The final episodes for Season 1.
This is not a good look for Yul. He would’ve been a hen-pecked husband if they were the OTP.
The obligatory kiss scene —
Will she or won’t she be the new lead next season? This Naksu looks decidedly fiercer than the current Naksu.
She looks cute and wholesome here. Maybe it’s because the visual background is dainty: she’s preparing tea. If she had been skewering beef or gutting fish, her hands would’ve been bloodied, and the prevailing optics would’ve been violent.
Let’s enjoy the show.
Kalo mesimeri everyone!
@Packmule3 thanks for the thread! Let us enjoy the last two episodes of Part 1!
Tomorrow, it seems, we will be left hanging on the edge of the cliff for about 3 and a half months.
Jang Uk shines and shines some more as a hero. Love makes the world go round.
Conjecture:
So-I + Yul will be end game in Season 2??
CP reverts to his original (pre-MD and bromance) form and episode 9’s exchange with MD will become a reality?
I am thinking of stopping now and watching it once season 2 starts airing. 🙂
Hope everyone is enjoying the Hong Sisters style roller coaster drama-ride.
Kalispera Everyone,
So, as I was saying for quite some time now, we are going to end Part 1 in a cliffhanger.
First Thoughts on Episode 19:
The Crown Prince wants everything Jang Uk has and that is MuDeok aka Cho Yeong and the King’s Star. Her rejection hurt him that much, that he is going to side with Jin Mu? The Crown Prince is a fool of course.
His Ego is above the Kingdom? That man hurt his mother for so long !
Jin Mu is pretty good in manipulating everybody to do his bad deeds.
He has done so for so long and he is doing it even now.
So, are they going to perform AoS on Jin BuYeon, in order Cho Yeong to return back to her body? Or to start killing again?
As it seems, the Crown Prince will be the one who will give away her secret to Jin Mu. Because Jang Uk and MuDeok said the same words his Master said.
I don’t think that Jang Uk has lost his powers after the King’s Star was on the night sky. I think he will recharge pretty soon.
Why?
Because Chaos is building up again in the world. It might not be the Ice Stone this time, but Jin Mu and his evil plans are to be stopped.
I think that Jin Mu really underestimates Jang Uk and his destiny as the King’s Star.
This time we are watching the (last) temptation of the Crown Prince.
If he continues this path, then he is not suitable to become Daeho’s next ruler.
Master Lee was behind the scenes in this episode, but he will make an appearance in the next one.
Although, Kim Do Joo and Mage Park of Songrim know WHO is the true father of Jang Uk and they will keep it secret, I don’t think that would be plausible. In Part 2, it won’t stay a secret any longer.
There are more to write, but I will when Part 1 will be concluded.
Thanks for the heads-up, @NoOne.
It’s a good thing I already started on other dramas. I’ll have lots of my plate so I won’t mind the 3 1/2 month hiatus.
As Buyeon said, I gain one, I lose one. (snort)
To be honest, though, Buyeon’s outlook is one that I don’t subscribe to. I get that it stems from the notion of yin-yang complementarity. But I personally don’t think we should view life as a zero-sum game. People can negotiate, bargain, compromise, cooperate, share, and so on, to come up with a win-win situation. If they’re really petty though, they can opt for a lose-lose situation.
Jin Woo-tak (Buyeon and Cho-yeon’s father) is an example of a bad father! He puts his vendettas before the welfare of his children.
He is so angry at Jang Gang, that he refuses to acknowledge the possibility that Jang Gang saved his first daughter. He rather pretend Buyeon is not his actual daughter, but a product of his wife’s affair, so he can continue to hold onto his hatred.
He is too cowardly to try to rescue his daughter when she is pushed off the boat into the lake. He continues to work for Jin Mu, who is responsible for the loss of his daughter!
He betrays his wife, by working with Jin Mu, even though there is no sign in the show that the Jin Matriarch has mistreated her husband.
Then he kills himself – not considering how much pain he would cause his daughter?
Well, @Jiji, Jin Woo-tak could be an example of a bad father, as you said, or a good example of BAD WRITING. 🤪
Veteran viewers of the Hong sisters’ dramas know that they’re only good at the beginning of the story, but their center often doesn’t hold, and everything eventually falls apart at the end.
I’ll watch both episodes tonight. But based on what you said, I think Jin Wootak is just an expedient character for the Hong sisters. He’s yet again another one-dimensional evil guy, like Jin Mu. He only exists to do evil and when his (mis)deeds are done, the writers can erase him from the script easily.
That’s why his motivations don’t make sense at all and his character doesn’t ring true. He’s inauthentic because he’s only a plot devise to push the story. So don’t be frustrated with the character, but with the writing. Jin Wootak is only a product of the writers’ blunder. 🙂
Welcome to the blog, @Jiji.
Hello @Packmule3
I am traumatised!
I haven’t watched episode 20 except for some spoilers and I don’t think I will be able to watch it as nothing gets answered, I think and at this point I am not sure that I care. Because if I care then 3 and a half months will be difficult to get through as I do have a penchant of getting stuck with characters and stories.
I look forward to reading your thoughts. I think the very fact that they didn’t answer anything (and Jin Father is alive at some point in episode 20 — I don’t understand who lives and who dies and how do the Hong Sisters decide as even in a fantasy world there are rules but whatever… I can’t process it all!) just frustrates me. Could they not have just produced the full thing as one series of 30 episodes (or less, as stuff can be edited out) — I think they didn’t want this to bomb or they didn’t have enough funds? (One of these days I will do some research about funding of dramas in Korea and how production houses function on the financial side of things! — recommendations are welcome.)
Anyway, the characters in season 2 look leaner and serious. I do not know if Hong Sisters can do thrill well but as of now the trailer hints at darkness.
In some ways am sad about Ukie-Doekie and I did like the otp together (bickering) on screen+ being a master and pupil but I have no idea why they did not once remember Jin Mu (Uk knew how sinister his crimes were!) or why they thought that MD couldn’t run wild. This is just stretching it because the creators can.
Mommy Jin still not figuring out who her elder daughter is… like seriously?
I hope season 2 is a sequel and it explains things though how Uk came back to life and became the male version of Naksu using her sword is something I can’t explain. Even Naksu in season 2 looks leaner and different from Naksu of episode 1 and 2. Is getting to size minus 0 a trend in Korea right now or affects of the post covid world where everyone is trying to become fitter?
Sorry, I wrote down some random questions that I had, even though they don’t relate to the drama directly.
Despite everything I did have fun reading theories and takes on the drama. I do think the entire team put in a lot of effort, may they create better and more exciting dramas. I need a few days to stop AoS thoughts so will be lurking around and finishing Fairy and Devil when my brain is ready to process other dramas.
Happy new week 🙂
🙂 Maybe instead of an “Appreciation Thread” like I did with “Love Between Fairy & Devil” I should open a Rant Thread, @NoOne, to get the frustration out of our system.
I’ll watch the two episodes tonight after I catch up on “Love Between Fairy & Devil.” I’m also watching the earlier episodes of “Today’s Webtoon” which I skipped for “Alchemy of Souls.” I need something less convoluted than AoS.
Kalispera!
I just finished Episode 20.
I am still pissed off with how Jin Mu always does his evil deeds unpunished and gets away with it.
The Crown Prince was a fool and he regretted it but it was too late.
As I have said, it ended with a cliffhanger… 🙂
P.S. I write more tomorrow, until most of you have watched it.
P.S.2 I am pissed off at some things, but I will write about them tomorrow…
Ahhhh what the actual F. Just finished 19 and 20 back to back and I feel so angry at the Hong sisters. Great call @cleopatra re: cliffhanger.
While there were beautiful moments in 19 and I liked that, but ep 20 felt like the kdrama version of blue balls for the viewer.
I cannot believe they left us hanging high and dry with no threads answered. Since June I feel like I’ve been addicted and trusting in that we’ll get some answers, but this feels like such a gotcha.
@noone as you said, I too feel traumatized. @packmule I am alllll for a rant thread.
I’ll start early. Jang Gang?! The most anti-climactic character return ever. Would have been better if he never came back. No reasoning, even his whole self-sacrifice felt empty and emotionless.
Jin father: Bad writing as you said PM3. Nothing believable, no clear motivation, nothing to hook us to his character.
CP: They hinted that he realized MD could be Uk’s master…but then he did nothing. Just followed Jin Mu around.
Jin Mu was proven to have done so many terrible things and got away with it all.
Uk’s fake out death? That too rang hollow for me. Somehow the end felt so chaotic and the episode so weirdly put together…I missed the emotional connect and any sense of reasoning.
For now, I will pretend ep 19 ending was the ending of the series and ep 20 never happened. Will process more…but really looking forward to all your thoughts on here.
So a question:
Is love a poison for Uk? Did Naksu use the right analogy?
At least now I know why Jin Mu never tried AoS on himself.
I have spent quite a few hours trying to unravel what different characters would feel in episode 21 based on spoilers and my brain is a mess.
So what happened to the priestess and her powers that she could not protect the assassin’s soul or herself? It really was two souls in one body? Do we need to know more about MD or BY?
Why did they not reveal the rattle before? I think someone on twitter put it nicely: the world building was nice but the details in the story and around magic were hazy. I still don’t understand the storm/ice stone functionality and why others would have died if MD ran away with it?
Could the entire season 1 not be told in 16 episodes instead of the stretch and non-reveal status of 20? Will they be able to cover it all in 10 episodes what they couldn’t in 20?
I think problem is in story division? I can’t see clear distinctions and genres were mixed which is why tone doesn’t sit right. I am ready to rant and get it out of my system.
I need to watch something nice to cleanse myself but lord I loved some characters: Uk, Kim Do Jo, The lady at the entertainment house, Master Lee, two kids he keeps pampering, baby versions of the three boys, Yul, Park Jin and Uk being chaotic. The poem, the hugs and the bickering. Episode 2 end and episode 12 as a whole (4 sequences with Uk and MD to be exact).
Kalimera Everyone,
I didn’t want to write anything else because I was too involved emotionally, not that I am better today.
Still, I have to say that script wise it was a good episode that led to a sunspenceful cliffhanger for the second part.
Do I agree into everything that happened yesterday? No, I don’t.
I didn’t like how Jin Mu managed to get away with everything, as So-I did, in the previous episode (19) after she put the worm into Yul. (I am going to comment later on this one).
Regarding Jin Mu, we got to see an one dimensional bad character that gets away with everything.
We also got to see that really powerful Mage Families that didn’t do anything to arrest him after all his crimes he did. Or use their powerful spells to fight, with the exception of Park Jin. They only ones who fought throught Part 1 was Naksu, Jang Uk, Jang Uk and Jang Uk, Yul and in the end Park Dang-Gu and Jin Cho-Yeon.
I have to applaude the Hong Sisters for binding every tidbit they used and they didn’t let loose ends in some parts, like WHY Mage Cho started killing his own people. I realized it back in Episodes 15-16 that Shaman Choi was responsible for his “temporary madness”.
I am glad we saw that Shaman Choi did control him with her divination spell to get mad and kill everyone, while he was petrifying.
I am also glad that Kim Do Joo said the same thing in front of Songrim, Sejukwon Infirmary and Jinyowon’s leaders and that they had to clear his name in Jang Kang’s request.
The thing that I am not okay is that they used the exact same M.O. for Cho Yeong and Park Jin didn’t even realize that she was under a spell…
WHEN
it was THAT obvious and…
Jin Mu entered Songrim holding those bells in his hand manipulating her in front of everyone!!!!
It broke my heart when Cho Yeong cried when she came back to her senses and realized what she had done. The fact that Jang Uk was calling out for her name for five times was too important to miss out!
I am grateful, that Jang Uk held her hand as he promised he would, making it an unofficial marriage ceremony between them. In the end, he did everything he promised he would. He kept all his promises not only to her, but also to Master Lee.
I also feel that Jin Bu Yeon’s character was used ONLY for the Ice Stone arc and did nothing when Naksu was hypnotized. Afterall, it was her body and she would let herself get petrified in the end. The powerful Priestess with the Divine Powers was again a victim of Jin Mu?
The way they ended the episode, the Hong Sisters ought to bring her back in order to show us that she is not an one dimensional character as well. They didn’t even revealed that she was the long lost daughter of the Jins!
I didn’t like that the Crown Prince was so envious towards Jang Uk that he got blinded. I also didn’t like his threat towards MuDeok and Uk because she rejected him and because she chose Jang Uk. His change of heart in the end, when he found out that Jang Uk died and Naksu got petrified won’t make me sympathize for him.
He let his Ego and Pride to control him, when Jin Mu destroyed his friend and the woman he claimed he wanted near him.
Also, scriptwise, I didn’t like that the Hong Sisters used his Character arc to make him better and foolish.
This getting longer than I expected so…To be Continued.
And now what should be waiting for?
The most important aspect is that Jang Uk is alive. The Alchemy of Souls did happen on him become he had the Ice Stone aka the Philosopher’s Stone. He got his μεταστοιχείωση / metastichiosis / transmutation and as a Phoenix came back a different man. Master Lee said it himself, “this is not the end.”
We saw that the red fire in the pyre became blue. That means that from his primary element that was Water, he now controls Fire or as a friend told me about the Chinese myth / concept of the Ice Fire.
When I saw the scene the fire that came into my mind was the Holy Light when Christ is Risen. You can find videos on YouTube from Jerusalem when the Orthodox Patriarch is coming out from the Christ’s tomb with the fire. If you see, in the beginning it is blue and then it becomes red. The blue light doesn’t burn at all if you touch it.
To return back to Jang Uk:
He is the true King’s Star and he will haunt them all down for what they did to Cho Yeong. He knows that she was under a spell. When they were inside the barrier, he read the forbidden books of Shaman Choi that are locked in the Sejukwon Infirmary. As Master Lee does.
Who were the ladies that snatched MuDeok’s body from Lake Gyeongcheondaeho?
Were they from Jinyowon or someone else took her almost petrified body? Like people from the Chwiseonru Courtesan House?
I don’t know how the Hong Sisters will undo the harm they did on Cho Yeong after she killed Jin Woo-Tak. Jin Cho-Yeon became her sworn enemy and Park Dang-Gu will follow along as her husband.
The drink Jang Uk, Seo Yul and Park Dang Gu had the night before the wedding was a foreshadow that shows that Park Dang Gu will oppose Jang Uk, while Seo Yul will be on Jang Uk’s side.
As I was saying last night to my friends after we finished watching the show, we are back in Day 1, but this time around Jang Uk is the most powerful Mage in Daeho. I am not going to forget that they burned him as a mere criminal, while he saved them all.
I won’t like if the memory loss trope is used on Part 2. Please don’t!
The Hong Sisters need to find a believable way for me to untied what they did to Cho Yeong. She became again the assassin, not on her own accord, and went to a bloody rampage. In the end she even killed her lover / husband.
So, I am waiting for their believable solution…
What else do they want to tell us in 10 more episodes? If the script is not coherent, I will say so when it will start on December.
They need to tell us HOW Cho Yeong will return to her body and what happened to Jin Bu Yeon in the meantime.
I am expecting Jang Uk to look out for her, while Yeong will be hiding away because she will have regrets for what she did to him.
Jang Uk also took her sword as his own, since they stripped him off his birth right to be the next Gwanju in Cheonbugwan.
Now the most possible scenario is that they will use the King’s Star Arc to make Jang Uk oppose the throne. We know that he doesn’t want it, he never did.
After that his resurrection / rebirth, they will all know that he is the King’s Star, that the Crown Prince was a fake and I wonder how the CP will take that blow. It would be satisfying to watch…
They will hunt him down, but this time around he will fight back. The updated version of Jang Uk will be different from the first part, because they destroyed everything he cherished.
That’s all for now.
Correction:
The most important aspect is that Jang Uk is alive. The Alchemy of Souls did happen on him because he had the Ice Stone aka the Philosopher’s Stone.
ugh!! I would not mind reading and venting on these past few episodes. I did not finish ep 20. Jin Mu annoyed the heck out of me. Like how does he get away?!!
A room full of mages and guards and they let him walk out. What, he stepped to the bathroom? Got lost on the way back? So frustrating. CP not seeing right through JM. I mean CP has been the most level-headed individual despite having crappy parents. Yet he turns around and starts to get jealous. When I haven’t seen him do that before.
I completely agree that to have a bad guy for the purposes of having a bad guy is crappy writing. I’ll wait until I’m not so mad about this and continue watching. Maybe I’ll wait six months.
Reading your comments @Cleo I have doubts about what I should wait for next season. Do I care enough?
Anyways, I’ll be back to cheer on anyone who would like to vent. =)
Kalispera @Carolina!
Well, at least Jung Song Mi is confirmed to participate in Part 2, but not as main cast. She will have a guest role.
I am okay with it, because that way Jin BuYeon’s arc will close and hopefully they will give us an explanation about what happened in Episode 20.
More here: https://mydramalist.com/733261-alchemy-of-souls-part-2
Also, I was frustrated last night with the Crown Prince. Not the actor per se. I mean the Hong Sisters used him in a way that changed his Character Arc and the connections he had built with Jang Uk and Mudeok along the way.
As you said, Jin Mu got away with everything so easily. He always does something wrong for 20 years nonstop, but noone reprimands him in any way. Everyone knows it, but he is off limits every single time!
The King who knew he was an accomplish to Shaman Choi and did harm to his Queen, made him the new Gwanju!
How hypocrites are all in the Palace? The Crown Prince followed along of course, when he knew that he is the one responsible to what happened to Jang Uk and MuDeok-ah.
That’s why I was frustrated. Along with how easily the mighthy Priestess Jin BuYeon was neutralized and Cho Yeong became a puppet in Jin Mu’s hands. The irony is that she followed her Father’s footsteps.
He became a scapegoat on purpose. Jin Mu wanted to hurt Jang Kang for killing his friend. And in the end, Cho Yeong became one as well. In order to hurt her and everyone she vowed to protect. Even her lover Jang Uk.
I will urge you to finish the Episode and come back here to vent as much as you like. I will listen to you. 😊
I will be waiting for December anyway. I want to see how they are going to wrap this up.
Kalo Mesimeri Everyone!
Something I wanted to write regarding Daeho. Enjoy!
One of the things that is outstanding throughout the first part of AoS is how deep is the corruption that exists in Daeho.
Especially in the upper and elit classes of their society. That’s why the poor people are afraid and feel unprotected, as Jang Uk told in the Crown Prince’s face after Master Lee met with the Royal Family.
After I finished the first Part 1 and while I was talking with some of my friends that we were watching AoS together, I told them the following:
The King’s Star would materialize anyway.
In our case, it just happened that the man was Jang Uk. It could be another man with other specifications, but the King’s Star would be there to fix everything in their unethical little city.
The Royal Family is kinda rotten. We have a King who is literally a joke. He is weak, because he was afraid of Jang Kang’s divination about the King’s Star, and at the same time ruthless and heartless. He didn’t even blink, when he suggested MuDeok to die and then bring her back from the dead with the Ice Stone. He wanted to be entertained of course! He even bribed her with 100 golden coins(?) to do so. We thought that Shaman Choi as the Queen was malevolent, when the real Queen herself was a person who wanted to perform the forbidden sorcery Alchemy of Souls, because she wanted to be in a younger and better looking vessel! Her Vanity speaks volumes..!
If we add all these in the mix, the Crown Prince couldn’t have been any better. The CP grew up in such an environment and had as Master the notorious Jin Mu who is the Evil Mastermind behind every bad thing that happened to Daeho because Jang Kang was…a coward and couldn’t deal with the mess he created in the first place.
Jin Mu orchestrated anything but throughout the show he is off limits! He even got promoted into Gwanju for killing Jang Uk. The fact that he killed another member of the Cho household, still – for now – remains unpunished. The fact that he entered Songrim holding those bells that controlled the soul shifter Cho Yeong / Naksu, while the havoc was happening, went unnoticed by everyone!
If we add in the mix, how the powerful Mage Families acted and reacted we get a glimpse of the mythical city Daeho that doesn’t exist in the map. Most of them had hidden agendas, like the Jin Matriarch that used the Ice Stone that was stored in Jinyowon for safekeeping, in order to bring her unborn dead daughter back to life.
During the episodes, we are being informed that several other people were paying visits to those Shamans in Gaema Village, in order to perform sorcery. The recipients of their requests? Most likely their so-called enemies. So, we have people in the middle and lower classes that wanted people to be hurt or killed, long before the Ice Stone was revealed to the world from the Jin Matriarch.
All the above are data that give us a good reason why the King’s Star had to appear in Daeho.
I am pretty sure that Master Lee knew from the very beginning that Jang Uk had to find his internal strength and in order to do so, he had to finish his Quests.
When he did exactly that, Jang Uk was ready to follow his Destiny. It remains to be seen, now that everyone will find out that he is indeed the King’s Star, the rising Phoenix that represents the Light, what else he needs to do in order to defeat Evil.
After all, Part 2 of the Alchemy of Souls will be called:
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow.*
*[Cho Yeong represents the Shadow, while Jang Uk the Light. Both represent the Yin-Yan aspect. That’s why their red-blue jades matter in the plot.]
Kalimera,
The Soundtrack is out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pvA6E4Y7Pw
Enjoy!
Annyeong,
@Cleo, thanks for the info on Jung Song Mi returning on Season 2, but not as main cast 💔 I’m a bit heartbroken to hear that. I really like her character. I’m sure i’m gonna like Naksu in her original body as well, but it will be strange at first. I’m gonna miss Jung Song Mi’s face near Uk’s. Waaaah.
I always ADD to my Kdrama playlist (Youtube and via Apple music) all the OST from the shows I watch. It’s my way of re-living the show in my heart 💗
I can’t wait to watch Season 2… and see a new Uk and Naksu.
Kalimera @HK_Lady!
Well, since my past comment about SJM, there are some news about her return. I think they are doing the same marketing stunt equivalent with what happened in GoT and Jon Snow.
I really heard the whole OST and I liked it very much!
Let us see what will happen in Part 2 in December!
Kalo mesimeri!
I wanted to share with all of you that Part 2 of the Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow will air in 10th of December.
More info: https://mydramalist.com/733261-alchemy-of-souls-part-2
P.S. I have to say that I miss our gang…
Hope everyone is well 🙂
I was thinking about the incomplete love story and came here.
Will add some news to the mix: TVN had published a press release clarifying that MD was petrified. Whether JSM will show up for a few minutes like GYJ did in season1 is yet to be seen.
I am curious about how they reestablish the relationship between Uk and the FL so will be tuning in in December.
I have no idea how you do it but @Packmule3 you were right on this count:
https://twitter.com/leejaewookstyle/status/1572530349221228544?s=20&t=_MKlKKXRr4Edy9PAF2bPMw
It seems the actor playing the Crown Prince did catch someone’s fancy (writers/director?) and even he says that his role is more than he had envisioned. Or at least that is what I make out from this translation of the actual article.