What a fantastic episode for our men. This really should be The Sun Embraces That Other Sun (And Heck, Also Those Other Friendly Suns, While We’re At It). Yes, the two suns are brothers and that would require breaking a number of taboos, but hey, I’m game if you are. Sigh. Another ratings increase (the ninth straight one) with today’s episode bringing in a 37.1%. (Ratings were 7.5% for Captain and 4.5% for Wild Romance.) Good grief. I mean, I’m entertained so I’m not complaining — it’s just way beyond my expectation. Timing and circumstance really have so much to do with which shows hit which numbers; previous sageuk hits Princess’s Man and Tree With Deep Roots are both better dramas, but they aired in different circumstances. But Moon/Sun can thank them for setting the stage for it to come in and dominate. SONG OF THE DAY Feelbay – “낮잠” (Midday nap) [ Download ]
EPISODE 10 RECAP In his bedchamber, Hwon addresses Wol in language that I’m sure must have been carefully and intentionally selected to hint at the underlying sexual tension driving everything — this drama’s whole conflict centers around sex, after all — as he tells her she must make him forget his exhaustion and put his pain to bed. She says she will, as the spiritual object she believes herself to be. Standing just outside, Bo-kyung cracks open the doors and is immediately alarmed at Hwon’s reaction to Wol, and readies to storm in. But Woon pushes the door closed and she loses the moment. She glares at him, but forces a smile as she tells Hwon’s entourage that she was merely worried about the king. Back in her own room, Bo-kyung breaks down in angry tears. Her fears have been realized, because she had recognized that Hwon was looking at the shaman with the eyes of a man for a woman, not a king for his good-luck charm. Hwon calls for the court doctor, surprising all by saying it’s not for him, but for Wol. Hyung-sun protests, because the royal physician is reserved for royalty. Hwon says that her job is to absorb the evil energy from him, and therefore ensuring her health is for the king’s benefit, overriding Hyung-sun’s horrified protests. Hwon reads a book while his physician attends to Wol, although he can’t help sending her longing glances, which don’t escape Hyung-sun’s notice. Then, Wol takes her usual position and watches over Hwon’s sleep. After she leaves, Hwon opens his eyes, not having slept after all. Woon is given the note taken from Wol, intended for the king, and in the morning he gives it to Hwon. It basically tells him that though she’s not considered a person, she wishes to be the king’s citizen. He recalls his harsh words earlier, and reads this as a rebuke of his dismissal of her worth: “She means that a shaman is still a person, so I shouldn’t disregard her.” Hyung-sun muses that it’s rare enough for a shaman to know how to write, but also that she’d dare send this kind of message. Yet this also stirs another memory, of another letter he received from a 13-year-old. His thoughts echo his 15-year-old words: “How could I forget you?” Hyung-sun knows what he’s thinking, and gently reminds him that Wol is is not Yeon-woo. Hwon gets defensive and can’t even bear to hear Hyung-sun continue with the reminder that she’s dead, and he angrily shuts him up. Hyung-sun informs him of Bo-kyung’s visit and entreats Hwon to consider her feelings, and how hurt she must have felt to have abandoned pride to come to him. Bo-kyung is moping in her room when she receives word that the king plans to see her. This is great news for all the queens, especially queens mother and dowager. Granny attributes this to the shaman-charm, who has single-handedly improved the king’s health and facilitated reconciliation with Bo-kyung, and she takes this as proof that Wol is indeed the successor to Nok-young. She decides to request another fortune-reading to move the consummation date up while things are looking good. Bo-kyung happily receives Hwon, who mentions her unannounced nighttime visit. She says it was purely out of concern for him but he cuts to the heart of the matter, as always, insinuating that it was really about keeping tabs on him. He says that there was no person in his room that night, merely an amulet, as a way of dismissing her concerns — See? It’s just a thing. No reason for you to interfere. The words are polite but there’s a menacing quality to Hwon’s tone, and Bo-kyung is ill at ease. Hwon reminds her that they are to keep their space until the consummation in a month, and Bo-kyung understands that he’s really warning her not to visit his quarters again. Bo-kyung grapples with her frustration after he leaves, wondering what he is trying to hide from her, and why he has to go so far as to order her away. She breaks down in tears as she wonders if the thing he’s covering up for is love. First the dead girl, and now the lowly shaman? She orders her lady in waiting to find a court lady with close access to the king. She wants someone to watch the king’s visits with his shaman-charm and report to her — secretly, of course. Yang-myung returns to town to search for Wol, to no avail. He recalls Wol assuring him that she was safe, and wonders if that’s true. He passes a group of young court shamans, and Jan-shil recognizes him from that time years ago when he saved her from the quack peddlers. She runs after him, adorably calling him “Oraboni” and grabbing him in a bear hug. He doesn’t recognize her, all grown now, and is confused until she reminds him of the “magic stone” he once talked about. Memory thus jogged, Yang-myung greets her warmly. Jan-shil tells him she’s no longer a phony seer but the real deal, one of the shamans of Seongsucheong. And that makes the pieces fall into place for Yang-myung — Seongsucheong is the safest place for a shaman in the city — and he asks urgently whether a girl named Wol is among them. But Jan-shil remembers how furiously Nok-young warned her to keep her mouth shut about moon/sun related talk, especially regarding Yeon-woo, and the bodily harm she was threatened with. So she shakes her head no and says that there’s nobody like that around. Jan-shil goes to Wol’s room with a heavy heart, sorry for lying. Sleeping Wol has a fitful dream, and relives the memory of that long-ago night at the festival. Out of context, though, the sight of Hwon wearing that big mask is spooky, and the dream has teh tone of a nightmare. Just as he lifts the mask to reveal his face, she wakes up. It’s a recurring nightmare that always ends before seeing his face. Wol’s particularly disappointed tonight, feeling like she was just about to see his face. Seol is there when she wakes and thinks sympathetically that the face she wants so badly to see is the one she looks on every night. That evening, Hwon is waiting for Wol when she enters and refers to her letter, which conveyed her resentment of him. She protests that she didn’t mean it in that sense, and he allows that maybe she doesn’t resent him — but she did mean it as a reproach. She answers that she only meant to say that she would undertake her duty to the best of her abilities, and that misunderstanding is bound to arise if the reader of the note approaches it with preconceived notions. If he felt something in her note, perhaps it’s because there was a reason he made that inference. Hwon reads into that remark as well, supposing that she’s insinuating that he’s ruling badly. Even though Wol has a tendency to speak in poetic riddles, Hwon does seem to be overreacting this time and he gets worked up, reminding her of her place and that he is not to be trifled with. He exclaims, “I am Joseon’s…!” in much the same way he had at their first encounter. Hwon cuts himself off, recalling that very thing, and declares he’s in need of some air. Wol, as his charm, is ordered to follow him outside. He orders his entourage to stay at a distance, keeping only Wol nearby with the excuse that she’s his charm. They stand outside the closed palace building that was once hers, and that stirs a memory — of young Hwon crying after her as Yeon-woo was kicked out. Assuming her medium powers are responsible for the vision, Wol asks if this place holds sad memories for the king: “Was the person who shed tears at this place… you?” He looms over her and asks intently, “What did you see?” Then he grabs her even closer — rawr! — and asks if she knows this because of her supernatural powers. She says yes, and he tells her to use those powers, then, to answer a question: “What do you think I’m going to do now?” Watching from across the courtyard, Hyung-sun and Woon avert their eyes as Hwon asks whether she thinks he would embrace her, disregarding her status. And then he eyes his uncomfortable staff, all shifting and looking down — and grabs Wol’s hand to run away. HA! (I love that he was being intentionally discomfiting to get everyone to look away.) Racing across the palace grounds, Hwon ducks into an empty building and demands to know who she really is: “You are not Wol.” But she has no other identity, and she says that before he gave her a name, she was just a nameless shaman. Hwon looks at her entreatingly, asking, “Do you really not know me? Have you truly never met me?” Wol asks if he’s looking to find Yeon-woo in her, and if her resemblance to that woman is why he’s keeping her close. He looks devastated as she tells him that she isn’t that person. Lashing out, he says she’s overstepped her bounds for assuming he cared for her, and that she’s a mere charm, not a person. Who is she to send him into such chaos? He warns her to keep away — if she crosses the line again, he won’t forgive her. His entourage awaits outside, and he leaves with them, dismissing Wol’s services for tonight. He does send Woon to follow her back to her quarters, though. Nok-young finds Wol outside and asks in concern if something happened, alarmed when Wol asks, “Who am I?” She confesses that she’s seeing strange visions, and while they must be someone else’s memories, they feel like her emotions. Not really believing it, Wol asks, “I can’t be the owner of those memories, can I? No matter how much I resemble her, I can’t become her, can I?” As though she wishes she were, so she could have the king’s love or maybe just ease his pain. Seol witnesses the conversation with tears of sympathy. Yeom freaks out to have Yang-myung pop up outside his house, and the two friends are then further freaked out by the silent arrival of a third party — Woon. Ha. Woon is here to convey Hwon’s orders to Yeom to appear at the palace, and on his way out gets a glimpse of a letter written on familiarly bright yellow parchment. Yeom explains it as an old letter from Yeon-woo. Seol once more visits Yeom’s house to get a glimpse of him, not seeing that Woon has clocked her shadowy presence. He surprises her with an attack and asks who sent her. Seol knocks his sword aside and runs away. The two remaining friends have a drink, and Yeom asks whether it’s true that Yang-myung has a new sweetheart, wondering what she’s like. Yang-myung reminisces about that one instance eight years ago, on the night before Yeon-woo was to be decided as the princess bride. He’d offered to take her away, but she had dismissed him by telling him not to joke, and he had let it go at that.

Yang-myung: “If I hadn’t disguised it as a joke… If I’d had more courage, and held out my hand… If I had shown my true feelings and asked her to run away… would she be with me now?”

Seol finds Wol waiting up when she returns, and explains that she was visiting her former owners’ house. Wol smiles and says they must have been good people for her to still feel attached, and Seol answers that they were: “When I was not even treated like a beast, they treated me as a person and gave me the pretty name Seol.” She finishes the thought in her head, adding, “That’s the kind of person you were.” After Yang-myung leaves, Yeom goes to Yeon-woo’s old room… where he finds her old chest. OH THANK GOD. Will somebody find that damn letter already? Yeom remembers Yeon-woo’s words about going through with the bridal selection despite her family’s worries. He lifts the lid to find the scrap of paper, curiously out of place, which immediately grabs his attention. He pulls it out, and sees that it’s addressed to the Crown Prince. Yang-myung walks along the deserted road, stopping short at the sight of a dark figure. It’s Jan-shil, and she tells him emotionally that she’s sorry, and that she’ll help him find the woman he’s looking for. She grabs him in a hug, crying, “Because you saved my life. I’ll repay that kindness, I promise.” Yeom visits his mother prior to making his trip to the palace. Min-hwa’s disappointed he didn’t tell her in advance so she could go with him, and Mom asks if she’s angry. Min-hwa says no, not angry — uneasy. Because if her husband goes to the palace alone… Cut to: Yeom, stirring up a frenzy among the court ladies, just like old times. Hwon warmly receives Yeom, whom he still calls Teacher, and invites him to settle in for a chat. Our axis of evil plays the role of today’s political exposition fairies as they receive word of Yeom’s sudden appearance at court and try to unravel its significance. I guess “Because I wanna hang out with my friend” doesn’t compute with this council of backstabbing conspirators? One minister comically complains that his hottie ranking slips whenever Yeom’s around, but then they get to the crux of the problem: As the princess’s husband, Yeom isn’t supposed have anything to do with politics, and thus his presence at court is dangerous. His very existence is problematic on a symbolic level (not unlike Yang-myung), since there are those willing to rally around him, perhaps moved by his father’s lingering influence. Yeom has deliberated over the letter, and now presents it to the king, explaining that he decided the right thing to do was to return it to the rightful recipient. Hwon can’t hide his emotion as he confirms that this is Yeon-woo’s last letter to him. Bowing respectfully, Yeom advises Yeom to forget her now, and to remember his wife. He says that Yeon-woo wouldn’t have wanted him to stay stuck in her shadow either. Hwon notes sadly that everybody is telling him to forget her. After Yeom leaves, he sits there staring at the unopened letter for a long while, and finally reads it.

Yeon-woo: “Crown Prince, I gather the last of my strength to leave this letter. I do not know if it will cause trouble or even if it will reach you, but I write this anyway. Before I leave, even only through the things I have learned from you, I was very happy. But now you must stop blaming yourself, and think of me as a memory. My father will bring me medicine soon. Then I will no longer be able to see you. You must forget me, and years later become a good and wise king.”

He cries, asking, “How much must she have hurt? How painful must it have been?” He asks Hyung-sun to bring him his old chest, and sobs that he can’t remember Yeon-woo’s handwriting anymore. He has to see her old letter as confirmation. Bo-kyung’s court spy reports to her about the king’s nighttime stroll, as well as Yeom’s visit. He was seen in troubled spirits afterward and asked for a chest bearing the hanja character for rain. Bo-kyung seems to recognize this immediately, with some concern. Hwon takes out the old letter, the apology she’d spent so much time on. But as he reads, it triggers another thought and he fumbles for a different letter — the one he recently received. Hwon compares the handwriting of the letters, which contain some of the same words. He orders Wol brought to him immediately. Wol is escorted to his quarters, but along the way she’s jerked to the side by Yang-myung, who asks intently, “Do you recognize me?” As he does, Hwon finishes his comparison and looks up with conviction.
COMMENTS Ack! He knows! They both know! You’re just going to cut out here?? Right, of course you’re going to cut out here; you don’t get to 30%+ ratings by just giving it away, I guess. I’ll give it to this show — even in a slower episode (which is what I thought of this one), it always pulls out a cliffhanger designed to rope us back like a crack addict at the bottom of his pipe, or however else you run out of crack. I said before that I wished Bo-kyung had been developed differently, to not be so outright malicious from the start, and that feeling is growing. I understand that she was raised by a villainous father, but she would have been such an interesting character if she had been allowed to “choose” her evil, so to speak, rather than have been marked from the start as a dark soul. This also stems from Kim Min-seo’s portrayal of Bo-kyung, which I think is fantastic. And yet the problem is, I think she’s giving the character depth that isn’t there in the writing. That’s not as bad a problem as the reverse scenario, but it does give me moments of confusion as a viewer. As a child, when she saw the lovebirds slipping away from the festival and cried, I felt nothing for her because there was nothing to show why she should feel so crushed; they had no existing relationship, and she’d never even looked at him admiringly. She could have been smitten by him at the soccer match, but again, wasted opportunity. Thus I felt (and still feel) that Bo-kyung’s issue is about jealousy over all the things Yeon-woo had, rather than jealousy over the king’s heart — because as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t care for Hwon, the person. It’s all about what this represents: She’s always felt inferior to Yeon-woo, and her insecurities aren’t dead just because the girl (supposedly) is. It would have been a wonderful thing to explore, wouldn’t it? Here’s what I would have done: In their youths, I would have had Bo-kyung misunderstanding Hwon’s request to see her in secret, rather than realizing the truth in two minutes. She could have then built him up in her mind for days and read signs into everything, so when she later found out he meant to see Yeon-woo, that crushing disappointment would have had some bite. Then she could feel hurt over their relationship, whereas right now I feel like she’s a toddler unwilling to relinquish a toy because it’s hers. I’m not saying we can’t enjoy what we have, because I’m going with the story that’s given to us and it’s still entertaining. It’s just rather one-dimensional, ignoring its early potential to cultivate richer characters and more believable emotions. I have found the continued dumping on Han Ga-in a bit excessive, but it’s true that she doesn’t measure up to the men. I like her quite a lot in this role when she’s with Seol and Jan-shil, and I love that this drama shows us some solid female friendship, as fierce and loyal as any bromance. (More of that, please!) Han is managing the sageuk-speak pretty well and I think she bears a striking physical resemblance to child counterpart Kim Yoo-jung, so good casting on the looks front. But it’s too bad that Kim Soo-hyun blows her out of the water, and so does Kim Min-seo. I never really thought Yeon-woo was terribly nuanced a character to begin with, though, even in childhood; she was the simplest role of them all, and I partly blame the writing for being flat on that front. That’s true of a lot of the characters, actually, and we are just blessed in some cases with some actors who transcend their material. And boy, did they transcend in this episode. Kim Soo-hyun was pretty much on fire the whole episode through, whether he was being hurt, furious, confused, or heartbroken. And Jung Il-woo is at his best when he’s letting down that mask of mirth, as he did when he confessed to Yeom that perhaps he might have been able to keep Yeon-woo alive and with him if he’d been emotionally sincere. He’s wrong about that — y’know, Fate and all — but that regret is a bitter pill to swallow.
credit: dramabeans.com

The Moon That Embraces the Sun: Episode 9 english

Wol finds out just how much danger lies inside the palace walls, and the king struggles to keep his curiosity, and his heart, locked away. It’s a crucial episode for Wol’s character, who hits rock bottom in more ways than one. Ratings hit another high today at 34.5%, which is kind of insane. I thought low thirties would be the ceiling on this thing, but I guess there’s no slowing this train. Captain followed at 7.8% and Wild Romance at 4.4%.
EPISODE 9 RECAP Hwon stirs awake in the dark room and pins Wol to the ground, demanding to know who she is. Woon stands in the corner but doesn’t interject, because I guess you can’t exactly tell the king to take a chill pill. He yells for Hyung-sun to have every candle lit in the room. They light the candles… and he’s still got her pinned? While they lit every single candle? Well that’s an excuse to cop a feel if I’ve ever seen one. He finally recognizes her in the light and his eyes widen. He trembles as he asks what she’s doing here, and whom she works for. He works up to a furor, and the professor who brought her here in the first place comes running in to explain that she’s not a person, but a talisman. The king screams back that this non-person talisman took a hand to him while he was sleeping. How is anyone to know if she intended to strangle him, or seduce him, or take a knife to his throat? But Wol boldly speaks up and asks for a chance to explain herself. She quotes passages from texts she’s read, and says that a king who carries the weight of a nation on his shoulders needs to lay down that burden and rest properly. He doesn’t think that explains why she touched him, and asks how she could possibly know his burdens. She haltingly says that the woman’s name he whispered in his fitful sleep conveyed enough, and that she knows it was wrong, but she wanted to give him comfort in some small way. It’s enough to fire up his suspicions again that she reminds him of Yeon-woo. As she talks, we switch to his inner thoughts, as he tries to convince himself that this isn’t her. “No, she’s not Yeon-woo. If she were Yeon-woo, she wouldn’t pretend not to know her own name.” She calls out to him, as he repeats to himself that it’s a mistake, and that he has to let it go. He gets up abruptly, and orders her to be kicked out of the palace at once. He trembles as he does it, as if kicking a drug habit he knows is bad for him. It’s the letting go of the illusion or hope that she might be Yeon-woo that pains him. He ignores her cries as she gets dragged from his room. Nok-young tries to intervene by saying that Seongsucheong will punish her by supernatural law, but the professor refuses to hand her over, and locks her up in jail with a warning to the guards to keep it a secret. She panics to be locked in a wooden box all over again, and pounds on the door screaming for help. Hwon sits up, now haunted by the memory of Wol’s hand on his head as he slept. Wol in turn cries as she remembers Hwon’s words that a thing that isn’t even a person dared to touch the king. Yang-myung heads toward the palace, after doing a little sherlocking to figure out who’s responsible for kidnapping Wol (though he has yet to find out her name or confirm his suspicions that she’s Yeon-woo). He enters the palace and goes straight for the guilty professor who gulps in fear. Well if you weren’t already the prime suspect, that would have given you away. Yang-myung presents his story of valiant rescue and shows his head wound, all pouty, “It looks like it hurts, doesn’t it?” Pfft. He’s totally enjoying this. The upshot is, Yang-myung knows he took the girl. So where is she? He sputters and lies that they kicked her to the curb, and he doesn’t know where. Yang-myung heads out, dejected to hit another dead end. He runs into queens grandmother and… er, stepmother, I guess, (queen dowager and queen mother) and bows respectfully, wondering if something’s amiss. Grandma is especially spiteful and implies that Yang-myung has come to the palace knowing that the king has been threatened. Queen mother actually defends Yang-myung, saying that surely he’s here to comfort his brother, but Grandma’s having none of that, and warns Yang-myung to heed his orders to stay away from the palace entirely. Assuming he’s just waiting in the wings to take the throne, she pretty much says over my dead body. They start to walk away but he stops them, musing that what Grandma’s really worried about is the fact that the king has no heir to succeed him. Her jaw hits the floor. He guesses that in order to see that happen, she’ll have to live to be a hundred, so it’s likely that he’ll outlive her. Damn. He says he’ll be praying for her to live a long, long life, and turns to go with a giant self-satisfied smile. Ha. But when his back is turned, the smile fades and his face hardens. The queens meet with Hwon to make sure he’s okay, but Grandma’s still worked up over Yang-myung’s visit and tells Hwon that he needs to hurry up and make an heir, and secure his line of power, and keep his distance from Yang-myung. Yeesh. She says with foreboding, “His very existence is a threat to you…” Yang-myung heads to a temple where a woman dressed in a monk’s clothing is praying. She greets him by name, and he smiles, “Mother.” Oh thank goodness. I swear, if anyone else was going to be mean to him today, I might’ve cried. He sweetly tells her that even without all those fancy jewels and headdresses, her hair is still the fairest. Aw. She sweeps her hand over her hair shyly, and tells him that she hasn’t been able to take that final step yet as a priestess/monk, and says she’ll shave it all soon. He tells her not to, because you never know – something might happen to Hwon and then she might end up the queen dowager, after all. She looks up at him worriedly, asking how he could say such a dangerous thing. He assures her that he’s taken her words to heart his entire life. She repeats the metaphor we heard him use as a teen – that a tree might want to stay still, but the winds will eventually move and sway it. (Though he used it differently, to motivate his wanderer’s life by moving where the wind takes him.) She tells him not to be swayed, because that’s the only way he’ll survive. Basically: don’t rock the boat or you’ll die. He asks if she believes in the transmigration of souls (reincarnation). He says he’s emptied his mind, and has no ambition for anything, not even the throne, “But… for one person…” “If there’s such a thing, then there’s just one person I want to meet again.” With tears in his eyes, he continues, “That she might not recognize me… that she might choose another over me yet again… that I may have already met her, and will lose her again… that’s my only worry.” He wanders back to the place where he lost her, and wonders to himself where he can go to find her again. That night Hwon asks what Woon thinks about Yang-myung, since he should know his hyung better than anyone. Woon asks if he suspects Yang-myung’s motives, but Hwon says no, he’s just worried that before he bends, he’ll snap. Has everyone in the universe conferred and agreed that Yang-myung = tree? Because what’s with the over-extended metaphor, people? Hwon: “Don’t you think it’s funny, the seat of the king? I have to treat my brother who shares my blood as an enemy. I find this seat especially tiresome today.” It reminds him of Wol’s explanation the night before, about wanting to ease a little of his tiredness, and suddenly asks Woon to check on her. Wol sleeps slumped over in her cell and stirs from a nightmare, or a vision, as someone calls out “Yeon-woo-ya!” over and over. It turns out to be real – her mother wakes up from another nightmare where she tries to save her daughter. Only when she wakes up, young Yeon-woo is there by her bedside. Mom hugs her tight, breathing a sigh of relief that she’s alive after all. She asks heartbreakingly if dying wasn’t painful, or cold, or frightening. Yeon-woo just wipes the tears from her eyes, and tells her to be strong. She wakes up to an empty room. Wol stirs in her sleep, crying, “Mother, mother.” Meanwhile Seol is chomping at the bit to break Wol out, and rails at Nok-young for not doing anything to save her. She screams that it’s because of her that Wol can’t breathe in confined spaces. She suggests they just tell the king everything – that Wol is Yeon-woo, so that he can save her. Nok-young shuts her up angrily, warning her not to speak those words ever again. She’s gathering her thoughts for a plan, and insists on quiet. Yeom finds himself wandering back to his old house, flooded with memories of Yeon-woo. He’s surprised to hear sounds coming from inside, and finds his mother hunched over Yeon-woo’s things and crying. He asks why she came back here when she was doing so well by staying away, and she cries that Yeon-woo came to see her tonight, and it felt like she had something to say. He cries to see her still so distraught, and brings her back home. He leaves Mom in Princess Min-hwa’s care and heads back to lock up their old house for good. Apparently Wol’s making the rounds to visit everyone’s dreams tonight, because next she shows up in Bo-kyung’s dreams, making her wake with a start. She panics, wondering why that dead girl is showing up in her thoughts. Hwon tosses and turns, unable to shake Wol’s presence from his mind. He passes by the cooks the next morning and they bow expectantly, having prepared the same meal he praised them for when he was in a good mood. This time he snarks that they must plan to feed him the exact same thing until the day he dies, totally back to the cold and bitter Hwon. They sigh to themselves and swoon over the memory of once seeing his smile. Heh. Bo-kyung catches them swooning over her husband and they prepare for her wrath, but she slaps on a fake smile and pretends to be fine with it. She goes to see the queen mother and cries that there are rumors circulating about the king keeping a woman close. Mother assures her that’s not the case, but Bo-kyung pleads with her, to allow her to be by the king’s side freely, insisting it’s the only way to calm the rumors. But the queen mother says that Seongsucheong has declared they must remain apart until the day of their consummation, and forbids it. She adds that the queen dowager has brought a human talisman to aid in the king’s recovery, and it’s working well. The king meets with his assembly, who wait on pins and needles for him to blow the lid on their palace construction project, aka their front to launder money for their nefarious private militia. He totally toys with them, purposely giving a few false starts and putting them at ease before launching the real question, about the progress on the building’s construction. Minister Yoon offers up that if he’s concerned he ought to take a look for himself. The king responds that it seems a little late for that. The council of evil gathers to gripe about the king messing with them, because he clearly knows something, but isn’t striking. Why? One of them guesses the meaning behind his statement that it’s too late – he knows that even if he were to overturn the construction project, it’s too late to stop their plan. They figure that he’s waiting for the right moment, and Minister Yoon muses that the king is waiting for the chance to do a clean sweep all at once – to clear up the corruption from the roots, and not just injure one arm of the plan. Well that’s what a smart person would do. Bo-kyung tells her father about the human talisman and worries that despite being considered an object, it is still a woman that they’re keeping close to the king, and she can’t abide it. She asks him to request the queen dowager to remove her at once. He chastises her for being so childish as to be threatened by a shaman, a nobody, and leaves her fuming. He goes to see the queen dowager, who greets him snidely that he must be coming up in the world since he’s been by so infrequently. They laugh and smile but they each gripe to themselves that he’s gotten cocky and forgotten who gave him that position, and that she still thinks herself a powerful player. It’s great when the villains turn on each other. Makes the hero’s job easy. He takes issue with her bringing Nok-young back as the head of Seongsucheong, because of course the interim shaman in charge was loyal to him. But the queen dowager won’t budge on this matter, trusting in Nok-young’s power even if it frightens them. Above all, she says, “The dead no longer speak,” meaning she’s proven her worth in the clearest way. The day has come for Wol’s punishment, as guards come to drag her out of her cell. She gets strapped to a torture chair as Nok-young, Seol and Jan-shil watch in horror, but they can’t do anything to save her. A guard takes a branding iron out of the fire and raises it to her face… Meanwhile Hwon is outside, getting in some archery practice? Dude, someone’s face is about to be marred for touching you, and you’re playing with arrows? Woon comes up and actually takes Wol’s side, which Hwon notes with surprise. He sighs, “I know, she’s not the dangerous one. The dangerous one is me.” Nok-young watches the branding iron get closer and closer to Wol. She asks Ah-ri what to do – if she reveals Wol’s identity it’ll save her from this, but then she’ll surely be killed anyway. She begs Ah-ri for an answer. The iron gets inches from her face and Jan-shil screams… as someone calls out for them to stop. Ohthankgod. It’s Hyung-sun, here with orders from the king, that Wol be pardoned to return to Seongsucheong and fulfill her duty. Tears of relief come like a wave, as she trembles. Hwon turns to Woon and says that he knows he should push her away. “But I can’t.” Wol sits stone-faced in her bed, not having touched her food. She asks Nok-young to be allowed to go outside the palace just once. Nok-young begins to refuse her, but she says tearfully that she has something she needs to do. She says with a painfully broken spirit that she knows now fully what she is, and what lines she cannot cross. Oof, the way she says that she learned her lesson kills me, when you think of how bold and idealistic she was as a child. But she says that she at least wants to break the prejudice against her for being an orphan, and asks for permission just this once: “It is my first and last request.” So she heads out of the palace walls and walks through town, just mere feet away from her mother and Princess Min-hwa. She heads to the paper store and rifles through the colorful parchment. The shopkeeper asks what she’s choosing the paper for, and she says it’s for an apology, the same kind of admission of fault she wrote to Prince Hwon when she was young. Oh, is she going to write the king the same way? I’m already excited. Something about being there triggers her memory, and she hears voices as if they’re in the room – young Seol and Yeon-woo talking about what sort of parchment is appropriate for this sort of thing. She runs out, flooded with these thoughts, and realizes that she never saw that man that saved her, and never thanked him. She heads back to the last place she saw Yang-myung that day and sighs, thinking there’s no reason he’d still be here, days and days later. But when she turns around, there he is, staring right back at her. Eeee! They meet again! He looks at her full of shock and emotion, while she smiles at him, only seeing him as the nice man who helped her that day. They go back to the parchment store and she thanks him for helping her that day, and apologizes for not keeping her promise to return there. He laughs it off and says it’s no big deal, since it’s not like he successfully saved her anyway. She wonders why he’s dressed as a nobleman today, and he hurriedly clears up the misunderstanding that he’s not a monk, no-siree. He says that he’s a free bird, and offers to take her away to anyplace that she wants. She says that she’s in a safe place now and that she’s fine, but it triggers another memory – of young Yang-myung offering to throw away his identity to run away with her. Aw, even just the flashback to that moment breaks my heart all over again. She asks if maybe he’s related to the king. Yang-myung smiles, wondering how she knew, maybe hoping that it means something more. But she says that it’s her shaman powers – she saw a glimpse of his past. No, it’s your past! Ack! He deflates. She asks if she can give him a word of advice: “It’s time that you let go of the one you keep in your heart.” He stops cold. She tells him to empty that space in his heart for someone new. “Don’t struggle to cover the truth with laughter anymore. Isn’t it too painful a thing to live your life in disguise while lying to your heart?” It stirs him, but then he smiles to cover it up, as if on reflex. He asks her name, and she starts to say that she doesn’t have one, but remembers the name the king gave her. She tells him that it’s Wol. She thanks him again for his help and says that she’ll pray for him to meet someone new. He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t realize she’s walked out. Mom and Princess Min-hwa are headed to the same store, and Wol bumps right into her mother on her way out. But her face remains covered as she bows an apology, and Mom tells her it’s okay. Yang-myung comes running out belatedly, and his sister grabs him in surprise, wondering what he’s doing here. He barely registers them, scanning the crowd for Wol. Min-hwa guesses that he’s got a new girlfriend, and he just agrees with her to get her off his back, and runs into the street, but she’s gone. Back in the palace, she uses her new parchment to write her admission of fault. Nightfall. Wol gets led to the king’s chambers, back on talisman duty. She enters the inner chamber alone and finds the king standing there, waiting for her. He says in his cold and bitter tone that he skipped the sleepytime tea tonight, and will do so each night from here on out. He repeats her words that he needs to lay down his burdens and treat his weariness, and approaches her, saying he’s extremely tired. Whoa, is this going where I think it’s going? He tells her that she’ll have to make him forget his troubles and lay his burdens to rest, and asks if that’s something she can do, as if challenging her. But she surprises him by saying that if he’ll let her, she’ll do whatever she can to fulfill her duty to the king. She’s basically now fully been stripped of the illusion that she’s a person. Augh that just breaks my heart. Meanwhile Bo-kyung stews in her room, unable to shake the thought that something else is going on. She storms over to the king’s chambers against everyone’s pleas, and gets past Hyung-sun to the inner room. She hears the king’s voice asking Wol to lift her face. Bo-kyung braces herself and cracks open the door… She gets a glimpse of Wol from the side and scrunches her face in surprise. She looks up to see the king standing just a few feet away from her, looking into her eyes.
COMMENTS So far I actually like the arc that we’re getting for Yeon-woo/Wol because we meet her as a headstrong idealistic girl and find that she’s maintained the same spunk as an adult, so that when she goes through this transformation, her spirit broken and her worth reduced to nothing, it’s certainly more heartbreaking to know who she really is on the inside. It’s not so much the loss of status – going from princess bride to object – that gets me in the heart, but the loss of her personal self-worth that resonates with me. When she finally gives in to what the world is telling her, it’s the first time I feel that pang of true sympathy for the character. So far she’s had some lovely moments with both Hwon and Yang-myung, and the tragic love triangle seems to be as strong as ever. There’s obviously a hefty amount of suspension of disbelief that has to go on with both brothers just believing that she’s someone else who has Yeon-woo’s face (or perhaps that she’s been reincarnated in this way), but then on the other hand, them holding out hope that she’s not dead would be just as weird. I do like that her flashbacks are explained away by her delusion of shaman powers – she thinks she’s seeing into other people’s pasts, without realizing that the link is her, which I actually like. It feels logical to me, whereas I would have liked to see Yang-myung be a little more dogged in his disbelief, because he seemed to immediately recognize her as Yeon-woo when he saw her last week. But methinks it’s not a bone he’s about to let go so easily, and I’m sure Hwon will do his share of interrogating in due time. Hwon’s got his share of darkness so he’s set up for a good arc, but Yang-myung feels like the same person from beginning till now, just more heartbroken. It works of course because he’s an obviously sympathetic character, but I hope there’s a bigger journey in store for him. credit: dramabeans.com