I’m calling this episode, “What’s up with the dodgy penis?” 

The trouble in the Court begins when the Crown Prince is discovered to have a faulty manhood. You see, he had a score of disrobed women in his royal chamber but he couldn’t get a boner.

Such an enviable job! Pecker checker!

His erectile dysfunction is cause enough for his deposition and the installation of a new Crown Prince who can insure the royal line.

This shocking news spurs two camps into action:

the crazy camp led by the homicidal Prince Milpoong, Lee Tan of the Noron Faction, and

the meek camp of Prince Yeonryeong, Lee Hwon of the Soron Faction.

They’re the two frontrunners to the throne based on their powerful political backing.

Only one prince, Prince Yeoning Lee Geum has no supporter because he’s the child of the King and a palace water maid.

Curiously enough, he is the OLDER half-brother of the other contenders and should have first claim by the right of primogeniture.

However, the accident of his lowly birth made him an outcast. An untouchable.

However, he doesn’t seem to have problems gaining dubious followers of his own. Already in Episode 1, we see him forming a ragtag team.

For instance, this woman who’s not even a gisaeng but a “liquor-selling wench off the streets.”  I don’t know if she’s his lover or just loyal companion.

Also, this horse-dealer (i.e., Joseon’s version of a shady car salesman) who has mad respect for the Prince’s deceptions.

There’s Park Moonsoo who pursues Lee Geum around town. They meet at a Civil examinations which Moonsoo has failed repeatedly. Unaware that Lee Geum is a prince, he befriends him.

But when he discovers Lee Geum cheating and taking the test for someone else,

he chases him to bring him to justice.

Then, there’s Yeon Ji, a female detective cross-dressing as a male.

She works for an honest royal investigator to expose Prince Milpoong as a serial murderer. She fearlessly slinks around in shadows and hunts for the Prince’s incriminating “Record of the Dead.”

Park Moonsoo knows her, too.

It’s  Yeon Ji who delivers the penis connection.

While hunting for the Prince Milpoong’s record book, she’s caught by Lee Geum trying to steal a small chest. (lol. I think there’s a joke there somewhere because she complained earlier about having a small chest, meaning boobies.)

To escape him, she punches his crotch – figuratively speaking, HIS crown jewels — and he falls down to his knees in pain. She then cockily (ha!) tells him that he should be thankful she went easy on him. He’ll need his male part working, she says.

I heard the sound of a punch. Or did she knee him?

The irony! The Crown Prince is deposed because of his malfunctioning body part, and here she is almost disabling the same body part of the next Crown Prince-to-be.

But what comes around, goes around. When Yeon Ji is cornered by the crazy Prince Milpoong, it’s Lee Geum who steps in out of nowhere to save her neck.

He tells Milpong to let the thief go because she’s not a boy and hurting a girl is a bit too much even for a crazy guy like him. (Little does he know…)

He then coolly orders Prince Milpoong/Lee Tan to go at him instead. The innuendo can’t be any clearer. He’s the MAN who Prince Milpoong has to beat if he wants to ascend to the Crown Prince.

So there you go. That’s why I’m watching this show…for now.

It’s a funny script. The trouble begins with a royalty’s lack of a penis and ends with a woman’s lack of a penis. And the woman is going to be in the middle of the fight of two males whose goals in live opposed each other. The crazy prince wants to become the ruler of the kingdom while the outcast prince wants anybody but him as King.

While all the other bloggers are going to focus on the meaning of “Haechi” as a legendary animal that does the impossible task of judging good and evil,

let’s have fun with the more absurd and prurient things that they’ll undoubtedly miss.

Hopefully, too, this sageuk will be less ridiculous than The Crowned Crown. Even good acting couldn’t save that show from its writer’s reprehensible and tortured thinking.