The Problematic of the Unproblematic

kakashi: Poor Kasuo... depressed and powerless(and put in a place with horribly esoteric colors, look at him!) and tricked by his brother, more than once. But as one has absolutely no power, the other gains power. Shi takes charge of things in this episode and him being in charge is quite sexy. More, please. JoAnne: This looks like a talk show from the 70s, and Kasuo is a guest trying to work through past-life trauma. Invited experts include a mushroom hunter from Northern California who channels the spirit of a particular redwood tree in the Russian River valley and a neurosurgeon who claims to have pinpointed the locus of our souls through similarities noted while performing brain surgery on multiple patients, later to be discredited and kicked out of the AMA for recreational drug use/experimentation on non-consenting patients . Saki: I love Shi.  

kakashi: It didn't take me long to fall for this. Truth is, how could you not feel for this man-child who keeps falling deeper and deeper ... not in love (quite yet), but falling from the superstar sky into the pits of utter humiliation? I seriously want to hug him and tell him it'll be okay. Luckily, he has Chen Momo, who already is his friend, even if both are leagues away from realizing this. Trotwood: I don't know if she considers herself his friend or if she is just the kind of person who wouldn't leave a stray puppy outside in cold even if it pissed on her carpet and nipped at her. But I think once she starts seeing how pitiful he really is and once he starts seeing what it's like to have more than one real friend . . . JoAnne: I'm fairly certain she doesn't think of him as a friend. In fact, I think she dislikes him.  But Trot is exactly right. He is a puppy out in the cold, and she will do the humane thing. Sparks: She's a truly decent person...

Shuk: Things are getting more twisty and complicated, but really, all I'm waiting for is the relationships to start straightening themselves out. And a PA Lee brooding shower scene. Actually, maybe all I'm looking for is a PA Lee brooding shower scene. Drama Noona: Ditto, that’s pretty much all I’m looking forward too. Really let’s have a show with PA Lee as the star! Kmuse: I would be OK with all the guys having a good shower brood. You can never have too many angsty shower scenes. Trotwood: The hope of a broody shower scene is pretty much the only thing getting me through at this point. And my devotion to this team. We will get through this I promise.  JoAnne:  Shower scene, plus I want Ibeol and Rabbit to get together. She's adorable. Jaehyus: yes, all of that.  PA Lee and Ibeol are why I'm here. Yes! Ibeol and Rabbit absolutely need to end up together! The Continuity Fairy

SakiVI:  The tomb action is not exactly exciting, but there are are some manly Fo Ye moments, tender Fo Ye moments, and the usual from Ba Ye and Er Ye. Kakashi: And balls. Don't forget the balls!

kakashi: Lots of Ba Ye in this episode. When did he become one of my favorite characters in this?! He really is the only smart one right now. Everybody is very lost, but he is a few steps ahead in finding a way to get out of the maze in the tombs. SakiVI: he really is very bright, and I love that blue coat and brown vest combo he sports.

kakashi: Heeeeelp! Three new dramas are starting this week!!! JoAnne: Under the heading of This Won't Help At All, it will be important to watch both versions of Scarlet Heart. There was a confession - a very, very heart stopping confession - in episode 8 that is only viewable in the version that played in SK. Why would they do that? Why would they have cut out scenes that included my sad wolf? They should be finding ways to include his out-takes in the drama, for pete's sake! Kakashi, when you stalked him , you didn't find him, did you ? Damn, I wish I had found him. But remember, my husband actually called the hotel in his hometown Joongi stayed at! Unfortunately, he had already left, the cheeky bastard. Trotwood: Nothing on here that I'm watching. Don't even know if I'm going to be able to catch up with Cindy and People She Lives With. Spent all my extra time this week watching To Get Her instead and I'm not sorry. Shuk: I actually dramarathoned...

SakiVI: Lots of plotting, planning, and tomb exploring. Er Ye continues to be depressed, Fo Ye continues to be hot, Lt Zhang continues to be pretty, and Ba Ye - is himself. No XinYue, sadly, but we do see plenty of Huo Niang, whom I like, anyway, so I'm good with that. kakashi: Push, baby, PUSH! Harder! Harder!

kakashi: Shit hits the fan in this ep. The Fire King gets really mad and shows us how nasty he really is. Maybe he was just too lazy before or thought he could delegate some of the important stuff like beating Kasuo to his kids? Poor Kasuo, as if it were our gentle prince's fault that Fire Daddy is such a bad parent. SakiVI: what is with this rage against KaSuo, anyway? The person Fire King lost to in both war and marriage (I won't call it love) was the Ice King.  JoAnne: Better hair. He can't get past it.

kakashi: Looooooots and lots and lots of tomb-action! Very weird tomb-action too, but hey, we don't ask questions here. I'm keeping the stuff about the stupid villains as short as possible. Actually, I leave most of it out completely, which you will probably not notice. That's how little it matters. SakiVI: Okay, I won't ask questions, sulk, sulk.

SakiVI: In which our gang repeat themselves a lot, Chen Pi is a Poo (no offense, Winnie), and Huo Niang is all dangerous and snakey. kakashi: What can you expect from a drama that is 48 episodes long... yes, so episodes are getting a bit less crisp and delicious as we move into the 20s, but Fo Ye is still smoking hot, so bear with us. I've not had this problem with Ice Fantasy , but perhaps not all drama writers and editors are that good.

Trotwood: Special thanks to my visiting daughter who heard my complaint about being exhausted and behind on recapping and how I was afraid to go on twitter since I felt guilty for not even drafting a recap last week. She just said, “Tell me what happened.” While I tried to stay awake on Friday night, she actually listened to me explain to her my malaise about this episode and typed it up for me like a scribe while I was barely keeping my eyes open. Voila! I woke up to a written draft in my email the following morning. kakashi: That is lovely of her. Mother-daughter bonding over bad KDrama! I like that. But hey, don't ever feel guilty again. That's an order. JoAnne: Wow - I'm impressed both by her kindness and your ability to recall an episode in enough detail that it could be recapped without having been watched. Oh, I had rewatched it... Last weekend when I should have recapped it . So folks, here we are at the penultimate episode. While the episode 18 was full of ...

kakashi: If you're not on the Yan Da - Shi ship yet, this episode will sure get you there. They both seem puzzled by the depth of feeling for each other, but there is no denying it: they have a very strong bond, sealed by saving each other's life. It may not be love, but it's a sort of friendship that comes once in a lifetime.  SakiVI: And even if they don't end up as lovers, I'll accept them as besties, even if I'm crying in a corner over their missed chance to love and marry and have little fire-ice babies.  JoAnne: What to do, though, if a prince is willing but his icicle melts?

kakashi: To Kang Ha-neul, who grew up so well! And to my unnis who are crazy-busy at work! JoAnne: I can breathe again for the moment, so I foresee some drama watching in my future! And laundry. Lots of laundry . Damn, laundry. Also: Damn laundry!   Shuk: I actually finished a couple of side projects! Oh, and laundry.

kakashi: Hello everyone! This is our new recapping project in honor of Sparks of Ember, who won our "alternative endings"-contest. I am sure that this will be fun, because this is the synopsis of this 2009 drama: "Mars is a superstar whose popularity went downhill after a series of negative publicity. His finances went into red alert and he had to find a new place to live. He ended up renting a place from Mo Mo, his homebody landlord. He befriended her and her childhood friend Jia Sen, a swimming captain with the intelligence of an 8-year-old." I can't wait. Sparks: Hi, all! I'm excited to be here - thanks for the invite! I'm looking forward to sharing my favorite Twdrama with everyone!  Trotwood; I remember loving this show. I watched it in my early years of watching dramas before i had access to much of anything. Poor quality. Half subbed. Sporadic episode continuity. But I remember really enjoying it. I think I was going through the "I mus...

Shuk:  Through a large amount of time, Cindy manages to sorta-kinda complete her first mission. What are the chances of her finishing one in a single episode? And will we see any of the infantile behavior of the Kang Cats morph into something we can actually root for? Also, KMuse has decided to add into the commenting fun! I am giving her my green font since I'm not using it for this project. Trotwood: There are things we can count on already--1.Player will deny his feelings 2.Fashion Girl will be sad 3.Ibeol will play his guitar.  4. Mrs. B will be the only bit of maternal warmth within a hundred mile radius 5. I will still wait for Emo to really turn into Biker guy 6. PA Lee will be extraordinarily wonderful and paw worthy. Jaehyus:Great, Trotwood summed everything up and now there's no point continuing except to see PA Lee. DramaNoona: Yay!  Success-ish!  I don’t think a mission will be completed in one episode sadly. JoAnne:  I'm here because I like t...

kakashi: While Fo Ye et al. are in the tomb, the evil forces left in Changsha start to flock together. I don't like it one bit, especially because all the Hendry/Chen Pi and Lu scenes bore me considerably. I want undisturbed tomb-action! SakiVI: It was disturbing to see that the real puppet master is Hendry. He's like a General Secretary of villains. On a brighter note, Xinyue both impressed and amused this episode. Ba Ye, too. Lt Zhang looked positively lovely, and we finally see Huo Niang, or, as we knew her in The Lost Tomb, Granny Huo . She's a villain in this, but she's a favorite character of mine overall.

kakashi: Tomb-action ahead! Yay! More than half this episode is spent preparing for it though. And with Fo Ye out of Changsha, the evil forces gather to dethrone him. The tomb is no walk in the park either: dead doors, live doors, traps and other disturbing things like hair ... be careful, boys! SakiVI: We get past and present tomb action, and, as happens in tombs with all their time-space warping, some seriously bizarre situations.

kakashi: Oh no, a Chen Pi focused episode! >.< SakiVI: focus on the nose! Actually, there's not a lot of Chen Pi at all, even though this episode is named after him. We actually get quite a bit of Fo Ye and Xinyue, and we also get some tomb-action, which means I'm happy.

SakiVI: In which a long-awaited event occurs. And where, if you have friends like this, do you really need enemies? kakashi: It's a saaaaaad episode. One of the few that almost made me cry. But it also makes me rant, oh, how much I need to rant! You bloody fools! 

JoAnne: It's hilariously funny to me to open this post and have IU blinking away like that. Kakashi: Mission accomplished :) Kim Ji-hoon will soon be back on TV, YAAAAAAAAY! Sadly, in a drama I absolutely don't want to watch. For him, I will though. I will not KimJiCap, however. Or maybe only his bits. Let's see. His role is "not very big", apparently. SakiVI/Jaehyus: What is this new KimJiHoon drama? He's a cutie. I am finding this crush of dramas on Mondays and Tuesdays to be overwhelming. I think I'll have to make plans for what to watch and when. Right now, I think the Moonlight Bogummy show can wait until Wednesday and Thursday. It's hard to hold off on the rest .  It's called The Man Living in our House or something like it .  Trotwood: But he's only going to be in the first part because he's the one who gets (goes) away and sets up the heroine for a new love story which she will not want because it will be so hard to get ...

kakashi: A Bear Tribe episode! I bet they stink a lot. Also, there does not seem to be a single woman in that tribe, I do wonder how they ... you know? Apart from that, there is a lot of Shi in this episode and I know a few ladies who like that a lot. JoAnne: I like his take-charge attitude in this episode... But he should keep his shirt on. Saki: He is cutely-thin.

We are off to meet some new tribes in this episode: The Bear Tribe and the Spirit Tribe. Things don't go exactly as planned though. The good news is, we do get some backstory for Li Luo! Hm, I don't know, but is there a birth secret there? Most importantly, Turnip (some call him the real star of this show, sorry Feng Shao Feng) gets a new name, of which he very much approves. I so hope there's a birth secret for Li Luo that makes her an eminently suitable Ice Queen.  There has to be. I'm not even going to worry about it.   I'm worrying a lot. You obviously haven't seen the rest of the episodes yet..... . Cutie. I want to stroke that nose.  His back end is shaped oddly though.

Trotwood: Once again, I am changing the title and calling this episode “Confirmation.” In it, we get a confirmation not only of the feelings that Se Ra has for Jae Woong, but also the feeling that he has for her and the real friendship (and maturity) between Jae Woong and Woo Jin. We get a confirmation that our Climbing Tree Puppy would make such a deliciously good and faithful and wonderful boyfriend lead (can you imagine him in the role of the Master for a Korean version of Love 020? I SURE CAN) ( JoAnne: You are a DEVIL. A DEVIL, I tell you. I am ruined.) And a confirmation that the team is going all the way to the finals (like that wasn’t a given). kakashi: Hey, I totally liked this episode! No buts! Some butts. It was cute, romantic, and heartwarming. If only Se Ra would stop annoying me. ((and why do this pictures look cropped? Weird. Well, the boys' heads are a bit elongated, I hope y'all don't mind)) (((and then, it wouldn't let me do gifs! Sorry))) Sorry, s...

Kasuo is still asleep while the Fire King plots evil things with the help of the Dream Lord and Li Luo, looking like the Fire King, tries to wake him up. But! The Dream Lord, we learn, isn't really evil at all, but totally HAD to do all this. Luckily, his sister is much smarter than him and it's only thanks to her that things do not get out of hand completely. Yay for sisters! Yay for dreams! Boo to Fire King! You always have a choice, Dream Lord. It's wrong to say you don't. An option being unacceptable to you does not mean it is not an option.

kakashi: Oh Kasuo, sweet Kasuo... such a soft-hearted dreamer, I wish you all the happiness in the world. Only a heartless person's heart would not break a little in this episode! There's also a twist of sorts and lots of excitement. And so much beauty. CGI Shaofeng is to die for. Jaehyus: So, the usual sort of fascinating, edge-on-seat episode then. JoAnne: I actually did like this episode. Such a sad happy dream.

Note: Sparks of Ember won our "alternative ending" contest , congrats! This is her entry. As her prize, she chose ToGetHer (aka Superstar Express) starring Jiro Wang and Rainie Yang, her favorite TwDrama from 2009 for us to recap.  Shuk: Yay! I love that one. It is my second Rainie Yang after "Devil Beside You". Sparks of Ember: The drama I hate most due to the ending would be Fall in Love With (Both of) Me . I hate it because it was so amazing and there was so many promises in the plot during the first half and not only did those promises not get fulfilled but the entire thing became a long, nonsensical train wreck. I have thought hard about how to give it an alternative, better ending. Unfortunately, it was such a mess of a drama, I felt like I had to back up to episode 8. I tweaked the original rather than writing from scratch. There are large chunks that remain the same so I have quoted them from the recaps (I hope that's ok?). I was sorely tempted to k...

kakashi: Ohhhhh, another one of my favorite episodes. SO HOT and SEXY and erotic. A heat activated tattoo? The things I started to imagine.... I'd endlessly play with him. And the tattoo. Activate ... de-activate. Activate.... de-activate. Bliss. SakiVI: It's quite...  something.

Shuk:  No happy trail. JoAnne:  Perhaps I'll blaze one. Should I leave this? Or do a legit heading? Jaehyus:  Leave it. Or put Emo in his swim mode. Jaime:  I see no problem with the current heading... Trot:  How is this NOT a legit heading?

SakiVI: We finally deal with Peng, and then finally back to Changsha! Our Miss and Fo Ye continue to bicker, Chief Lu and Fo Ye fight over Chen Pi, Ba Ye is dorky, and Lt Zhang is pretty. Er Ye is happy with the medicine, and Ya Tou is her usual self. Jiu Ye is his usual self too, but that's a good thing in his case. Dear Reader, a lot happens in this episode, so hang on tight! kakashi: Fo Ye is a bit of an ass in this. But he's also quite the knight in the shining armor if he needs to be so what to do? Love him or hate him? Me and him, we'd always fight too, that much is clear.

kakashi: I'm getting increasingly confused by the various names for dramas with "Moon" in them. It's not easy being a KDrama watcher, that much is clear. I also feel like everything plus more is airing on Mondays and Tuesdays. Not helping. JoAnne: I tell myself it's okay, if I don't watch them all Mon-Tue I have the rest of the week to watch them on lighter days. Man, I crack myself up some times. Jaehyus: The Mon-Tue ones are my crack dramas, so I can't not watch exactly what's available right away becca: I recently finished two of the three shows I was watching, so I'm taking advantage of Labor Day weekend to try out all the new shows (as well as a few that I've been missing out on). It's been fun. :) cherkell: I'm sooooooooooooooo behind on everything. I'm drowning just keeping up with all 'The K2' news and stuffs!

Trotwood: I don’t care what they are calling this episode, but it should be called “Family.” We have some father son bonding and great bromance moments. Gi-joon is finally (sorta) doing his manager job. Even Coach is starting to (sorta) act coach-like. Instead they call this episode . . .

Welcome to the Dream Tribe!!! It is full of incredibly beautiful sets, beautiful people and beautiful dreams. Well, also nightmares. But this was the episode that sucked me in completely. I will even call this good. No buts. Just good. SakiVI: The costumes were incredible!  Everything was a visual treat.  JoAnne: I am absolutely convinced that you two are playing a very elaborate joke on me. How many times must I repeat that I really like this show?! Why does nobody believe me? I do ! 

Kakashi: Don't be confused, this is kakashi! I will help Saki with the Old Nine Gates' recaps a bit. This episode is one of my favorites, because our Miss starts her marry-me-campaign and I love it for all the right (=feminist) reasons. It looks like Fo Ye has finally found his match in life: he is simply stunned. SakiVI: She has true determination. Forget the Rules and not being obvious and other dating maxims: no Fo Ye can stop her.

SakiVI: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of Fabulous Fo Ye, it was the age of grouchy gravel-sellers, it was the epoch of old porcelain cups, it was the epoch of rare medicinal herbs... Dear Reader, welcome to A Tale of Two Pengs. kakashi: One of the Pengs is super hawt whereas the other Peng has disgusting eating habits. Apart from that, so much money gets spent in this episode that I feel like crying. Still. And I watched this episode for the first time weeks ago.