Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

Maomao, Maomao, Maomao…no matter how hard you try, you can’t hide your head in the sand forever. More than any other past event, we see here how entwined she has become in the imperial family, and not just as a useful retainer. Although Maomao is still trying her hardest to ignore everything her intuition and logic are telling her and to believe that she can still continue her life as an anonymous palace maid of little consequence (even if she hasn’t really been that since the first episode!).

The eponymous shrine of the episode is an ancient shrine built by the original people who lived in that land. Legend says that the shrine serves as a test to ensure that only the true bloodline of the original queen rule. Any ruler must successfully pass through the shrine in order to rule the land.

However, it turns out that the current emperor has never passed through. The previous emperor’s brothers all perished young due to a mysterious illness leaving no other potential heirs and hence the shrine ritual was abandoned. The emperor turns to (who else) Maomao and asks her to accompany him and Jinshi. The ritual involves passing through a series of rooms with 3 differently colored doors and instructions on which color to choose/avoid. Sounds simple right? And yet, despite following the instructions to the letter, they reach a dead end.

While leaving, the shrine’s caretaker mentions in an aside to Maomao that Luomen would have figured out the solution which stirs up her competitive spirit. After some thought, she asks to go in again but is rebuffed as she is neither consort nor princess and hence can’t interfere with the choice of doors.  Clearly the caretaker realizes she might have figured out the secret and is trying to block her since he didn’t have these objections during their first run.

He does eventually agree to let Maomao and Jinshi try together. I wonder if Maomao realizes the significance of this. They don’t really allude to it in the moment but if Jinshi is just the eunuch he is pretending to be, why would the emperor, or the caretaker for that matter, allow him to attempt the trial. Clearly, he must be of imperial blood, and more importantly, a potential heir to the throne. Is this our first indicator that Jinshi is not just more important than he appears, but also that his status as a eunuch is a tad overexaggerated? Further, is this the emperor’s way of subtly indicating his approval of Jinshi and Maomao since only consorts or concubines of potential heirs are allowed to help?

In any case, they succeed and come out on a balcony where past emperors have stood to receive the oaths of their people. Maomao explains that the original queen of the legend, was actually colorblind. This was passed through the generations and the shrine of choosing is in fact a test of colorblindness. If an emperor candidate was unsuccessful, he usually returned with a consort (implied to be someone connected to the royal bloodline) who could help.

And yet, despite the clues about Jinshi scattered through the episode, Maomao, who is usually almost Sherlock Holmes like in her deductive abilities, tries desperately to hold onto her ignorance. But for how much longer will she be able to manage that?

Stray Musings

• We get an update on Xiaolan’s reading progress and its nice to see that her dedication is paying off
• After the failed test, the emperor half jokingly suggests promoting Maomao to consort to allow her access to the shrine. Her outrage is of course expected, but Jinshi’s outrage almost equals hers!
• Jinshi has a nightmare at the onset of the episode -hearkening back to a bad childhood memory and alluding to the complicated nature of his family history. I do question though why he seemed to believe the current emperor was his father for an extended period of his childhood. I know it is implied in Season 1 that he is actually the emperor’s child with Ah Duo but if so, he was switched as a baby itself. And even if he didn’t have any contact with his supposed father, wouldn’t he have been brought up viewing the current emperor as his (much) elder brother? Would love to know if this is a plothole or if there’s some earlier lore that I’ve missed