Ron Does Stuff

I’ll be honest — episode 11 really dampened my enthusiasm for this show a bit. Work has been busy, true, but not busy enough for me not to make time to watch this episode as soon as it came out.

I know I said things were looking up at the end of the episode but I just could not summon the interest when it was time to actually watch it. My mind kept going back to the tedium between Jang Wook and Naksu. Which really wouldn’t have been tedious if their chemistry with each other was as strong as their chemistry with everybody else!

Anyway, I have a weekend with nothing to do, because I am not going out of my house with a pandemic still ongoing and a monkeypox case now here in this country. Time to watch then!

The episode opens with the poor victim of the alchemy of souls in the earlier episode being killed in public. Since he’s in the body of his master, his master is able to come out as a good guy when all is said and done. I hope this made sense because I had a late night and can’t be bothered really.

Then we switch to Jang Wook’s continuing duels and continuing losses, which is something I would be interested in watching normally but it;s just a vehicle for Hang Wook and Naksu to be sulky around each other and honestly? I have had it.

One good thing that has come out of it is that Jang Wook’s skills have improved. A bad thing is that they’re doing the chaebol cleaning the shoes of someone of a lower social status for him and it’s not delivering. It’s not giving. I am not gagging.

Meanwhile, the other half of the jade piece that the crown prince is holding starts to glow. and so does the one jang Wook is holding. They’re being pulled towards each other and I AM GAGGING. They even play the show’s love theme AND I AM GAGGING. They’re not going to do anything with it though because South Korea isn’t exactly LGBTQIA+ friendly but still! Chemistry! I’d watch this!

Anyway, Jang Wook’s next duel is with someone who uses Hyeongong, a spell that Seo Yool conveniently explains can look intimidating but isn’t really if used by someone who is unskilled. Seo Yool was snooping as Naksu was snooping, by the way, and was trying to convey his jealousy but Dang-gu swoops in with reports of the death earlier on in the episode. YES, POLITICS AND SCHEMING!

Park Jin wants to perform an autopsy on the body, but of course the enemies don’t want that because they’ll discover that the soul has been shifted. Jin Mu swoops in to argue against Park Jin, saying that he’s meddling with what should be a private matter. And Jin Mu gets a further assist from the Jin matriarch, who is counting on Jin Mu delivering bu-yeon to her.

Once Park Jin is dealt with, Jin Mu tells the Jin matriarch that he did find a body that he suspected to be Bu-yeon’s, and the possibility that her daughter might truly be dead rattles the matriarch. Jin Mu says he could bring Bu-yeon’s body back to her, but she insists that Bu-yeon be returned to her alive. That’s necromancy!

Seo-i, who’s going to be acting as Bu-yeon, witnessed the whole conversation from behind a secret panel, and my girl is street smart because she immediately figures out that the best way to ingratiate herself into the family is looking shabby and pathetic.

Somewhere else in Daeho, Park Jin is telling Master Lee his suspicions about the recent murder. He then reveals something he’s been thinking about, which the show corroborates by having Jin Mu repeat it — the mages Naksu was killing were the old bodies of shifted souls. Naksu was killing innocent people all along. And Jang Wook hears this entire exchange!

And Jang Wook decides not to tell any of this to Naksu. FUCK THESE TWO. Instead he does this “I will get you back the jade you bet to the crown prince” speech and I just want to go to the toilet.

Back at the creamtion, we find out that Park Jin had Seo Yool sneak in and put some of his energy into the soul shifter’s dead body so that it petrifies as it burns. I’m not exactly clear on when they set these rules but it’s a tactic that works because now the mages can conduct an investigation!

But before that investigation can even be conducted there’s a showdown between Park Jin anad Jin Mu’s forces and Seo Yool gets to show off fancy fight skills! You go my handsome boy!

Songrim manages to get possession of the soul shifter’s petrified body and intend to find a way to make it speak. Jin Mu, on the other hand, plans to send assassins and even promises to shift the soul of a Songrim mage if that’s what it takes to cover it all up.

However, Seo Yool’s longer encounter with a soul shifter affects him more than he thought it would, since he knows that Naksu is also a soul shifter. He imagines her body petrifying, adn the sad eyes my baby boy come here let me comfort you.

He still has feelings for Naksu, but he also knows that his duty is to get rid of soul shiftters like her. He shares this in a roundabout way with Jang Wook, and the show sets up this heart versus mind conflict between the two which would be compelling if both of them had the same level of chemistry with Naksu. But they don’t.

Meanwhile, there is also tension in the royal palace, as it appears one of the soul shifters serving the queen knows that the queen is a soul shifter herself. It’s not the queen in her body, but shaman Choi, who hasn’t been mentioned previouslt but oh my! The queen isn’t the queen! And the qyeen is being hidden somewhere else! On the one hand, I love all the treachery. On the other, there’s a male figure manipulating what I thought would be the main female villain. You gain some, you lose some, I guess!

Meanwhile, Jin Mu is trying to get a look at the soul shifter body to make sure it’s dead, and Park Jin plans to rebuff him and refuse anyone access to the compound. However, head maidservant Kim is also visiting, and Jin Mu smartly attaches himself to her, because Park Jin can’t let anybody else know about the soul shifter business. If he’s going to invite her in and not him, it’s going to look fishy.

The two guys traded subtle barbs, but head maidservant Kim is perceptive enough to know that something is amiss. But of course, Park Jin is a man and as he’s shown throughout the series, he thinks not giving the people he loves all the necessary information is showing that you care for them. he even does the same thing to Jang Wook, undermining him and making him feel small. Dude, your ~strategy~ clearly isn’t working so why do you insist on it?

And you know what his actions lead Jang Wook to do? Head on over to Jin Mu’s domain along with Naksu since he has nothing else to do. Great! Jang Wook also cleverly tricks the guards into letting them in, and what’s inside? The soul shifter that was undermining the queen! Jin Mu had stabbed him for his insolence and now he’s wandering around the building oozing sticky stuff everywhere.

But it’s not the soul shifter that Jang Wook and Nasu should have been worried about, because Jin Mu is the one that they encounter and try to escape from. When Jin Mu finds out that Jang Wook knows about the existence of the soul shifter, he traps him in a magic circle and intends to use the alchemy of souls on him.

Jin Mu also offers up Naksu as a sacrifice to the soul shifter, and for a few terrifying moments it looks like the soul shifter has succeeded. But once Jang Wook breaks free from the magic circle he discovers that it’s actually Naksu that is siphoning the enegy from the soul shifter. She then has a mini-breakdown thinking that she’s startinn to run wild and goes all Rogue “Don’t touch me I will Miss Marvel you!” but Jang Wook doesn’t care.

And that’s where the episode ends.