Guardian rewatch: episode 2

[selenay]

I had genuinely forgotten how many things happen in this episode. The whole ending, where they call in the Black Cloaked Envoy for a chat and then Chu has his private chat outside with the Black Cloaked Envoy, was something I was sure had to have happened in a later episode but no. It's episode 2.

And I'm still not over Zhao Yunlan's little wave after the Envoy has made his big dramatic entrance. May never be over that.

This whole episode gave me thoughts about our heroes and their different faces. Zhao Yunlan's disaster bisexual flirtatious self is on full display a lot of the time in this episode, but he's also taking the time to think things through and show that he's got a brain under there. It's one of the reasons I like his character so much - he's exuberant, ridiculous, flirtatious, and thinks of himself as heartless and incapable of love (at the start). But he's also thoughtful, caring, and kind, and after he meets Shen Wei it turns out that he's capable of more love than he'd imagined. The surface he shows is fun, but it's the complexity underneath that makes him real.

When I first watched these episodes, I thought of the professor as Shen Wei's disguise, but I don't think it is. He genuinely cares about his students and his research. Yes, calling at the hospital with food for Li Qian might have been a little bit about checking on the SID, but it was mostly that he worried about her. His role as Professor Shen is real, it's a core part of who he is, it's just not the whole of who he is any more than the Black Cloaked Envoy is his whole self. He's had to compartmentalise to maintain his roles in both Haixing and Dixing but neither of those roles are strictly disguises, not in the sense of being someone he isn't.

The closest he gets to being his whole self, professor and Envoy, is in the months after Zhao Yunlan discovers who he is but even then there are things he has to keep hidden. Or at least, he thinks there are because his plans are terrible and if he'd just told Zhao Yunlan what he was planning they might have found a better option (nope, never going to be over that).

And now that I've made myself sad, I'll think about other parts of this episode.

I'm assuming that Shen Wei got the nasty gashes in his arm from the shadow guy, because if he'd got them when he fell off the roof into the convenient (and surprisingly injury-preventing) bushes, his jacket and shirt should have been torn and bloody. I'd forgotten how painful that scene looked, I was more focused the first time on the logic of how he got those gashes when he looked fine getting out of the bushes.

The second rooftop scene has so many things. The first time Shen Wei's "Zhao Yunlan is doing something dangerous!" alarm goes off and he appears in the nick of time. His look of devastation when he sees Zhao Yunlan has been hurt. The way he's so visibly torn between caring for Li Qian and worrying over Zhao Yunlan.

The comment about exchanging his life to save the person he loved more than anything in the world. That one has so much more significance now I've seen the ending.

Guo sharing the story of being raised by his grandmother was the first time I started to like his character. It gave context for so many things about him.

And of course, this is the episode where Zhao Yunlan makes the shift from mildly intrigued to definitely interested in Shen Wei. That hospital corridor talk is...not subtle. Interrogations of people you are suspicious of don't usually start with a check on their marital status, Zhao Yunlan.

They don't usually end with interrogator and interrogatee asking each other on a date, either.

Between that and Zhao Yunlan getting totally distracted from chasing a suspect by Shen Wei looking slightly injured (thank you, camera angle, for also making it clear that it was Shen Wei's ass that caught his attention first) plus the loaded looks in every interaction, the show's mission statement was on full display.

Shen Wei getting himself conveniently stuck in a car so the Black Cloaked Envoy could come to the rescue was...I'm sorry, it was adorable. And he managed to do a bit of saving from inside the car before the Black Cloaked Envoy appeared. Oh, Shen Wei.

Now that I know, I'm afraid that I did yell a bit at Zhao Yunlan touching the sundial. Stop touching the Hallows, Zhao Yunlan! They're very bad for you! Even the one that is conveniently the right size for whatever plot point they need!

I'd forgotten how early we see Zhu Jiu in the show. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was sure he was in the background with his game board for a lot longer, but it's episode 2 and he's already emerged once to punish a minion. Hiss.

The benefit of rewatching is that things that didn't make sense the first time around make more sense, and I'm happy to handwave the odd thing that will probably never make sense because it got mangled when editing. I'm mostly rewatching because of the characters, anyway, and it's such a joy to see them here before everything got very serious and sad.

Comments

[soupytwist]

The "wow, Shen Wei's ass" camera shot is HILARIOUS, like, talk about subtlety. ZYL literally skids to a halt, does a :o! face at his ass, and then continues. Heeeeee.

And YES to his having a brain under there. I love that: he ramps up the surface so much that seeing the serious, dedicated, intelligent person under all the flirty ridiculousness is so great.

[selenay]

ZYL literally skids to a halt, does a :o! face at his ass, and then continues. Heeeeee.

It was not subtle AT ALL and I loved it. Mission statement for the show right there.

he ramps up the surface so much that seeing the serious, dedicated, intelligent person under all the flirty ridiculousness is so great.

It's character catnip for me, which explains a lot about my feeling for this show, and I love any scene where he defies expectations.

[hils]

Interrogations of people you are suspicious of don't usually start with a check on their marital status, Zhao Yunlan.
Loooooooool!

They don't usually end with interrogator and interrogatee asking each other on a date, either.
They are so ridiculous I literally can't deal with it. I love that compared to The Untamed where it takes them FOREVER to sort their shit out Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan actually fall for each other pretty quickly even with all the secrets and lies. I mean Shen Wei has been in love for 10,000 years but you know what I mean.

[selenay]

I mean Shen Wei has been in love for 10,000 years but you know what I mean.

Shen Wei is there from episode 1 and doesn't hide it, but Zhao Yunlan is intrigued early and head over heels by around episode 7 at the latest. And he's never exactly subtle about it, the entire show is their epic romance and the things that happen to thwart it.

Although I do also read it as Shen Wei having been in love for 10,000 years, but then falling all over again when he meets Zhao Yunlan because he isn't quite the man Shen Wei remembers even though he also totally is. Gosh, time travel makes romance complicated.

The Untamed is taking a lot longer to get to that point, but it also didn't start with one of them having been in love for 10,000 years. And it's more that they're falling in love kicking and fighting it at every step, which is also interesting but a totally different type of story :D