I’m not in the mood to ponder about love so I’m skipping Ep 5 for now. May circle back later.
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Inquiring minds want to know a number of things that happened in this episode. I’ll start with the most salacious one.
Question 1. What transpired between Yi Ahn and HuiJu on the yacht?
Well, since this is a kdrama, they probably just kissed. If I were to use the baseball analogy (hey, the show featured baseball in Episode 4, didn’t they?), they just reached first base.
But if this series had been written and produced by Hollywood, then I would imagine that they did more than smooching, that is, they reached second base (code for touching above the waist) or probably even third base (i.e., touching below the waist).
To me, HuiJu was overreacting to the kiss. So, what if they did engage in a bit of amorous kissing? Hadn’t she French kissed her previous boyfriends?
I think she was caught off-guard by her intense biological and emotional reaction to his kiss. She didn’t expect to be turned on and actually reciprocate the kiss. I guess she presumed all along that her marriage was to be a chaste, platonic, and contractual arrangement for their mutual benefit.
I also think it’s silly of her to go to a Catholic priest for an exorcism. Did she fear that she was possessed by a lustful spirit (or a “saekjeonggwi”) because she couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss? Going to a shaman would be a better recourse for her.
Question 2. Why was Jeongwoo “Oppa” smiling as he drove HuiJu to her office after meeting her at church?
Isn’t it obvious? He was in a good mood because:
a) he thought he had HuiJu to himself for once, and
b) he interrupted HuiJu’s conversation with Yi Ahn (lol. I know I’d be gloating if I were in his shoes. I’m petty.)
But then his expression darkened when HuiJu casually compared his smiling face to that of Yi Ahn’s.
HJ: Do you like driving, too?
PMM: That’s random.
HJ: The Grand Prince smiles when he drives too. He says it feels like he’s flying. (chuckling) He can be so childlike sometimes. (smiling to herself)
Her unconscious smile indicated that not only was she recalling a happy moment with Yi Ahn but she was also falling for Yi Ahn. So he warned her.
PMM: HuiJu-ya.
HJ: What?
PMM: Don’t get too attached.
HJ: Hmmm?
PMM: It’ll drive up the divorce settlement. Be it money, reputation, or…your heart.
HJ: (scoffing) Do you think I’m an idiot?
He was reminding her to manage her expectations in her marital relationship in the same efficient way she was managing her business ventures/finances and her branding/reputation. Given their prearranged divorce in three years, he wanted her to protect herself from heartbreak by not over-investing herself emotionally in a one-sided affair.
We all know that this mindset of Jeongwoo “Oppa” set him apart from Yi Ahn. Clearly, the screenwriter aimed to compare the two guys – and it went beyond the similar expression on their faces while driving.
While PMM was warning her to guard her heart from Yi Ahn, Yi Ahn was reassuring her not to fear his intentions as he was offering himself and all his possessions (including status and rank) to her with utmost sincerity.
YA: I do like you. And it’s my first time. Restraint always follows desire. But it’s not easy this time.
HJ: (at a loss for words)
YA: What? Having second thoughts? Worried I won’t divorce you?
HJ: You won’t?
YA: Don’t worry. I don’t want to keep you bound to me. You should just accept it all. Whether it be money, honor, or my heart.
HJ: (flippantly) I’ve always had more money than you.
YA: Always?
HJ: Always have.
YA: Always have?
HJ: (And) always will.
To me, PMM/JeongWoo “Oppa” could have told HuiJu all these himself, especially the line, “Restraint always follows desire.” He exercised emotional restraint, not because his love for her was missing/insufficient, but because he couldn’t allow his feelings to dictate his course of action. He had to restrain his impulses and desires.
Question 3: Who poisoned HuiJu?
This is like playing the board game Clue.
The possible weapons:
— The lipstick: it could have been tampered with and laced with poison or drug.
— The wine cup: this is interesting because when HJ stumbled, she crashed on the table and jarred the cups. Was the intended victim of the poison HJ or YA?
— The rice wine in the kettle: were HJ and YA served from separate kettles? She started choking after she sipped it.
— The long sleeves of her bridal robe: she could have been breathing in toxic powder sprinkled on the sleeves as she had the sleeves close to her face when she stumbled, drank the rice wine, and greeted PMM in the Great Hall.
The usual suspects:
— The mole: she couldn’t eat during the staff dinner/impromptu bridal shower. And she looked in tears when Steward Kim bragged about using pink coral (instead of coral pink, hahaha) lipstick. Was the lipstick supposed to react with the wine? Poor girl. Will she be killed next like the mechanic who worked on HJ’s car?
— The Queen Mother’s assistant: she was the one who planted the mole in the Grand Prince’s residence
— The Queen Mother: the boss
What about Lord InPyeong, the Queen Mother’s father? I don’t think so. The mole was placed in YA’s residence at the Queen Mother’s behest. Besides, I doubt he would interfere personally in YA’s household staff like her daughter would.
Question 4: Did the Queen Mother really kill her husband?
I believe her. Her father, Lord InPyeong, had nothing to do with it.
He was himself horrified that his daughter burned the palace to the ground.
LI: The press will soon spread the news of His Majesty’s tragedy. You must secure the Crown Prince’s accession.
QM: His Majesty had abandoned the Crown Prince. He wished to depose the Crown Prince and abdicate in favor of Grand Prince Yi Ahn.
LI: What do you mean?
QM: He even drew up a royal edict.
LI: (speechless)
This was the first time he was hearing of this. He had no hand in his son-in-law, the King’s death.
QM: I am certain His Majesty will understand me.
LI: (stunned)
QM: This was all for the Crown Prince’s sake.
Certifiable. Remember what I said about a villain’s ability to justify the most diabolical act.
LI: What in the world have you done?
QM: I… burned it all to the ground.
That said, I don’t know what Lord InPyeong will do to protect his daughter and ensure his grandson ascends to the throne when he comes of age.
*******
Off to bed now.
Hi @pkml3, you must have rattled off all your thoughts into your nifty phone and got them all transcribed before bed!!!
I was painstakingly rewatching and making notes of some of the SAME conversations and some of the same thoughts came to me.
Exactly! I couldn’t reconcile HJ’s monumental embarrassment with the hot kisses. I agree that she could not acknowledge that she was truly attracted and aroused by YA and was beating herself up about it (maybe she considered it a weakness and sheis NEVER weak!)
But you know, I did think they may have gone beyond first or second base. Why? Because when they came home together, HJ’s hair was mussed up behind as she had been lying on her back. This is rarely shown. Most times characters go to sleep with ponytails tied and wake up looking as neat as ever!! So I liked this little detail. HJ was not her usual spruced up self … she did not even think to check that her hair was neat before the servants saw her.
If it was merely the kiss that got her so incapable of looking YA in the eye, then it was a crazy overreaction.
I agree. That’s why the health examination for constitution and fertility shocked her.
I laughed when Court Lady Choi was giving the details of how the conjugal union would take place. There would be not just an auspicious date but time as well. They were to consummate their marriage and aim for an heir according to Taekil (택일) — the selection of auspicious dates and times. CL Choi mentioned yin and yang and the Taekil is calculated based on a person’s birth data, a traditional calendar and the yin-yang elements system. HJ’s heart rate increased and everyone gets to know it since the physician announces it! So embarrassing. Shouldn’t the health examination be done in private???
I like that YA did not beat about the bush the way HJ did.
YA: “Something bothering you? You’ve been acting strangely.”
She has been looking down paying more attention to the cushion on her lap than to him. At this she looks up and can’t really lock gazes with him, so she goes on the attack saying that he’s the one who’s acting strangely. Instead of coming clean, HJ’s usual mode of defence when she felt vulnerable or at a disadvantage was to attack.
HJ: “You’re being unnecessarily sweet to me. While everyone was watching, you brushed the hair out of my face. And your eyes … You keep looking at me with those doe eyes.”
(I’ve noted that every time his hand approaches to touch her hair or face, she freezes or flinches. It’s some kind of automatic reaction to her head being touched).
YA: “My eyes never changed.”
HJ: “That’s not true.
YA: “Is this about yesterday?”
She thinks, shrugs, shakes her head and says she’s fine.
She probably felt herself at a disadvantage because she had been the one all caught up in the moment and had let herself go. Instead of speaking about the kisses honestly she tried to pass it off as a random thing, acceptable when the vibe was right, and that any stranger might have done. Poor YA was cut to the quick.
YA: “Not for me. I didn’t do it just because I was caught up in the moment. I did it because it’s you.”
She continues for a while more in denial but it will not last long. HJ’s strength lay in her PR over her own hard-heartedness ie she gave the appearance of being strong no matter what. But there also lay her weakness because she could not allow herself to bend. In contrast, YA was not afraid to be vulnerable and truthful about his feelings.
@pkml3
About the poisoning… I vote for the lipstick as the vehicle for the poison. When it was so obviously mentioned, Areum looked so ready to cry bitterly although it was the housekeeper and steward who actually shed tears of joy.
As for the rice wine… HJ had her own kettle of wine so if it was laced then it was meant for her.
= = =
WRT to the fire, I feel QM believes that when she burned the edict and threw it to the ground, that it started the fire that killed her husband.
However, we find that the edict was not entirely burnt as it should have been, since the blaze filled the hall. YA had it in his possession. He knew about it but had kept silent for 3 years.
What it might mean:
A) King Yi Hwan had saved the edict, passed it on to someone to give to YA or had given it directly to YA. This would mean that the fire had not continued burning after the Queen started it.
Then it would have been an act of suicide if Yi Hwan restarted the fire and stayed to die.
(It’s unlikely that there would have been yet another person who’d set fire to the palace).
B) YA knew that his brother had wanted to abdicate and that this could have been a motive for murder, but he did not want to make the chaos worse by bringing up the edict. It was mentioned that the monarchy had just stabilised.
YA also knew that there was a target on his own back.
He was waiting to get evidence that his brother had been murdered before releasing the edict.
C) Someone had found the edict before the fire really got bad, had taken it but left the King Yi Hwan to die. This same person had given the edict to YA only recently, hence perhaps this explains his change of mind from not wanting to ascend the throne to considering it.
I was too groggy to write this last night.
Question 5: How did Yi Ahn end up with the charred edict?
I can’t imagine him going through the burned down palace, looking for the document. So using Occam’s Razor (i.e., the simplest explanation is most likely correct), I’m going with Prime Minister Min or Jeongwoo Oppa.
His term as PM is for five years (and I have the impression from HJ’s talk that it was up soon), and the previous king had been dead three years. Oppa’s office would have investigated the fire and he could have come across that document and handed it to “rightful” heir to the throne. However, he and Yi Ahn jointly decided to let the young boy be king.
Love it, @GB. We’re like mommas speculating about our kids’ sex lives. Did YA and HJ score a homerun (i.e., have intercourse) or not?
I actually thought the same thing as you: that they must have gone all the way because of her overreaction that night, and her unconsciously pressing down on the pillow on her lap like a nervous tic after the medical examination (hahaha).
Yes, her mussed-up hair is so unlike her. Remember when she had YA hold up the mirror for her in the car so she could check her hair and make-up?
And yes, her shock/awkwardness/embarrassment when the matter of fertility was brought up looked suspicious, too. If they had sex the previous night, I’m sure they didn’t any condom. She could very well be pregnant as she sat there.
And yes, pressing down on the pillow is a way to self-soothe herself in an uncomfortable situation. But she could also be mimicking the sexual act (e.g., being pressed down on the bed).
But what gets me is that the director only kept replaying the kiss scene in HJ’s head. We the audience didn’t see them disrobing, sweating, grinding and all that stuff so we have no visual evidence of the event actually happening. We saw YA in the shower in Episode 1 but when it comes to milestones like this, we’re left to our imaginations. Hmph! I protest!
@pkml3 and anyone reading…
Just questions/thoughts from the top of my head.
Why does the Catholic Church and priest appear in this show at all?
– It tells us that Min has a Catholic priest friend and is a Catholic himself, but so what? That does not make him a good or bad person.
– It gives Min a chance to tell us what we can guess already, that he is NOT praying for HJ to end up happily married to YA.
– The presence of the priest gives HJ a chance to make a fool of herself asking for an exorcism while trying to offer large sums of money to the church. I’m glad the priest closed the window on her ‘confession’.
– It gave us an opportunity to hear that she’s not religious, and for Min to meet her and drive her to work with a smile on his face.
All these points do not really justify the RC elements in this show so far.
More talk of killing and death
HJ swears that the executives in Castle Beauty would be royally screwed if the revenue dropped.
She tells Tae Ju “I will kill you if you fail.”
Tae Ju asks Dae Young: “Is that brat setting a trap to murder me?”
But on the Seong family side, despite bitter rivalry and prejudice against HJ, there is no actual intent to kill. Dad Seong even displays a certain degree of concern over the welfare of his daughter, regardless of how disdainfully he treats her.
We see that during the wedding, Dad Seong gave her his words of caution, “Do not look down. It makes you look weak” and that this surprised HJ who looks like she wonders if he is sincere or not.
The Relationship between QM and YA is complicated
Hearing that YA had become perturbed after meeting with HJ over the fitting and health examination, QM takes a walk with him to suss him out.
When he challenges her statement that he and HJ come from different worlds and would find it hard to reach perfect accord, by reminding her that although she and his brother were from the same world, they were far from happy, we see a FLASHBACK.
Yoon Yi Rang was the Crown Princess married to Crown Prince Yi Hwan, but he refused to fulfill his royal duties. We find out from YA who comes in that it’s not the first time Yi Hwan had ‘run away.’ Despite knowing that he’d be reprimanded, YA had offered to accompany the Crown Princess in his brother’s place. There had been a certain warmth in their relationship.
In the present, every interaction between them had an undercurrent of suspicion, attempts at one-upmanship, and barbed sarcasm, but if not for the way things turned out with Yi Hwan, they might have been friends.
Sadly the tête-à-tête ends with QM saying: “Is there any place for happiness in a royal union?” While it sounds ominous since YA’s own nuptials are approaching, it does not seem to worry YA at all. Contrary to how his brother looked ready to collapse on his wedding day, YA is perfectly at ease and happy.
good lord, this game of Clue sounds so interesting!
To me, @GB, the important point about this conversation —
YA: “My eyes never changed.”
HJ: “That’s not true.
YA: “Is this about yesterday?”
is YA’s admission that he ALWAYS looked at her with love, infatuation, crush, fascination, adoration or whatever you call it, even back in high school.
His eyes NEVER changed. Lol.
But then, his reveal went over HJ’s head because she didn’t question the implication.
“It’s the butler in the library with the candlestick.”
We’re just having fun with ourselves here, @ibisfeather. 🙂 The mystery in the show isn’t going to be that deep.
Mirroring
This writer likes to repeat certain scenes or phrases to show up parallels or connect scenes or characters.
The simplest ones in Ep 6 and 7 are how first YA is dissed by QM at family dinner with HJ and then how HJ is dissed by her father when YA is at dinner with her family. Both times they leave the table to stop the escalation of the belittlement and anger.
They each support the other and help the other diffuse the tension.
In Ep 7 we have first HJ asking YA
HJ: “What? Are you having second thoughts because my family is such a hot mess?”
YA: “You must have a bad memory. If you remembered what QM said to me, there’s no way you’d say that.”
HJ: “That’s true.”
When HJ asks YA if he likes her and looks a bit concerned that it might be his first time liking someone, it’s his turn to ask: “What? Having second thoughts? Worried I won’t divorce you?”
Then of course there is PM Min who telephoned HJ to ask her: “Are preparations going well? Are you sure you don’t want to call it off?”
I posit a guess that even knowing that she could have been killed on her wedding day would have changed everyone else’s mind about continuing with the wedding, but it would not have stopped HJ.
Yes, I agree, @GB, about the Catholic Church and priest being used as an artificial/contrived plot point.
Ugh! I hope the screenwriter isn’t going to use this character trait (e.g., his religiosity) to display vile Catholic bigotry again. But I wouldn’t be surprised because this is a Disney production after all.
I’m reserving judgment for now.
He was also praying the rosary while waiting with the Queen Mother for YA and HJ’s arrival at the palace. I hope he was praying for blessings for HJ. “God’s will be done.”
I do like however that the show attempted to show a government official keeping in touch with his faith. (FYI. I still hear mass during lunch break whenever I could. And when I’m out of the country on a Sunday, I include an English speaking mass on my schedule. We don’t cease to be church-goers just because we’re in government.)
Right? The confession is free, people! No bribing!
Lol. For a second, I wondered if he was stalking her but then he asked how she got there and she said that she took a cab.
My stance: let’s wait and see where the screenwriter is going with this.
@pkml3 RE: His eyes never changed…
That’s the problem with HJ. She had seen YA in school but she did not have the right lenses on to notice his eyes. Now he’s been looking at her warmly for days and she’s only just noticing that his eyes are ‘sparkling’ too much LOL. She thinks she’s smart but she’s got selective blindness. She also cannot see that Min has been crushing on her forever.
She only knows business and how to make her rivals or underlings squirm, but she does not know much about love or romance (trophy boys don’t count!) In a sense, it’s the first time for her too!
@pkml3, RE: Those beads of Min’s – they were around his wrist like a bracelet at first. I could not tell if they were one of those shorter rosaries or not. They were double looped over his wrist though.
He was gripping them like a talisman of some kind, and QM was cruelly watching him squirm with beads in hand.
Which reminds me that I was thinking about his relationship with the QM.
QM and Min
Min and QM are pretty close in age. They might have known each other as youngsters since they are from the ‘same world.’ As the Prime Minister, he replaced the dead king in being the one to lead the dance with QM at the banquet-ball. They had private chats. When QM asked Min to veto the marriage, he was able to say no to her without any fear or hesitation.
All this to say that they appeare pretty equal in power over each other.
However, QM seems to have known Min’s weakness (maybe from a long time before) ie that he likes HJ and has been holding back. She is now in a position of greater power over him because she can see that he is under a great deal of strain over HJ and that with time his resolve to always take HJ’s side could/would break. All she has to do is to provoke him from time to time and wait.
Worst case scenario is that she brings him over to her side to get HJ out of the palace, but in the process he finds himself abetting her in getting HJ almost killed.
PS: I’d like to believe the Min could rise above his jealousies and desires. Perhaps he has to enter his dark side as villain before he turns around to make a good conversion to become a truer and better friend of HJ’s.
I like lunch time Mass. It’s a good break and a time of consciously examining one’s first half of the day and it might be held in a small hall or lecture theatre in different parts of town. Since I mostly work from home, I can actually head down for evening Mass in church from time to time or once a week or so.
Hi @IB, ahhhh… Clue! It was fun to play.
I’ll be torn while watching Imaginary Cat because it clashes with the next episode of Perfect Crown heheheh! I don’t think we’ll find out who the poisoner is so soon though. We have 4 more episodes after today’s!