*Episode premise spoilers.*
The love polygon stuff is even stronger here than in the last episode, and Zhang Wuji is very much caught in the middle of it. We also get significant character reappearances and extended backstory flashbacks!
Zhang Wuji, Zhao Min, and Zhao disguise themselves to follow Granny Golden Flower, who’s captured Zhou Zhiruo. She’s also after the Dragon Sabre, but they’re surprised to learn that she’s already found it. They discover that she’s brought Wuji’s godfather Xie Xun to the island where she makes her home, and she’s trying to convince him to lend her the sabre. But there are even more enemies on their tail.
There have been several episodes of the show that feature lengthy flashbacks for older-generation characters, and here, we get the lowdown on Granny Golden Flower. Xie Xun tells the young people about her origins, her history with Ming sect, and the reason she now has additional heat on her. We get some good information, and I continue to be very curious about Zhao; I feel like the camera lingers too much on her reactions for her not to be mixed up in all this somehow.
Back when Zhang Wuji was rolling with Zhu’er, he was under an assumed name. At that time, he found out that she’d been in love with him since their first encounter at Master Hu’s, but also that she thought he was dead. Zhu’er didn’t make much of a showing in the love polygon in the last episode, but she makes up for that in a big way here. When Xie Xun asks why she treats him so well, she simply answers, “You are his godfather. In this world, only you and I remember him.” Not to mention, she babbles some serious love-confession stuff while delirious.
Zhao Min, unsurprisingly, is the other possible love interest who really comes in hot here. When she learns that Zhu’er still admires the scar from when Zhang Wuji bit her to get away during their first meeting, the girl bites him and then puts poison in the wound so it’ll leave a more prominent scar. She’s down bad, and she’s such a loose cannon, I love it!
Not as much specifically for Zhao and Zhou Zhiruo in this episode, but all four women are in the same place with Zhang Wuji, and their feelings for him are more out in the open. That’s obviously tough for Wuji. I’m not positive whether he’s attracted to all of them, but regardless, he certainly doesn’t want to hurt anyone. In a way, whatever his own feelings are, he’s put them on hold for the moment to try and juggle everyone else’s. I love how gentle he is when he realizes that Zhao Min got reckless with her safety after seeing him interact with Zhu’er. Very softly, he tells her, “I know you are very good to me. But please don’t do that again.” And I like that, just as he’s a pretty collaborative leader of Ming, he isn’t outright calling the shots here either. When a new plan of action is proposed, he’s quick to ask, “Ladies, what do you think?”
My favorite part of Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s performance this week are the scenes where he encounters Xie Xun under his disguised persona. We’ve seen this sort of thing from him before, when Zhang Wuji was using an alias and ran into Wudang. In these scenes, it’s clear how conflicted he is, how much he longs to reveal himself and get the reunion he’s been craving for like fifteen years. When this happened in earlier episodes, he was the only one who knew who he really was, but now, he has Zhao Min beside him, warning him not to give himself away. It all results in Leung putting his soulful eyes to excellent use!
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