Ron Does Stuff

We actually got a pretty interesting cliffhanger at the end of the last episode, with it looking like Jin Mu’s minion had succeeded in shifting his soul into Jang Wook’s body. Will they follow through with this in this episode? Kind of interesting to have the show’s lead be in the body of a guy who does not look like a show lead! (Sorry to whoever the actor is playing Jin Mu’s minion.)

The show dives in right into the middle of the soul shifting process, with Seo Yool and Heo Yeom seeing the ~comotion~ from wherever they are. It’s our first long look at the process of thealchemy of souls and it turns out there’s a reason for that.

Because in the middle of all this magical hullabllo, where Jang Wook’s soul is supposed to be switched, Mu-deok, yes Mu-deok the blind girl and not Naksu, interferes and stop the whole thing from happening. So is the real Mu-deok still somewhere in the ether? Is she really the magical hailstone? I am focusing on this because there’s a whole lovey-dovey thing between Jang Wook and Naksu that honestly doesn’t land because the chemistry’s just not there.

The confrontation also serves another purpose — Naksu finally learns the truth about her father, the soul shifter. Of course, this floors her, giving the minion the opportunity to attack and literally dig a finger into her shoulder and apparently magically poison her. He makes a run for it after, with Jang Wook chasing after him.

As Naksu hides in the abandoned temple, wounded, Seo Yool, Dang-gu, and a few of the guards from Songrim arrive to investigate whatever it was that happened, and end up finding what was left of the ~soul ejector~ as well as a bracelet Jang Wook had been wearing. He doesn’t say it, but I think Seo Yool thinks Jang Wook’s soul has been shifted.

The Songrim party splits up, with Dong-gu and the guards looking for the minion and Jang Wook, while Seo Yool along with Gwigu chases after what they don’t know is Naksu. Of course, since Seo Yool is competent and will never get the girl, he eventually catches up with Naksu and covers for her, saying he wounded her accidentally and will take her to the healers.

Jin Mu’s minion, on the other hand, has reached the city proper — you can absolutely faul this K-drama for not having a solid sense of place or geography — and is looking for a soul to consume so that he does not run wild and become petrified. He goes inside an inn and Jang Wook follows him.

But before Jang Wook can enter, there’s a whole scene with a Lady Heo and her maidservant who mistakenly think that Jang Wook has been following them. Lady Heo ends up being attacked by the soul shifter minion, but Jang Wook intervenes in the nick of time and she ends up unscathed. And wouldn’t you know it, it looks like she’s related to Heo Yeom and she’ll be in the mix as well, possibly as another woman for Naksu to be jealous over! I do not like this development!

The minion situation has finally reached Jin Mu, and he is not happy about it, especially once he finds out that the minion has been targeting Jang Wook. Elsewhere in Daeho, Park Jin has also deduced what happened between the previous king and Jang Gang/Geon. And in the midst of all of this Dang-gu arrives and tells Park Jin and Jang Wook’s head maidservant that Jang Wook may have fallen victim to the alchemy of souls. When it rains, it pours!

However, they really shouldn’t have to worry about Jang Wook, as he’s been able to follow Jin Mu’s minion and defeat him in battle with Tansu. It was a nice fight scene, with the only thing stretching believability is people not seeing his face at all before he put on a scarf to hide his identity.

The next day, with the petrified body of his minion at his feet, Jin Mu has to contend with the fact that somewhere out there is another mage who has mastered the same skill Naksu has mastered, not knowing it’s Jang Wook. Park Jin, who has come to visit at the news of a defeated soul shifter, also arrives at Jin Mu’s domain to check if the soul shifter is Jang Wook, and Jin Mu is just not having a good day at all.

Meanwhile, among the common folk, everybody’s talking about the mage that disposed of the soul shifter, and it’s a hilarious sequence of rumors and a reputation taking a life of its own just like in Mean Girls.

As an aside, there’s a scene with Jang Wook’s head maidservant and Park Jin where they’re all flirty and my goodness these secondary characters have more chemistry than the leads I am just saying.

Back with the young ones, Jang Wook returns and has to perform this farce of supposedly having run away out of fear and leaving Naksu to her own devices. Seo Yool’s reaction to all of this is indiscernible, at least to me. When he later tells Naksu that he might let her die, Naksu is as confused as I am. I guess because she doesn’t know that Seo Yool knows who and what she is.

There’s a small interlude where Dang-gu saves Cho-yeon from embarrassment, and while their chemistry isn’t as good as Naksu’s and Seo Yool or Naksu and the crown prince, it’s still better than Jang Wook and Naksu. Seriously.

Then we go into the newest craze gripping the city, which is Naksu’s blue cloth. Everybody wants a piece of the mage that defeated the soul shifter, and I am reminded of Mean Girls once again.

We get back to serious business though, as Jin Mu gets a visit from the show’s true antagonist the Queen. YES MORE FEMALE VILLAINS GO GO GO. She has a grudge against Songrim, because apparently, they were instrumental in bringing down her family, and she wants them destroyed. But before that can happen, she wants Jin Mu to get rid of whoever it was that dispatched the soul shifter minion.

And they really should get on that if they want to succeed, because Jang Wook has figured out that whoever the villain is, it’s hiding in the royal palace and that it may have the magical hailstone that can prevent a soul shifter from running wild and petrifying. But what was that about Mu-deok being the magical hailstone inside the Jin household’s vault of magical artifacts? Is even the queen’s “ice stone” a fake?

That’s going to be something I’ll have to puzzle over in future episodes because the episode now moves on to the duel between Jang Wook and the crown prince. At stake is Jang Wook’s position as Gwanju.

And you know what, the duel is actually a really great sequence! There’s tension throughout, with Naksu’s plan being foiled and her finding a way to get around it. Jang Wook ends up winning the duel, and the families all clamor for him to join their houses so he can learn from them, and it’s a really nice moment of vindication for him. I really wish they’d focus more on the magical and political aspects of the show because the leads, at least for me, don’t have as much chemistry with each other as they do with other people. The show really gets a pump in energy and excitement when they do.

ANYWAYS. Jang Wook makes his choice. He’s going to Songrim!