selenay | The Untamed episode 29 (Reply)

The longer we get this run of "nothing actively terrible happens, look at the nice Yiling colony", the more concerned I get about what's coming and how much pain I'm about to go through.

We got the lovely dinner with LWJ and WWX, which I kind of hearts-eyed over, and then we got to see them working together again to help Wen Ning. Battle couple! I loved the way LWJ just gathers up A-Yuan's gifts and runs after WWX when the alert comes, and then grabs A-Yuan to carry him as they run to the burial mounds.

(I also legit can't decide whether LWJ knows about the golden core thing, or has just decided to be supportive and accepting of WWX's choices no matter how odd they seem.)

And they didn't need to decide a plan for Wen Ning, they just did what had to be done and each knew what their strengths were and it was lovely. Seeing Wen Ning wake up at the end of all that was perfect and I'm so relieved to see him almost normal again. It was almost as good as seeing Wen Qing finally looking happier and less stressed.

I'm starting to get a suspicion about why Wen Ning is chain-wrapped and angry in the non-flashback bit we saw at the beginning. If WWX is using the Yin Tiger Seal to help, then if WWX dies, there won't be anyone to control it and therefore keep Wen Ning's spiritual consciousness intact. Hearing LWJ bring that up and WWX blithely assuring him nothing will happen...oh, honey, you just sealed your fate right there by the laws of jinx and Chekov's gun.

I pretty much loved all the Yiling scenes (even after LWJ went home). Yup, even WWX accidentally almost blowing himself up trying to invent things. He's turning into a good leader for those people and I'm really enjoying that growth.

Also, I almost died at the Yiling Patriarch fanboys. OMG, show, I can't believe you went there, it was too perfect.

LWJ going back to Cloud Recesses and getting a fairly harsh kneeling in the snow with bamboo swords punishment seems harsh. But also...he must have known a punishment was coming and he decided that visiting WWX was worth it anyway. Awww. He didn't go there to persuade WWX to leave, it was more like he just needed to see WWX and make sure he was doing well, wasn't about to slip over to the dark side. He isn't ready to abandon his clan and live in the burial mounds with WWX, but he needed to know WWX was okay and it was worth a harsh punishment to do that.

WWX's sadness about missing Yanli's wedding was heart-breaking and I'm glad Wen Qing has called him on his drinking, I'm not the only person worried about that. He also managed to be very sad about LWJ not being around (with parallel sadness from LWJ), so that was all very satisfying to my shippy heart.

The problem is that I know this can't last, the rest of the world is moving on and gathering forces. The little farming community WWX is building, and his experiments with his own form of cultivation, can't last forever and that makes each of these scenes lovely and also sad. At some point, it's all going to crash down and he doesn't have enough people in his corner to prevent that.