I wanna talk about the East Palace juuust a little bit
The trailer led me to believe this show was going to be about this emotionally closed off man of little words, and instead gucheon was sulky and sarcastic and could be such a little shit at times. That was a fun surprise! All his deep, long suffering sighs, his many "good griefs", the way he did what had to be done without too much complaining (and only 1 escape attempt.)
saenggang was a fun surprise too! she never felt too emotional or too emotionally avoidant, she didn't get distracted by gucheon's dreamy ol' gaze, she was so smart and clever and equally as capable.
plus!! what a pair: the one who sees the spirits/the one who hears the spirits. it was lovely that they shared the thing that isolated them and made them a "freak."
this show was seriously stunning to watch! some of the fight scenes felt a little too try-hard stunt/cgi-wise, but others were super cool... and emotional, too! The consorts, the royal guard, the pond lady... all very good episodic spirits.
I'm fully satisfied with the amount of romance that happened between gucheon and saenggang, but I wouldn't have hated it if the yang energy refills had led to a little more... touch... between them. Or if the handhold moment had lingered just a little longer to show their awkwardness after. For being two characters who have been abandoned/orphaned and then isolated, who don't trust easily, where one is a literal captive, the relationship was pretty realistic in terms of not having them get swept up in some high stakes romance. There were obvious feelings brewing, but there was so much more for them to focus on than an attraction to each other.
What the heck was up with the wild amount of "more importantly" in the dialogue? I don't know if I should chalk it up to a not-so-accurate Netflix translation or if the script really included the phrase as often as it was used.
The show couldn't seem to settle on whether or not the king was the Bad Guy. I think, by the end, it was revealed that he helped kill his brothers (but at his mother's manipulations) but NOT his sons. That one of his sons killed his brothers, mirroring what the king had done? I don't know, it flip flopped so often between the king being shown in an empathetic light and then him being like "just kidding, actually I might kill you." It feels like that decision was made solely to add some suspense to the story but it just got frustrating.
Same with the grandmas. If the king's bio mom was the one behind the poisoning, why the heck was she helping gucheon and saenggang out early on?
I soooo badly want a second season. Not just because of the open-endedness of gucheon still being tethered to the palace, but I feel like it could explore the characters backstories in ways this season didn't have time to. There's sooo much to unpack about orphaned, ghost-seeing gucheon living with monks, carrying the guilt of his mother's death. There's soooo much to unpack about the banished illegitimate princess who grew up hearing forbidden whispers, whose mother also died in front of her, whose brothers have all dropped dead. There's sooo much to unpack about the king being forced to help kill his brothers, who married his lover to save her from death but she ended up dying anyway, whose sons were all cursed to death, whose daughter is cursed to hear the dead. This season was a fantastic watch! But for all the world building it did on the spirit front, it didn't delve that deeply into the characters themselves.
blakekathryn
gracieabrams
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
