#when shes openly rude to people or transparently lying or whining or just takes stuff

[llycaons]

okay okay episode 31. riveting from start to finish. it is a genuine shame that the best and most emotional part of the episode was disrupted by poor filmmaking choices

first of all - remember when I said young master zhu had a crush? this poor kid shows up to their fight like “look miss zhou I finally found that key that fell into the lake!!!” and she’s like “we’re fine, get the hell out of here we’re fighting” I feel so bad for him

I guess yin pei is a masked demon with a grudge against black tortoise now?

I am so glad that li sheng’s little adventure with the old man has plot relevance. thanks god we didn't sit through that for nothing

we were robbed of a fight scene between madame nichang and the black tortoise. ROBBED

the battle couple energies though...maneuvering the lock together, xie yun pulling zhou fei into the best position to kill their enemies, the wordless communication, protecting each other, poetic cinema etc.

the sudden reveal that ying hecong’s greatest enemy is also the man that murdered xie yun’s father?? this man with a previously unmentioned connection to big medicine valley? it felt very convenient and out of nowhere

ying hecong is a painfully awkward person and he knows his limits as a healer. he also knows its his own fault. there’s something terribly honest about him and how he openly talks about his failures. but god, he really can be callous. I generally really like socially awkward characters but it hurt to see carefree xie yun ask him not to talk like that about the poison that was killing him with such admiration. and ZF and XY were holding hands almost the whole time too...

my biggest beef with this episode is how the confession/death scene was shot. it just...looked and sounded bad to me. ZF is like 5 feet tall so XY’s feet are dragging the entire time, she’s clearly struggling, and the love song is playing. the fact that she’s continuing on even though it’s hard is a very important character decision for her and the scene at its core is VERY good, the dialogue is poetic and moving, the physical acting is engaging. maybe the best romantic scene in the entire series. but the show didn’t let the audience enjoy it!

we saw XY’s feet dragging every couple shots, the camera was shaking incessantly, and the love song’s lyrics were audible. the foot shots detract from the emotion of the scene, the shaky camera was distracting and nauseating and just made me think of how tired ZF must be, the dialogue was delivered in short bursts that just made me wince, and the lyrics in the song made their voices hard to hear. it was a great scene that was excecuted in such a way that made it hard to watch, which is really a shame.

im so glad the final scene of this episode was so great with the introduction of the old monk, who I already love a lot, fingers crossed he makes it more than 2 episodes.

he really does feel like someone who’s risen above the concerns of the mortal world, not in a callous or insensitive way but in the wisest and kindest way possible. he’s reminding zhou fei of her purpose and her goals and her home and her family and her heritage and her identity. reminding her that losing someone is not the end of the world, that she has her own life to live as well. reminding her not to give up all hope and descend into despair, because death is inevitable and natural. to have perspective.

this approach to death is so healthy for the characters and so refreshing for the audience, and makes me love ZF even more as a protagonist because it reminds us that she does have an arc and motivations and a backstory and a fully realized life outside of her love interest, even though he’s been hogging the spotlight recently. and that if he dies, her story will not end.

I think he works best as a character when he’s on the sidelines. a protagonist XY would overshadow every side character just because he’s got so much personality. but the fact that he has zero ego and constantly supports ZF and encourages her into the spotlight makes their characters more balanced.

anyway. only when she comes to terms with her loss and makes a decision about what to do next does he reveal that he saved XY. he’s fascinating. I hope we see a lot more of him because he’s my favorite mentor character yet.

when he was talking about, specifically, the struggles of women in a world where they have little decision-making power, I really almost cried. lof has so many more women in roles of influence and power than cql did and this is still true in this universe...and who in cql would have ever mentioned it? I love that scene. discussing the nature of fate and suffering with an eight year old...

and he was right, you know? xie yun would never have been happy as a monk