Good writing, good directing, good costuming and set, solid to really good performances, good STORY good characters!!
Everyone in this drama is a full and complete person. Even if we don’t see the rest of their lives, every single person in this drama has lived a whole life, with pain and suffering and irritation and joy. People don’t need to have complicated characters or personalities in order to be rich and full characters, and I think this drama really highlights this. This is all done with incredible economy as well.
RIP Ling Yun. Qin Cang is apparently okay?? Can we see him again? Can he reunite with his heroine?? Can we please get just ONE nice supporting character romance that ends well????
Okay time for me to ramble about portrayals of disability:
I still have complicated feelings about it, but I do really appreciate that Mo Xiuyao’s disability is treated completely seriously. There is nothing glamorous or romantic or sensationalist about it; his disability causes him tangible, practical, and logistical, REAL problems. In every scene, the characters and the show runners have to navigate the Ancient Chinese Aesthetic TM coming up against the practical reality of a person who can’t walk. He has rings to get in and out of bed, a modified carriage, extendable sedan poles for his chair, and ramps all through his home and work. For eight years of his life, this young man had a severe physical disability and chronic pain, and I BELIEVE it. He suffered a grave injury, he has a disability as a result, and his life has kept on going, despite the stasis he was stuck in at the beginning of the drama.
Likewise, the cure. while, yes, Ye Li’s treatment seems to heal him in a very short period, they do show it taking time, effort, and patience. Nobody but Ye Li or possibly her teacher could have healed MXY’s injuries. And the thing is, if Ye Li had failed, I think at that point MXY would have been okay with that, and he and Ye Li could’ve been happy together. Ye Li would’ve been personally devastated and demoralized, but they’re in love and they would’ve figured it out. But, like, plot! So, cure.
Maybe someday a good drama will be done where the disabled ML prince character is neither faking it nor magically cured and he’s just as disabled at the end of the drama as he was at the beginning, only with a wife he’s madly in love with now, and yes he’s played by a hot young idol the whole time, or even an actually disabled actor. Not yet, tho.
SIMILARLY. Ye Li’s obvious mental illness is portrayed as, by turns, oddly funny, weird, and occasionally truly creepy, but mostly it is treated as something that is a product of something incredibly sad happening to her. Ye Li is never blamed, never babied (MXY’s fussing not withstanding; he calms down) and never shown to be deranged or dangerous outside of ordinary bounds. Her hallucinations are consistent, specific, and the clear and obvious result of a lot of repressed trauma. They’re a symptom of an actual problem, and are only treated as problematic in themselves in cases where they 1) make Ye Li an unreliable witness (i.e., Qing Shuang, sword master delusion confusion, etc.) or 2) cause Ye Li acute distress (i.e., monkey incident). Ye Li’s husband finds out his wife is hallucinating a person who isn’t there, and his reaction is a normal one. He’s afraid for her, not of her, and he tries to address the root cause (deep personal loneliness and trauma) rather than seeking to medicate or institutionalize her inappropriately. Overall, it’s a very careful and nuanced approach to something that’s typically treated sensationally, and I appreciate that.
Okay now for speculation times:
With just 12 episodes to go, we’ve got to get rid of Prince Li, finish dealing with Marquis Muyang and the dowager empress, plus figure out what the FUCK exactly happened on Li Shan.
FUCK Mo Jingli for reallllllll. Kill him I want him DEAD.
Marquis Muyang is whatever i literally dgaf. He killed his own son and he sucks. GOODBYE. Possibly his son will be a pinch hitter in this??
Although we see the dowager empress nearly every episode and know quite a bit about her rise to power, her patterns of thought, and her personal life, I expect we’ll dig into everything more. As much damage as she’s done, she’s portrayed with remarkable sympathy, and I think we might have to see some more cracks in her benevolent steamroller facade before her inevitable fall from grace can really happen.
WHAT HAPPENED ON DEATH MOUNTAIN?
Qing Shuang in Ye Li’s hallucinations is the same age as she was when Ye Li first returned to the mountain for the final time, which makes me think Qing Shuang either died en route to the mountain or very early on during their exile. If she died later, it contrasts with Ye Li’s flashbacks of running around Monkey Cult Death Mountain primarily portrayed by adult Ye Li (Bai Lu) and not her teen actress. There miiiiight be one scene of teen!Ye Li running around?? But at least the majority of the time, it’s definitely Bai Lu.
The mountain is clearly abandoned now, but we didn’t actually get to see bodies when Ye Li’s shixiong stopped by. Everyone is definitely dead, but probably either congregated in one place (see death cult speculation) or spread out widely.
Several flashbacks show fog or smoke, but the bamboo is fine and the buildings seem okay. Conclusion: occasional smoke, possibly from attack, but primarily fog. It’s not a case where, like, somebody burned the mountain down and Ye Li got thrown in a reflecting pool. Poison fog is a definite possibility tho.
I am not completely convinced that the monkeys are actually monkeys. I think that Ye Li’s descriptions of the monkeys’ behavior aligns much more with soldiers or people, but hey it could actually be fucking monkeys. Maybe the monkeys really did go crazy and kill everyone but Ye Li. Why not! Why not. Alternatively: everyone dies, the monkeys eat the bodies, start to crave human flesh, and that’s why they attack Ye Li.
Ye Li is scared of telling MXY. Unclear if this is because she actually did something, she blames herself, or she’s just scared of what happened and telling the truth. We’ll see.
Biggest questions: Was it a weird cult thing or was the mountain attacked? How and why did Ye Li end up the only survivor? How long has Ye Li been hallucinating Qing Shuang? What’s the fucking deal with the monkeys!!!!!
Super excited to see how this ends!! If we can make it to the finish line without going off the rails, we can put this up on the wall of all-time great dramas.
