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Oct. 23rd, 2025 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azdakI was listening to Cabin Pressure this morning and got to the bit where Douglas is so jealous of Herc that he starts shouting “I am the supreme commander of this vessel!” and suddenly realises he’s turning into Martin. And it struck me, like a bolt of transcendental lightning, that the person who should be charged with writing the Nirvana in Fire sequels is … John Finnemore! Infinitely complex plotting? Check! (see Souvenir Programme 9 if Cabin Pressure doesn't convince you). Profound psychological insight? Check! Expert trolling? Check!
It's lucky there’s only Zurich left to go as I'm now stuck with the mental image of Douglas as Mei Changsu.
It's lucky there’s only Zurich left to go as I'm now stuck with the mental image of Douglas as Mei Changsu.
NiF rewatch: episode 8
Oct. 22nd, 2025 08:09 pmazdakI enjoyed this episode but I don’t have anything new to say about it, except that when Mr Shisan was being sad because Mei Changsu looks nothing like Lin Shu, I suddenly remembered that part of the whole Confucian filial piety thing is that you’re not allowed to do any body modifications, because your body was given to you by your parents. You aren’t even allowed to cut your hair, which is why all the men have those amazing top knots. So Lin Shu’s changed appearance is not just weird and unsettling, it breaks a major cultural and religious taboo. When Consort Jing finally meets him and cries because “you used to look so like your parents”, she isn’t being massively tactless, as I used to think, she’s acknowledging the enormity of his sacrifice. And I think this is why MCS tells Mr Shisan, right after his outburst of sorrow, that his mother would be grateful for all Shisan has done for him. He’s trying to establish that the filial connection hasn’t been broken by his changed appearance.
MCS is certainly trying very hard to let EVERYONE know that he and Gong YU are NOT an item, no matter how many sachets of perfume she sends (is it just me or is Mr Shisan being a bit suggestive when he tells MCS the perfume will give him "sweet dreams?"). Earlier we had Consort Jing stitching pouches as a way of getting touch with Liyang, and now we have Gong Yu trying to communicate with MCS via embroidery - everything is just so much harder for the women.
The episode also contains one of my favourite lines, the one where Meng Zhi tells MCS to build a tunnel so he can have a secret rendezvous with Prince Jing and MCS says "Isn't there another way you could put that?" I have nothing new to say about it, but it deserves an honourable mention for being so funny.
Oh, one more thing. Li Gang says, after the assassins have attacked, that a snowy night is good for murder. Apparently in Chinese culture snow is a symbol of corruption because it covers everything up, so when Jingrui walks off through the falling snowflakes, it isn't just because that makes the scene look pretty. I find it really hard to overcome my Western association of snow with purity and beauty, which just goes to show how deeply ingrained these things are. I assume the snow imagery makes the scene hit a lot harder for Chinese viewers.
MCS is certainly trying very hard to let EVERYONE know that he and Gong YU are NOT an item, no matter how many sachets of perfume she sends (is it just me or is Mr Shisan being a bit suggestive when he tells MCS the perfume will give him "sweet dreams?"). Earlier we had Consort Jing stitching pouches as a way of getting touch with Liyang, and now we have Gong Yu trying to communicate with MCS via embroidery - everything is just so much harder for the women.
The episode also contains one of my favourite lines, the one where Meng Zhi tells MCS to build a tunnel so he can have a secret rendezvous with Prince Jing and MCS says "Isn't there another way you could put that?" I have nothing new to say about it, but it deserves an honourable mention for being so funny.
Oh, one more thing. Li Gang says, after the assassins have attacked, that a snowy night is good for murder. Apparently in Chinese culture snow is a symbol of corruption because it covers everything up, so when Jingrui walks off through the falling snowflakes, it isn't just because that makes the scene look pretty. I find it really hard to overcome my Western association of snow with purity and beauty, which just goes to show how deeply ingrained these things are. I assume the snow imagery makes the scene hit a lot harder for Chinese viewers.
NiF rewatch: episode 7
Oct. 21st, 2025 06:13 pmazdakHow far is everybody else with the episodes? I don't want to go charging ahead leaving everyone panting after, but I also don't want to drop behind if people are starting to binge-watch.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
NiF rewatch: episode 6
Oct. 20th, 2025 02:54 pmazdakI think my favourite part of this episode is Mu of the Yard going around making enquiries into how all her rescuers happened to show up at Zhaoren Palace at the right time. I bet that even when she was thanking Prince Yu, she took the opportunity to slip in a couple of leading questions. She has a suspect in mind already – no doubt it wasn’t just the fact that MCS cared enough to have her rescued but that the person he asked for help from was Jingyan that got that bloodhound nose sniffing again. Her surprise when Prince Jing says it was Meng Zhi who sent him is hilarious. Then the two of them go off together to make enquiries of the Commander, who soon cracks under their combined probing. It’s such a shame we don’t get more scenes of Nihuang and Jingyan working together.
I don’t have any new observations about either Prince Yu’s confidence that he’s now got MCS on his side, nor the crucial meeting between MCS and Prince Jing to “set the rules.” I will say, though, that I can see why on first viewing I had such a hard time trusting MCS. He has inscrutability down to a fine art. Of course, with hindsight you can see all the little cracks and twitches that indicate Deep Emotions going on underneath the surface, but when you don’t, he seems entirely reserved, and this, as Frank Churchill says in Emma, “is a most repulsive quality, indeed […] There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”
Xia Dong comes back with all the evidence needed to damn the Duke of Qing, but she’s also found out about Tianquan Manor’s involvement in the escape of the slaves, so Xie Yu decides the world would be better off without her. Once again, I am consumed with resentment that Xia Dong wasn’t cast age-appropriately. It looks just ridiculous when Jingrui says that she taught Yujin when he was a child.
I’m bad at noticing what’s going on in fight scenes, so it took me until this rewatch to realise that Xia Dong is only pretending to be badly hurt the whole time in order to draw out one particular attacker. It also occurred to me, as we see the black-clad assassins come ninjing out of the river in slow motion, to wonder what on earth they were doing in the river in the first place. They haven’t swum across it, because their clothes are dry. Perhaps they spent most of their cultivation time learning how to dry wet clothes with their qi, because they can’t be very good at fighting if even Yujin can beat them.
Xia Dong is very impressive as she savagely beats a tooth out of the fallen assassin to find his cyanide capsule. Credit where it’s due, the actress does a good job here. Covered in blood, the man coughs out a confession that it was Prince Yu who sent them. The audience knows this a bare-faced lie, but will Xia Dong believe him? Tune in for the next episode to find out…
I don’t have any new observations about either Prince Yu’s confidence that he’s now got MCS on his side, nor the crucial meeting between MCS and Prince Jing to “set the rules.” I will say, though, that I can see why on first viewing I had such a hard time trusting MCS. He has inscrutability down to a fine art. Of course, with hindsight you can see all the little cracks and twitches that indicate Deep Emotions going on underneath the surface, but when you don’t, he seems entirely reserved, and this, as Frank Churchill says in Emma, “is a most repulsive quality, indeed […] There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”
Xia Dong comes back with all the evidence needed to damn the Duke of Qing, but she’s also found out about Tianquan Manor’s involvement in the escape of the slaves, so Xie Yu decides the world would be better off without her. Once again, I am consumed with resentment that Xia Dong wasn’t cast age-appropriately. It looks just ridiculous when Jingrui says that she taught Yujin when he was a child.
I’m bad at noticing what’s going on in fight scenes, so it took me until this rewatch to realise that Xia Dong is only pretending to be badly hurt the whole time in order to draw out one particular attacker. It also occurred to me, as we see the black-clad assassins come ninjing out of the river in slow motion, to wonder what on earth they were doing in the river in the first place. They haven’t swum across it, because their clothes are dry. Perhaps they spent most of their cultivation time learning how to dry wet clothes with their qi, because they can’t be very good at fighting if even Yujin can beat them.
Xia Dong is very impressive as she savagely beats a tooth out of the fallen assassin to find his cyanide capsule. Credit where it’s due, the actress does a good job here. Covered in blood, the man coughs out a confession that it was Prince Yu who sent them. The audience knows this a bare-faced lie, but will Xia Dong believe him? Tune in for the next episode to find out…
(no subject)
Oct. 19th, 2025 06:36 amelaynaMy sister and I went to the No Kings rally yesterday. The crowd was noticeably larger than the previous ones, with many signs and a variety of inflatables. I wore my plastic leis. Everyone was determined and friendly. They managed to get a better speaker system so we could actually understand the speeches, that was good.
I was amused at several brown women running mobile hot dog carts. Immigrants, they get the job done. The hot dogs smelled delicious but we didn’t want to stand and eat. We wandered afterwards to an Australian cafe that has opened in town and had an excellent lunch. I’m very lucky to have her as my rally partner.
I hear people continue to raise whether the rallies ‘do any good.’ I am delighted at how much the orange felon must be foaming at the mouth at the very visible symbols of his unpopularity and I hope they frighten all his chickenshit enablers. And honestly, I hate the thought of people just rolling over and accepting his attempts to destroy our democracy. The protests are taking a public stand to defend our country and I think that is invaluable.
I know not everyone has the resources to attend rallies but I hope everyone tries to do something, calls your Congress people, write a letter or a postcard.
I was amused at several brown women running mobile hot dog carts. Immigrants, they get the job done. The hot dogs smelled delicious but we didn’t want to stand and eat. We wandered afterwards to an Australian cafe that has opened in town and had an excellent lunch. I’m very lucky to have her as my rally partner.
I hear people continue to raise whether the rallies ‘do any good.’ I am delighted at how much the orange felon must be foaming at the mouth at the very visible symbols of his unpopularity and I hope they frighten all his chickenshit enablers. And honestly, I hate the thought of people just rolling over and accepting his attempts to destroy our democracy. The protests are taking a public stand to defend our country and I think that is invaluable.
I know not everyone has the resources to attend rallies but I hope everyone tries to do something, calls your Congress people, write a letter or a postcard.
NiF rewatch: episode 4
Oct. 17th, 2025 10:37 pmazdakThe Emperor stops the fight before Baili Qi can do any damage to Jingrui - even though Jiingrui very unfairly has a sword and Baili Qi doesn’t – and there follows one of my very favourite sequences in the whole series. The Emperor catches Nihuang and MCS whispering together and invites them to share it with the class court, so the two of them perform a fantastic double act that gradually pushes the Emperor into accepting that three kids should be picked from the servants’ prison to whup Baili Qi. I do wonder here just how much of this MCS discussed with Nihuang beforehand – did he specifically tell her to suggest the servants from the prison, or did she spot where his idea was going and run with it? Baili Qi and Commander Meng have both clearly been briefed on what to say, but I’m not sure if Nihuang was given advance warning or only got those few whispered lines at the feast.
Meng nips out from the dinner to pick out Tingsheng and two random boys. I feel terribly sorry for the little boy who is almost picked but then rejected for having weedy shoulders. The other three are brought into the palace but are too scared to raise their heads in front of the Emperor, which explains why he doesn’t spot Tingsheng’s apparent slight resemblance to Prince Qi. If the resemblance is so slight, you do have to wonder how Prince Jing figured out his identity, though. Or at least you do on the umpteenth viewing; before that, there’s far too much going on for this sort of petty question to raise its head.
The Dowager Empress (deceased) is cleverly introduced as a concept by having Consort Hui have to go to her palace as a punishment, which leads to Concubine Jing finding out about the date rape wine and realising it ust be intended for Nihuang. She tries to find a way to warn her from no motive other than altruism, which I appreciate, but the scene with the Grand Empress Dowager and the silk pouch is also very skilfully used to let us know that Jing mère was sent into the palace to be Consort Chen’s doctor by the Lin family.
MCS offers his services to Prince Jing, but having obsessed over this scene so many times already, I can’t say I noticed anything new this time around, except that thanks to the silk pouch scene we know, at least with hindsight, that what Prince Jing means when he tells MCS his mother has no powerful relations who could help him try for the throne is that this because her relations were the Lins and so are all DEAD.
Liyang pays a visit to Nihuang, who is out of town and so can’t be warned about the wine. This clears up why Liyang has to ask MCS for help, but perhaps more importantly it also reveals that Xie ZYu has spies following his wife everywhere. Could this man be any more loathsome? It’s SOOOO satisfying, when he strolls out of his study to smugly exercise his conjugal rights, to watch the old lady’s maid get rid of him. It’s a shame she never crops up again, she’d have made a valuable member of the Jiangzuo Alliance.
Meng nips out from the dinner to pick out Tingsheng and two random boys. I feel terribly sorry for the little boy who is almost picked but then rejected for having weedy shoulders. The other three are brought into the palace but are too scared to raise their heads in front of the Emperor, which explains why he doesn’t spot Tingsheng’s apparent slight resemblance to Prince Qi. If the resemblance is so slight, you do have to wonder how Prince Jing figured out his identity, though. Or at least you do on the umpteenth viewing; before that, there’s far too much going on for this sort of petty question to raise its head.
The Dowager Empress (deceased) is cleverly introduced as a concept by having Consort Hui have to go to her palace as a punishment, which leads to Concubine Jing finding out about the date rape wine and realising it ust be intended for Nihuang. She tries to find a way to warn her from no motive other than altruism, which I appreciate, but the scene with the Grand Empress Dowager and the silk pouch is also very skilfully used to let us know that Jing mère was sent into the palace to be Consort Chen’s doctor by the Lin family.
MCS offers his services to Prince Jing, but having obsessed over this scene so many times already, I can’t say I noticed anything new this time around, except that thanks to the silk pouch scene we know, at least with hindsight, that what Prince Jing means when he tells MCS his mother has no powerful relations who could help him try for the throne is that this because her relations were the Lins and so are all DEAD.
Liyang pays a visit to Nihuang, who is out of town and so can’t be warned about the wine. This clears up why Liyang has to ask MCS for help, but perhaps more importantly it also reveals that Xie ZYu has spies following his wife everywhere. Could this man be any more loathsome? It’s SOOOO satisfying, when he strolls out of his study to smugly exercise his conjugal rights, to watch the old lady’s maid get rid of him. It’s a shame she never crops up again, she’d have made a valuable member of the Jiangzuo Alliance.
NiF rewatch: episode 3
Oct. 17th, 2025 08:40 pmazdakEpisode three and now things get really exciting. Nihuang’s intervention when the eunuch beating Tingsheng insults Prince Jing is brilliant (and of course it would be Consort Yue who sends arseholes to oversee the children of the servants’ prison). The three-way scene between her, MCS and Prince Jing over Tingsheng is even better. Prince Jing is so cold and hostile to MCS and Nihuang is already inserting herself between them, turning Jingyan’s questions back on him whenever he probes MCS too hard. She’s already decided that she and MCS are on the same side, whatever that may turn out to be. And asking the Emperor to appoint Su Zhe to oversee the written examination was a genius move on her part. She’s tag-teaming MCS, whether he wants it or not.
Commander Meng is very Mengish and commandery when he sees off Mu Qing's boyfriend-tester, and we also learn that he and MCS have had an ongoing correspondence for many years. But Meng, like the audience, still doesn't know what really went down with Chiyan army and MCS says we'll all have to wait until the time is right. Meng also lets us know that MCS's appearance has changed completely because of an illness. Really, this time around I suspect Meng's function is primarily expository, either through telling us what he knows or asking questions about what he (and we) don't know, so it's lucky they picked the perfect actor for the role (I have a mental list of NiF characters sub-divided according to whether the actor is utterly perfect for the part (MCS, Nihuang etc.), very good but not perfect (Emperor, Consort Jing etc.), or terrible (Xia Jiang). Obviously there are also actors who are just good or just adequate but they're not as interesting as the extremes. NiF has an astonishingly high proportion of perfect actors, and not just in the main roles).
I notice that when Mu Qing complains about Baili Qi’s looks, Nihuang asks him when he learned to judge a person by their looks. Has she been pondering whether MCS's appearance might be deceptive, I wonder? At all events, it’s a very fair point and I’m glad at least someone at this court is willing to argue that looks aren’t everything. For all her philosophical attitude, though, the poor girl looks sooo onervous when Baili Qi starts demolishing Jingrui at the dinner.
I love all of Mu Qing’s scenes but especially the one where he barges into Snow Cottage and displays a shocking lack of etiquette in interrupting all of MCS's polite bows. Judging by MCS’s face, he hasn’t been this surprised by anyone since the Grand Dowager Empress called him Xiao Shu.
It's so clever the way the plot appears to thicken around the marriage tournament when really it’s thickening around “How will MCS get Tingsheng out of the servant’s prison?” Nihuang’s tag-teaming is working, judging by the glances she and MCS exchange. And MCS, who I note in the previous episode gave his tray of tournament food to Fei Liu, demonstrates his mastery of trolling-by-orange.
And finally I find myself thinking that the pregnant Liyang must have thought the gods were smiling on her when the plague broke out in Jinling and enabled her to escape Xie Yu’s house for the birth of her bastard child. Did she, I wonder, also see the hand of the gods in the arrival of Madame Zhuo and befriend her with the deliberate intention of somehow swapping babies?
Commander Meng is very Mengish and commandery when he sees off Mu Qing's boyfriend-tester, and we also learn that he and MCS have had an ongoing correspondence for many years. But Meng, like the audience, still doesn't know what really went down with Chiyan army and MCS says we'll all have to wait until the time is right. Meng also lets us know that MCS's appearance has changed completely because of an illness. Really, this time around I suspect Meng's function is primarily expository, either through telling us what he knows or asking questions about what he (and we) don't know, so it's lucky they picked the perfect actor for the role (I have a mental list of NiF characters sub-divided according to whether the actor is utterly perfect for the part (MCS, Nihuang etc.), very good but not perfect (Emperor, Consort Jing etc.), or terrible (Xia Jiang). Obviously there are also actors who are just good or just adequate but they're not as interesting as the extremes. NiF has an astonishingly high proportion of perfect actors, and not just in the main roles).
I notice that when Mu Qing complains about Baili Qi’s looks, Nihuang asks him when he learned to judge a person by their looks. Has she been pondering whether MCS's appearance might be deceptive, I wonder? At all events, it’s a very fair point and I’m glad at least someone at this court is willing to argue that looks aren’t everything. For all her philosophical attitude, though, the poor girl looks sooo onervous when Baili Qi starts demolishing Jingrui at the dinner.
I love all of Mu Qing’s scenes but especially the one where he barges into Snow Cottage and displays a shocking lack of etiquette in interrupting all of MCS's polite bows. Judging by MCS’s face, he hasn’t been this surprised by anyone since the Grand Dowager Empress called him Xiao Shu.
It's so clever the way the plot appears to thicken around the marriage tournament when really it’s thickening around “How will MCS get Tingsheng out of the servant’s prison?” Nihuang’s tag-teaming is working, judging by the glances she and MCS exchange. And MCS, who I note in the previous episode gave his tray of tournament food to Fei Liu, demonstrates his mastery of trolling-by-orange.
And finally I find myself thinking that the pregnant Liyang must have thought the gods were smiling on her when the plague broke out in Jinling and enabled her to escape Xie Yu’s house for the birth of her bastard child. Did she, I wonder, also see the hand of the gods in the arrival of Madame Zhuo and befriend her with the deliberate intention of somehow swapping babies?
NiF rewatch: episode 2
Oct. 15th, 2025 08:08 pmazdakOn to episode two! I love these early, Nihuang-heavy episodes, when the action is still all quiet and domestic and we begin to discover the pre-existing relationships between the characters. Xia Dong, Nihuang and Prince Jing all tangled up in a complex web of friendship and hostility; Prince Yu and the Crown Prince, endlessly squabbling in ways that show just how alike they are, while their different reactions to the discovery of MCS’s identity creates the firm impression that Prince Yu, for all his faults, is the better of the two.
I love the first appearance of Mu Qing, overcome with outrage at the low standard of his sister’s suitors. Oh all right, I love everything about Mu Qing all through the show, but it’s a particularly satisfying entrance. I also love watching Jingrui’s face as Prince Yu and the Crown Prince fall over each other to suck up to MCS. Of course, he doesn’t know about the messages from Langya Hall that make MCS’s favour such a desirable prize, so it’s a complete mystery to him why they keep trying to shove expensive gifts in his face.
The Emperor gives us the first glimpses of his true self in amongst all the avuncularity when he explains to Gao Zhan why he wants to marry Nihuang off – it’s Prince Qi all over again; he knows Nihuang and he knows she’s loyal, but just the fact that she could rebel if she wanted to makes her intolerable to him. And he shows us his nasty side again in his Catch 22 treatment of poor Prince Jing. For Gao Zhan watchers, there’s a flicker of dissent in both his observation to the Emperor that Nihuang could only marry someone extraordinary, and, of course, in his tactful reminder that Prince Jing is still waiting outside.
This time around I watched the scene with the Grand Dowager Empress from Nihuang’s point of view. In spite of what she tells Liyang, she’s always been curious about MCS, ever since she recognised Wei Zheng and figured out that he’d been sent by the Jiangzuo Alliance, but I don’t think she ever suspected for a moment that Lin Shu was its leader, or even that he’d survived the massacre. When MCS shows up in the hall, she’s very, very interested, but not in a hopeful way. And then the Grand Dowager calls him “Xiao Shu” and her whole brain lights up. Watching that scene play out, I think she’s onto him from the moment he grabs her hand, but her confidence in her theory is knocked when MCS very plausibly says that he did it because he didn’t want to offend the Dowager.
I note that when Nihuang and MCS comes across the eunuch beating Tingsheng, Nihuang has no idea who the boy is, she intervenes because she’s that kind of person, not because of any loyalty to his father.
Most significant of all, right here, in the very second episode, we get the first mention of the all-important hazelnut pastries.
I love the first appearance of Mu Qing, overcome with outrage at the low standard of his sister’s suitors. Oh all right, I love everything about Mu Qing all through the show, but it’s a particularly satisfying entrance. I also love watching Jingrui’s face as Prince Yu and the Crown Prince fall over each other to suck up to MCS. Of course, he doesn’t know about the messages from Langya Hall that make MCS’s favour such a desirable prize, so it’s a complete mystery to him why they keep trying to shove expensive gifts in his face.
The Emperor gives us the first glimpses of his true self in amongst all the avuncularity when he explains to Gao Zhan why he wants to marry Nihuang off – it’s Prince Qi all over again; he knows Nihuang and he knows she’s loyal, but just the fact that she could rebel if she wanted to makes her intolerable to him. And he shows us his nasty side again in his Catch 22 treatment of poor Prince Jing. For Gao Zhan watchers, there’s a flicker of dissent in both his observation to the Emperor that Nihuang could only marry someone extraordinary, and, of course, in his tactful reminder that Prince Jing is still waiting outside.
This time around I watched the scene with the Grand Dowager Empress from Nihuang’s point of view. In spite of what she tells Liyang, she’s always been curious about MCS, ever since she recognised Wei Zheng and figured out that he’d been sent by the Jiangzuo Alliance, but I don’t think she ever suspected for a moment that Lin Shu was its leader, or even that he’d survived the massacre. When MCS shows up in the hall, she’s very, very interested, but not in a hopeful way. And then the Grand Dowager calls him “Xiao Shu” and her whole brain lights up. Watching that scene play out, I think she’s onto him from the moment he grabs her hand, but her confidence in her theory is knocked when MCS very plausibly says that he did it because he didn’t want to offend the Dowager.
I note that when Nihuang and MCS comes across the eunuch beating Tingsheng, Nihuang has no idea who the boy is, she intervenes because she’s that kind of person, not because of any loyalty to his father.
Most significant of all, right here, in the very second episode, we get the first mention of the all-important hazelnut pastries.
NiF rewatch: episode 1
Oct. 13th, 2025 12:11 pmazdakI started the Great NiF Rewatch last night and this time what struck me most forcibly is NO WONDER it's so hard for first-time NiF watchers to orientate themselves. This episode is so misleading! Prince Yu looks like he's going to be a stoic hero, Lin Chen looks like he's a serious scholar and swordsman, the library at Langya Hall looks like it's going to be really important, Mei Changsu floats around in a boat defending the territory of the Jiangzuo Alliance as if this were his real job. So much of the episode has a kind of mythic quality to it (or do I just mean a standard wuxia quality?) that is replaced by a much more realistic narrative and filming style from the moment MCS arrives in Jinling. Once you know that these big, beautiful set pieces are just there to fill us in quickly on a big chunk of backstory (so you don't need to devote any brain power to them), the story becomes easier to follow, but on first viewing you don't know any of this. You think you might have to remember how the steampunk shelving system works, or that the Two Swords Leader might be a major antagonist, or that Lin Chen will turn up in Jinling any week now to worry sombrely over MCS's health. And you don't yet even know that MCS is the protagonist, let alone who all the minor characters are and whether they'll recur. The episode takes absolutely no prisoners, you sink or swim, just like that guy from the Two Sword Sect that Fei Liu throws into the river, and it's glorious.
Also, how much do I love the super-intense look MCS bestows on Marquis Ning when Su Zhe first meets him? It's the first of a whole series of MCS stares, each somehow both expressionless and entirely unique, and it's absolutely top quality, ten out of ten, no notes.
Also, how much do I love the super-intense look MCS bestows on Marquis Ning when Su Zhe first meets him? It's the first of a whole series of MCS stares, each somehow both expressionless and entirely unique, and it's absolutely top quality, ten out of ten, no notes.