Story of Minglan Rewatch - Episode 2

[laleia]

Episode 2

(Note re: any observations I make on English subtitles — I’m watching episode 2 on YouTube on the CN DRAMA channel.)

Scene - Competing for Grandmother’s favor!

• Grandmother, speaking to Molan on Concubine Lin: “She’s a talented one. You are her biological daughter so you take after her naturally.” Such shade! And then she’s like, Minglan has already come and gone (implying Molan is lazy). Throwing shade again!
• Molan’s habit for throwing tantrums really doesn't change when she gets older. I recall quite a few scenes where she smashes things in a very similar rage.
• Do we see Hualan again before the mid-series bits? I have no recollection of it if so. But she wouldn’t have left the household until the wedding and there should have been months between an engagement ceremony and a wedding ceremony. [Update — in a later scene, Papa Sheng mentioned that Hualan has a gift for Concubine Wei and is going to come by the next day to visit, so Hualan is still here! I just have no recollection of her, apparently. This is not uncommon. There are quite a few places where characters I’d written off as “shows up for 3-5 episodes for a plot arc and never appears again” turned out on rewatch to have shown up earlier, I just didn’t remember their names or faces.]
• Even though Concubine Lin has a lot of power relative to Concubine Wei or Big Madam, she still has to teach her daughter to suck up to Grandmother because her power is so precariously contingent on one man and the societal strictures are working against her and her children. Meanwhile, Grandmother has a lot of authority in the household and the societal strictures are in her favor — filial piety is baked into the law and if Papa Sheng disrespected her, he could be censured in court. She has to constantly weigh that against the practical implications of her situation, though. Papa Sheng is not her biological son so he has a weaker emotional bond with her. If she overuses her power, it is very likely that Papa Sheng would stop listening to her. Meanwhile, Big Madam has the power granted to her by societal strictures due to her position as the main wife and she should have the weight of emotion on her side — she’s been married to him the longest and they went through some hardships earlier on (referenced last episode where Papa Sheng mentioned Hualan is secretly his favorite because she grew up in relative difficult circumstances compared to the rest of the children, and that’s also why the oldest two children are both Big Madam’s, because she was his only woman at that time) — which should only have strengthened their emotional bond. But, frankly, Big Madam is dumb, she doesn’t use her power effectively, she doesn’t have good judment, she makes terrible decisions, and that is why she has so little power compared to what she should. (Of course that’s still way more power than Concubine Wei / Minglan have.)
• The subtitles just translated “儿子疏忽了” as “I have languished” — is that what languished means? OK, I just looked it up and it does not but I think I know how they got here.
  • So I would translate this phrase as “Your son has been careless” or “Your son has neglected this matter.” (But “I” works perfectly well — it’s common in this period of history to refer to yourself in the third person by reference to your relation to the person you are speaking to, and it is as natural (or at least as non-stilted) as saying “I”, just more formal. At least, that’s the impression I get from watching dramas and reading webnovels.) Anyways, being “neglectful” is a fair translation for the phrase 疏忽 (shuhu).
  • The word “languish” I generally associate with a lady lying on a fainting couch with her wrist over her forehead, languishing — why yes, I have read an excessive amount of Regency romance novels. Merriam Webster defines “languish” as becoming “weak, feeble or enervated” or “living in a state of depression” or becoming “dispirited”, all of which I would use to describe my lady on the fainting couch. Merriam Webster also offers up “to suffer neglect”, which I suspect is what the subtitlers seized on.
  • Of course, they got it opposite — Papa Sheng means he is the perpetrator of neglect, not the sufferer of neglect.
• Another translation note — they translated “明儿吃” as “Eat it tomorrow.” 明儿 (Ming’er) is a nickname for Minglan, and 吃 (chi) means eat. What he is actually saying is “Ming’er can eat it.” The subtitles got confused though, because 明儿 (ming’er) can also be short for 明天 (mingtian), which means tomorrow. So yes, “明儿吃” can mean “Eat it tomorrow” in a different context, but that’s not what he means here.
• bb!Minglan and bb!Xiaotao are still adorable. They are so cute as they run off in their tiny dresses — though I do wonder how run-able those dresses are.
• Hmmm … more later on the guard letting Xiaodie out here.

Scene - Attempted assassination of Gu Tingye!

• The scene of the mountain and the river at the very beginning is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like something out of a Chinese ink painting. Contrast this with the scenes of the boat where the river scenery is in the background — that looks so faked / CGI’d.
• I think that Changbai’s story about Zhang Xuejiu is explaining to Gu Tingye why they were able to get the home tutor that we end up seeing post-timeskip. I’m not positive, but I don’t think this is the same backstory from the novel. I don’t quite recall, but I thought there was some other backstory behind how they got him to come out of retirement for one last (relatively chill) job in the novel, but the more I am thinking about this, the more I think I may be mixing up the novel!plot for this vs. for The Sword and the Brocade’s novel. Apparently, “how to hire a top-notch scholar to teach your sons” is a common issue faced by reasonably-positioned households, if webnovels are to be believed.
• Gu Tingye’s and Changbai’s conversation is very foreshadow-y — Gu Tingye mentions that his family is very martial and he doesn’t have the temperament for the scholarly route. He will end up having the talent for it but he and Changbai will have a whole conversation ~35 episodes from now about why even when he could go back to take the imperial exams, he’s committed to the martial route. I think they may even come to the same conclusion as now, that having a warrior and a scholar between the two of them will best serve their country.
• In retrospect, the assassins attacking are so sudden because this had been such a slow-moving and chill and non-martial drama so far. I’m pretty sure on my first watch I was very confused about this entire scene, with no idea who these two guys were exactly, why we had a scene with them, why they were being attacked, and which one was which. (Yes, I know they are wearing very different colors — colors they end up very helpfully sticking to for the entire pre-timeskip era, likely for the same reason that Duncan and Logan in Veronica Mars wore different primary colors, so poor confused viewers like me could more easily tell them apart, and yet I still couldn’t figure out what as going on in this scene.) I know I’m not alone in this confusion because I’m pretty sure the Viki comments for this scene had similar question and people explaining which of these two men were the future ML (and I’m pretty sure I turned on the VIki timed comments when I watched this part because I was looking for these answers).
• I do like how they choreographed the fights with a hapless Changbai being physically moved around by Gu Tingye as Gu Tingye tries to keep him from dying and — at one point — from getting his dick chopped off by that ax dude.
• Gu Tingye is able to take down armed assassins with nothing more than a slingshot! Impressive! He’s like 13 or something, right?
• Changbai is such a damsel in distress. Even when Minglan was rescued in the future, she never called out “Gu Tingye, save me!” like Changbai is doing now. Oh, sorry, “Zhonghuai, save me!” :P
• OK, I’m having some difficulty following the sequence of events. After Changbai falls into the water, someone jumps after him. Is that one of the assassins trying to kill him? Or Changbai’s servant, trying to save him?

Scene - Charcoal drama!

• First, Papa Sheng visits Minglan and Concubine Wei, which he clearly never does otherwise. (No wonder Minglan will later observe that “The time that I needed him [to be present in my life] is past.”)
  • I have to admit I had a difficult time psyching myself up to watch this scene on my first watch because all signs indicated that (1) bb!Minglan was going to raise a fuss about the charcoal and (2) things were going to go horribly wrong. And as mentioned before, I hate when things go wrong, especially if I know they’re coming in advance. I've paused many a show/movie because something terrible was about to happen and I didn't want to deal with it just then but fully intended to pick it up again later and then just… never did.
  • The scene starts with Papa Sheng holding bb!Minglan while harmonious and fun music plays in the background, almost as if this were your ordinarily cute family scene, as opposed to a distant/absent father/husband deigning to make his once-in-a-blue-moon visit.
  • This conversation between Concubine Wei and Papa Sheng is so awkward. Being a concubine just seems so awkward.
  • I felt so much tension watching this scene the first time. Like Concubine Wei, I wanted to tell Minglan to shut up, because she was going to incur the wrath of important people.
  • But thinking on it now—Minglan is right, this isn’t sustainable. Concubine Lin probably won’t let Concubine Wei freeze to death, but no guarantees. Even when she causes Concubine Wei to straight up die in childbirth (as was apparent to everyone but Papa Sheng), she got away with it. Concubine Wei thinks that putting up with this abuse in order to avoid making waves will ensure Minglan’s and her survival but that’s not necessarily the case.
  • But Concubine Wei was right that speaking to Papa Sheng is not the answer. Papa Sheng is too easily manipulated to fix anything. To achieve a solution, you need either power or effective planning. What Grandmother teaches Minglan in the future is how to plan when you don't have power, how to correctly gauge the people around you and predict their responses so you can make sure that any action you take will achieve the result you desire.
  • Here, Minglan is too young and doesn’t have that training yet.
  • Concubine Wei is right that Minglan’s best course of action is to go live with Grandmother but Minglan is also right that this leaves her mother pretty much screwed.
  • Papa Sheng grew up the son of a disfavored concubine, who was constantly bullied by his father’s favored concubine. That’s what is so frustrating through a lot of the show. He should understand how Concubine Wei and Minglan are being screwed over because he has been in a similar situation in the past. But he’s such a fucking dumbass that this piece of his past becomes something Concubine Lin can weaponize (because she knows exactly how to arouse his sympathy), rather than something he can use to see with clarity that Concubine Lin is not his disfavored bio-mom of the past, but the favored, bullying concubine that caused him and his bio-mom (and his legal mother! Grandmother was bullied too at the time!) so many difficulties.
  • In fairness to the character of Papa Sheng, the book version of him is much less dumb and doesn’t fall for Concubine Lin’s tricks that much. Drama!Papa Sheng is a dumbass and I hate him so much.
  • Anyways, I think that’s why Papa Sheng is so upset when he storms off here — he knows the pain that Concubine Wei and Minglan are experiencing.
  • bb!Minglan is so trusting when she says and thinks that everything will be better, that Papa Sheng will get them justice. Concubine Wei’s eyes though — she knows that’s not what’s happening.
  • When Papa Sheng storms off to see Big Madam (incorrectly thinking it’s her fault), one of his servants peels away (or maybe someone he walks by?) to go report to someone. Is this Dongrong? [Note from later: Confirmed! It was indeed Dongrong!]
• Next, Sheng Papa and Big Madam have yet another spat.
  • At the very beginning, Big Madam namechecks Caihuan — is that the servant that betrays her to Madam Kang later in the drama? One thing I’ve noticed on rewatches is how character’s names get mentioned early (even if they’re not introduced) to set them in place for later, you just never notice on your first watch.
  • We have this dramatic scene, which immediately segues into humorous music as Papa Sheng is huffy that Big Madam doesn’t comfort him in his anger. I feel like this humorous music backs like 90% of the scenes with Big Madam even when the scene itself is tonally very different.
  • Big Madam’s main weakness is she doesn’t know how to speak to Papa Sheng. (She also lacks common sense, but still, the main reason she faces so many difficulties in the Sheng household is because she can’t get on the right side of Papa Sheng.). That becomes apparent here when Liu-mama has to be the one to point out that it’s not Big Madam’s fault — she’s not capable of effectively defending herself. To be fair, having your servant stand up to you can be an effective tactic but this particular exchange is clearly not premeditated. Her first reaction when accused of something (that comes out of the blue for her, to be fair) is not to find out more information, or calm down Papa Sheng, but to immediately express outrage, accuse the concubine of getting above her station, and gripe that Papa Sheng doesn’t treat her as well as the concubines. Nothing she says makes her sound like she’s in the right (even though she is!) until Liu-mama steps in.
  • Papa Sheng’s just so frustrating. Honestly, he should know who is “managing the household”, and shouldn’t need a servant to remind him that a concubine is currently doing it rather than his main wife (a departure from the norm!).
• Then, Concubine Lin is summoned by Big Madam and Papa Sheng.
  • For the record, I am trying to watch one episode a week, and I wrote all of the above about the first half of the episode at the beginning of the week. Then I spent the next 5 days editing what I had already written instead of continuing the episode because I didn’t want to watch what comes next. I’m going to be so sad when Xiaodie is framed / kicked out! I don’t want to be sad! You can see why I basically never cover these early eps in my rewatches.
  • I have to say, even the way Concubine Lin curtsies is annoying. She does this willowy swaying-in-the-breeze thing, and talks with this particular dulcet tone. You can see how Concubine Lin “puts on” the voice/posture when she’s in public vs when she’s in private and frankly, you see the same used by every concubine and/or prostitute character in every period cdrama ever. I wonder if one particular actress coined this particular posture/vocal register and every other actress is copying her, or if not, how these particular traits got to be associated culture/society-wide with concubines.
  • “真是一山还有一山高” weirdly got translated to “This is what you call a mountain after another mountain”. I mean, I guess you can figure out from context what she is saying but the subtitles don’t make sense if you don’t have all the context. I would translate it as “This is what you call ‘for every mountain, there’s a higher mountain’.” The Chinese saying means there’s always going to be someone out there smarter / better than you. Here, Big Madam is saying that Changfeng did this outrageous thing, but here comes Concubine Lin, doing something even more outrageous.
  • 官人 gets translated here as “the magistrate” and I have seen subs on different platforms translating the term similarly or as “the official” or “the lord” when it shows up. The term can mean “an official” but it also is a wife’s form of address for her husband in old-timey period-drama China. So if you’re ever watching a period drama where the subs say a wife is referring to her husband as “the magistrate” or “the official”, now you know she’s just saying “husband”. (I’m not positive about the exact vibes the term is supposed to give off — here, Big Madam is using it very matter-of-factly as if it is just a clinical term but when Concubine Line uses it, it gives off very “~hubby~” vibes.)
  • Compare the deliberate and effective way Concubine Lin and Xueniang coordinate here vs Big Madam and Liu-mama in the prior scene. Concubine Lin is just better at acting and plotting.

Scene - an interlude!

• Changbai is rescued from the water! Uh, was Changbai in the water from daytime until nighttime? Did his parents not notice? How does he not have pneumonia?
• Hualan’s brother-in-law is such a douche. I’m going to call him douche!Yuan from now on because I still refuse to learn his name even though it’s come up a few times.

Scene - Charcoal drama continued!

• Poor Xiaodie is going to be framed now …
• So the servant comes to point fingers at Xiaodie and imply that she stole all the charcoal and has been selling it on a continuing basis. It’s just not clear to me if this was a premeditated plan — if they set up that nanny at the door to insult Xiaodie (and the guard to keep her from going out with her charcoal) so she could only go out suspiciously through the side door — or if that was just happenstance that they chose to take advantage of.
• Concubine Wei shows her spine for possibly the first time so far, declaring that Xiaodie is from her courtyard and Xueniang doesn’t have the right to pronounce judgment. It’s because she knows what’s important — she didn’t consider her own material comfort important but she knows what’s at risk for Xiaodie.
• Unfortunately, there’s not much she can do. Concubine Wei tries to appeal to Big Madam to find out the truth. But Big Madam is not effective enough (and does not care enough).
• Meanwhile, Concubine Lin has completely reframed the entire situation as Xiaodie stealing charcoal and then blaming it on Big Madam — Concubine Line manages to entirely remove herself from the narrative, as if no matter what could result, she was never to blame.
• Concubine Wei asks Papa Sheng for a thorough investigation but Papa Sheng is not interested in that. As will be a recurring theme throughout the drama, his primary concern is his reputation. He doesn’t want to lose face and the idea of a thorough investigation and possibly going to the authorities is inconceivable to him. He resents the idea so much he starts shouting at and blaming Concubine Wei. (Who tried to convince Minglan not to raise the issue in the first place because she suspected something like this would happen.) He also blames Concubine Lin and Big Madam for mismanaging the household.
• You see here how the three different women react.
  • Concubine Lin immediately acknowledges her mistake in a way that will be pleasing to Papa Sheng, plays the delicate flower, pretends to be injured by Big Madam. Her goal is to get Papa Sheng on her side.
  • Big Madam argues with him instead, insults Concubin Lin, accuses Papa Sheng of favoring concubines over his legal wife (something I think he could have been censured for at court), says angry words at him and Concubine Lin and tries to hit Concubine Lin. She has no goal, she’s just angry and doesn’t know how to handle it.
  • Concubine Wei … says and does nothing. She knows there’s no point and you can see the look on her face as this entire thing becomes just another iteration of the Concubine Lin vs. Big Madam power struggle. She knows that once this folds into that, Xiaodie is doomed.
• So Papa Sheng blames everything on Xiaodie. At this point, he isn’t just blaming the missing charcoal and alleged embezzlement on her — he now blames her for all of the fights and familial disharmony because it’s convenient to transfer all of that to her instead of acknowledging that the reason there is disharmony between his wife and concubines is because he is shitty husband and a shitty head of household. But of course, how could Papa Sheng ever accept blame for anything? So Xiaodie’s fault it is.
• As the sad music plays, Concubine Wei realizes she has to give up on clearing Xiaodie’s name and instead try to preserve her life. She knows better than to appeal to Papa Sheng’s mercy. Instead, she implies that killing Xiaodie will jinx Hualan’s marital happiness and Grandmother’s health, appealing to his filial piety and to Big Madam’s superstition.

Scene - Segue to the other plot going on!

• Right as Big Madam freaks out about the jinx on Hualan’s happiness, we get this amazing segue from Big Madam threatening to report the theft to the authorities because she’s mad at Papa Sheng for potentially jinxing Hualan’s engagement — to the servant coming in and saying they need to report to the authorities that Changbai was beaten (and Gu Tingye is missing). You have the comedy of Papa Sheng throwing something at the servant, thinking he’s talking about the same thing that Big Madam is and focused on not losing face, immediately followed by everyone’s dramatic reaction after they digest what the servant is saying.
• Then we get even more dramatic music as people leave their homes in the middle of the night to gather! And figure out how to solve this disaster!
• Then we have douche!Yuan freaking out and explaining Gu Tingye’s backstory (which TBH I didn’t not understand the first time I watched this drama; there had already been way too many people introduced). But really, WTF was douche!Yuan thinking? Why did he bring a duke’s son incognito and tell nobody? Gu Tingye probably his his identity on purpose because he wanted to get his grandfather’s fortune (I think) and not tip off his mother’s family, but why would douche!Yuan agree?

Various other scenes rounding out the episode!

• We meet the doctor that will show up again in ~30 episodes! Interesting to consider that the segue above directly results in the doctor being able to recall this visit 30 episodes from now. Concubine Lin and Xueniang are super sketchy about the whole thing (although they of course act super normal about it), but we don’t find out what their plots mean until we see the doctor again.
• Xiaodie and Xiaotao’s farewell is so sad!
• I’ve said this a few times in tags on tumblr but I think this show really tries to signal people’s character (not just moral character but also overall competence) vis-a-vis their servants. Even though Concubine Wei lacked any power whatsoever in the Sheng household, she was able to preserve the life of her servant and retain that servant’s loyalty. Frankly, the way she tied Xiaodie’s life to Hualan’s future happiness was very clever and very effective. And her efforts for Xiaodie are rewarded when Xiaodie helps with avenging her. Compare this to how Concubine Lin’s Xueniang ended up, or how Yuanruo’s Buwei ended up.
• Even so, I’m sure there’s a lot of regret all around — Xiaodie wishes she had been cleverer; Concubine Wei wishes she had more power.
• We see Gu Tingye’s fake corpse. At first on this rewatch, I thought that the people who found the body might have cut the corpse’s throat because they were bribed to make sure Gu Tingye was definitely dead. But I checked the subs and it said they were going to cut his hair in order to get rewarded (?). And also this corpse is so very clearly dead they wouldn’t have needed to cut its throat. But uh why cut his hair??? Unclear and I don’t think I will ever find out. This is the kind of thing I used to go to Viki for and turn on the comments to see if someone had an explanation, but Minglan isn’t available on Viki in the US anymore. :(
• We get a scene where bb!Minglan is happy about the servants and the food and the charcoal (though she’s said that Xiaodie isn’t there). She doesn’t realize like Concubine Wei does that the loss of a loyal servant is more important — that someone else sending you servants just meant they’ve sent their spies. She will in the future, but for now she is young and innocent.
• We end with the Bais in a scene that was very confusing for me the first time I watched it and is only barely less confusing to me on rewatch. I guess the gist is that the Bais have received confirmation that Gu Tingye is dead so they can feel comfortable that nobody will crash the will-reading where they try to take all of Gu Tingye’s maternal grandfather’s assets.

And that's all for Episode 2!

Comments

[sakana17]

But, frankly, Big Madam is dumb, she doesn’t use her power effectively, she doesn’t have good judment, she makes terrible decisions, and that is why she has so little power compared to what she should.

Yes! Oh, it's so frustrating. Especially later, seeing that she doesn't have to be dumb. She's capable of thinking more clearly, but she gets in her own way.

Papa Sheng is so awful and I hate him so much that I viscerally react whenever I see the actor in something else. (And half the time, he's playing a similarly awful father character, which doesn't help...)

So if you’re ever watching a period drama where the subs say a wife is referring to her husband as “the magistrate” or “the official”, now you know she’s just saying “husband”.

Thank you for explaining this!

It's late, but I will be coming back again to read the rest of your rewatch notes, because these are great.

(And Minglan is available on Viki in the US again, yay!)

[dancing_serpent]

And as mentioned before, I hate when things go wrong, especially if I know they’re coming in advance. I've paused many a show/movie because something terrible was about to happen and I didn't want to deal with it just then but fully intended to pick it up again later and then just… never did.

I'm so glad you said this! I often feel stupid for feeling this way, and seeing that I'm not alone in this is really helpful. I've stopped watching things until either someone could spoil me for an outcome, or I've taken really long breaks - weeks, months, even up to a year - until I felt like my emotions had cooled down again. And yes, some things I haven't been able to pick up again.

I love how we're all on the same page on how awful Papa Sheng is. Including sakana17 here, because I read the comment and wholeheartedly agree!

Again, this write-up is impressive and also very interesting! It makes me want to re-watch right now, even though I have my plate full at the moment. Also, I'll come back to reading more tomorrow, need to do other things right now. *g*

[laleia]

Oh I didn't realize Minglan was back on Viki again, that's great! I love rewatching dramas with the comments on because it feels kind of like a groupwatch where I hear everyone else chime in on how much they also hate XYZ character, or say an opinion about a character that I super disagree with.

Papa Sheng is so awful and I hate him so much that I viscerally react whenever I see the actor in something else. (And half the time, he's playing a similarly awful father character, which doesn't help...)

I know what you mean! I try super-hard not to let my opinions of actor's or actress's past characters influence my opinion of their current character in a show, but sometimes I just can't help it. The worst is when I secretly hate a character for no reason and don't know why, only to realize 10 episodes later that the actor was in something else and I didn't realize.

[laleia]

I'm so glad you said this! I often feel stupid for feeling this way, and seeing that I'm not alone in this is really helpful. I've stopped watching things until either someone could spoil me for an outcome, or I've taken really long breaks - weeks, months, even up to a year - until I felt like my emotions had cooled down again. And yes, some things I haven't been able to pick up again.

I tell myself that I haven't dropped those shows, they're just on hiatus. And sometimes, I have indeed picked the show back up again years later! So it's not a lie! I think I took at least a year (if not more!) break after episode 1 of Minglan, and there's at least one kdrama where I took almost a decade break before continuing!