GUARDIAN Episode 7

[adisgracetothescholars]

Introduction

ohbthr: And we’re back! I’m taking the bullet point on this one, as everyone else was too busy staring in bleak despair. :p

On the nicknames: Listen, if the SID kids were better actors maybe I’d bother remembering their names.

kitsunec4: If the SID kids were better actors they would probably not be on this show.

rageprufrock: Hear fucking hear.


Plot

ohbthr: We pick up where the last episode left off, with two incompetent robbers trying to take Shen Wei's necklace (some kind of circular pendant). Previously Mild Mannered Professor™ switches gears from his “take whatever you want” mode into Bitch You Thought mode, so this is clearly something he actually gives a shit about. Things are about to get heated when Zhao Yunlan shows up, and Shen Wei backs off, tucking his pendant back in.

kitsunec4: the whole, back and forth swap of personality and mannerisms by Shen Wei is very good for me. And I imagine, for Zhao Yunlan too, because he is that sort of weak.

hollyberries: And us. We are also that sort of weak.

rageprufrock: The best part of this scene is how it begins to show the serious cracks/limitations of the show extremely tight budget: this alleyway where Shen Wei’s being confronted looks really fucking familiar to you right now, and it should. It’ll become your best friend by the time the series is over.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan asks what's going on, then guides Shen Wei off to the side to beat the robbers up. Tbh they're lucky it was the human that they got the wrong end of, and not the Ghost Executioner.

He warns the thugs to stay down, then gets his Conquering Hero flirt on. To quote:

SW: “What a coincidence.”
ZYL: “What are you hinting at? Are you saying I hired these two so I could act like a hero saving a damsel in distress?”

rageprufrock: So in the novel, the set up for this even more cataclysmically sad and funny. Zhao Yunlan, sick and kind of pathetic, decides to do a neighborhood wander for food and comes upon this entire thing -- so essentially the guy is in bridge-troll sweatpants and top when he comes up to try and avenge his sweet beautiful professorial angel.

kitsunec4: weirdly into this.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan, calm your tits.

rageprufrock: His tits will not be calmed, ohbthr.

ohbthr: One of the thugs, who has no respect for the game, tries to hit Zhao Yunlan with a metal pipe, which he blocks, as well as punching the dude out again. He rubs where his arm got hit and muses that the old saying about “talking too much can get you killed” almost came true. They leave together, because Shen Wei wants to “tend to his bruise” (wink).

kitsunec4: this is the point where I whispered “oh my god am I seeing this?” At my screen. This is like the set up to some super derivative bad porno or something. Right up there with “wanna see my etchings.” The hell?

rageprufrock: Agreed, because up to this point in the series, despite the overtness of the flirting, I was still very locked into my slash colored goggles, through which everything looks like slash but about which I am aware are a source of bias. So despite the unbelievably over the top shit that had already happened, I was still staring at my television thinking, “There’s no fucking way.” It’s China.

kitsunec4: don’t sell yourself short, that last point is very uh, of concern.

ohbthr: Once Shen Wei takes him home, Yunlan notices for totally the first time that his place is right across the hall! How weird! He makes to leave the awkward situation, but Shen Wei is not having it and goes to get the medicine.

rageprufrock: This is a deeply Chinese thing: you have a bruise? Let’s put some shit on it. Will it help? Nope! But if you don’t put some shit on it, did you even really perform guest protocol? Have you shamed your lineage? Also Shen Wei is the kind of Emotionally Old Man who would tell Zhao Yunlan to stop eating pistachios because they’re raising his fire chi.

kitsunec4: then also maybe insist of gua sha because nothing is better that scraping a bruise into being in order to clear the body? Of other? Toxins? Bad chi? Shit?

hollyberries: So here’s the thing - we have established that Shen Wei is an ancient primordial being who generally blasts everything out of his path when Zhao Yunlan isn’t around to witness him. He doesn’t need first aid supplies. I’m forced to conclude that he bought all these ointments and bandages for the sole purpose of nursing Zhao Yunlan back into health. (Also Shen Wei literally raised himself as a ‘suitable wife’ when he was younger, more on that later.)

tactless_yet_lovable: SOMEBODY has spent his time reading romance novels and planning for any cliched trope eventuality. (Answer: It’s both of them, I fully believe Slutty McSlagTits has spent time practicing his “There’s only one bed” reaction face for when he inevitably lures Shen Wei into sharing a hotel room with him. It involves a lot of lascivious lip-licking.) “Oh I must tend your wounds.”

ohbthr: They sit down on the nice leather couches and Shen Wei invites Yunlan to interrogate him (not like that). Yunlan surprises him by asking if he wants to join the SID as a consultant. This is not at all a ploy to get to hang around him making puppy eyes, not at all.

Shen Wei declines, citing teaching responsibilities (by which we mean Black Cloak responsibilities), but invites Yunlan to come talk to him anytime. It'll be so easy now that they live across from each other!

rageprufrock: Please imagine me on my sofa yelling, “Are you actually shitting me right now?” as this entire scene was going down, because -- are you actually shitting me.

ohbthr: Speaking of which, Yunlan wants to know why he hasn't been invited over yet for some neighborly fun (it's too easy).

rageprufrock: Because Shen Wei’s stash of condoms are so old they’ve dried out and flaked into little latex snowflakes.

hollyberries: Shen Wei strikes me as a barebacking sort of dude? (Hilariously he was probably physically around for the time periods when China used actual pig intestines as condoms.)

tactless_yet_lovable: lol I was going to say, if Shen Wei even bothered with condoms, they’d 100% be old as balls animal intestines. But no, he’s a sloppy possessive bitch and would treat barebacking as a given. Don’t learn safe sex from Shen Wei, kids, his version probably means “I didn’t consume actual parts of you and this sex is therefore safe for both partners”.

kitsunec4: I hate you both.

ohbthr: Shen Wei promises to invite him in the future then starts rubbing at Yunlan's arm with the salve.

“I didn't expect you to have such skillful hands,” ZHAO YUNLAN ARE YOU KIDDING ME.





hollyberries: I’m so glad Zhao mum isn’t around to see her son disgrace himself like this.

kitsunec4: you can’t see my face but just know that I am mortified on Zhao Yunlan’s behalf, because he apparently has no shame and the universe abhors a vacuum or some such shit.

rageprufrock: I’d lost use of speech at this point and was just making angry pterodactyl noises at the screen by this juncture. Like how? And who. What! WHY.

ohbthr: They make a bit of small talk about how Shen Wei is so knowledgeable, and Yunlan tells him that if Shen Wei looks out his window in the bedroom he'll see the big database library, which he would like. Uh. Shen Wei would like to know how Yunlan knows that when he's only been in the front room. Oops.

Yunlan bullshits something about he thought all houses in the block had the same design and skedaddles. What a bisexual disaster.

tactless_yet_lovable: This is prime Bisexual Disaster Energy, the lesser known BDE.

rageprufrock: Like neither of them are free of stalking sin. Between the two of them, no one can cast the first travel packet of water-based lube.

ohbthr: Meanwhile, the incompetent robbers are recovering in the alley, bemoaning their fate and musing that they probably shouldn't attempt revenge. Amusingly, they call Yunlan a gangster, because no one would look at him and immediately guess police.

hollyberries: [insert snotty comment about chinese police and gangsters here]

kitsunec4: are they wrong though? I’d argue no.

rageprufrock: He’s such a dirtbag and I love him so much.

ohbthr: Something starts making monster growling noises off screen and they run away screaming.

rageprufrock: And oh look. I’m reminded that this show is garbage again.

ohbthr: Guo Changcheng -- aka: Wall Wall -- is being terrorized by Ling Jing -- aka: Shitty Scientist ™ -- and some ghost stories. Snake Girl tells Shitty Scientist to stop terrorizing Wall Wall and work on the new holy device if he doesn't have any case work to do. He defends himself a little, saying they've already run hundreds of tests on it but so far nothing.

Da Qing announces that Ling Jing didn’t make up the story at all, it was an excerpt from a popular web novel. Ling Jing is so excited that someone else shares his fandom, and starts expositing for Plot Purposes about this particular web novel with a “famous” author Lai Su.

rageprufrock: This whole plot, as a writer, felt like the abyss staring back at me. One day either my readers or my characters are going to crawl out of a screen to choke me out and honestly, my dying thoughts will be, “Seems legit.”

hollyberries: This arc was so terrible I completely forgot it existed, so if anything, WE will crawl through our screens and choke these scriptwriters. I call dibs on the one who was responsible for 30-34.

kitsunec4: let’s do this, I have a lot of rage to exorcise.

ohbthr: Chu Shuzhi is bored, predictably, and Ling Jing defends his precious baby while Zhu Hong takes a call that they’re getting a case transferred.

Enter Zhao Yunlan, declaring that since it’s been so quiet, he’s inviting them all out for a feast! “Director, we have a new case,” says Ghost Girl. *whomp whomp*

They’re in the alleyway from the opening scene.

rageprufrock: They’re ALWAYS in the alleyway from the opening scene. Crimes occur only in this alleyway and on Shen Wei’s campus.

ohbthr: Wall Wall is being useless, taking notes while people gather.

hollyberries: Hey, at least he hasn’t fainted dead away? Progress!

kitsunec4: Only because the bar is so low anything is progress, someone fire this kid.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan enters and pulls back the sheet of the corpse - one of the robbers, and he looks like it’s been frozen. Yunlan sees a relevant security camera, so we cut to the cam footage.

On the tape, one dude runs away immediately, leaving the other to his fate. Yunlan laughs and says that he was a bad friend. They decide to find out where the other robber is.

Ling Jing starts rewinding the footage even further, and Yunlan waves him off, saying that they saw the scene and don’t need to rewind any more. Wall Wall disagrees, saying that Yunlan is always telling them to be meticulous, so they need to get more information!

rageprufrock: You deserve this, Zhao Yunlan.

ohbthr: Yunlan hates his life, but can’t stop it from happening to him. Everyone wants to know what Zhao Yunlan was doing with Professor Shen Wei in a dark alley that late at night. Specifically the phrase used is “cat business” and someone who speaks Chinese better than me is gonna have to explain that one.

rageprufrock: Paging hollyberries.

hollyberries: I just went back to check on this word and oh my god. So when I saw ‘cat business’ my first thought was ‘猫腻’ (mao1 ni4), the chinese colloquialism for when something is fishy. The show uses ‘猫咪’ (mao1 mi1), which is a cutesy way to say cat, for example ‘kitty’, because Chinese is all about that pun lyfe.

kitsunec4: Puns all the way down.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan gives his I’m Feeling Totally Normal Things laugh, saying he was out buying food for them, right? Chu Shuzhi is having none of it.

rageprufrock: It’s not even a passably believable effort, and given what a historical open slag he’s been to his poor employees, he should be ashamed of himself.

ohbthr: Zhu Hong walks into Shen Wei’s office at school and puts a laptop open in front of him, just saying that her shitty boss “told me to bring this to you.”

Shen Wei looks at it and is startled to see Zhao Yunlan on the other end of a webcam (because he’s the sweetest, dumbest, most tech illiterate immortal). He asks if Zhao Yunlan is trying to scare him, because oh honey.

kitsunec4: peak disaster gay right here!

hollyberries: Zhu Hong isn’t being paid enough for this.

kitsunec4: Zhu Hong better be paid more than Wall Wall.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan doesn’t understand how someone so calm and collected with robbers is so startled when Yunlan calls him. It’s called “I’ve been in love with you for 2,000 years,” dude, or as he calls it “I was just startled into confusion.” He also says that “normal people like him” definitely need the protection of people like the SID.

rageprufrock: This is a point that fascinates me. Even IF he’s a weird immortal and doesn’t understand human money and doesn’t really need anything, how on earth is he, in the then year of our Lord 2k18 running around China without a cell phone? Like is that even possible? I feel like at some point in the early 2000s the Communist party just went to every house and put one in everybody’s hand with the explicit note that they needed to start conducting all of their lives through a mobile device so they could be more thoroughly thought policed.

hollyberries: Uh yeah this has to be a parallel dimension where nobody uses wechat pay or alipay because I went back to China and was sneered at for using cash instead of tapping my phone like one of the cool locals. CASH, FORSOOTH.

kitsunec4: AGAIN, REPUBLICAN ERA SUPERNATURAL GUARDIAN. We could have had it all.

tactless_yet_lovable: Kit, the fact you’re still strong enough to dream of what could have been, while the rest of us have been beaten down by this gay trash… I salute you.

ohbthr: Some time later, he’s describing the characteristics of bears? The whole team is bored, and Zhao Yunlan cuts him off, saying that if this were really just a wild animal, the zoo would be in charge of the case, not the SID, not to mention that there was dark energy found at the crime scene.

Shen Wei plays dumb, saying that he wants to help but he doesn’t know everything about Dixing people, and the last couple of times were just flukes. Uh huh.

rageprufrock: Like major props to homeboy for being so effective at faking idiocy for a sustained period of time though. That shit is hard and I respect him for commitment.

kitsunec4: Commitment to a poker face and probably mad dissociation from actual feels if it doesn’t involve Zhao Yunlan.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan also isn’t buying it, pleading that can’t Shen Wei at least give him a hint? Shen Wei says that his stance on the SID has already been made clear, and this is all he can give them for now out of principle. He promises though that if someone is in danger, he won’t hide information.

Da Qing mentions that maybe it’s a ghost beast (?), which triggers an idea from Shen Wei. He pulls up an old drawing of one (wait, I thought the subtext was that he already knew what it was and just wasn’t saying? I don’t get it), saying that the ghost beasts are vaguely human form but grotesque. They can’t control their appetite and hurt a lot of people in the past. But they’re supposed to be extinct in the human realm because the Black Cloak envoy back then (....still Shen Wei) did his best to chase them all back to Dixingren. (How much do you think it annoys Shen Wei when things he thought he dealt with come back? I bet it’s a lot.)

hollyberries: This might be why the old dude from two episodes ago was on earth at all, but frankly the notion of a plot doesn’t even begin to make any impact on logic or what this show’s script-writers will come up with next.

rageprufrock: This whole plot made my brain angry.

kitsunec4: Let’s not call this bullshit a plot.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan gets a call, apparently the culprit has been caught but something’s wrong, so he has to excuse himself. Shen Wei stops him and says that he keeps thinking about how the dead man and his friend didn’t have the characteristics of a Dixing person.

So what are the characteristics of a Dixing person? Yunlan would like to know. Shen Wei regrets bringing it up, so he can’t answer. Yunlan waves it off, saying that he’s seen enough Dixing people by now. Some of them are evil, some of them are good, he won’t paint them all with the same brush. They sign off, Zhu Hong takes the laptop and leaves. Shen Wei waits until she leaves, then his face drops. He mad, y’all.

hollyberries: In passing, the royal blue checked blazer Zhu Hong is wearing here appears on Shen Wei later. This poor production, they Tried.

kitsunec4: Unfortunately for the world, and us, and Zhao Yunlan, mad Shen Wei is also very hot.

rageprufrock: You misspelled “luckily,” kitsunec4

kitsunec4: I said what I said, the thirst trapped us into watching this show in delirium and now this recap is Sisyphean because it is SO BAD how did I watch this before?!?!

ohbthr: Ling Jing and Chu Shuzhi are questioning the suspect, who does little except laugh crazily and yell “monster” occasionally. Chu Shuzhi takes out a photo of the victim, and Ling Jing grabs it, shocked that this is exactly the same as how it played out in his favorite ghost story web novel!

rageprufrock: You guys have to understand how agonizing it is to watch this episode. Because the acting in this scene with the guy who’s been scared into a state of madness is just -- fucking reverse Julliard levels, okay? Like me, extemp reading a script would be a more convincing victim of a monster found spiralling into unfathomable depths.

hollyberries: This episode has too many scenes of ‘plot’ and not enough of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei.

tactless_yet_lovable: Correction, this SHOW has too many scenes of ‘plot’ and not enough of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. It would have been infinitely preferable if all of the crime subplots happened as like… ex post facto retellings by Zhao Yunlan as he tries to Scheherazade his way into Shen Wei’s pants with work anecdotes. IDK, have all the original actors in the scenes but with Zhao Yunlan dubbed over them, while randomly distracting himself from the retelling by complimenting Shen Wei on how nice he looks in his waistcoat.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan asks him what the hell that is, and Ling Jing gets to get his fangirl on for his job, he’s clearly having the best day. This is all relevant for Monster of the Week plot reasons but not very important for any other reason, so we can move on. Long story short, the author was a newcomer to the scene, his works were more imaginative than most so he got popular, Ling Jing was the leader of the fanclub (of course he was), but then people started saying that his stories were happening in real life. There were two instances before the gangster of people dying like the stories, and the police have locked down information about it.

Wang Zheng calls, saying that the police has sent all the information about the two previous cases to them, so they can cooperate. Chu Shuzhi wants to know where Lai Su is, but his uploads have stopped recently, so Ling Jing doesn’t know. Zhao Yunlan says that finding Lai Su is the top priority, reminding Ling Jing that if the stories were uploaded online, he should be able to trace the IP address. When Ling Jing says it’ll take time, Yunlan threatens his end of the month bonus as an incentive.

Zhao Yunlan walks alone to the front door of a big, green, slightly fairy tale looking house. He knocks but no one answers, so he tells the rest of the SID they can come out of hiding.

rageprufrock: I’m 100% convinced they didn’t have a permit to film here, and that they were just in the neighborhood and saw a semi-abandoned looking house and figured they could probably get away with it.

ohbthr: Guo Changcheng has a piece of plant stuck behind his ear like a maiden’s flower, because he’s “camouflaging.” Chu Shuzhi smacks him and it goes flying. There’s a badly CGI’d crow on the top of the house, crowing ominously.

rageprufrock: There’s me, weeping softly in the corner, knowing I have no one to blame but myself for the fact that we are all watching this hot chaff.

hollyberries: Lol so I have you to blame for being a walking Zhu Yilong & Bai Yu encyclopedia, eh.

kitsunec4: The choice to creep on Weibo was all you, hon.

tactless_yet_lovable: In the words of Billy Joel, Holly, we didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning. The creep was always there <3

ohbthr: Tech Bro says that they should have brought Snake Girl, since she likes abandoned places like that. Zhao Yunlan tells him to suck it up and unlock the door. They all head in, getting one last look at the Ominous CGI Crow as they do.

Chu Shuzhi says that there’s not a lot of dust so he must have left recently, while Cat says that he can smell human, so he hasn’t even left. They fuck around for awhile before Chu Shuzhi finds the secret passageway. Guo Changcheng finds the switch for it by leaning on the right lamp, and they find the author cowering under a blanket in the corner of his hidden passageway office.

TBH, he looks like every creepy internet nerd holding a Free Hugs sign that I’ve had to fend off at a con, just saying.

rageprufrock: In this, you are correct. The casting and costuming of this guy was at least fully on point. That said, his hiding skills aren’t going to get him graduating from the ninja academy, because when she says “hiding under a blanket,” she legitimately means hiding under a blanket -- and not even well-concealed.

ohbthr: Ling Jing immediately compliments his idol, so he thinks they’re there to nag him for new chapters.

rageprufrock: Honestly a literal nightmare I feel most authors have had. Other than George R.R. Williams, who just wants to blog about football and not finish Game of Thrones until his literal moment of death.

tactless_yet_lovable: … I can’t tell if you’re messing up George R.R. Martin’s name on purpose or not, but either way, I dig the fuck you energy.

kitsunec4: Please, Game of Thrones is never gonna get finished.

hollyberries: Also some of us are spiteful creatures who will purposefully refrain from finishing the more nagging we get?

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan pulls out his ID and brings him up to speed on the murders.

The author insists that someone is imitating his stories and setting him up. Yunlan tells him to tell them everything, and they’ll see if they can help him.

Again, the story is important for Monster of the Week reasons, but not for any other, so we’re gonna skim this. He was a hermit who didn’t do anything except write small things on his blog. He was contacted one day by Anime Villain (we can tell ‘cause there’s a voiceover) promising fame and fortune if he started writing. He saw the first murder and was shocked, but knew his fans wanted another chapter and decided to keep writing.

rageprufrock: I felt super attacked by this episode.

ohbthr: Ling Jing is disgusted by his fallen idol who kept writing even when he knew someone was going to be murdered in the same way. Yunlan calms him down a bit and leaves Da Qing and Chu Shuzhi to guard the author for the next 24 hours while they go investigate more.

He mutters to himself about if it’s really his fault, then asks if he can use the computer. Da Qing says sure.

rageprufrock: I straight up shouted, “WHAT!” at the television at this point. Like, holy shit, they are bad cops. They’re such bad cops! Like look I didn’t expect laser sharp competency in this series but holy actual fuck what do you mean “sure” you can use the computer? The tool by which -- to this point -- the team is convinced this author utilized to somehow enact a series of activities that have led to multiple deaths! What the fuck!

hollyberries: It’s the sort of thing I would understand from Wall Wall but Da Qing is literally a 5000 year old cosmic cat. What gives, dude.

kitsunec4: catnip?

ohbthr: In the car, Zhao Yunlan isn’t sure he believes the author’s innocence, considering how quickly the victims were killed after the chapter was released. Guo Changcheng wonders if maybe the author has multiple personality disorder, and doesn’t remember killing anyone, which Yunlan thinks might actually have merit.

Meanwhile, the author is typing frantically, pleading to stop the killing.

rageprufrock: “Don’t get me wrong, love the views -- love the views, man, but can we please cool it on the murder? It’s like. I mean the tears of my readers keep my skin clear and crops watered but man the fuzz is here and this is going to throw off my publishing schedule like crazy, brah.”

kitsunec4: The fuzz is no-one’s friends.

tactless_yet_lovable: One particular fuzz wants to be Shen Wei’s special friend. He wants to be the fuzz on Shen Wei’s peach. A Dixingren Call Me By Your Name.

hollyberries: My eyes, tactless_yet_lovable.

ohbthr: Ling Jing sees the notification on his phone that he just updated his story, putting out the ending ahead of time. He’s written the death of the protagonist (who was also the murderer). Zhao Yunlan stops the car.

rageprufrock: To clarify: I would never do this. I am a bad person.

ohbthr: The author breathes a sigh of relief that it’s over, but is informed by Anime Villain that he’s just written his own death. An extremely terrible CGI monster starts coming out of the computer screen. Samara it is not. The author screams and runs back into the main living room before collapsing.

rageprufrock: This fuckin monster, man.

ohbthr: Chu Shuzhi runs in and ties up the CGI monstrosity but it escapes. Zhao Yunlan races in, but the author has already died.

Anime Villain stands outside the house and says that he’ll miss that terrible old author.

They do some tests on the body, concluding that he was scared to death. This matches how the story ends, and Zhao Yunlan decides to let it go.

rageprufrock: Again: GREAT POLICING.

ohbthr: Anime Villain sets off an alarm at the SID to get the gatekeeper to open the door, but he can’t get past the force field barrier, so he has to retreat for now.

Guo Changcheng philosophizes badly in his journal about how people shouldn’t get too wrapped up in the internet and stay grounded.

rageprufrock: This episode just would not stop coming for me.

hollyberries: I swear to god Wall Wall was briefly possessed by the spirit of my parents, who despair of having a tiny nerd child who is close to being legally blind.

kitsunec4: Look, I figure they brought this on themselves by not letting me go places when I used to actually care or be curious. Now I’d rather stay home with internets.

ohbthr: Zhao Yunlan is back in Shen Wei’s office, musing about the case. He thinks that he had Dixing genes but didn’t know it. His ability must have been to self hypnotize? Anyway, when he cut ties with the monster, since the monster was also him, he ended up killing himself. It’s too bad that he became a horror novelist and was so greedy, because he kept activating his ability by accident.

He muses about authors and characters and how authors always say that the characters have a life of their own. Hey, maybe they’re characters in someone else’s book too! (Which is hilarious, considering this is based off a web novel.)

rageprufrock: I can sort of imagine the mental state of the person drafting this script -- I have no idea if this was in the original novel, Bueller? -- because it flicks at a sort of deranged, sleep deprived pathos that I recognize with uncomfortable clarity from typing angrily at like 3 a.m. waiting for the sweet anodyne bliss of death.

hollyberries: Sorry, I had drifted off at that point and was admiring Zhao Yunlan’s perfect calligraphy grip? Mmm, hands.

kitsunec4: mmm, flashbacks to calligraphy lessons.

ohbthr: Shen Wei can’t believe that Zhao Yunlan is empathizing with Dixing people. Yunlan laughs, saying he can’t believe it either. He looks off into the distance, sobering, and says that he can’t help but feel like winter is coming to Dragon City.

And on that not at all ominous note we roll credits. They actually managed to hit a good ending point in an episode! Holy crap!

hollyberries: The translators went for a non-literal translation here, as the original word Zhao Yunlan uses is ‘阴雨’ (yin1 yu3). It means overcast and rainy, but can also mean a metaphorical storm of misfortunes on the way.

Character Beats

rageprufrock: This isn’t a great episode for character work, but the one critical thing is the last point the show makes: that Zhao Yunlan is starting to develop a more sympathetic and less black-and-white viewpoint on Dixingren. That said, I’d be curious to get other peoples’ point of views on this, because I found myself thinking that Zhao Yunlan never seemed particularly intense on his viewpoints of Dixingren -- or maybe that’s just his general laid back portrayal and not reflective of his policing compass?

ohbthr: To me it feels like one of those cheap writing things where they keep telling us something without bothering to show it. Maybe we're supposed to infer he was a lot harsher on the Dixingren before meeting Shen Wei, and Love Has Changed Him?

hollyberries: We find out later that tv show Zhao Yunlan lost his mother in a conflict between his father (then-head of the SID) and a Dixingren, and presumably has had a bias against them ever since. But it’s not like we were shown this or even told it at any point prior to the backstory episode, so [insert shrug here].

kitsunec4: It really is quite heavy handed, isn’t it?

hollyberries: Coming back to watch this episode after a long hiatus meant I was truly embarrassed at how intimate and flirty these two had become in private. They’re so intense that I wanted to close the screen because it felt like an observer was unnecessary and unwelcome? It’s not obvious in context because I assume they’ve been ramping it up gradually but this was a shock to the system, in a good way.

kitsunec4: everything else was a shock to the system, in a bad way. It’s taken me like two weeks to crawl through this episode while wanting to die at the terrible show.

Production Choices

rageprufrock: Cheap, sad, and bad. Thank God for the lead actors showing up on screen sometimes to distract me from the other characters and locations.

ohbthr: That monster that comes out of the screen though. The shot of it being attacked is in the opening credits, and everytime I saw it I couldn't stop the “YIKES” from escaping.

Final Thoughts

rageprufrock: Thanks, I hate it.

ohbthr: Except the part where ZYL compliments SW's skillful hands. That part can stay.

tactless_yet_lovable: It bad.

Comments

[flamebyrd]

One thing I'll say for this episode is that it actually provided some background on what web novels are, and their popularity! So my ignorant self was thankful for the context re: the Guardian novel, no matter how sensationalised it was.

[kitsunec4]

Oh my god. Web novels will eat your brainmeats, I have now mumbletysomething piles of novels I’ve yet to finish.

They’re so addictive??

[xparrot]

It would have been infinitely preferable if all of the crime subplots happened as like… ex post facto retellings by Zhao Yunlan as he tries to Scheherazade his way into Shen Wei’s pants with work anecdotes.

I laughed until I almost cried. If only!!

Still loving that you guys are doing this so We Don't Have To (tm). I am amazed at how many things in this show I've forgotten (nearly everything not WeiLan).

Zhao Yunlan hating the Dixingren feels like a first-draft plot-point that got cut later, except for remnants they missed. Shame because it would've added more pathos, which, like, this show totally needs.

I will give it this -- writer, editor, someone has a good enough fangirl sense to balance the crap. Nearly every episode has at least one scene that is so good it can't be tossed aside (the rubbing of ointment makes it worth coming back to.)

(And next up is ep 8! the scene that launched a thousand fans! ...or at least one, I know for me it was those screenshots that got me watching...)

[ellebeecie]

Still loving that you guys are doing this so We Don't Have To (tm). YES, same.

someone has a good enough fangirl sense to balance the crap. Nearly every episode has at least one scene that is so good it can't be tossed aside Truth. The blessing and curse at once.

ep 8! the scene that launched a thousand fans! I had to check an ep guide, but I was like 99.99% certain you meant the scene where ZYL's head falls onto SW in the taxi. The "dammit, now I have to watch this show too" scene.

[unrelaxing]

Re: ZYL’s softening attitudes - I also didn’t see it. Zhao Yunlan has been kind of super empathetic from the start, near crying over Dixing lesbians not getting a happy ending and very excitedly activating dangerous artifacts in order to water guy’s dad. Also this is really only mentioned twice with him in the early episodes - always mentioned out loud and never in his actions or the thought process behind said actions, so I say it’s either performative or bad writing.

(Plus I kind of think it’s impossible on principle that Yunlan would take in any sort of ideology that originally belonged to his dad, so)

[ellebeecie]

the whole, back and forth swap of personality and mannerisms by Shen Wei is very good for me. And I imagine, for Zhao Yunlan too, because he is that sort of weak.

I’d also imagine it’s very good for Zhao Yunlan in that he gets to have all Shen Wei’s personalities and he is greedy as well as weak :D

This is prime Bisexual Disaster Energy, the lesser known BDE. Hahahahahah

Zhu Hong better be paid more than Wall Wall. God, I hope so.

Zhao Yunlan never seemed particularly intense on his viewpoints of Dixingren

Agreed. Are we to assume that his dad *did* have intense views and that ZYL seemingly could have followed suit? But we didn’t see that and at this point, still haven’t met the dad, right? (Oh, and I totally forgot that in the drama version, his mom dies at the hands of Dixingren. My brainspace has given over to ficland where she's alive and taking Shen Wei's side.)

[kitsunec4]

I mean, it boils down to a lot of being told something is a way rather than showing it, right? The ability of the writers to do character development is a bit low for this show. T-T

[april_rainer]

I had entirely forgotten the plot to this episode. Even when I was halfway through this recap I had still forgotten the plot to this episode. Basically, "This episode has too many scenes of ‘plot’ and not enough of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei." is the most accurate of summaries. I did remember the Shen Wei gets attacked &etc scene -- that was great.

It’s the sort of thing I would understand from Wall Wall but Da Qing is literally a 5000 year old cosmic cat. What gives, dude. I mean... he's a 5000 year old cosmic *cat*. He might have thought it would be funny? Now why someone would allow a cat on a police force is definitely a confusing question, except that it seems par for the course of policing here honestly?

[tinny]

Thank you for wading through this again!

I now have an intense craving for paying BY to redub the whole show to narrate everything. That is such an excellent idea. I want his voice over every scene now, Please!

I also didn't think Yunlan was ever against Dixingren, that was his father. Of course, his mother's death must have affected him, too, so it would make sense... but it's not gradual or shown as developing or anything. Oh well. Next please.


I am still a bit miffed at the directors (or whoever) who decided to make the ointment scene the first scene they filmed. They are not comfortable with each other yet and it shows. Imagine id they'd shot that scene three weeks later, it/they/we would have been on fire. Another opportunity that has passed us by.