a historical and you skimp out on the wedding
• 57:51
  scene, I'm automatically going to be mad at you.
• 57:54
  Not necessarily because I need them to be wedded.
• 57:57
  I need to see these beautiful costumes like I need to.
• 58:00
  It's the costume. It's the costumes.
• 58:02
  Like there were like Chinese historical wedding costumes,
• 58:07
  nothing like it thing of another world.
• 58:10
  And if you skimp out on those, I've got beef with you like
• 58:14
  automatically. But that's just like a very.
• 58:18
  Specific reason. Yeah, yeah, that's just like a
• 58:21
  very. I'm not like, I'll still say
• 58:23
  that I love the show, but I'll still say, look, you should have
• 58:27
  put thrown in a really good wedding scene in this.
• 58:31
  Yeah, like don't deprive. I'll go one step further on my
• 58:34
  opinion of this ending in this final episode and say the
• 58:37
  episode truly ended halfway through.
• 58:40
  Like when they got married, that was the end of the episode and
• 58:43
  everything that happened after is the epilogue and that's why
• 58:48
  they didn't put together a extra episode or whatever because they
• 58:52
  were like, it's there. Wow, that's a good point.
• 58:55
  It's all in there. It doesn't feel like the rest of
• 58:58
  the show. I think it's because the episode
• 59:02
  the show ends halfway through the finale episode and the rest
• 59:06
  is epilogue, and that's why it's like so montage Y and sort of
• 59:10
  dreamy and feels like different, you know, so I I don't know.
• 59:14
  So anyway, those are our thoughts on the finale, and you
• 59:17
  got us on a little soapbox as well.
• 59:20
  So I had AI had a question. I know we're going off of what
• 59:24
  people gave, but. I oh, yeah.
• 59:25
  No. There's three more questions,
• 59:26
  but we can pause here. What you got?
• 59:29
  What do you have for us? Well, do we want to go through
• 59:31
  the three questions 1st and then I'll ask my question or?
• 59:34
  Oh, does your question have to do with these like?
• 59:38
  No, no, none, none of the. Oh, then ask your question.
• 59:41
  OK, so I want to talk about the bad guys.
• 59:44
  I want to talk about like the people that they were getting
• 59:47
  revenge on. I have two questions.
• 59:50
  One is who was like your most hated bad person 'cause there
• 59:56
  was multiple people technically. Three questions.
• 59:59
  Who was your most hated? Who was like your guilty
• 1:00:02
  pleasure watch like most hated person?
• 1:00:05
  And then who did you think had the most satisfying like revenge
• 1:00:09
  ending? Because I I'll I can answer
• 1:00:13
  those first if you want. Why don't you go 1st and then
• 1:00:16
  we'll have as and then I'll go and.
• 1:00:18
  So my OK, so my favorite, even though they were really annoying
• 1:00:25
  to watch, but also it was kind of I like the fiance because he
• 1:00:31
  technically like in terms of like he was a horrible character
• 1:00:36
  in terms of like he's a really bad dude.
• 1:00:38
  You want to see his satisfying revenge, but the fact is this
• 1:00:42
  entire show was her getting revenge at him because like he
• 1:00:47
  thought he killed her. So he was going mad on seeing
• 1:00:51
  her walking down the street and like, Oh my God, it's freaking
• 1:00:55
  me out. And then he like killed her to
• 1:00:58
  be with the eldest Princess. But then he started hating that
• 1:01:02
  life, which I found great Glee in because like, no, this is
• 1:01:06
  what you deserve. And then just like seeing him
• 1:01:11
  kind of like eating himself from the inside out in terms of just
• 1:01:16
  like the guilt and having to live with what he asked for and
• 1:01:22
  then realizing that's not what he actually wanted.
• 1:01:25
  And then obviously, like, he gets more crazy and more crazy
• 1:01:28
  as the show goes on because like that whole scene with him at the
• 1:01:32
  top of the tower on trying to kill everybody with the
• 1:01:34
  soldiers, I was like, dude, you just need to die.
• 1:01:38
  Yeah, there was like a. Descendant to madness in the
• 1:01:40
  yeah, descend to the madness thing.
• 1:01:44
  But I loved every second of it because like he just was like, I
• 1:01:48
  don't know, he was a really juicy bad character to hate, but
• 1:01:52
  you enjoyed every second of like seeing the revenge that went
• 1:01:56
  with it. He was very interesting, yeah,
• 1:01:59
  very interesting. Because had nothing happened,
• 1:02:03
  had one thing Princess Waning never taken a liking to him,
• 1:02:09
  they would still be married. Like she would have never known
• 1:02:11
  that he was capable of killing her, right?
• 1:02:18
  I have a very different opinion of him and his character in
• 1:02:21
  general. Why?
• 1:02:22
  Don't you share. Let's just talk about him for a
• 1:02:25
  second, yeah? So I think for me, I'm trying to
• 1:02:29
  remember exactly what I said initially, but I think he's
• 1:02:32
  poorly written in some parts simply because he's seen, yes,
• 1:02:39
  you can see his descent into madness, but then all of a
• 1:02:43
  sudden you get towards the end and he's a mastermind, like
• 1:02:47
  outwitting our best characters. So to me, he's poorly written
• 1:02:55
  because you needed to build on that from the start.
• 1:02:58
  You needed to see him play the game from the start, and he
• 1:03:02
  never did. So that's why to me he becomes a
• 1:03:05
  weak bad guy. So, so that was like originally
• 1:03:10
  what I thought about him in general.
• 1:03:12
  I totally see what you're saying because they never had him as
• 1:03:16
  anything but a glorified librarian in the rest of the
• 1:03:21
  show. But I see Nas laughing.
• 1:03:24
  That's what he was. He was just like a scholar.
• 1:03:27
  He was over the school headmaster, basically over this
• 1:03:30
  government school, and he didn't really participate that heavily
• 1:03:36
  in politics even though he was an appointed member.
• 1:03:42
  He didn't play the game. He was a victim of the game for
• 1:03:45
  basically the whole of the show, and then come to find out in the
• 1:03:49
  final like 5 episodes or so, he's a brilliant tactician and
• 1:03:56
  is able to just insert himself into his grand plans for the
• 1:04:03
  coup. And even though it's not beyond
• 1:04:05
  the realm of impossibility, I understand.
• 1:04:08
  Like, I understand what you're saying, Liliana, that there was
• 1:04:11
  no indication that he was so brilliant.
• 1:04:16
  You know, he was like just this scholar.
• 1:04:19
  But like, even even if you say earlier on, like he never moves
• 1:04:25
  and when he does, it's always like somebody else's plan, which
• 1:04:29
  could be a plan in of itself. But when you're giving me, you
• 1:04:34
  get to the end and you want to give me, you know, the biggest
• 1:04:39
  body of them all in terms of who's the big mastermind behind
• 1:04:43
  it. And then you go and find out
• 1:04:44
  that it's Shen you wrong. And I'm like, well, I feel a
• 1:04:48
  little bit disappointed with that because it just doesn't
• 1:04:50
  feel cohesive to me, to his character, if that makes.
• 1:04:54
  Sense Well, when did he? So when you're saying it's the
• 1:04:57
  mastermind behind it all, I thought it was just the
• 1:04:59
  mastermind behind. Now is the time to strike.
• 1:05:03
  Enter the city under these pretexes.
• 1:05:05
  Here's the script for the memorial that you have to send
• 1:05:09
  to the king in order to allow me to validly enter the city with
• 1:05:14
  my army. Like that was what I considered
• 1:05:16
  his plan and him doing the whole waning has to die in order for
• 1:05:22
  us a valid reason to start the coup.
• 1:05:27
  So like that whole bit of the plan was me thinking it was Shen
• 1:05:32
  Shenyu, but anything before that I never considered.
• 1:05:37
  Him. Oh no.
• 1:05:38
  And that and that's what I mean. Well, that's what she's saying
• 1:05:40
  is bad writing. Yeah, that's what she's saying
• 1:05:43
  is bad writing is like up until the coup, he wasn't making those
• 1:05:47
  smart moves and then all of a sudden that the coup he was the
• 1:05:50
  one behind. And so that's what I thought you
• 1:05:53
  were meaning, but then it hit me that maybe you thought that he
• 1:05:57
  was responsible for even more. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:06:00
  But that's what I mean that that's like bad writing in that
• 1:06:03
  essence. Because if the if you follow
• 1:06:07
  like so in the show, as the show gets on, he progressively gets
• 1:06:11
  like crazier and crazier and descends into this madness.
• 1:06:15
  And I'm like, are you really telling me that in the pit of
• 1:06:19
  this madness is when like a light bulb goes off in his brain
• 1:06:22
  that he has to? Play.
• 1:06:23
  I believe it. I do believe it.
• 1:06:26
  I do believe that like there was a clarity that came with his
• 1:06:29
  being finally embracing the dark side, basically like he just
• 1:06:34
  fully became a Sith Lord and just turned up.
• 1:06:39
  That's why I was like, yes, they didn't portend any of this in
• 1:06:42
  the show that he was able to create this evil plan and just
• 1:06:48
  do it on us at the drop of a hat.
• 1:06:51
  But I truly think as soon as he realized that it wasn't so much
• 1:06:56
  that he couldn't get her back, it was that Duke Sue already won
• 1:07:01
  her heart, that ignited a fire under his ass.
• 1:07:06
  And he went that shit crazy. And that's when he was like, Oh
• 1:07:10
  no, I have to do something right now because I'm insanely
• 1:07:14
  jealous. I have to.
• 1:07:15
  She cannot be with him. And so he was jealousy.
• 1:07:21
  I think it was a thing between jealousy but also arrogance.
• 1:07:25
  Yeah, Like that whole the whole coup thing.
• 1:07:29
  Like I do agree with Liliana on the fact that that writing
• 1:07:32
  switch was really off putting and that whatever, but I think I
• 1:07:36
  went along with it because 1. He was extremely arrogant
• 1:07:41
  through that entire thing and that kind of.
• 1:07:45
  And I believe that that kind of like.
• 1:07:47
  LED into the the delusion that he was having like he was
• 1:07:50
  already descending in the madness and then him I think I
• 1:07:55
  just saw it as him more descending in the madness and
• 1:07:58
  then not being able to see them together.
• 1:08:01
  So I could I could agree with like both sides cuz I don't
• 1:08:04
  know. I just found it really fun to
• 1:08:06
  watch him like kind of like, that's what.
• 1:08:10
  He was unraveling, but like in an organized way because they
• 1:08:13
  were able to get really close to seizing the throne there.
• 1:08:19
  Nas, what did you think? Oh, yeah.
• 1:08:22
  I mean, he was my number one villain.
• 1:08:24
  I mean, I don't, I don't know how you can have this, this
• 1:08:27
  woman that you love and you hit her in the head with a shovel
• 1:08:30
  and bury her. I'm just like, there's no coming
• 1:08:33
  back from that. You're done.
• 1:08:35
  Like I was really. But he really tried.
• 1:08:38
  He really tried. And I was like, I this is awful.
• 1:08:41
  Like, I just could not believe that someone, like could be that
• 1:08:44
  weak minded to be manipulated to do something so horrible to
• 1:08:48
  someone that they apparently love.
• 1:08:50
  And I'm just like, how could you do this to somebody?
• 1:08:52
  Let you like literally shared a life with I.
• 1:08:55
  He is Public Enemy number one to me.
• 1:08:58
  And he's every time his face was on the screen, I was like, get
• 1:09:02
  him off my screen. Like could not stand him.
• 1:09:05
  And I just love seeing him squirm throughout the show.
• 1:09:08
  But every time he saw her, he's just like haunted by her face
• 1:09:12
  because he's like, I killed her. I killed her.
• 1:09:13
  It's not her. It's not her.
• 1:09:15
  I feel like in his heart of heart, he had to know, like,
• 1:09:17
  because yeah, so can stand him. He was the worst person the
• 1:09:20
  show. I just, I'll just never forget
• 1:09:22
  that that scene of him like trying to kill her, like I just,
• 1:09:26
  he's terrible. He's like, really like, he just,
• 1:09:29
  he was a coward and he. Were such a coward.
• 1:09:32
  He reminded me of that character from my dearest.
• 1:09:35
  Oh my God. Her, her husband.
• 1:09:37
  The the her husband. Not her husband, but like her
• 1:09:41
  besties, has Ashley. Oh yeah, that guy.
• 1:09:44
  Oh my gosh, yeah. He was such a coward.
• 1:09:46
  Literally he reminded me of that Ashley character from my dearest
• 1:09:52
  that K drama. This very morally upright,
• 1:09:57
  dutiful at all points, loving, but when the going gets tough
• 1:10:02
  and he feels he's up against a wall, he chose filial piety.
• 1:10:08
  Yeah. He chose to save his mother and
• 1:10:12
  his sister and he threw home girl into the bus.
• 1:10:15
  Literally, literally, Not literally, there's no bus, but
• 1:10:18
  right. Like he pounded her upside the
• 1:10:21
  head with a shovel, buried her. He thought she was dead, but she
• 1:10:25
  was alive. So he buried her alive and
• 1:10:28
  completely destroyed her reputation at that.
• 1:10:31
  So there was like, it's a double.
• 1:10:33
  The deception as well was also part of why she felt so
• 1:10:38
  betrayed, because he not only tried to kill her, but the
• 1:10:43
  pretext for killing her was because she was unfaithful.
• 1:10:47
  Yes, framing her for an affair and I'm just like how terrible
• 1:10:50
  can you be? I just saw I found him just such
• 1:10:53
  a weak minded just. Yeah, so he's weak minded and
• 1:10:57
  he's a coward, Yes. Such a coward.
• 1:11:01
  So this weak minded coward goes through the rest of the show
• 1:11:04
  trying to escape his guilt. And she says this at multiple
• 1:11:09
  points, like you're blaming everyone else but yourself.
• 1:11:12
  Yeah, yeah, literally blaming everyone else but yourself.
• 1:11:16
  You're not taking any accountability for your hand in
• 1:11:18
  this because you could have chosen to tell me about, at the
• 1:11:23
  very least tell me that you were being threatened.
• 1:11:27
  Yeah. I could have left.
• 1:11:32
  I could have just washed my hands on this whole thing and
• 1:11:34
  gone back to my hometown. Nobody would.
• 1:11:36
  Have like how? Like there's so many different
• 1:11:38
  options that he could have taken.
• 1:11:39
  Like what it Right. Yeah.
• 1:11:42
  Right. Or tell the king, tell somebody
• 1:11:45
  else versus like, just go with what was happening.
• 1:11:48
  He could have run away. Like there are just like
• 1:11:50
  literally things to do. Instead he just went with it and
• 1:11:54
  was like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
• 1:11:57
  Save it for the judge. Like no, so that's why he was so
• 1:12:02
  frustrating is because he thought he was a good guy.
• 1:12:06
  On paper, he's the nice guy. Oh my gosh, he really is like
• 1:12:09
  that character from My dearest. I didn't even realize the
• 1:12:11
  parallels until you said it, but yeah, he really thinks he's a
• 1:12:13
  good guy. Yeah, and by society's standards
• 1:12:16
  and everyone else saying like, oh, he's so great, he's so
• 1:12:19
  wonderful, He's so well mannered.
• 1:12:22
  He saw this. He saw that.
• 1:12:23
  And no, he'll kill you and leave you for dead in the mountains.
• 1:12:28
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:12:29
  So another strike for a nice guys.
• 1:12:32
  So my answer Give me, you know, a morally Gray man, maybe around
• 1:12:41
  22 years of age, clad all in the red A.
• 1:12:46
  Morally Gray. 22 year old man, my answer for this question is a
• 1:12:55
  swerve because my favorite villain was actually Princess
• 1:12:58
  Waning. Me too.
• 1:12:59
  I thought she oh me and Liliana. Yes.
• 1:13:03
  I think she's, I think she's the better written villain and
• 1:13:06
  she's. Like.
• 1:13:07
  So well, like rounded and faceted.
• 1:13:11
  There's so many sides to her character.
• 1:13:13
  So many. She's like a diamond like you
• 1:13:15
  keep. Telling me you're like, well,
• 1:13:16
  yeah, I didn't. See that part?
• 1:13:18
  Yeah. And she's an understandable
• 1:13:20
  villain like you can get. It's like I adore villains that
• 1:13:26
  that make me almost on the edge of.
• 1:13:30
  I know what you're doing is bad, but I feel sorry for you.
• 1:13:34
  And she's exactly. You're like one, you're like 1%.
• 1:13:38
  Maybe 10%, yeah. She's like, are you a villain or
• 1:13:41
  are you just a product of your like what's the word I'm looking
• 1:13:47
  for a product of? Yeah, of your circumstances.
• 1:13:50
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:53
  She stole the show. She stole it.
• 1:13:55
  She was chewing up scenery. She actress as well.
• 1:14:00
  This actress is going to She's a star.
• 1:14:03
  This is Lee Lee Mung. Yeah, Lee Mung.
• 1:14:06
  Lee Mung is her name. She is a star, that actress.
• 1:14:09
  They need to watch out for her. We should see her in many more
• 1:14:11
  things because this role was so meaty, so juicy.
• 1:14:17
  The way she was fucking twirling, the way she was
• 1:14:20
  twirling in her fine silks and sashing away after doing the
• 1:14:25
  most sadistic thing. I mean really good, really good.
• 1:14:30
  So entertaining. Was so good, especially like
• 1:14:33
  right after, I think it was like right after Yu Rong killed
• 1:14:36
  Kwanko. Killed, killed.
• 1:14:37
  What's her original name? Is it Fang Fei?
• 1:14:40
  Yeah. Yeah, yes, yes.
• 1:14:43
  Killed her. And then he's like back in the
• 1:14:44
  room and he's like upset, obviously.
• 1:14:47
  And she's just like tackling and twirling.
• 1:14:50
  But like, they put it in slow motion and it was just like the
• 1:14:53
  intensity. But yeah, she she's fabulous.
• 1:14:56
  But can yes, she was insane. A little commotion for the
• 1:14:58
  dress. Yes, yeah, everything she was
• 1:15:00
  wearing. Yeah, her outfits were
• 1:15:02
  everything she never missed. Never.
• 1:15:04
  Missed, but even even the way she dies, it's like I I adore
• 1:15:10
  the fact that she has never been able to live on her own terms.
• 1:15:15
  She was scooted off, she was made a slave, but she died on
• 1:15:20
  her own terms. And I kind of like that because
• 1:15:23
  she's like, you're not going to like if you're going to do it,
• 1:15:27
  you're going to do it. And she shoves that blade into
• 1:15:30
  into herself by his hand. And it's just like that death
• 1:15:34
  scene. It's like it's so good.
• 1:15:37
  It's just so good. It's good writing and it's good
• 1:15:41
  acting. And I think that might be why I
• 1:15:44
  don't go whereas like Shenu wrong has the more obvious
• 1:15:50
  scenes for you to hate him. He has written for you to hate
• 1:15:55
  him. Waning is not like you know,
• 1:15:59
  what she's doing is wrong, but she has layers and there's more
• 1:16:04
  to her story. Whereas Shane, you're wrong.
• 1:16:07
  I don't know if it was also just the actor himself that didn't
• 1:16:11
  quite reach where he needed to for me personally.
• 1:16:14
  Towards the end, I was like, oh, he's given a little something
• 1:16:17
  here. Yeah, because he was.
• 1:16:18
  He would like smile and smirk and look a little demented.
• 1:16:21
  And I'm like, yeah, that's what. I need to see right there.
• 1:16:25
  I will say I kind of did not like, and I think I said this on
• 1:16:29
  a social media maybe I did not like the deaths of both of them.
• 1:16:35
  So I understood his death because it was the coward way to
• 1:16:40
  do it. And I was really.
• 1:16:41
  You saw it coming from a mile away.
• 1:16:43
  Oh, yeah, yeah. I in retrospect, as I thought
• 1:16:47
  about it, I didn't mind her death as much as I did when it
• 1:16:50
  first happened. I really wanted her to go crazy
• 1:16:54
  and kill him and like kind of kill herself afterwards.
• 1:16:58
  Do the whole she was obsessed with him the entire show.
• 1:17:03
  Why not take him with you? Because that would take him out
• 1:17:07
  of the picture and that would destroy him because he wanted to
• 1:17:12
  be the winner of everything. So they have her her still kind
• 1:17:16
  of come out on top by killing him and taking him with her.
• 1:17:21
  So like when they when she stabbed herself, I thought she
• 1:17:24
  actually had stabbed him and I was like brilliant.
• 1:17:29
  So I actually, I mean, I didn't mind her death because I
• 1:17:32
  understood it, but like at in the time I was watching it, I
• 1:17:36
  was, I really wanted her to kill him because it was like kind of
• 1:17:40
  like a obsession thing that didn't play out in the end.
• 1:17:45
  I can agree with that. But even I was just gonna say
• 1:17:48
  even like her parting words where she says to him, you
• 1:17:52
  wanted to kill me, so I'll wait for you in hell.
• 1:17:55
  It's just like, Oh yeah, I, I, I mean, I, I think for her.
• 1:18:02
  It's a curse like. She, Yeah, it's a curse.
• 1:18:04
  She's cursing him. And like that in China and like
• 1:18:08
  with the historical facts and whatnot, that's very powerful.
• 1:18:12
  Like so I, I, I. Think everything you've done to
• 1:18:16
  me. Yeah.
• 1:18:17
  Oh, wait, sorry. I brought in some color purple
• 1:18:20
  so Oh no y'all are laughing too much so.
• 1:18:25
  I was kind of. Surprised that sticking on
• 1:18:28
  Princess Waning. I was surprised that they gave
• 1:18:30
  her so much back story. And they did it in the 11th
• 1:18:33
  hour, right in the final eight or so episodes.
• 1:18:37
  They gave us all of this. Yeah, they gave us all of this
• 1:18:40
  back story for her flashback sequences as well.
• 1:18:43
  And that we get to see what happened to her in the Kingdom
• 1:18:46
  of Die as a political hostage. And that she was treated
• 1:18:50
  horribly, horrendously, humiliated, forced to be a
• 1:18:53
  sexual slave, kept out in the elements, sleeping with the
• 1:18:58
  sheep in the fields. And it shows her initiating an
• 1:19:03
  abortion, like giving herself an abortion by putting extreme
• 1:19:06
  stress on her body, wading into freezing cold water.
• 1:19:13
  And I thought that that little act of rebellion was just
• 1:19:16
  probably all she could do to take some control over her life
• 1:19:20
  and her body, because at that point all her agency and all her
• 1:19:25
  bodily autonomy was stripped away.
• 1:19:27
  Never mind her status, her family, everything she knew.
• 1:19:32
  What's worse is that her own father sold her off and did
• 1:19:36
  this. To her.
• 1:19:38
  It's very obvious, like there's a one to one that it brought
• 1:19:41
  about this deep seated resentment, this hatred.
• 1:19:45
  It bred wickedness in her. And I, I'm a firm believer that
• 1:19:50
  two things can be true at the same time.
• 1:19:52
  She can be a victim and she can be an abuser.
• 1:19:55
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:19:57
  And so for her, like once she saw Shen Yu Dong, she wanted to
• 1:20:02
  be the poison and the cure for him.
• 1:20:05
  And she was so love starred, attention starved, looking for a
• 1:20:09
  strong male figure who wouldn't abandoned her like her own
• 1:20:13
  father did. And she saw this upstanding.
• 1:20:17
  Dutiful, kind gentleman and she just imprinted on him completely
• 1:20:22
  instead of developing a healthy crush on him like she was just
• 1:20:26
  infatuated and needed to possess him.
• 1:20:31
  It was all about possession and she was greedy, entitled, felt
• 1:20:36
  the world owed it to her after her hostage ordeal.
• 1:20:40
  And let me just say the fake baby plot was deliciously
• 1:20:48
  ruthless. Deliciously ruthless.
• 1:20:52
  I was living for that plot because even though Jiang Lee or
• 1:21:00
  Shui Fung Fi didn't have any idea about the horrors that she
• 1:21:04
  experienced as a hostage and that she was infertile and
• 1:21:09
  actually wanted to have a baby eventually with Shen Yu Dong,
• 1:21:13
  this I mean, it hit or where it hurt like it was so brutal.
• 1:21:18
  And I thought for someone who did not value human life at all,
• 1:21:24
  who relished torturing and killing and exploiting others,
• 1:21:29
  she really did want to grow life.
• 1:21:31
  She really wanted to bring new life into this world.
• 1:21:34
  And I was like, this is the biggest irony.
• 1:21:36
  And it's what sent her over the edge.
• 1:21:38
  Like after this, she was like, we're doing this fucking coup
• 1:21:41
  right now. We need to call the army.
• 1:21:44
  Send for my brother. Oh my God, the delusion on her.
• 1:21:48
  If you thought Shenyudong was delusional, she was even more
• 1:21:51
  delusional to think that Shenyudong was.
• 1:21:54
  She thought that he would actually love her sincerely and
• 1:21:58
  forgive her for all of her bullshit, literally making him
• 1:22:02
  kill his own wife. She was genuinely shocked that
• 1:22:05
  he kept going back to his ex-wife, that he kept subtly
• 1:22:11
  rejecting her and will go so far as to kill her in the final
• 1:22:15
  sequence. Delusional.
• 1:22:17
  Delusional. I love that she killed.
• 1:22:20
  Not that she killed herself, but that she did it with his flower
• 1:22:23
  hairpin that he gave her. He.
• 1:22:25
  Was like a full circle moment. Yeah.
• 1:22:28
  Especially after his impassioned speech about her never being
• 1:22:34
  more than a pawn to be used and tossed aside when they're done
• 1:22:38
  with her. Yeah.
• 1:22:39
  Which is all true. It's all true.
• 1:22:42
  She he didn't speak a word of a lie in that final thing that he
• 1:22:47
  said to her. I think that I didn't like it
• 1:22:50
  that she took her life, but it is a part of that.
• 1:22:54
  Like she wants to, it wants to be in her own terms.
• 1:22:57
  I don't know. I kind of felt the same way that
• 1:22:59
  Caitlin did initially, that she should have crashed out
• 1:23:02
  differently. The thing is, for me, I think I
• 1:23:06
  didn't necessarily want her to kill.
• 1:23:08
  You're wrong. Because I think that belonged to
• 1:23:11
  Jangly, like Shukran Fei. That was Shufa.
• 1:23:14
  Like, that should have been the way to go.
• 1:23:18
  So that's why I don't think I minded as much.
• 1:23:22
  But yeah, the actress did such a good job.
• 1:23:25
  And like Jess was saying, I think for me what I saw was all
• 1:23:30
  she's ever been shown is like, ruefulness from every side.
• 1:23:36
  So that's what she does to everybody else because she knows
• 1:23:40
  no other way. Like nobody's ever showed her
• 1:23:43
  love or kindness. So The thing is, he's the first
• 1:23:48
  person who's ever shown her any sort of like kindness by giving
• 1:23:52
  her this bloody handkerchief out of that.
• 1:23:56
  That's why I think she holds on so tightly to him because I feel
• 1:24:01
  like to me, how I see it, it's almost like she's constantly in
• 1:24:05
  the dark and he comes out of nowhere and it's like this
• 1:24:09
  blaring light for her. And I think that's why she holds
• 1:24:13
  on so tight to the point of going crazy and being
• 1:24:17
  delusional. But then she wants to bring him
• 1:24:20
  down. She keeps saying like I'm
• 1:24:21
  bringing him down into the quagmire and I want him to get
• 1:24:25
  his hands dirty and I want to get on my level.
• 1:24:27
  I think it's because to her, he can't be hers unless he's down
• 1:24:33
  there with her, unless he's like she snuffs some of that light
• 1:24:38
  out, you know, makes him a little bad.
• 1:24:41
  I don't think she believes he could ever truly be hers.
• 1:24:44
  And also I also think for her, if she breaks him and if she
• 1:24:50
  makes him bad, there's no way Xu Fung Fi would ever go back to
• 1:24:54
  him. I mean, so I think that's why
• 1:24:58
  her wanting to break him comes from that as well.
• 1:25:02
  Yeah, I think she looks at him kind of like a horse.
• 1:25:05
  I need to break this horse. And.
• 1:25:07
  He's going to be mine and he needs to be submissive.
• 1:25:10
  And that that was kind of stuff that I was really intrigued
• 1:25:14
  about their relationship was that she was so hell bent on
• 1:25:18
  humbling him, on degrading him, on making sure that he was below
• 1:25:24
  her, on making sure that he was constantly prostate on his
• 1:25:27
  knees, making him feel pain make it was like training an animal.
• 1:25:31
  Like, you know what I'm saying? She was constantly throwing her
• 1:25:34
  weight around, showing her power, and what was cool about
• 1:25:39
  it was that the female characters don't get a chance to
• 1:25:43
  one up the guys necessarily in such an overt, aggressive way,
• 1:25:47
  but she does. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:50
  I, I feel like because of all the, the terrible things that
• 1:25:54
  she's been through, like a lot of times, like the abuse becomes
• 1:25:57
  the abuser. And I feel like that plays a
• 1:25:58
  role in like how she would treat him as well.
• 1:26:01
  Because she's like, I've had all these terrible things happen to
• 1:26:03
  me. And she's just like, yeah, I
• 1:26:05
  want him. And I'm obsessed with him, but I
• 1:26:07
  also want to hurt him. Like, I've been hurt as well.
• 1:26:10
  And kind of like what Liliana was saying, Like, I feel like
• 1:26:14
  she feels like, you know, in order for us to be together,
• 1:26:17
  like I need him to be as depraved and as miserable as I
• 1:26:20
  am. That's the only way this is
• 1:26:22
  going to work. And so the only way to do that
• 1:26:23
  is like how much you were saying, just like I have to
• 1:26:25
  break him down. And she, yeah, she tried.
• 1:26:27
  Yeah, she was crazy. She was crazy.
• 1:26:29
  She was a crazy bitch. I loved her.
• 1:26:31
  So any other villains we want to talk about?
• 1:26:34
  I know there's G Sharon, which is the stepmom, the evil
• 1:26:38
  stepmother. Yeah, she was my guilty pleasure
• 1:26:41
  villain, really. She was just, she was so
• 1:26:45
  unhinged. Like I was like how?
• 1:26:48
  How like demented do you have to be to frame a child?
• 1:26:52
  Frame a literal. Child, you framed a child like,
• 1:26:55
  what is wrong with you? But the what made it a guilty
• 1:26:57
  pleasure was like when we learned her back story and I was
• 1:27:00
  like, oh, you have a messy, a messy background, like messy,
• 1:27:05
  the audacity and you're trying to ruin other people's lives.
• 1:27:08
  Like you have a lot at stake. Like, and I was shocked to just
• 1:27:11
  see like everything that was going on with her and how she
• 1:27:14
  had this lover and she tried to get rid of him and he came back.
• 1:27:18
  I was like, Oh my gosh, you knew I was not expecting that to come
• 1:27:21
  from her. Yeah, the laugh that I let out
• 1:27:25
  when they did the flashback sequence for her framing Jiang
• 1:27:29
  Lee, the OG Jiang Lee. And she just, like, throws
• 1:27:35
  herself down the stairs. Yeah, and I was like, this bitch
• 1:27:38
  did not like, she really did not just catapult herself down these
• 1:27:43
  stairs. Terrible.
• 1:27:45
  I was like, what the hell? And no one's, I mean, she
• 1:27:48
  silenced anybody who would obviously dissent to like this
• 1:27:51
  whole thing. But wow, what a performance.
• 1:27:54
  What a performance. Anything else about the
• 1:27:57
  villains? One more the I could not stand
• 1:28:01
  the stepmoms maidservant. Oh my gosh that Lady blew me.
• 1:28:06
  I every time she's on the screen I was like get her off the
• 1:28:09
  screen. She was the worst.
• 1:28:13
  She made me so angry. Yeah.
• 1:28:15
  All right, so I'm gonna get back to the Instagram questions.
• 1:28:18
  How would you compare this show to other redo dramas?
• 1:28:23
  And then they put in parentheses, Marry my husband's
• 1:28:25
  story of Kuning Palace, etcetera.
• 1:28:28
  So I don't consider this a redo drama.
• 1:28:31
  Neither do I. I don't either.
• 1:28:33
  Story of Kooning identity. Story of Kooning Palace is a
• 1:28:37
  true redo story. I mean she dies and goes back in
• 1:28:41
  time and marry my. Husband goes back to when she's
• 1:28:44
  18 years old. Yeah, and marry my husband is
• 1:28:47
  also is the same, you know, fairly similar.
• 1:28:50
  So those are true redo stories. This one is not a redoing the
• 1:28:56
  essence. This one is.
• 1:28:57
  She's redoing her own life. She's redoing.
• 1:29:00
  Somebody. Else's life.
• 1:29:02
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:29:04
  Yeah, this is more in line with Princess Wei Young.
• 1:29:06
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:09
  What's the plot of that one? It's this so she.
• 1:29:13
  This is this. They're gonna hate me.
• 1:29:16
  The double is better. Oh, Oh my gosh.
• 1:29:19
  But. You guys does.
• 1:29:21
  You. Guys know I have beef.
• 1:29:23
  I mean, we've reviewed Wei Young, you know, I have beef
• 1:29:26
  with that drama. Wei Young was made in 2015, so
• 1:29:30
  that's. Almost 10 years ago, yeah.
• 1:29:33
  So the plot of Princess. I think you would actually
• 1:29:35
  really love Princess Wei Young. As a matter of fact, there's
• 1:29:37
  more romance in that one than the double, actually.
• 1:29:41
  So the plot of Princess Wei Young is this girl from a small
• 1:29:47
  country, she's a Princess, Her whole family gets slaughtered in
• 1:29:52
  this strange happening that happens at the front of the show
• 1:29:56
  and it was done by the neighboring country and she is
• 1:30:00
  basically adrift. They think that she's dead and
• 1:30:03
  she is helped by this benevolent girl who is also been abandoned
• 1:30:10
  by her family and is living in this wooded area with like a
• 1:30:15
  caretaker. And that girl dies, and she
• 1:30:19
  assumes her identity. Oh my gosh, it's the same thing.
• 1:30:22
  And then she exacts revenge for this girl who was an Angel, a
• 1:30:27
  beautiful Princess, little Angel.
• 1:30:29
  And she's like, what the hell was going on in this neighboring
• 1:30:32
  country? How can I find justice for my
• 1:30:37
  country, which was consumed by this neighboring country?
• 1:30:41
  And my whole family was slaughtered.
• 1:30:43
  The royal family was slaughtered and that's the plot of Princess
• 1:30:46
  Weyong. Oh my gosh, it is the same
• 1:30:49
  thing. It's the same thing.
• 1:30:52
  I'm sure there's other shows that do it again.
• 1:30:56
  Yeah, cuz Princess Weyong was very popular.
• 1:30:58
  So it always happens. You have a popular plot and then
• 1:31:02
  you kind of reuse the plot in other ones.
• 1:31:05
  Yeah. So I guess that answers that
• 1:31:08
  question from Instagram. This question is from Discord.
• 1:31:12
  I'd love to know if you all think the Duke going off to
• 1:31:14
  battle in the final episode could have been spread out over
• 1:31:16
  another episode so that we really felt the impact and
• 1:31:20
  danger that he might not come home.
• 1:31:22
  Was it fine as is? Did we need it?
• 1:31:25
  Maybe it could have been some like quick montage flashes and
• 1:31:29
  then SpongeBob Boys one year later or whatever it was.
• 1:31:34
  No, I I don't. I didn't need a longer battle
• 1:31:37
  situation. Yeah, I don't think I agree.
• 1:31:40
  And as I don't think it needed to be spread out over multiple
• 1:31:44
  episodes or that no. No same.
• 1:31:47
  Same. OK.
• 1:31:48
  We've already been through so much.
• 1:31:49
  They spent 40 episodes trying to exact this revenge.
• 1:31:52
  You don't need, like, a whole other storyline with the war.
• 1:31:55
  Yeah. OK, I want to spend the rest of
• 1:31:58
  the time talking about this couple and this romance and this
• 1:32:02
  question. This last question has to do
• 1:32:04
  with that. So they ask the no kissing right
• 1:32:07
  up until the end. Personally, I thought it worked,
• 1:32:10
  but I saw a lot of comments frustrated by this, including
• 1:32:13
  Wang Shing Yue with a little happy emoji.
• 1:32:18
  So what did? What did you guys think of this?
• 1:32:22
  This was a huge choice that the drama made because Sea Drama
• 1:32:26
  Land might be a little prudish sometimes, but not this prudish.
• 1:32:31
  What do you guys think about the no kissing until the last
• 1:32:34
  episode? For me, I will argue that this
• 1:32:38
  is not a romance. This is a revenge drama.
• 1:32:41
  So I think that like by default, the romance is going to take a
• 1:32:44
  backseat. So, you know, I was satisfied
• 1:32:48
  with my slow burn and my little my little touches and my little
• 1:32:51
  lingering looks until the end because the story is the revenge
• 1:32:55
  and I love romance. That's I'm a romance girlie.
• 1:32:57
  I always love it. But like I understood like as
• 1:32:59
  far as I was concerned, the way I understood the story was that
• 1:33:02
  the romance is going to take a backseat to everything else that
• 1:33:05
  needs to happen. So I was fine with it.
• 1:33:07
  Now, if this is as like purely romance drama out of and like,
• 1:33:10
  what the heck is going on? What is going like That's not
• 1:33:14
  that's not what it is. So I was fine with how it was
• 1:33:16
  done. Okay, so you didn't miss it at
• 1:33:18
  all? No, I thought it was done.
• 1:33:20
  I like the, I think because it was so slow.
• 1:33:22
  The tension was just always building.
• 1:33:24
  So like I was always entertained by it even though it was being
• 1:33:27
  very slow. So I liked it the way it was.
• 1:33:29
  Got you drama trio. Sound off.
• 1:33:31
  I think I, I agree with Naz in terms of like this was not
• 1:33:36
  supposed to be a romance drama. And I think what helped too with
• 1:33:40
  the slow burn thing is like they were truly equals.
• 1:33:45
  The, the, the intelligence was there.
• 1:33:47
  They supported each other. It wasn't like he was the
• 1:33:51
  smarter person and she and helping her and she was kind of
• 1:33:55
  just stumbling along. Like, yes, he was supporting
• 1:33:58
  her, but she was equally as smart and equally contributing
• 1:34:04
  to these plans of revenge. And I think what helped is like
• 1:34:08
  their teamwork in the revenge sustained the lack of romance
• 1:34:14
  until the end because you saw their interaction and their
• 1:34:18
  commitment to each other as partners in terms of revenge,
• 1:34:23
  which then led to this romance blossoming by the end.
• 1:34:28
  I think for me personally, it worked and you could almost
• 1:34:33
  divide this show up in. So you have the first sort of
• 1:34:38
  Arc of sorts, which is Jung Lee's revenge.
• 1:34:44
  So that is on the Jung family and that has nothing to do with
• 1:34:48
  Duke SU. Like Duke SU might pop in every
• 1:34:50
  now and again, but that is Jung Lee's revenge.
• 1:34:54
  Now when you move over to Xufong Fei's revenge, that's when he
• 1:34:59
  kind of their paths kind of intercept way, way more.
• 1:35:03
  And that's when she, you know, can use his help here and there.
• 1:35:08
  But like Caitlin was saying, they were equals.
• 1:35:12
  Their banter back and forth is so incredibly good.
• 1:35:17
  And when I say this, you know, even as an international fan who
• 1:35:22
  doesn't understand Mandarin, it sounded good to me.
• 1:35:26
  But there was people watching it and who do understand Mandarin
• 1:35:30
  and they were saying these two are just firing at each other in
• 1:35:34
  like the best kind of way. The idioms that they're using
• 1:35:39
  and whatnot is just so good. So to me, it didn't bother me
• 1:35:43
  because at the end of the day, this was kind of like Shu Fung
• 1:35:48
  Fi story. It was her story and it was her
• 1:35:51
  revenge plot. And I think he was happy to
• 1:35:55
  like, kind of let her shine and do her thing and, you know, help
• 1:36:00
  her when she needed. But like Caitlin was saying,
• 1:36:02
  they're equals, they're smart, they can work with each other.
• 1:36:06
  He can stand aside and do let her do her thing.
• 1:36:09
  And he can, you know, and he can step forward and do his thing
• 1:36:12
  while she steps back. So I think they work really,
• 1:36:16
  really well together in terms of being a couple.
• 1:36:19
  But this was never sold as a romance drama.
• 1:36:22
  This was a revenge drama and I think this has been happening
• 1:36:26
  more and more often where people are expecting dramas to be like
• 1:36:31
  romances and to be sold as romances when they aren't.
• 1:36:35
  I think like the quickest one that comes to mind straight away
• 1:36:40
  is the story of Pearl Girl, which is airing with Zalushi
• 1:36:43
  right now. This show is not a romance and
• 1:36:47
  people are going in and being like, oh, there's the guys, It's
• 1:36:51
  a business show. Hot people, they don't have to
• 1:36:56
  be exactly together romantically, like, you know
• 1:36:58
  what I'm saying? Like, just because that's how
• 1:37:00
  they're, that's how they get you to watch.
• 1:37:03
  Yeah, it's because these people are hot.
• 1:37:04
  But The thing is, the chemistry can be there, and I think it all
• 1:37:08
  comes down, that's what. Makes it.
• 1:37:10
  Fun. Exactly.
• 1:37:11
  It all comes down to the actors themselves.
• 1:37:15
  They don't have to be touching for it to be sizzling on my
• 1:37:18
  screen. Like, I mean, when did we get
• 1:37:23
  hit? When it was like Western shows?
• 1:37:26
  They have very explicit scenes, but there's no chemistry.
• 1:37:30
  I mean, that's what I mean. So.
• 1:37:32
  But we've always enjoyed the fact that Asian dramas have
• 1:37:37
  almost a lack of skinship at some point and they can still
• 1:37:42
  deliver these very big swooping romantic scenes or these very,
• 1:37:47
  you know, chemistry charged scenes without the aid of full
• 1:37:52
  on making out, so to speak. So to me, it works.
• 1:37:57
  But I've just, I think I've also just gotten used to this type of
• 1:38:01
  romance where the romance historicals tend.
• 1:38:05
  I mean, to me, you have very different types of historicals.
• 1:38:08
  And this is a political historical.
• 1:38:10
  And when it comes to those, the forefront will be the politics
• 1:38:14
  and the revenge. It won't be the romance.
• 1:38:16
  The romance is like the cherry on top of the cake.
• 1:38:19
  So I, I was, I knew what I was getting into and I was not that
• 1:38:24
  mad about it at all. Like I enjoyed the ride.
• 1:38:27
  I enjoyed it too. Last night when I was logging
• 1:38:31
  the show in my drama list, I was like, damn, the kiss was in the
• 1:38:34
  last episode, that's when they got married, yada yada.
• 1:38:37
  And I was like working myself into a frenzy because you can do
• 1:38:41
  that. You can make yourself angry that
• 1:38:44
  we didn't get all of this romance, we didn't get all these
• 1:38:47
  scenes with them. We could have gotten more
• 1:38:48
  kissing, more hand holding, yada, yada, yada.
• 1:38:51
  And I could feel myself getting that way.
• 1:38:52
  And I was like, it's 1:00 AM. Let me just like, put my phone
• 1:38:55
  down. And sleep on it.
• 1:38:57
  Go to sleep. And when I woke up, I thought
• 1:39:01
  the same way that I initially thought, like when I stopped the
• 1:39:04
  show from playing the end credits, which was that was
• 1:39:07
  amazing. I love that show.
• 1:39:10
  It was perfect, right? Minus the two deaths of the two
• 1:39:13
  subordinates in the last 20 minutes.
• 1:39:15
  But weird. That's splitting hairs, I guess.
• 1:39:18
  But truly, I thought that this was a very well written show.
• 1:39:22
  It had multiple layers of revenge, it had very nuanced,
• 1:39:25
  interesting villains, and the acting was great.
• 1:39:29
  All of the pieces, although the puzzle pieces of it were
• 1:39:32
  fantastic and I highly recommend the show.
• 1:39:36
  Is this going to satisfy the romance fans?
• 1:39:39
  I think yes. Like I think there's still meat
• 1:39:41
  there that you can glean something from it because the
• 1:39:45
  chemistry that these two have is incredible.
• 1:39:48
  Whenever they have scenes together, you're like, this is
• 1:39:50
  sexually charged. I feel the electricity in the
• 1:39:53
  air. They are so well matched.
• 1:39:55
  They are constantly bantering, flirting aggressively and I'm
• 1:40:00
  like, this is so hot. Like y'all don't understand?
• 1:40:04
  Like the thrill of watching a historian.
• 1:40:06
  Oracle see drama and nothing is no clothes are being taken off.
• 1:40:10
  You're just like high off of them just being in the same room
• 1:40:14
  together and like they're making eyes at each other after having
• 1:40:18
  a very interesting conversation that has nothing to do about
• 1:40:21
  their relationship. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:40:23
  It's a very weird way of watching if there's no romance,
• 1:40:28
  but you're still getting romance out of it.
• 1:40:32
  It's the same thing that happens when you watch, like, a crime
• 1:40:33
  drama and you're like, why aren't these two characters
• 1:40:35
  together, even though they have, like, wonderful chemistry?
• 1:40:38
  Yes, you know what I'm saying? But it's a crime drama.
• 1:40:40
  Yeah. And there's no romance
• 1:40:42
  whatsoever. They're never gonna get
• 1:40:43
  together. Yeah, you know.
• 1:40:44
  Tension is enough. Yes, yeah.
• 1:40:46
  The tension is enough that the the the dream of it is there.
• 1:40:50
  Yeah. And in this case, the dream is
• 1:40:52
  realized, right. You're not just seeing things.
• 1:40:56
  It's there. It's on the page.
• 1:40:57
  Yep. What were some scenes that were
• 1:41:00
  great romantic set pieces for you?
• 1:41:03
  Because I remember her like drunk dancing in the rain and
• 1:41:07
  spinning around like that scene. That scene made all the rounds
• 1:41:12
  when the show was airing. Like that scene was everywhere.
• 1:41:15
  Absolutely everywhere. That's so good such.
• 1:41:20
  A good I think one that I enjoyed a lot was and it was
• 1:41:23
  mostly like him looking at her was her playing the instrument
• 1:41:28
  in the final exam. Yeah.
• 1:41:31
  Because like the one how he strolled into that place, like
• 1:41:36
  him, Justin Drenrol walking through this drama is just like
• 1:41:40
  strolling with that large Cape behind him always.
• 1:41:44
  But just like him smugly looking at her, being proud, but also
• 1:41:50
  like making sure he's looking at her ex-husband.
• 1:41:53
  Like wondering what he's going to be doing and how nervous he
• 1:41:57
  is and just his entire demeanor in that scene.
• 1:42:02
  That's a great scene. And then the flowers coming up
• 1:42:06
  in this vortex around her as she like, come on.
• 1:42:09
  It is so beautiful. I love the way they use the CGI
• 1:42:13
  in that scene. I guess that's why it's a little
• 1:42:15
  difficult to, it's a historical, but it has these elements in it
• 1:42:19
  that are fantastical. And he flies in and out of her
• 1:42:23
  house, like at certain points too.
• 1:42:26
  It's part of the bits of Ushia that are in there.
• 1:42:29
  Yeah, yeah, I, I have to say I loved the flying.
• 1:42:33
  OK, good. I got a kick out of it.
• 1:42:35
  It was every time someone flew. I I was so excited.
• 1:42:39
  I loved it. It was so good.
• 1:42:43
  Yeah, my scene might be weird, but so.
• 1:42:47
  Nothing's too weird here. It's kind of OK.
• 1:42:50
  Well, we'll see after I say it, but it's.
• 1:42:55
  So this was when she had to get like, she had to get bitten by a
• 1:42:59
  scorpion or something or injected with.
• 1:43:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically yes.
• 1:43:05
  To fix her wrist. Exactly.
• 1:43:06
  And so she's in a lot of pain. And she was like biting on her
• 1:43:11
  lip. And he was like, no, no, no,
• 1:43:12
  don't, don't bite yourself, Like bite me.
• 1:43:13
  And she like, totally hurt. Yeah.
• 1:43:15
  He like gave her his hand. And I was like, he just.
• 1:43:19
  She bit his hand. Gosh, but but even like in that
• 1:43:22
  whole sequence, like the care he took for her, just that's when I
• 1:43:25
  started to see the kind of the affection grow between them.
• 1:43:28
  But like that scene, I was like, Oh my God.
• 1:43:31
  Oh, clutching my pearls. Literally clutching my I.
• 1:43:34
  I did clutch my bums in the sea. Yes, definitely.
• 1:43:43
  And then she's kind of like in a stupor.
• 1:43:45
  She doesn't realize that she's, like, necessarily biting him.
• 1:43:48
  And he's like, let her, let her. It's yeah, babe, babe.
• 1:43:57
  Oh. OK, OK so let me see.
• 1:44:01
  There was one where the this is later in the show the brother
• 1:44:06
  calls him brother-in-law. Yeah.
• 1:44:09
  Oh my gosh, yeah. And his goofy ass smile and the
• 1:44:15
  way he just lights up when he calls him brother-in-law.
• 1:44:19
  I was like Oh my God this is so cute.
• 1:44:24
  Every time she called him by his name.
• 1:44:27
  Yeah. Was a great moment at the.
• 1:44:29
  I think the first time she did it, I was like, oh, that's when
• 1:44:32
  the two guys like just back away slowly.
• 1:44:35
  I think out of from alone. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:44:40
  I for me, it's a lot of like their little moments that makes
• 1:44:46
  that builds the whole picture. So there's one where she comes,
• 1:44:50
  he's helped her with something and he's mad at her and he, she
• 1:44:54
  comes to help him out and she's walking away and she just turns
• 1:45:00
  back to him and goes to him. You're handsome even when you're
• 1:45:04
  mad and. He Oh my gosh.
• 1:45:06
  Yes, Liliana. Yeah, the.
• 1:45:09
  Smile and she walks off screen and it's just like, it's just
• 1:45:13
  those little scenes. There's another one where she's
• 1:45:17
  being held in prison and she's sitting on the floor and he just
• 1:45:21
  strides into the prison, plunks himself down.
• 1:45:25
  And she's like, I thought you were very particular about
• 1:45:28
  things. This this space is way too dirty
• 1:45:32
  for you. And he just goes to her.
• 1:45:34
  I'm tired. And he just like rests there
• 1:45:37
  with her and it's just like these types of moments that make
• 1:45:42
  it or the scene where she has to go to to get something.
• 1:45:49
  She's trying to get close to you wrong.
• 1:45:52
  And she had they're stuck at like his library of sorts.
• 1:45:57
  And he puts a cloak over her and she comes out of that library
• 1:46:02
  and she's like physically sick. And he literally walks to her,
• 1:46:05
  grabs the coat, brushes it on the floor and slick puts.
• 1:46:10
  I wonder because that scene is like is so he knows that she
• 1:46:15
  almost needs to clean herself out of it.
• 1:46:18
  She needs to like get rid of his stench away from her and.
• 1:46:24
  He makes her I'll. Exactly, exactly.
• 1:46:27
  And it's not just that, it's it's the fact that he knows her
• 1:46:32
  so well to know that she needs that, but he yet yet he still
• 1:46:37
  lets her do what she needs to do.
• 1:46:39
  To me, it's a combination of all of these small moments that adds
• 1:46:45
  up to like the picture as a whole.
• 1:46:46
  When she walks in and like, he's about to die, he's about to face
• 1:46:51
  all of these people and she walks in and she says, who said
• 1:46:55
  he's alone? And she just walks in and she
• 1:46:58
  gets her shining. You know, she gets to be the
• 1:47:01
  shining knight and walk in and save him for once.
• 1:47:05
  And she's like, I am not moving away from him and she's standing
• 1:47:09
  in front of him. Like I refuse to abandon you.
• 1:47:12
  There's scenes like when he they.
• 1:47:15
  I love when they do the comparison of Xiao Hung
• 1:47:19
  basically when he's 10 years old and he's beating the drums to.
• 1:47:23
  Like get. People to investigate and then
• 1:47:25
  they do the comparison and she's beating the drum.
• 1:47:30
  And like that scene is also shown in the prison.
• 1:47:33
  And that's when he says I'm really tired.
• 1:47:36
  And it's just like, it's just like a whole lot of small things
• 1:47:41
  that add up and progression picture of them.
• 1:47:44
  Yeah, but also just the progression of them opening up
• 1:47:47
  to each other, because even though she knows that he knows
• 1:47:51
  who she is, she doesn't tell him until way later in the show who
• 1:47:56
  she is. And I love that about him.
• 1:48:00
  Just basically giving her time and space to be able to trust
• 1:48:05
  him with the verbal confirmation that she's Shreya Fung Fi.
• 1:48:11
  And I think that is important that he trusts her so much and
• 1:48:16
  he's so supportive of her and her, not only her, her, her
• 1:48:20
  revenge, but also her healing journey.
• 1:48:22
  Yeah. Another scene I liked, which I
• 1:48:25
  think was just mostly like ha ha, he deserves it is when her
• 1:48:30
  ex-husband and her were like walking out the front door from
• 1:48:34
  something and he was waiting there and.
• 1:48:38
  Like stop it. Her ex-husband was like, I'm
• 1:48:40
  gonna drive you home like. It reminded me of love like the
• 1:48:43
  Galaxy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:48:48
  That will get me every fucking time where like she realizes
• 1:48:51
  something or she needs a ride and she's in a bind and she
• 1:48:54
  exits whatever estate and he's waiting there for her.
• 1:48:58
  Oh no, no, no, it get that was everything.
• 1:49:01
  See drama crack. See drama crack.
• 1:49:04
  So. Rewarding.
• 1:49:05
  Love it it. It'll get me every time.
• 1:49:07
  The moment where he starts stripping in the mines.
• 1:49:11
  Yeah. And she's just looking at him.
• 1:49:14
  She does not avert her eyes. I'm like same girl because what?
• 1:49:21
  Stripping in the mines. Stripping in the mines, he was
• 1:49:27
  like, oh, take my clothes then, because I think they were going
• 1:49:29
  to take some clothes off a dead body and he stunk.
• 1:49:33
  And she was like stunned, stunned to silence.
• 1:49:39
  I love that part because he and then he gratuitous shots of him
• 1:49:44
  and his like tiny little body, but he's like really toned and
• 1:49:48
  yes. Yes, and his fighting shots,
• 1:49:50
  like when he's practicing fighting shots.
• 1:49:52
  Yeah, classic. C Drama.
• 1:49:53
  I'm so glad you were. Introduced to, He'd just be
• 1:49:56
  like, practicing in slow motion, yeah.
• 1:49:57
  I. Think the hair's flowing?
• 1:50:01
  I think we need to introduce Naz to Roule and his his scenes cuz
• 1:50:07
  she'll never be the same again. Nothing.
• 1:50:10
  The same. That's very true.
• 1:50:13
  Oh man. Is Wooley Dylan Wong?
• 1:50:16
  No, no, no. OK.
• 1:50:18
  Those are two separate people. They're both great.
• 1:50:20
  OK, because I know he OK, because I know he comes because
• 1:50:24
  Dylan Wong has like he goes to buy another name too.
• 1:50:26
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:50:26
  So Dylan Wong's real name is Wong Hoody.
• 1:50:29
  So that's his like, real name. And then they have like some
• 1:50:33
  will have Weston Christian, so his.
• 1:50:36
  Yeah, yeah. So his is Dylan Wong, but yeah,
• 1:50:40
  his real name is Wong Hoody. No, we're like is a whole
• 1:50:44
  different ballpark, like. Which drops of man be heven in?
• 1:50:49
  Love like the Galaxy? OK, he loves like the Galaxy,
• 1:50:52
  OK. Wooley Wooley's like, so a lot
• 1:50:55
  of them choose like English names.
• 1:50:57
  So you have Dylan Wong Wooley's English name is Leo Woo.
• 1:51:03
  So that's his, that's his English name.
• 1:51:05
  I know this guy. OK, OK, OK, yes, I recognize his
• 1:51:08
  face. Yeah, so there's so many little
• 1:51:12
  moments throughout this 40 episode journey that just speak
• 1:51:16
  to their romance, that get you hype, that make you just excited
• 1:51:21
  to see them interact some more throughout this revenge story.
• 1:51:26
  I I didn't necessarily feel the lack of the skinship so I
• 1:51:32
  thought it worked too. Was there anything else you guys
• 1:51:35
  wanted to talk about? I.
• 1:51:37
  Think. So no, no, I think we kept oh,
• 1:51:41
  the one thing I wanted to talk about was real fast.
• 1:51:44
  Che Feng Fei, even though she gets back her family, I loved
• 1:51:50
  how she handles her second father, the Jiang Lee's father,
• 1:51:56
  and their final interaction and how she kind of, I mean, he's
• 1:52:01
  gone for like many episodes in the latter half of the show
• 1:52:05
  because she puts the fear of God in him.
• 1:52:08
  Like she basically says, you don't have my forgiveness if you
• 1:52:12
  think that I am going to forgive you and forget everything that
• 1:52:17
  happened over this decade of abuse that I didn't deserve.
• 1:52:22
  It was totally unjust. You got another thing coming.
• 1:52:25
  And he was like, I'll just give you some space.
• 1:52:27
  Gone for like dozens of episodes, but their final
• 1:52:31
  interaction was good because he confirmed what he already knew,
• 1:52:35
  that his daughter had already died, right?
• 1:52:37
  He killed his own daughter, essentially.
• 1:52:40
  His agony was great. I thought that was a great
• 1:52:45
  little montage that they put in there of him just collapsing and
• 1:52:49
  then crying and wailing. He still, you know, accepts this
• 1:52:54
  other woman like he still accepts Shreya Fengfey wants her
• 1:52:59
  in the family. Obviously.
• 1:53:00
  He's like, you can't tell anybody else, like the
• 1:53:02
  grandmother's going to keel over.
• 1:53:03
  You can't tell anybody. It stays between us.
• 1:53:06
  But I really liked how they sort of kept this relationship and
• 1:53:11
  that he still loved her and supported her.
• 1:53:14
  And he has to carry that. I think like almost his
• 1:53:17
  punishment is the fact that he has to carry that with him, that
• 1:53:21
  he can't mourn his daughter only privately and only alone.
• 1:53:26
  So I think that's like punishment in of itself for him
• 1:53:31
  for not standing by his daughter's side.
• 1:53:34
  I actually really enjoyed his character growth and how he kind
• 1:53:38
  of this, you know, I saw what was truly important and kind of
• 1:53:43
  stepped away from it all. So I really liked his character
• 1:53:48
  as a whole. I think towards the edge.
• 1:53:50
  Yeah, I agree. I will never.
• 1:53:52
  Forget Naz finding out her father was alive.
• 1:53:57
  I'm like sitting there on my couch and she's been like
• 1:54:00
  messaging me as she's like watching the show and all of a
• 1:54:03
  sudden I get a message. Her.
• 1:54:05
  Father was alive this entire time.
• 1:54:10
  Something like that I'll never forget.
• 1:54:13
  Welcome to. Chinese dramas there, there's
• 1:54:16
  always people that are alive, they're never quite dead.
• 1:54:19
  Again, what's the rule? We always go with Asian dramas
• 1:54:23
  if there is no body. Body, They're alive.
• 1:54:27
  Yeah, they're alive. They're alive.
• 1:54:29
  Oh yeah, I was shocked. What about the brother?
• 1:54:33
  Were you shocked when the brother was the hostage?
• 1:54:35
  I was more shocked. About the brother than I was
• 1:54:38
  with the dad because I was I was adamant one of them had to have
• 1:54:41
  been dead at some. .0 I see what you're saying.
• 1:54:44
  But I you were like they. Can't possibly both.
• 1:54:47
  Be alive exactly. Like I was more shocked about
• 1:54:49
  the brother than the dad because I just assumed that I don't
• 1:54:54
  know, again, there's no body that means they're not dead.
• 1:54:57
  So I was like OK, both of them don't have bodies so one of them
• 1:55:01
  has to be alive. And I was assuming she was going
• 1:55:04
  to find the other one dead somewhere.
• 1:55:06
  So I was more shocked about the brother than the dad personally.
• 1:55:11
  I see. Well that's the end of my
• 1:55:15
  thoughts. I have no notes you.
• 1:55:17
  Must just say notes and you're like, wait, I don't have notes I
• 1:55:19
  don't have. No notes.
• 1:55:20
  I don't know what I'm saying. So that's it.
• 1:55:24
  We're gonna we're gonna get out of here.
• 1:55:25
  This is a great time with all three of you.
• 1:55:29
  If you guys can say where you guys can be found online?
• 1:55:33
  For me it's Tea and Soju pod on all the socials and Tea and Soju
• 1:55:39
  podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts where you can find lots
• 1:55:44
  of dramatry episodes and AS has been over there as well.
• 1:55:47
  So that's me. And me, you can find me on
• 1:55:51
  Instagram at Swoon Diaries pod and also my podcast.
• 1:55:55
  You can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 1:55:57
  The Swoon Diaries podcast. And me, I have a blog and a
• 1:56:01
  podcast with the same name of no sleep, the number 4 dramas, and
• 1:56:06
  you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, now anywhere.
• 1:56:11
  Thanks guys. Thank you guys so much for
• 1:56:13
  coming on this show on the offseason to talk about a
• 1:56:17
  Chinese drama, but. Thank you for having us.
• 1:56:20
  This was so fun. I got this was a lot of fun
• 1:56:23
  about Steve drama with the drama trio.
• 1:56:25
  Exciting. Yeah, super exciting.
• 1:56:27
  We got to have you on one more time.
• 1:56:29
  See if there's another Steve drama you want to chat about.
• 1:56:33
  Yes. Maybe just a heads up, we are
• 1:56:36
  going to review Love Like the Galaxy next year, so believe
• 1:56:40
  that they're for you. Oh my gosh.
• 1:56:45
  You heard it here first, the little peek behind the curtain
• 1:56:48
  out of the drama trio schedule for 2025.
• 1:56:53
  Anyway, we're going to get out of here.
• 1:56:55
  That's been our show. I'm Jessica and this has been
• 1:56:57
  the Teba K Rambles podcast. Show me the shit.
• 1:57:22
  None.