Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 43 part two
(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)
Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
Mama Lan
So, getting back to Lan Xichen's story, he tells Wei Wuxian how his mother never talked about how sucky it was to be confined, never asked about their studies - and we see her with tiny Lan Wangji, patting his hair and smiling sunnily. Compare to Wei Wuxian, born with a smiling face, able to endure incredibly shitty living circumstances without complaining (except about turnips). Lan Wangji's mother, with her sweet smile, is a lot like him.
LXC and LWJ both looked forward to seeing her every month. But one day she was gone, and Lan Qiren couldn't be arsed to explain death to a small child, apparently, so Lan Wangji kept waiting for her door to open, stubbornly kneeling in the snow.
We see Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren coming to retrieve little Lan Wangji--very kindly, which is surprising, but Lan Qiren isn't entirely a dick, I guess.
Lan Xichen talks about Lan Wangji's stubborn devotion to his mother, and says that when Lan Wangji saw Wei Wuxian cultivating the ghost path, his pain and confusion were the same as in the past when he looked at their mother. Lan Xichen is giving tiny 5-year-old Lan Wangji a lot of credit for the depth of his thinking about the nature of love and violence.
Lan Xichen caps this all off by playing a flute solo. Which is a totally reasonable thing to do, since Wei Wuxian speaks flute.
After explaining this long, acutely awful story to Wei Wuxian and tootling for a bit, Lan Xichen is finally ready to talk about his own situation. He says that in the past he tried to advise Wangji (to dump WWX, is implied), but now that he's in the same boat, he finally understands how hard it is to make a decision.
He thought he understood Jin Guangyao deeply, but now he thinks that the hearts of people in this world "may look like fire from the front, but look like ice from the side" which is a really nice poetic image. Wei Wuxian, is a talker but he's also an incredibly good listener; he doesn't say a goddamn thing, but looks at Lan Xichen with concern and sympathy.
Note that when he quietly looks at Lan Xichen it is totally different from when he looks at Lan Wangji. This is a bro look.
(more after the cut!)
Just as Lan Xichen wraps up telling Wei Wuxian about the depth and fierceness of Lan Wangji's devotion to him, Lan Wangji shows up with physical evidence of that devotion, in the form of the forbidden liquor that featured in their first romantic encounter fight.
He looks shockingly beautiful with his hair down and his face totally relaxed and happy. Not pictured: the brass balls it takes to bring your boyfriend forbidden alcohol right in front of your clan leader.
Date Night
Wei Wuxian comes and stands in the doorway and watches Lan Wangji pouring the wine for Wei Wuxian and pouring tea for hiself while Wangxian, tender piano version, plays on the soundtrack.
Wei Wuxian wants to say thank you to Lan Wangji but can't bring himself to be that mushy, in spite having told Jin Ling, ages ago, that every person has to learn to say thank you and sorry in this life. So he changes the subject to talk about Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao.
Lan Wangji then brings up the second flute - which, while not consistent with the novel, is at least internally consistent with the show, so I won't complain about this. But those of you who hate the whole second-flute thing, I get you. Anyway, Lan Wangji says he asked Wen Ning, and that WN remembers hearing two different flute sounds. When has Lan Wangji had a chance to talk to Wen Ning privately? He's so jelly that Wen Ning runs away whenever LWJ gets near.
WWX says it happened at Nightless city as well, and we have a quick flashback featuring the most discordant, godawful flute music, which is the Su She song of fucking your shit up.
They go out on the porch in the snow and talk about it some more. Now that he knows about the Collection of Chaos, he's confident that someone was playing it to mess things up for him.
Lan Wangji says it's Jin Guangyao, but WWX says maybe, maybe not - that it doesn't really matter now, toasting "whatever (suibian), screw it" and drinking from one of the Emperor's smile bottles.
Lan Wangji stands under the roof and smiles one of his little content micro smiles.
Wei Wuxian then talks about his reputation as the Yiling Patriarch, that it doesn't matter who really did anything, that people just need a person to blame, and he is known for being that person.
He's essentially accepting his place in the Great Dao with this speech. While he says this, the camera is looking at him and Lan Wangji from the side, where--as others have noted--the two of them form a balance between dark and light, yin and yang, with Lan Wangji under the roof, wearing white, and Wei Wuxian in the snowfall, wearing black.
Wei Wuxian says that even if there had been no Jin Guangyao or second flute, shit would have still happened, and the camera closes in on him as he drinks more wine; we hear the first notes of Wangxian on the guqin. Wei Wuxian hears it too, and turns with a smile that says "gonna have you nekkid by the end of this song."
Then Wei Wuxian leans in the doorway and we get a rare internal monologue from him. He says to himself, that he was really lonely back then (at the end of his previous life, that the few people who cared about him had died, and lists Wen Ning and Jiang Yanli, despite Wen Ning being only mostly dead. Then he thinks "Luckily…" and Lan Wangji finishes the thought with his own internal monologue: there's still someone who believes in you (trust/believe, 信) in this world.
Then Wei Wuxian drinks the most erotic toast possible to Lan Wangji, saying in his internal monologue that having one zhiji in life is enough for him to be content.
Lan Wangji's voice says, nothing else is needed but to have a clear conscience; Wei Wuxian's voice replies - or coincidentally thinks - I don't care what they say about me as long as I have a clear conscience.
Then he says out loud - very quietly - "I'm sorry, and thank you." Lan Wangji looks up and we get the sung version of Wangxian, the duet version, I think, although my hearing is crappy so I'm not sure.
They continue making beautiful music together as the camera sweeps up and away, followed by a fade to black - not a crossfade to the next scene, but a fade to a full black screen before picking up the next scene in the morning. This is c-drama film language for: they fucked, y'all.
There's Got To Be a Morning After
In the morning we see Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian sleepily meditating in the Hanshi. They had a long night, clearly. Wei Wuxian dozes off and falls into Lan Wangji's side, which doesn't bother Lan Wangji. Some fic writers seem to take this as showing that Wei Wuxian is bad at meditation, but he's just worn out - normally he's great at meditation, since that's how one forms a core, and we also saw him meditating the yin iron into submission back in the day.
Jin Guangyao shows up, getting the sinister-walking-feet camera treatment that we've seen before when someone was about to fuck shit up. He just sits down to have tea, however, and to give Lan Xichen's entry token back since it seems to have been turned off on the server side.
Next we get a super uncomfortable interaction where Jin Guangyao keeps pressing to find out why Lan Xichen has turned cold, and Lan Xichen keeps pretending everything is fine while still glaring daggers at Jin Guangyao. Wei Wuxian is super alert and listening during this conversation. Eventually JGY gives up and leaves, and Lan Xichen dispatches LWJ and WWX to find out what's going on at the burial mounds while he goes to Jinlintai to join a discussion about a second siege of the burial mounds.
Road Trip
The trip to the burial mounds kicks off with a cute romantic interlude where Wei Wuxian mishandles and pesters Lan Wangji's rabbits, and Lan Wangji gazes adoringly at him. Lan Wangji's rabbits sure look like the descendants of Lan Yi's rabbits, but they aren't wearing headbands any more, thank heaven, because that shit was ridiculous. So ridiculous I decided to paint a headband onto one of them for the header image.
The rabbits follow them to the gate of The Cloud Recesses because they love Lan Wangji, and he clearly loves them back. It's a nice moment that brings nuance to his character - just a little reminder that he's built a life for himself in Wei Wuxian's absence, and is beginning to share it with Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian noisily pesters Lil Apple while wondering aloud why animals don't like him as much as they like Lan Wangji.
We then get a long scene of Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, Lil Apple, and Wei Wuxian's fake donkey-riding foot, traveling through beautiful scenery while Wei Wuxian plays music for Lan Wangji.
He has, at last, figured out that playing Wangxian is what let Lan Wangji recognize him. Lan Wangji admits to writing it but won't tell him the name of the song.
They stop for water at a ramshackle house that is absolutely NOT any place style queen Luo Qingyang/MianMian would live, no matter who she married.
Look at this plant! Is that not a weed? And what's with all the random baskets, fabric, and skins? And the sticks that make up the railing aren't even trimmed to the same length despite her having a magic sword. Mianmian would live in a cute little cottage with good feng shui. This is a house where bandits would live.
Anyway, after some ridiculous hiding behind a haystack, they meet Mianmian, her husband, and daughter. Wei Wuxian has to fully reboot his brain in order to recognize her, which seems to make perpetually-jealous Lan Wangji happy.
My favorite moment from this scene: Wei Wuxian picks up a melon to check if it's ripe and Lan Wangji immediately gets out his coin purse like the sugar daddy he yearns to be. In the book his coin purse is (indirectly) stolen from MianMian, because of jealousy, so this is a nice callout.
Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 43 part one
(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)
Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
Unraveling
We jump in, mid sentence, as genius Wei Wuxian figures out Jin Guangyao's method of causing Nie Mingjue's qi deviation: pretending to play cleansing for him and in fact playing a song from the collection of chaos.
He also figures out that Jin Guangyao ripped out the pages not to memorize them, but to cover his tracks.
Lan Xichen really wishes he could believe Wei Wuxian was wrong, but as a Lan, he can't ignore musical evidence.
Wei Wuxian points out that Nie Mingjue sucks at music so wouldn't notice the difference. Lan Xichen, grasping at his very last straw, says that he never told Jin Guangyao about the hidden room in the library.
Wei Wuxian says "hate to break it to you, buddy, but JGY is the most accomplished spy and assassin of at least 3 dynasties," reminding him that JGY got into Wen Ruohan's secret chambers. Lan Xichen can't argue with this.
Wei Wuxian hands him the music book and Lan Xichen says he's going to find a way to test it. Wei Wuxian then says my favorite line of this scene, asking how Lan Xichen can test it because using it on a living person is "probably going against your Lan Clan's family rules." YA THINK? The unspoken part is that Wei Wuxian would snatch that book up and go full ham on it if given the opportunity.
Lan Xichen says he's going to test it on himself. Lan Wangji objects but Lan Xichen insists. He explains that his version of Jin Guangyao is so far from their version that he can't reconcile it.
(more after the cut!)
It's dawning on him that Jin Guangyao used him in order to kill Nie Mingjue, because he got Lan Xichen to teach him the cleansing music, and to vouch for him. He asks, "can you allow me to be more cautious before coming to a conclusion?"
Lan Wangji, who has never hesitated to come to a conclusion ever in his entire life, moves into his "arguing" stance, but Wei Wuxian, who is comfortable with ambiguity, clasps his arm and stops him, giving him a significant head shake.
Wei Wuxian is so comfortable with ambiguity, in fact, that his outfit today features a literal grey area, in the form of a grey trim line between the black of his outer robe and the white of Lan Wangji's his underrobe.
Lan Wangji settles down, but he's not happy about it. Neither am I, because we never get to see Lan Xichen actually do this test. How would it even work? Would he have to play guqin in front of a mirror to harm himself with his own spiritual energy? Important questions are being left unanswered.
Having sorted that out, they all come out of the library together. Lan Wangji goes to see his uncle while Lan Xichen escorts Wei Wuxian back to the Jingshi so he can give him the world's most confusing shovel talk.
Tea Time
Once they're in the Jingshi's front yard (courtyard? It's not a traditional Siuhuan layout, but it does have a gate, so I'm not sure what the yard would be called), Wei Wuxian stops Lan Xichen to ask him a question, specifically because Lan Wangji isn't there. Then they have this exchange, which totally blew my mind when I first watched it.
Wei Wuxian: what's up with the whip marks on Lan Zhan?
Lan Xichen: He didn't tell you?
WWX: I asked, but he wouldn't tell me, so I figured I should ask you.
LXC: I know how he is, he would never ever ever tell you, in his whole life.
LXC: SO I WILL.
I was raised in a culture (white, Irish-American Catholic) where family secrets are meant to be KEPT unto and beyond the GRAVE. So to see Lan Xichen, a generally virtuous guy, (if a little wobbly around the whole "is murder ok" question), casually spill all of his brother's tea like this was startling for me.
But when I make the effort to see beyond my own context, it actually makes sense; this secret is an essential part of Lan Wangji's life, and it's one that intimately concerns Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen has authority over Lan Wangji, as his elder brother and as his clan leader, so he's empowered to make choices about what he thinks is best for his brother, and what his brother wants doesn't really enter into it.
Also, they are in a Wuxia/Xianxia* story; secrets in this context exist purely to drive plots forward, so spilling them at opportune moments is every character's sacred duty.
*I feel like MDZS is a hybrid of Wuxia and Xianxia, because there's cultivation-based magic but no real otherworldly component. In a more conventional Xianxia we'd be spending 13 years in the underworld with Wei Wuxian while he rose to be the king of the demon realm or something like that. Which would be awesome, actually.
Protect the Smoldering Ruin
Lan Xichen cues up a flashback to Lan Wangji fighting to protect Wei Wuxian's…stuff. This scene makes no goddamn sense, because it's based on things that happened in the novel that can't be talked about in a censored TV show. So there's a whole lot of handwaving needed for this scene to happen.
In the novel, Wei Wuxian is off his face on drugs resentment, the crowd is there to kill him, and Lan Wangji is protecting WWX, having unsuccessfully confessed his love. Lan Wangji injures 33 Lan elders in the ensuing battle, so his punishment is 33 strokes of the punishment whip. Wei Wuxian dies in an unpleasant manner anyway, and the story carries on. All of the important stuff including WWX's demise happens in the burial mounds.
In the live-action version, we see Lan Wangji surrounded by several Jins + Su She. Su She asks Lan Wangji what the fuck he's doing, and Lan Wangji delivers the epic diss, "You are not qualified to speak to me."
Jin Guangyao shows up and says they'll leave the cave alone, because they've got the burial mounds surrounded so Wei Wuxian can't get back to his cave anyway. And that Lan Wangj's uncle is there, probably planning to take him back to Cloud Recesses.
Next we see Lan Wangji leaning on his sword with his hand and arm bloody, with a voiceover from Lan Xichen saying that Lan Wangji "caused a lot of trouble" and their Uncle was furious.
So, if LWJ's motivation is to protect an empty cave, that seems really dumb. But I think this is just down to confusing editing, and the cave isn't actually empty. When we look at the events of this episode in conjunction with some other flashbacks and events from other episodes, a possible chronology emerges:
Lan Wangji is looking for Wei Wuxian, goes to burial mounds, finds A-Yuan.
Lan Wangji stands outside the cave where A-Yuan is hidden, guards him against Su She and Jin Guangyao. Then they go away, warning him that his uncle is coming.
Lan Wangji dashes (teleports?) to Nightless City, tells Wei Wuxian "the situation changed!" with no further information, but meaning "I need you to come help me guard A-Yuan, and then get married and raise him as our son." He gets a cut on his arm during this battle; Wei Wuxian falls while Lan Wangji bleeds a lot, making his arm and hand bloody.
Lan Wangji rushes back to the burial mounds to collect A-Yuan, and fights the Lans in order to guard the cave & A-Yuan.
This still has one error, because the not-yet-very-bloody cut is seen on Lan Wangji's arm during his confrontation with Su She & JGY, but I find that easier to accept than..the entire logic of everything, otherwise.
What's Black? What's White?
Next, Lan Xichen says that their uncle punished Lan Wangji with THREE HUNDRED strokes of the punishment whip, which is ridiculous, because the punishment whip is a spiritual weapon designed to maim, and most cultivators couldn't survive 33 strokes from it. It's not a translation error; Lan Xichen clearly says "sānbǎi" and the Chinese subtitles say "三百". Maybe Lan Xichen is exaggerating to make Wei Wuxian feel worse.
We flash back to the flogging scene, in which they hit Lan Wangji with the exact same sticks they beat him and Wei Wuxian with when they got in trouble for drinking, not with anything that deserves to be called a "discipline whip."
The only sound Lan Wangji makes is to crack his knuckles really loudly when making a fist, which is I guess what happens when he doesn't have Bichen or Wei Wuxian's wrist to grip. Now we know why Wei Wuxian wears wrist armor. The guy beating him, meanwhile, makes all kinds of effort noises.
Lan Qiren makes Lan Wangji recite the 52d rule of the clan, which is "do not befriend evil people." Lan Wangji points out that there's a footnote with an exception if the people are really super hot.
Lan Qiren yells at him saying he's ignored their rules for "establishing one's person" according to the Viki subtitles, which I take to mean "building one's moral character," and asks how will he face their honorable ancestors? An urgent question, given that 300 strokes of an actual discipline whip would send Lan Wangji to those ancestors with a swiftness.
Lan Wangji doesn't take this lesson, however, asking his uncle "What's good? What's evil? What's black? What's white?" Lan Qiren is shocked that his best student has the ability to actually think, and says that he's greatly disappointed.
I remember when I was a kid, Dad telling me he was disappointed with me felt like a heavy punishment, but that's because he didn't beat the hell out of me while he was saying it. And I imagine Lan Wangji is ok with disappointing Lan Qiren at this point, since he's fundamentally disappointed himself by 1. Failing to save Wei Wuxian's life 2. Failing to stand by Wei Wuxian during the moment their paths diverged, when WWX asked him "who's strong, who's weak, what's black, what's white?"
The flashback wraps up with Lan Wangji kneeling in the cold pond with a book of Lan rules in front of him, looking like he still doesn't give a fuck what his uncle thinks, while frost grows on his eyebrows.
Lan Xichen says he went to talk to him and advise him - advise him to retroactively dump his dead boyfriend, is heavily implied. But that Lan Wangji said that because Wei Wuxian is his zhiji, that he should believe in his character - using the same word for trust/believe, 信, that has been spoken between LWJ and WWX in previous conversations (see my Ep 33 writeup).
Meet the Lans
Wei Wuxian says "he shouldn't have," and Lan Xichen responds by dropping his utterly horrifying family backstory. He is currently contemplating how far a person - himself or his brother, specifically - can and should go for their chosen person, which leads him to think about his parents.
He gazes hauntedly at the Jingshi and explains that this is where his mother lived, while his father was in seclusion. His father met his mother outside Gusu and it was love at first sight. Wei Wuxian, being a romantic cornball, likes this idea, smiling and saying that Papa Lan was young and passionate at that time.
But then Lan Xichen goes on to say that his mom didn't love his dad, which instantly makes Wei Wuxian sad again. LXC also says that she killed a respected teacher of his father's. Wei Wuxian perks up and asks why. He's a fan of killing people, after all.
Lan Xichen responds that he doesn't know, but that it was probably for righteousness, a grudge, right, or wrong: these four words. Yep, that would cover the vast majority of reasons to kill someone. His father dealt with it by secretly marrying her in defiance of his clan, and then locking her up while he went into seclusion. Note that seclusion is not isolation; it's a way of retreating from worldly things in order to focus on spiritual life. It apparently doesn't preclude occasionally knocking up your captive wife.
Lan Xichen then asks Wei Wuxian if he understands what Papa Lan's intentions were? And does he think he did the right thing? Wei Wuxian says "fuck if I know" and wonders what the hell is wrong with the straights, given that the Jiang parents' marriage was almost as terrible as the Lan parents.
Then Lan Xichen says that his father took them away from their mother, gave them to other people to raise, and then when they were old enough, handed them off to their uncle, who was super rigid and uptight as a result of seeing his brother fuck up his life. They only got to visit their mother once a month.
Palace Drama Dynamics
Now, before I get into that, let's have a little interlude to talk about some of the wack family dynamics we've seen in The Untamed. I want to propose an alternate way of looking at things. I don't have any relevant Untamed pics to put in this section so instead, enjoy this selection of our boys in palace & historical dramas.
Guo Cheng in A League of Gentleman
If you're like me, you have watched a fair number of palace dramas. In these stories, the emperor is in charge, the princes vie for favor, and the women are all competing with each other to gain rank and move their sons into positions of power. The rank of the son and the mother are usually joined; if a prince is elevated in rank, his mother will be elevated as well. The empress is at the top of the heap, the noble consort is just below her, and then there are ranks of consorts and concubines. A low-ranked woman might have her child taken from her to be raised by a higher-ranked woman. A woman who seriously loses favor lives in a "cold palace" - a less comfortable, isolated living arrangement, sort of being banished from the Emperor's favor without being actually banished.
Wang Yibo in Luoyang
The Clan heads in The Untamed aren't Emperors but they are rulers in the Jianghu. In an alternate universe where the clan heads are Emperors, and Palace rules are in effect, a lot of the behaviors make more sense. Madame Lan is a disfavored Empress/consort who has been banished to a cold palace, and whose children have been taken from her as a punishment. Jin Guangyao is a low-ranked concubine's son who schemes to kill the crown prince and rise to take his place. Jiang Fengmian has an Empress - Yu Ziyuan - and a deceased consort - Cangse Sanren - and has sons by both.
Wang Zhuocheng in Love Like the Galaxy
The Empress's son (Jiang Cheng) should outrank the Noble Consort's son (Wei Wuxian), but because of his love for his consort, he favors her son--which puts the Empress' son in grave danger, given that many historical princes solidified their power by killing the other princes in their family. Look up Li Shimin sometime if you're curious about this.
Xiao Zhan in the Shiniest Promise of Blossom. j/k I made that up, this is from The Wolf
In this way of thinking about things, Yu Ziyuan is actually very good to Wei Wuxian, given that she didn't poison him the moment he showed up, the way the mothers in the palace dramas so frequently do.
Anyhoo, that's my palace-drama version of The Untamed. Fic writers, feel free to run with it!
(Continued in Part Two)
Soundtrack: Denial is a River, Doechii; Euphoria, Kendrick Lamar
Wen Kexing Costume Appreciation 17 of 19 (Word of Honor)
(Masterpost)
I love the embroidery on this because it's so different from his other red looks. The scattered stitches seem impressionistic and evocative of floating leaves or blowing petals, to me, initially. When the fighting starts, I feel like the stitching is an illustration of his chaotic emotional state.
In the third picture you can see the tasseled loop of the fan is wrapped around his thumb, which I assume is how he's able to spin it without dropping it.
Wen Kexing Costume Appreciation 16 of 19 (Word of Honor)
(Masterpost)
I've increased the contrast on the lapel pattern in this image so you can see how it resembles this pattern he wore when he was having his last good day as a kid.
The lighter palette on his duel outfit is also evocative of his parents' clothing and this kid outfit...a nice touch for this scene of reclaiming his identity.
Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 42 part two
(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)
Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
The Rude Descending a Staircase
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian end up on the landing halfway down the stairs, with cultivators all around and the various authority figures up at the top of the stairs. Wei Wuxian pulls his arm away from Lan Wangji and shoves him away, telling him to dip.
Lan Wangji's--whose reaction faces are what he has instead of dialogue in every episode, not just this one--makes a face that says "you dumbass, you think I give a shit about my safety or reputation? I'm not going to let you face these motherfuckers on your own."
Jin Guangyao comes gloating down a few stairs and asks Wei Wuxian to remove his mask. WWX removes his mask, showing that he really is Wei Wuxian, and all the cultivators around him jump back in fear.
We get a fake-surprised face from Nie Huaisang, a smug bastard face from Jiang Cheng, and a resigned face from Lan Xichen. We don't get a Su She reaction shot even though he also already knew WWX's identity since he's been that annoying Ghost-Mask guy all along....which means Jin Guangyao also knew all along? Presumably Su She would have told him.
Jin Guangyao reacts by saying "Yiling Laozu, bukui shi Yiling Laozu" which translates approximately to "Yiling Laozu, you really are worthy of being called Yiling Laozu." This phrasing is important because it comes up in Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's conversation in Episode 50. Shoutout to Hunxi Gulai for this linguistic analysis.
Being Yiling Laozu is all about a reputation that has been built by people for their own ends, and Wei Wuxian's chief concern at this moment is to protect Hanguang-Jun's reputation. Hanguang-Jun is also a constructed identity that doesn't perfectly match the real Lan Zhan, although Wei Wuxian doesn't quite get that yet.
(more after the cut!)
Jin Guangyao tells him "boy howdy you sure did fool everyone; even Hanguang-Jun was fooled by you" and Wei Wuxian says "that's right!" even though he fooled hardly anybody, particularly not Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji finally speaks, and says nope, I knew he was Wei Ying all along, gazing at Wei Wuxian with utter devotion.
Then he draws his sword and starts singing "Stand By Your Man" stands ready to defend WWX. Wei Wuxian tries to stop him, despite being surrounded by 40 people who definitely heard what Lan Wangji just said and who have eyes to see that he's drawn a sword on everybody.
WWX grabs his wrist and says he, himself, is used to this kind of thing, but Lan Wangji doesn't have to roll with him. He says they should escape and then Lan Wangji can tell everyone that he was tricked by the Yiling Laozu, thereby preserving his reputation. I'm really not sure how "I didn't realize the twink I've been banging was the Yiling Laozu" is supposed to help his reputation at this point, but okay.
Lan Wangji puts on his serenest expression and asks if WWX remembers what he asked LWJ back in the cloud recesses. WWX says "bitch, you have spent the past two months roasting me about my bad memory and now we're in a high-pressure situation and you have the nerve to ask me that?"
Just kidding, thanks to a convenient flashback, WWX understands exactly what LWJ is asking him. He flashes back to when he first woke up in LWJ's bed and asked if, in the past, did Lan Wangji trust/believe in him.
Lan Wangji didn't answer him at the time, because his answer would have been "nope," but WWX figured that out and was hurt by it. (See Episode 33 part 2 for my recap of that).
Lan Wangji doesn't answer the question, exactly, this time; instead he says "the feeling of walking down the single-plank bridge until the dark end really isn't so bad." This is another callback to an earlier time (in Episode 29), when he watched WWX walking away from him into the burial mounds with A-Yuan. WWX said his bit about "walking the single-plank bridge" to compare his life path to Lan Wangji's, unaware LWJ was listening.
Lan Wangji isn't answering WWX's question directly; he's skipping over his answer in order to explain that he's arrived at a new way of seeing things. He's saying "I didn't put my trust in you in the past, because I was keeping to the broad road, but now I have learned to prefer the narrow path, and I am putting my trust in you now."
Then he actually honest-to-goodness SMILES at Wei Wuxian, complete with cat-blink, and Wei Wuxian laughs and smiles back, looking into his eyes, accepting this as the declaration of love it absolutely is, and says Lan Zhan ah, Lan Zhan. Viki translates that "ah" as "oh." Ignore whatever Netflix's subtitles say it means. I believe that it is idiomatically used after a name to indicate affection; Lan Xichen calls LWJ "Wangji-ah" later in the episode.
Then Wei Wuxian warns him that if he really goes through with this - leaving with Wei Wuxian - his reputation will be ruined. They turn back to back to face the crowd and WWX asks him "do you still want to fight [them]?" Lan Wangji says "too much talking" and WWX chuckles and then hollers "Fight!"
Then we FINALLY get a fight scene, and it's well choreographed with a couple of good moves in it for Wei Wuxian and his beloved Suibian - which, I'd like to point out, he is wielding just fine in a skirmish, although he's not flying on it or doing fancy stuff.
Although the show isn't as clear as it should be about this, I think this is a solid indication that WWX 2.0 does have a core; it's just not very good. (Novel WWX 2.0 definitely has one, per the author.)
We also get to see Lan Wangji use Su She as a springboard. Then they jump down to the bottom of the stairs.
Suddenly Jin Ling appears with his sword drawn, even though he totally was not there in the wide shot. The adults make reaction faces while Wei Wuxian suddenly decides to forget everything he knows about teenagers. First he tries to walk away without saying anything, then he says "I'll explain it to you later, ok kiddo?" and tries to walk away again.
Jin Ling stabs him in the liver with a full-sized sword. Unlike Qin Su, who died instantly from a similar stab, Wei Wuxian has plot armor so he is just wounded. He mumbles "why did this brat stab me in the same place as his uncle" and Jiang Cheng, who is still at the top of the stairs and has hearing like a bat apparently, makes a pained face. Then Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji stumble away together while Jin Ling has feelings.
I Can't Stand the Rain
Next we see them stumbling through a forest in an absolute freaking downpour. Wei Wuxian is pretending not to be tall while Lan Wangji holds him up. This is one of the rare times Wang Yibo's physical mismatch with other versions of Lan Wangji (novel/manhua/donghua) stands out to me. Those other versions of Lan Wangji would 100% have snatched WWX up in a princess carry at this point. But Wang Yibo perfectly embodies Lan Wangji's physical grace and his complex emotional life, so I'm ok with him not manifesting the Extremely Tall and Utterly Fucking Jacked elements of the character.
Lan Wangji has wet, shivering WWX lean against a tree while he transfers spiritual energy into him, hearkening back to their Xuanwu Cave adventure, so many years ago. We flash back to the time on Mount Yeet when Lan Wangji tried to warn him against using the Yin Tiger seal, and that other time on Mount Yeet when Lan Wangji tried to keep him from plummeting to his death.
WWX laughs a bit and when LWJ asks him why, WWX says in the past, when everyone feared and flattered him, LWJ was the only one who scolded him; now when everyone hates him, LWJ is the only one standing by his side. I think this means that WWX finally understands that LWJ's scolding of him came from the same devotion that his current care is coming from, but it's hard to say because he promptly ruins the moment by horking up a bunch of blood.
Camera operator: Bruh! Whyyyyyy?
(Continued in Ep42 part 3!)
Soundtrack: Superfly by Missy Elliot
Bonus: "The Rude Descending a Staircase" I reference up above is a 1913 cartoon by J.F. Griswold that parodies Marcel Duchamp's 1912 cubist painting "Nude Descending a Staircase."
Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 42 part three
(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)
Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
Just Call Me Angel of the Morning
Now we are in the Jingshi, and Wei Wuxian is waking up in Lan Wangji's bed and also apparently in his shirt, since we know Wei Wuxian doesn't own any white clothing.
Lan Wangji gets up without needing to use his hands - I never tire of watching that - and comes over to check on Wei Wuxian, who promptly lies about his condition.
Lan Wangji confidently yanks WWX's shirt open to check out his titties abdominal wound for himself.
There's no blushing or flusterment on either side; Wei Wuxian only becomes modest when Lan Wangji looks at the curse mark on his arm.
(More after the cut!)
Wei Wuxian says that now he knows who the last person on the curse's kill list is, and speculates about the identity of the person who's helping them to hunt Jin Guangyao, dorkily speculating that the person is JGY's vengeful ex.
Suibian
Next, Lan Wangji talks with him about Suibian, and how it sealed itself when Wei Wuxian died. Although it also sealed itself back when he fell into the burial mounds, so it's maybe been consistently sealed since then.
Lan Wangji demonstrates how locked the sword is by doing this:
Nice framing, camera operator.
Love the Way you Lie
Zewu Jun arrives and Wei Wuxian gets out of bed but doesn't get dressed. Zewu Jun might as well get used to seeing him like this because it's going to become a regular situation.
Lan Wangji explains what Wei Wuxian saw in empathy, and Lan Xichen says "yeah, but you didn't see it; you trust him, and I only trust you and Jin Guangyao." Lan Wangji feels that Jin Guangyao is a lying liar but Lan Xichen feels that he's a precious baby who only murders occasionally. What follows is the Lan Brothers version of a heated argument.
Lan Xichen says "you think you're right, but can't I think I'm right?" Lan Wangji does not say "I got whipped 33 times for my man and you just stood there, how about you fuck off?" because he is a better person than me. Wei Wuxian politely interrupts and Lan Xichen stops and puts his nice face back on again.
(Actor) Liu Haikuan is amazing. Lan Xichen assures Wei Wuxian that he won't snitch on him until they sort out what's really happening.
Fortunately for brotherly harmony, Wei Wuxian is a genius, and realizes that something is wrong with the soundtrack of his Empathy session. He plays Song of Cleansing: Jin Guangyao Remix for them.
They tell him he played it slightly wrong, and he's hilariously (and appropriately) put out that they would think he is capable of a mistake like that.
Because he is a genius, he guesses that musical cultivation can be used to harm people, not just to help people and/or control them after they're dead, and that Jin Guangyao modified the music accordingly.
Library
It happens that the Lans have a collection of harmful music. They trot off to the library together, and sexy Librarian Lan Xichen opens up the secret section.
The secret section has way more books in it than the regular section, including a book of music collected by a Lan from an earlier time, called the Collection of Chaos.
This music can rile up a person's Qi, suppress their power, kill them, and other bad stuff. As soon as he has the book in his hands, Wei Wuxian figures out Jin Guangyao's entire plot against Nie Mingjue.
There is also a guqin in the room, presumably used to learn secret music, and when Lan Wangji sits at it there is suddenly incense burning and a fresh flower in the vase. Lan Wangji is magic.
Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 42 part one
(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)
Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
Welcome to the Storeroom
We are all so justifiably fond of this episode for its wonderful staircase scene and undershirt scene that it's easy to forget that it mostly consists of an endless scene of dudes standing around talking and making faces while a woman kills herself for the sake of the plot. So, I'm here to go over it in excruciating detail! Let's go!
We pick up where the last episode left off, with Lan Xichen demanding access to Jin Guangyao's bedroom because he wants head. A head. Nie Mingjue's head. Jin Guangyao isn't as compliant as usual, with all these extra people coming to join the party, and Su She runs up and says that Gusu Lan is rude.
Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen react to him like he's a gross bug, and Wei Wuxian roasts him for copying Lan Wangji all the time.
Jin Guangyao tells him to chill and then, having failed to charm his way out of the situation in the previous episode, says that he'll let everyone in as a favor to Lan Xichen.
Lan Xichen is still not charmed.
Everybody walks through the cool magic mirror into a giant storeroom where his wife is standing with her eyes closed, doing absolutely nothing. Lan Xichen asks what's up with that and Jin Guangyao says she likes to come into the treasure room to look at all their stuff. Which might be convincing if she wasn't obviously magically enthralled.
(More after the cut!)
Everyone casts their eyes around awkwardly because they don't want to know about whatever freaky shit JGY and Qin Su get up to in private. Except Wei Wuxian, who always wants to know about everyone's freaky shit. He goes and takes a long look at her and walks around her in a circle wondering (on voiceover) why JGY didn't kill her or move her somewhere else.
He tries to talk to her, since she seems pretty much dead, which makes her his idea of a fun hang. Su She says that he must have come in here to talk to her. Remember, WWX is pretending to be Mo Xuanyu, and the show is pretending that Mo Xuanyu was heterosexual, and JGY is pretending that MXY got kicked out for sexually harassing Qin Su.
Nobody says "hey dude, what the fuck is wrong with your wife, why is she frozen" which is weird considering that even the corpses in this show are active and chatty. Wei Wuxian goes to look for Nie Mingjue's head in the place it was before. It's not there and he doesn't think to look anywhere else, even though there is another warded curtain on the other side. Fucking ADHD.
What he finds instead is a dagger, which Jin Guangyao takes out and flourishes. He tells us the following things about this dagger:
It used to belong to Wen Ruohan, then he gave it to Wen Qing
It has killed countless people
It's resentful energy is very strong, which is why it needs a talisman curtain in front of it, although waving it around in a room full of people is fine
It's very sharp! This is always funny to me, when sword cultivators hype up the sharpness of a blade. Like, surely someone as rich as Jin Guangyao has a dude on his staff whose entire job is sharpening all the things?
5. When you look at it, you don't see your reflection, but the reflection of someone it has killed. The VFX department clearly didn't get that note, because while he says this, his own reflection is showing on the blade of the dagger.
He doesn't mention whether Wen Qing used this dagger to do surgery on Wei Wuxian, but I'd like to think it is, just for funsies.
Jin Guangyao holds it out in front of him within easy reach of his suddenly-awake wife. Qin Su grabs it and plunges it into the right side of her abdomen, and dies INSTANTLY.
So, I know we're going for stylized death here, and I wouldn't object if she had done the traditional cdrama neck-cut where you spin around in a circle with a sword at your throat and then die with a little fake blood on your neck. It's cool and just the type of ridiculous that I like to see. It also is a trope that is deeply ingrained in both western and eastern cinema: a cut to the neck will kill you instantly.
There's another equally-popular trope, however: a gut injury or gunshot will NOT kill you quickly. There is a reason Samurai committing seppuku need a second person to lop off their head; otherwise they die slowly. How slowly? I tried to look that up and google got very insistent about telling me about suicide hotlines instead of answering my question. Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's ridiculous for her to die instantly from a stomach wound, and it's extra annoying because so many women in this show die just so men can have feelings about it. Ugh.
Nobody tries to help her, other than JGY telling her to wake up and Lan Xichen checking her Qi. Nobody thinks of, like, a bandage. How are any of these idiots still alive after years of sparring with blades? Maybe they really don't sharpen anything.
Everyone stands around reacting silently for the next several minutes while Jin Guangyao frantically asks a bunch of questions he already knows the answers to. Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang run in and also start reacting.
This scene is like watching an acting class called "reaction faces 101."
Su She transferred in via drop/add from the Eyebrow Work seminar.
Lan Wangji is working on an advanced thesis in minimalism
The prof is getting ready to tell Jin Ling he should consider changing majors.
Jiang Cheng out here ruining the curve for the rest of the class.
Lan Xichen gives a quick recap for them of the previous 41 episodes, finishing up by saying that the sword spirit looks like Baxia. Nie Huaisang asks if the body is Da Ge, and promptly "faints" when Lan Xichen confirms it. Lan Xichen goes back to recapping while Jin Guangyao pretends not to know what's up. Everyone in this scene is speeking as slowly as humanly possible and all of the dialogue is just recapping shit we already know.
Su She talks about how it's puzzling that Lan Wangji, who is righteous and stuck-up, is spending all of his time with a notorious ho like Mo Xuanyu.
Jin Guangyao (FINALLY) draws his sword on Wei Wuxian, only to have it blocked by Lan Wangji. Su She starts to draw his sword but Lan Wangji tells him to stop, and he does.
More reaction faces. *Yawn*
Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to step aside, taking the opportunity to feel his shoulder muscle. Su She promptly lunges and Wei Wuxian dodges. All those years months of fighting with a flute instead of a sword made him very good at ducking.
He spins around and grabs the nearest sword, drawing it and fighting Su She with it. Conveniently, the nearest sword is Suibian, which nobody can open except him. He already opened it once in paperman form, so Jin Guangyao probably put it in an easy-to-grab location for this same purpose.
Jin Guangyao hollers that Yiling Laozu has returned to the world. He took a movement class last semester so he switches which is his forward shoulder to emphasise his shock.
Nie Huaisang wakes up and acts like he doesn't know what's going on. Jin Ling doesn't understand why Zidian didn't work, if he's really posessing Mo Xuanyu. Jin Guangyao drops some exposition to explain how the sacrificing curse works. Now everybody is pointing swords at thim, while exposition continues….endlessly. We get it, the sword is sealed. For fuck's sake, we're 16 minutes into this episode and only two things have happened.
Jin Guangyao takes a swing at Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji blocks it, and then WWX blasts them with an annoying-sparkles talisman, which works against 8 armed cultivators, just like it worked against Wen Chao and his gang way back in the old days when they tried to catch Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run out of the room together, to find a crowd of around 25 cultivators, which is probably meant to represent an army.
Lan Wangji clamps his hand onto Wei Wuxian's wrist and jumps over the cultivators with him, even though we've seen evidence that Wei Wuxian's lightness skills (the jumping-around part of kung fu stunts) are almost as good as Lan Wangji's, core or no core. Admittedly Wei Wuxian can't just fly into a scene from outer space like Lan Wangji seems to do from time to time.
Back in the storeroom Su She asks JGY if they should chase after them - WHY would you even need to ask that? - and JGY says to chase them. So Su She leaves, by himself, while everyone else just stands around doing nothing. Way to act like you didn't already know about Mo Xuanyu being Wei Wuxian, guys.
Jin Guangyao takes an opportunity to masterfully guilt trip Jin Ling about being fooled by Wei Wuxian, "no wonder you took the murderer of your parents as a friend."
The cultivators near the steps finally decide to chase Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, who are halfway down the big staircase. Lan Wangji keeps ahold of Wei Wuxian's wrist as they run down the stairs together.
Why aren't they just jumping down the stairs? Lan Wangji is capable of hovering in the air while playing a guqin in battle; surely he can jump over a second group of cultivators? This isn't a very logical scene but that's ok, because it's setting things up for one of the best scenes in the show....which I'll cover in the next post. *shakes fist at Tumblr's 30-image limit*
