Story of Kunning Palace Episode 25

Four Stars

I'm not cool with Ning'er trying to take the blame for Zhang Zhe's mother's death. First off, Ning should KNOW better than anyone, by now that some things are fated to happen in THIS life just as they happened in her prior life and nothing anyone could do to stop those things from happening. But even if we are going to accept that someone is to blame, it was (a) Gu and Zhang pushing to have Zhang play the role of Dujun the Hermit and (b) Zhang's choice to not tell his mother what he was about to do. Neither of those choices had anything to do with Ning. If anything else is to blame it is Zhang & Gu's lack of trust of Xie Wei. Ning just feels guilty because of what happened in her first life, but that is contrived, fake guilt because none of that happened in THIS life. Just stop. Characters carrying a false sense of guilt for things that are not their fault is a hugely annoying drama trope. Please just don't go there. Overall, it was a well-executed but annoying scene because it makes no logical sense. The only good thing about it is maybe it puts a fork in the whole Ning + Zhe romance finally because that just felt 'off' and contrived all along. The following scene, when Xie Wei comforts her is a pretty good scene because, despite the annoyance of her false guilt, his sincere heartfelt concern for her and selfless patience to continue to wait for her to find her way to him is pretty cool. And despite my annoyance that the writers have her character carrying this false guilt, I gotta say, Bai Lu's performance through these two scenes was powerful. Her aura when with Zhang Zhe shifted from simple concern to a strange state of guilt overlayed with the persona of her former Empress self and then to numb acceptance and then a complete despairing breakdown in Xie Wei's arms. The OST music shifts between the two scenes is very well done and powerful.

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Four Stars

Ohh I want him dead. I want Duke Xue to suffer so bad. To do that to a little kid. And the Emperor was a bratty kid huh. A righteous man, Zhang Zhe was, he still tactless to bring up the Yan Family case so soon. Timing, he shld learn abt timing. Mdm Jiang was so... careless in taking in Ning'er's feeling. She always said the wrong things and that drove the wedge deeper time by time. She shld just shut her mouth and let Official Jiang do all the talking. No way... There is no way... How could they do that to him?? THE SCRIPTWRITERS WHEN I CATCH YOU!!! Zhang Zhe only has his mother in his life... Oh my god. Please noooo nono. Myb he shld be more forceful and beg Xie Wei to notify his mom that he was fine. Myb Ning'er shld take the initiative to ask Xie Wei to check how ZZ mom was doing after she remembered that moment from her past life. Oh... the sentence before this was written before Ning'er had convo with ZZ Why did she set herself up like that????? Myb bcs of the guilt she felt. She treated him like Xie Wei treated her... if you get what I mean. Myb this doesn't make sense but... She was trying to make him blame her and hate her. OK them as a couple cld lead to tragedy. Wait... So this was another moment from the intros.

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