Omega17

They did the library scene so well that I was afraid for Madam Zhao getting caught. 😂

Yes. Her behavior was bad but you can’t help but sympathize with her plight. She was forced into the marriage by her family and the Lins. She was embezzling money so that she would be able to support herself once she left the loveless marriage. In reality she’s just a victim of the way women were treated in that day. And that has been a theme of these early episodes. Be it the FL’s female family members, the maids or Madam Zhao, women were very disposable.

The actress who plays young Madam Zhao is such good actress. I remember her playing the princess in The Double. She was a scene stealer there as well. Even in her wickedness you can’t help but sympathize with her.

She loves ZL but she did remind him that, that man, was her father. We have to remember that she was living that high born lifestyle and was the good daughter up until granny tried to kill her. So while her father was awful, he was still the man she called father for 18 years before she met ZL. So it was very important for her know why ZL killed her father. I was mad at TY for how she forgave and helped Yake in the end but we have to remember it’s not easy to turn off emotions and connections developed over years. TY still cared about Yake and to some degree she still had a connection to her terrible dad. I love that these characters blur the lines and aren’t easily boxed into expectations.

I feel like ASen’s story got cut from the second half of the drama. He was a big part of Zhao Ling’s life for the first half of the drama and basically disappears from the story in the second half.

Definitely my favored drama of the year so far.

They showed him but I don’t think he had any dialogue.

If I remember correctly, TY convinced ZL to come with her to Ganlin because she was still seeking revenge and was trying to establish her name. She was going after Madam Zuo in Ganlin. As a woman she still needed a man to establish herself in Ganlin. That’s why she proposed the marriage. So she convinced him to take the crown prince’s offer to be his man. That’s the hook. As soon as he took the offer of the CP, he was hooked whether he stayed with TY or not. And TY did apologize for convincing him to stay with her for her own selfish reasons. So he was going to always end up in the capital working for the emperor once he decided to help TY with her revenge plot. As far as Yake goes, I hate that she’s in Ganlin as well but the writers did establish towards the end that Tingyun still had feelings and still cared about Yake. She gave money to help raise Yake’s son. So it’s not surprising that she would help Yake find her place in the world by giving her the job she had in Ganlin.

Her getting money from stores in the capital and him being a regional commander surely provides nicely.

Yeah. That poor kid has a grandma talking crazy and dad who has no future. He’s going to have a tough life and can’t even get out of it through his own merit.

Right! She gets to live in a beautiful countryside and become a respected teacher. She will likely get married and have a family. Her poor son is living in poverty with the crazy side of the family. How is that fair?

ASen marries General Wang’s daughter. Tian Wanyi’s husband becomes even more henpecked. Miss Wu is free and manages one of the Xie stores for Tingyun. Madam Mo’s son passes exams and becomes the first scholar in their family. Tingyun’s brother becomes a headmaster and all his students pass exams. Yake becomes a teacher in Ganlin.Zhao Ling and Tingyun have a little girl and live happily in Ganlin.

Episode 36: Sad for all the friends we lost in 36 episodes. But here are all the happy endings for the finale if anyone wants to be spoiled.

One would think. But I guess this is a clean break from the Yus.

Much of her redemption is based on the fact the Tingyun still, irrationally, still cares about her. She literally abandoned her kid with a crazy grandmother and good for nothing dad. It also doesn’t excuse she was willing to allow her best friend to die over a man. I felt she help save Tingyun just to stick it Jingxiu more so than for morality.

You guys have really softened on Yake. Pretty privilege is real. 😂

It’s really a montage showing how everyone is doing. The time could have been months or years apart. I only took that the Yake teaching was in the same time frame as their child.

Great points but I would argue that what Jungxiu and Yake did was evil. They may not have been the masterminds but accusing a woman of adultry was a death sentence in those days. Yake’s argument that she could have married Zuo Junjie to save herself does not lessen their culpability.

Ancy did an amazing job in that scene. You could see the hurt, almost a sense of betrayal but knowing it was necessary and acceptance. She was willing to drink the poison to save him. And then when he took it, the sheer panic and terror. It was so well done and a great bookend to when she was going to be poisoned by her grandmother’s servants at beginning of series.

Definitely. This is my second time watching him. Ding Yuxi and Ancy Deng did an amazing job. I already liked Ding Yuxi but I have now become a big fan of Ancy Deng. I can’t wait to see her on her next project. Any recommendations for any of her previous work?