*Episode premise spoilers.*
If last week’s episode felt like a bit of a detour, this one brings Wai Siu-bo back into the thick of things. Yet again, matters are heating up, and I’m excited to see where we go from here.
Since the events of episode 37, Wai Siu-bo and his wives have settled into life on Take All Island. He isn’t 100% content—he could do with not quite so many bananas in his diet—but he’s been enjoying himself. However, he still misses the emperor, and the feeling is mutual. When the emperor reaches out for him to return to Beijing, Siu-bo worries about the strings that come with that invitation.
After having been away from them for a bit, we get plenty of both the emperor and Heaven and Earth Society in this episode. The biggest takeaway is that, yes, the emperor still gonna emperor—despite missing Wai Siu-bo terribly and desperately wanting them to reconcile, he’s only going to let that happen on his turns, and he goes from zero to sixty real quick when Siu-bo doesn’t instantly jump at his offer to come back to the palace.
Meanwhile, Heaven and Earth Society aren’t on the best terms with Wai Siu-bo either. They’ve been misinformed on some of the details of a major development from last episode, and they’re wrongfully blaming him for it.
By and large, then, Wai Siu-bo is just stuck. He’s happy with his wives on Take All Island, using dice to come up with names for his growing number of babies, but he’s still not really built for the quiet life and he does miss the emperor. But when the emperor summons him, it’s on the condition that his playing-all-sides days are over in a really decisive way, which is a step he doesn’t want to take. Not to mention, with Heaven and Earth Society all over him, he’s caught between trying to get his former friends to see sense and keeping himself and his family safe. (Well, his wives are the ones protecting him, but it still weighs on him.)
Continuing the trend of portraying Wai Siu-bo’s relationship with the emperor as borderline romantic, this episode features Siu-bo telling his wives his favorite type of cake (cassia layered cake, which the emperor used to give him,) then sadly remarking, “But I don’t know how he is doing.” This, by the way, is quickly followed by a scene where the emperor goes to their old training room and eats cassia cake while watching the snow fall out the window, complete with flashbacks of the two of them in happier times while a slow, sad version of the opening theme plays in the background. They’re so cute.
Some nice moments for Tony Leung Chiu-wai here. It’s a quick bit, but I really like a scene where he’s forced to reckon with some of the collateral damage he left in fleeing Beijing earlier. You can see the guilt playing out over his face as he tries to keep a lid on it, since the other person isn’t aware that he was responsible. And I like his delivery when he realizes why the Heaven and Earth Society have turned on him, crying, “Why don’t they believe my good deeds? Why are they so ready to believe my bad deeds?” For someone who makes a regular habit of lying and cheating, Wai Siu-bo’s honor is still important to him.
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