Story of Minglan Rewatch - Episode 8

[laleia]

Episode 8

(Note re: any observations I make on English subtitles — I’m watching episode 8 on YouTube on the CN DRAMA channel.)

Scene - Gu Tingye drama, blah blah blah ….

• Gu Tingye and Shitou are hilarious. Shitou’s fierce face, the way he jump-runs in such a comical way, the way he threateningly throws that random wheel to terrorize the spy-servant, and the way Gu Tingye has this very purposefully-scary-and-haughty look on his face the whole interrogation is just … comedy gold. And then as soon as that servant runs off, they start giggling like schoolboys.
• Madam Qin is so good, you have to hand it to her. The way she can still maintain her good name while sabotaging Gu Tingye right and left, that she maintains her image even with Gu Tingyu, who knows her for the snake she is, that’s commitment.

Scene - Yuanruo drama, blah blah blah …

• I do appreciate that you can tell a Yuanruo scene before anyone even shows up because you just need those three notes of the guzheng/guqin theme.
• Yuanruo’s mom starts lecturing the servant and immediately people bring her a chair to sit in, because they’re used to this behavior from her and know how to accommodate her. Is this the first time we see her on camera? I guess it is meant to demonstrate how closely she is guarding Yuanruo’s chastity, and let us know in advance how much work Yuanruo would have to do to convince her to accept Minglan.
• Yuanruo is not a very good liar. Or convincer.
• We also see that Yuanruo’s mother is very elitist and doesn’t think the Sheng household worthy of her presence, another nail in the coffin on Yuanruo’s hopes to marry Minglan.
• Yuanruo is so un-subtle. It is no wonder he never makes any headway with his mother on his Minglan campaign.
• They bring out the interrogation chair again as Yuanruo’s mother interrogates Buwei. This scene is a little tense, but it’s honestly a lot more tense on rewatch knowing that Yuanruo’s mother will have Buwei beaten to death about 20 episodes from now. She’s ruthless, but I don’t know that the show has yet displayed her utter disregard for human life when it comes to her servants.

Scene - more Gu Tingye drama, plus Nanny Chang!

• Nanny Chang! <3
• Gu Tingye: “Manniang is naturally pure, kind, warm and caring.” Me: Ha!
• The subtitles describe Manniang’s past occupation as a “minstrel” but specifically she was a singer in a brothel. There’s often a trope in Chinese novels/dramas about the singer (or other performer) in the brothel who only “sells her art, not her body” and is therefore pure/virtuous but looked down upon by society.
• Gu Tingye: “Subsequently, then … there were children.” That's a very passive-voice way of putting it. Both here and when he described the Manniang situation to Changbai earlier, he really downplays his active involvement and makes it all sound like something that happened to him rather than something he participated in. But it takes two to tango!
• The look on Gu Tingye’s face when Shitou tells Nanny Chang about how Gu Tingye was beaten by his father … such a hilarious glare. Gu Tingye and Shitou are hilarious.

Scene - we meet Kong-momo!

• I’m so biased because I care way more about Minglan scenes than about Gu Tingye scenes or Yuanruo scenes.
• The scene with Caihuan and Concubine Lin is very funny, especially comparing how Caihuan acts now vs. how nervous she was about doing the same when she was younger, pre-timeskip. I definitely did not realize on first watch how many times Caihuan shows up before her ~betrayal~ 50 episodes from now.

Scene - more Gu Tingye drama, sigh ….

• We get the backstory about Gu Tingye’s mom. I feel bad for her, but I really care so little about Gu Tingye’s backstory. This entire flashback is very well-told, and is very poignant, I found it gripping on my first watch, and yet on every subsequent rewatch, I have either skipped it or sped through it.
• If you think about it, Asshole Father ruined three women’s lives. He wasn’t resolute enough to protect his first wife from his parents (driven to death by threat of divorce), he was an asshole to his second wife, and he drove his third wife crazy. (Madam Qin is awful but it is clear in some of her monologues by the end that she married into a mediumly bad situation and just made the most of it; she married a man obsessed with her older sister and drowning in overall guilt for his previous wives, who was generally an asshole, and she had virtually no long-term prospects from her marriage because the heir was likely going to be one of her two stepsons who were less likely to demonstrate any familial obligation to her, so she would likely be screwed once her husband died.)
• One thing I noticed on rewatch (but not on my first watch) is that the unknown “maid” who whispers to Gu Tingyu that Bai-shi killed his mother is actually Madam Qin.
• Gu Tingye’s mother is pretty badass. She tries to make the most of her situation but if her husband is going to be an asshole, she doesn’t give a shit, he can keep the money but she’s willing to take her son and go. She knows her father loves her, and she doesn’t care about gossip. Alas, things don’t work out for her.
• Watching this scene just pisses me off. Asshole Father was such an Asshole Husband. On reflection, it’s interesting because he is not evil. He’s not actively malicious. In the scene where Gu Tingye’s mother is threatening to leave, and then goes into early labor, you can see that he doesn’t want her to die, that he didn’t want this to happen. He’s just … an asshole.

Scene - Concubine Lin plies her wiles!

• Such a tonal shift from the last scene!
• Papa Sheng: “Beauties are plenty. But a beauty with so much talent and understanding of me is a rarity.” I know he doesn’t mean it that way (the phrase he uses means “to be good at understanding others” generally and not him specifically), but Concubine Lin is definitely “talented” and “understands” aka “is great at manipulating” him specifically. Take her every word in this scene:
  • She says that she is old, just for him to compliment her and call to mind her assets.
  • She brings up the first time they met, and reiterates that she has no complaint about being his concubine, reminding him of their love and also that she is indeed at a disadvantage as his concubine.
  • (Digression: Papa Sheng says, “Shuang’er, I shall never let you regret.” But his words cannot be trusted, he does give her much cause for regret later on.)
  • She brings up their children and how good they are, as a segue to being able to bring up how Molan is both so obedient and good (not at fault for the debacle in front of Countess Wu), but still in need of lessons from the momo.
  • In order to explain why Molan needs lessons, she does try to cast some blame on Molan but because “her temperament is like mine, just too soft.” This is like interviews when you are asked what your greatest weakness is and you have to come up with a weakness that is not really a weakness. Concubine Lin ascribes to Molan a weakness that would be the most palatable to Papa Sheng.
  • And Concubine Lin immediately blames Big Madam, saying that Big Madam is punishing Molan because Concubine Lin is too favored. With those words, she gets at Papa Sheng’s insecurities and pushes his buttons (his constant concern that Concubine Lin and her children will be bullied like he and his mother were) and also at the same time magically changing the momo’s lessons from a punishment (that Molan doesn’t have to suffer from) to a reward (that Molan is denied).
  • Then she talks about the disadvantages Molan suffers for being born to a concubine, and blames this on her own weakness for choosing to be Papa Sheng’s concubine rather than another man’s wife. This calls back Papa Sheng’s promise a few minutes ago that he would make sure she does not regret her choice in this matter.
  • Papa Sheng says again that momo’s lessons are a punishment rather than an honor, and Concubine Lin replies again that Molan is disadvantaged for being born to her — and then asks if Big Madam forbids Molan from attending lessons because she’s jealous of Concubine Lin for earning Papa Sheng’s favor. She’s reiterated all the points she made earlier, plus wrapped them up with a “Big Madam calls the shots instead of you” bow to provoke Papa Sheng.
  • This immediately leads to Papa Sheng erupting in fury that Big Madam is not his boss. She has made it a matter of pride, that he must be able to get Molan in those lessons or he is not the master of the household.

And that’s the end of the episode!