Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #426

Anne: It is nearly the end of the year!! I am looking forward to the two weeks, somewhat, vacation that is at the end of December. The funny thing is I'm actually off 3 days before the 6 year old. Am I just a little bit of a bad mommy to be looking forward to 3 days of ALONE time with no work....he he he... My heart is giggling in delight. I am also looking forward to taking him to school in the morning since I don't have to catch the 8am meetings. 

While I did spent the last two weeks watching a lot of shows, most of them were crime reports on Netflix. Let's take a look at what shows I've watched and whether anything caught anyone else's fancy.

New Life Begins

This continues to delight me every episode. Here in episode 22, Yin An, who came to the realization of how annoying and condescending he treated his women, was finally able to "hear" their inner conversations that their facial expressions were conveying. In this realization, he was also able to "see" their real names. This visual representation of a man who finally "opens" his eyes, is one of the funnies and most clever method I have seen. 

Now, I left everyone in the last post at the end of episode 10, and the drama is close to finishing, with only 6 more episode left this week to air. This drama maintained it's incredible message of sisterhood and female focused plot line even through all the ups and downs. 

At this point, the second prince and heir apparent, Yin Song, has been punished and stripped of his rank. Hao Jia, his concubine, who only married him thinking he would provide her and her family a better life, was able to leave him and raise her daughter without being suppressed by a man who sees her as nothing more than someone who can give him the son he wants. The first time she cursed, she found her own voice and is now standing up to the injustice she had to live through. Hi wife, Fang Ru, realized why she never got pregnant and why her husband wanted to keep her that way.

As mentioned above, Yin An, the 3rd prince, found out why none of his wife or concubine ever got pregnant, and in his fit of anger, he said enough to make all his women leave him. When they banded together to go into business, he purposely tried to ruin them. During this time, his "uncle", upon Yin Song's prodding, also interferes in the women's business, and this uncle's attitude, annoyed Yin An to the point that it knocked whatever cobwebs were clouding his mind and he begin to see things from his women's point of view.

Yin Qi, number 5, who took the blame for Yin Zheng, was stripped of his title and decided that his wife Jing Jing deserves more than him (a failure), purposely drove her to divorce him, and leave him for her home. Of course, Yin Qi regretted it immediately and when he found out that Jing Jing's sister was going to find her a new husband, Yin Qi chased after her. This time around, he passed all the tests, mainly because he has changed living with Jing Jing for so long.

Lastly, we have our ML, Yin Zheng, who is now so close to his goal. After episode 10, he was forced to marry a proper wife, who would rather help her dad run her kingdom instead of being married off. Yuan Ying become a "teacher" to Li Wei and a "strategist" to Yin Zheng. This is probably the most peaceful portrayal of a ML, his wife, and his concubine of any drama in my memory. Actually, this entire drama, the harem relationships do not have one iota of scheming females who try to harm one another for a man.

This is such a delight, and no stress. I'm not pulling my hair out at the stupidity of the women, and even the men also have some learning opportunities. Yes, in reality, none of these issues would be this easily solved. But I like to live in such a world where everyone is able to change and grow for the better.

Love is for Suckers

I am a little late to picking this up, but I caught up and finished everything the past week. Yeo Reum is a producer whose shows never do that well in the ratings. She lives down stairs in the same house as her best friend, Jae Hoon was pulled to participate in the reality TV show "Kingdom of Love", produced by her colleague and former classmate, Ji Yun. Jae Hoon is a doctor, who used to be a neurosurgeon, who left the field due to a trauma. 

The drama setup is similar to Unreal, which was a TV drama about what happens in the background of reality dating/love shows. Basically, reality TV has a script, for dating shows, there is always a love line, the producers creates situations to create drama, and everything is about ratings.

Overall, I liked the setup. The plot had some unnecessary traumatic plot lines. My favorite of course was the love story between Ji Wan (the webtoon artist) and Chef John. It is the classic story of a playboy being taken down by a virgin...hahaha.

Under the Queen's Umbrella

Sigh....everything ended on a happy note. Her second son rose to the challenge and was able to hold on to the Crown Prince position, and he married a girl whom he loved, all due to his mother looking out for him, I might add. The Queen Dowager committed suicide instead of facing punishment for her poisoning of the previous Crown prince, in her scheme to get the throne for her son. Gye Sung, who feels like he's a woman trapped in a man's body, was able to get permission to leave the palace and lived the life he wanted away from judgement. And his mother protected his secret and made it all possible for him to leave. Mu Ahn, who fell in love with a peasant, had a baby out-of-wedlock, was able to marry his lover as a concubine, breaking with tradition, all thanks to his mother backing him up. Il Young, the youngest, will probably be the death of his mother if he continues to jump of roofs in his effort to make himself a flying machine. 

The mystery of her eldest son's death was as she suspected. As to the identity of the person who killed him... did anyone else see this coming? I probably didn't pay that much attention, but I always thought the physician started limping after being in prison. Was he limping BEFORE that? 

Loved everything about this show!

Hm.. I guess these are the three most memorable shows that I've watched this past two weeks. I did spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos. Oh, and I also did finish Big Dragon, the Series...I didn't write about it anymore because I truly do not even know what in the world I was watching. But yay, the boys got together and lived happily ever after. If you are into BL, I would skip this one.

Have a great week!