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My Dearest: Episodes 18-19
by alathe
Our leads are together at last! Naturally, this is when disaster strikes. It’s still a long way home for the Joseon captives, and our hero wouldn’t be so infinitely loveable if he wasn’t determined to fight for them. The course of true love never did run smooth… but it has to be said, all the geopolitical turbulence probably isn’t helping.
EPISODES 18-19
This drama is bold, going where few have dared venture before… the bedroom. That’s right — after years of pretense and restraint, Gil-chae and Jang-hyun finally go all the way! Alas, this moment of happiness has a short sell-by date. Jang-hyun still has promises to keep — and captives to rescue. Gil-chae takes this news with admirable stoicism; if there’s one thing she’s accustomed to, it’s waiting. Before he leaves, however, she slides a silver ring onto his finger: one of a matched pair she commissioned long ago — and, still hoping, kept.
From here, things go frightfully sour. With the paranoid king hurling out accusations, the crown prince refuses to keep his promise to the captives. It’s too risky. His father already suspects him of building an army on the sly. If you don’t obey me in this, he informs Jang-hyun, then I’ll never see you again. Jang-hyun gives him a bitter look. He’d thought this prince was different — and yet. You took the words right out of my mouth, he says.
And so it’s back across the border on a wing and a prayer… plus the promise of a princess. Jang-hyun’s deal with Gak-hwa was simple: he will stay with her, provided she grants the captives safe passage across the river. It’s a barefaced lie, but it’s handy insurance. Yang-chun embraces Jang-hyun at the riverbank, with the captives waiting behind him. Terrified, they begin to wade across, whilst Gak-hwa and her reinforcements observe, unmoving.
All is calm. Then, very suddenly, it is not. On the far bank, armed men rush to surround them. There are cries of anguish from the captives, who know little other than the fact that they’ve been betrayed. Arrows fly. Old men, wanting nothing more than to go home, fall bleeding on the sand. Yang-chun steps in to shield his crush, IN-OK (Min Ji-ah), who stumbles too, as an arrow hits the baby in her arms. Yang-chun himself is hit, and dragged from the battlefield by Goo Jam.
Within minutes, only Jang-hyun and Ryang-eum are still fighting. In an intriguing callback to Episode 4, an attacker approaches Jang-hyun from behind, and Ryang-eum cries out a warning — but this time, our hero’s reflexes fail him. Soon, both he and Ryang-eum are unconscious on the sand. Across the bank, Gak-hwa brandishes a sword to Goo Jam’s throat, demanding to know what happened to Jang-hyun, only for both to realize that this attack had nothing to do with each other. Meanwhile, Jang-hyun blinks the blood out of his eyes and stirs… finding himself in the depths of the Joseon palace.
Here, countless palace workers have been abducted and tortured. An interrogator gives a miserable grin, demanding to know which of the men they’ve captured is Goo Yang-chun, founder of the rebel army. Yang-chun is miles away, surrounded by disillusioned captives. Jang-hyun, resigned, declares himself to be the man they’re looking for. He is dragged away and beaten within an inch of his life. Slumped on the floor, on the brink of passing out, he drops Gil-chae’s ring. As he flickers in and out of consciousness, he hears a man ordered to kill him, and glances up. It’s Ningguchin, one of his old cronies from Uiju! Ningguchin raises his club — and subtly pulls the blow. Jang-hyun’s fingers close desperately on the ring.
Ningguchin saved, not one, but two of his old allies. With his help, Ryang-eum fled the guards. Now, he goes to the only person with a hope of extricating Jang-hyun from a royal torture chamber… the prince. And oh, but it is brutal. This episode contains one of my most-loved Joseon tropes, where the idealistic prince confronts the father who half despises him for being his successor. Our prince speaks earnestly about the captives — how profoundly they moved him, how human they made him. And yet, the king can’t possibly understand. He shoves his son away. The prince stands strong as he leaves the chamber… only to slump to the floor in a swoon.
Woe betide you if you anger Joseon’s scholars. Yeon-joon, now the proud possessor of a working political conscience, convinces his venerable teacher, JANG CHEOL (Moon Sung-geun), to act. Soon, the Sarim scholars throng the palace, kneeling in stern academic disapprobation. The king, Jang Cheol demands, must hand his secret prisoners over to the Royal Investigation Bureau. After all, there’s precedent for what happens when a king falls foul of his scholars, and results are invariably messy. But the king, still fearing treason, orders the Sarim party dragged from the palace grounds.
Throughout the night’s turmoil, one person has watched, careful and silent. It’s Gil-chae’s sometime patron, the sharp-eyed ROYAL CONSORT JO (So Yoo-jin). Now is her moment. She sends Gil-chae a very particular dagger commission — with orders to bury it inside the palace. At first, our heroine flatly refuses. She won’t involve herself in something that smells so distinctly of a scheme. But when she learns that the crown prince’s staff have been arrested, terror for Jang-hyun forces her to abandon her principles. Besides, smirks Concubine Jo, my son may be king one day. I’ll have the means of protecting you and yours.
The job is carried out. Gil-chae doubles back through the palace, in search of anything that might lead her to Jang-hyun — and glimpses several men pulling a wheelbarrow. Peering through the dark, she sees, to her horror, that it contains a heap of broken corpses. One hand lets something drop. It’s a familiar silver ring.
Jang-hyun lies motionless atop a pile of bodies. Once again, Gil-chae steels herself to do the ugly yet necessary thing. Smearing herself with his blood, she lies on top of him — and waits. Soon, a guard comes to keep watch. When his back is turned, she takes a nearby stone, and heaves it against his head.
There’s no choice: Gil-chae must walk out of the palace, bloodstained, carting the half-dead body of her semi-husband, and just hope that everyone is aggressively devoted to minding their own business. Naturally, she’s spotted. But the palace worker who finds her is none too keen on the king’s new policy of indiscriminate bloodshed; he’s willing to sneak them both out. Soon, Ryang-eum catches up to them, and after some hesitation, Gil-chae surrenders Jang-hyun to his care. And none too soon — Jang-hyun’s disappearance is noted, the man who helped them forced to spill the beans, and search parties dispatched across the city.
Ryang-eum finds refuge with Young-rang, who is back on her feet after her ordeal in Shimyang. Together, they tend to Jang-hyun. But the usual towels and hot water may not cut it. The prognosis looks grim — even for a man sturdy enough to sword fight his way through smallpox. Young-rang is fiercely optimistic, but Ryang-eum fears the worst. And so, swallowing his pride, he invites Gil-chae to come and see Jang-hyun, quickly. She’s the person he’d want by his side at the end.
Meanwhile, Jang-hyun tosses, turns, and dreams. We see him again as a well-dressed child, laughing with his servant, SAM-DO (Baek Seung-do) — the man in love with Jang-hyun’s sister. Due to his pitch-perfect whistling, our tiny hero nicknames this servant… Ryang-eum. Darkness falls. The young Jang-hyun screams through the rain for his father — whilst inside, a man is beaten to death. But the bloodied man on the floor is Sam-do. And the man standing above him, eyes alight with cruelty, is Jang-hyun’s father… Jang Cheol.
Jang-hyun snaps awake. Gil-chae reaches for his hand, and he recoils. He asks — who are you? Oh no, cue the advent of one of my least-loved tropes: amnesia. Jang-hyun has no memory of his companions — all he recalls are fragments of his childhood trauma, and plenty of baggage about social propriety.
To give this (kind of ill-conceived) plotline its due, some bits are cute. Gil-chae is delighted that Jang-hyun is alive. She spends her days ensuring he eats well, wheedling him into games of cat’s cradle, and flirting outrageously. There’s a great moment when Ryang-eum reminisces with Jang-hyun about “someone” who taught him many things: music, archery, medicine. When Jang-hyun asks if he means a woman, the flat look he receives so clearly reads “daily, I am subjected to this heterosexual nonsense,” that I cackled. Still, on the whole? It’s pretty cringe-worthy to see a whole montage of Gil-chae hitting on a mortified Jang-hyun, whilst refusing to clarify their relationship or back off when he asks.
Soon, though, we’re back to what I love best: palace intrigue! Much like Gil-chae, the crown princess sits terrified at the bedside of her beloved. When the royal doctor prescribes acupuncture, her fists clench — is it really safe, with his condition? Still, despite her mistrust, the prince pulls through. Soon, he regains consciousness.
Jang-hyun’s old friend, EUNUCH PYO (Yang Hyun-min), sends the rest of the staff away. Now that the two are alone, the prince requests paper and ink. A little while later, he folds a letter under his pillow and declares he must rest. But by the time the princess returns, all smiles and homemade porridge, he is motionless and cold. When the king storms in, he finds the princess clutching his son’s dead body — and staring at him with hard, reproachful eyes.
It’s political pandemonium. The king, haunted by that look from the princess, immediately converts his guilt into suspicion. Recently, Consort Jo accused the princess of hiding cursed objects in the palace… not unlike the dagger Gil-chae was hired to bury. Lacking proof, the accusation went nowhere. Now, it very conveniently resurfaces… alongside an even more convenient (and totally-not-blackmailed) witness. The princess, desperate, kneels outside the king’s chambers, pleading for mercy — which is only taken as proof of her arrogance.
Yeon-joon petitions his teacher, to zero avail. Jang Cheol has never stood up for a woman in his life, has a bee in his bonnet about disobedient children, and could get an Olympic gold in fence-sitting. After all, what if she did curse the king? We’re all strict believers in social hierarchy here — harumph! With no one willing to defend her, the princess is doomed: ordered to drink poison, she survives for two agonizing days before dying. Her last act is to send a mysterious box to Gil-chae, which may or may not contain her husband’s final letter. After all, it was addressed to Jang-hyun.
But for now, this means nothing to our hero. All he knows is that his companions are determined to hide him from the authorities — and that he may well have done something wrong. He doesn’t know how to respond to Gil-chae’s expectations. Nonetheless, Gil-chae is adamant: for a long time, all she’s wanted is to live a mundane life with him. Joking, doing chores, worrying about what to eat for dinner… all of this makes her happy. So, asks Jang-hyun, even if I never regain my memories, you won’t abandon me? Gil-chae scoffs. Not even in death.
There’s another awkward moment where Gil-chae tends to Jang-hyun’s injuries, and things get a little too intimate. Jang-hyun snaps, embarrassedly ordering her away. Later that night, he looks at the two silver rings. He tries to put one on. Fumbles it. As it falls to the floor, it strikes a chord — and he remembers that terrible night where it fell for the first time. When Gil-chae next emerges, she sees the look in his eyes, and immediately knows. I’m sorry, says Jang-hyun, drawing her into his arms. I’m not too late, am I?
This was a week of real highs and lows! Succession feuds, scheming royals and uppity scholars make my heart sing, so that final, hectic showdown in Episode 18 was a delight. I enjoy how truly human our crown prince and princess were — her quiet, stubborn stoicism, and his habit of rising to the challenge of doing the right thing roughly 70% of the time… both of which fed beautifully into the eventual tragedy. At the end of the day, as Jang-hyun insisted early on, you can’t rely on royalty; the very mechanisms that put our well-intentioned crown prince in power would always undo him. Meanwhile, there was the grisly, gothic brilliance of Gil-chae smearing herself in blood and lying next to Jang-hyun’s half-dead body, when they’d been sleeping side by side a few scenes before. Chills.
As for the lows? The amnesia plotline was uncomfortable for several reasons, but I think my biggest beef is how it prevented development between our leads. For all that Gil-chae yearns for domestic bliss, it feels as if they’re looking for excuses not to show our main couple together, with all their memories, and aware of each other’s feelings. It’s as if they’re scared that won’t be interesting — but I’d much prefer it to another sickbed scene. That perfect chemistry is one of the show’s greatest strengths! Meanwhile, I’ve given up on poor Ryang-eum receiving any kind of narrative justice. However, the reveal that Jang Cheol is — most likely — Jang-hyun’s father was perfect. I love Yeon-joon being set up as his pseudo-son, and the way the show deconstructs the violence lurking behind that stern moralism… he’s like the evil alter-ego of Poeun from Six Flying Dragons. I cannot wait to see how it all comes to a head!
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