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

We’ve had mentions of the late Emperor dropped throughout the series – enough to paint the picture of a weak, ineffectual man. An Emperor not held in high regard and viewed as a puppet of his power-hungry mother, the late Empress Regnant. Even worse, a man with a disturbing taste for young girls. And in this pair of episodes, we get a better sense of how all of this came together in such a tragic fashion and the consequences echoing down the years.

Maomao has helped solve problems for a number of concubines, Jinshi, and the Emperor himself. And now it’s the Empress Dowager’s turn to rely on her. Having heard of Maomao from her former attendant Suiren (who currently looks after Jinshi), she visits Gyokuyou’s palace to speak to her.

The Empress Dowager poses her problem to Maomao – she believes that she placed a curse on the late Emperor and wants her help to determine if that was the case. Maomao is taken to see the room of the late Empress Regnant where the late Emperor was raised and where they both passed away within a short time of each other. Following tradition, his body was enshrined for a year before burial but when the Empress Dowager and Emperor saw it after a year, it was practically the same with no decomposition, seeding the idea of the curse in her mind.

Maomao stays over at Jinshi’s residence while she works on the Empress Dowager’s request. There she comes across Jinshi’s old toy box and finds out a piece of an odd yellow stone which proves to be the key to solving the mystery of the late Emperor’s strange death.

<<Spoiler>>

The late Emperor died of arsenic poisoning from the paints he was using when he secluded himself in his late mother’s room. Arsenic, having a preservative effect, prevented the body from decaying even a year after his death.  Definitely not a curse then. And yet, the Empress Dowager appears irritated more than relieved.

It is then that we come to the most intriguing part of the two episodes – the Empress Dowager’s inner monologue as she recollects her history with the late Emperor. So far, we have been painted a picture of a strong, even benevolent woman, who has dealt with a rough hand in her early life, overcome it and has done what she can to survive and change the system within the confines of the limitations placed on her by society. We find out that she established the unofficial women’s clinic that helps the palace attendants, and that she also played a role in introducing the ban on slavery and eunuchs. Through her friendship with Gyokuyou, we also see her as someone who is personable and we are inclined to be on her side through the investigation and hope she finds some peace.

However, as her inner thoughts reveal, the reality is much more complex. Yes, she was a victim – of her father’s hunger for power which put her in the late Emperor’s path as a young girl, of the late Emperor’s predilections, of her upbringing which (probably) taught her to value ambition and ruthlessness over her own desires and comforts. And thus, when she saw a chance to feed her ambition, she took it. However, when she grew older and was cast aside by the late Emperor, she could not bear to be forgotten by someone she viewed as so inferior and essentially forced herself on him. And so wrong begets wrong.

But while she might have been motivated by vengeance, it has the unexpected consequence of causing the late Emperor to shut himself up in seclusion, which in turn protected the younger consorts like Lishu. And that act led to the Empress Dowager’s second pregnancy which fatefully coincided with Ah-Duo’s pregnancy leading in turn to the switching of royal babies. That led to Jinshi being raised as the Emperor’s younger brother rather than son and put him in a position to cross paths with Maomao and avert multiple crises. And so the effects ripple down.

A sombre note to end on for a couple of sombre episodes.

Stray Musings

• Yinghua worrying about Maomao getting kicked out to the storage shed as punishment for her odd behaviour and Maomao actually loving the idea shows how much of a fish out of water Maomao is with this group and yet the genuine care they have for her despite not understanding her one bit.
• Maomao is thoroughly disgruntled that her (already peculiar) reputation is getting trashed due to Shisui’s penchant for collecting bugs with gusto. Funny that she doesn’t mind being considered as weird but draws the line at being blamed for other’s quirks! However, while their personalities might seem polar opposites, they are probably best placed to understand each other given their somewhat ‘unique’ interests compared to the rest of the palace staff.
• As one mystery (about Jinshi’s true identity ) clears up, another takes shape. Who is Shisui really? She’s introduced as a palace maid and yet some things just don’t add up
  • Apparently the other maids can’t find Shisui half the time and mention that she is always vanishing and reappearing out of nowhere. (No spoilers but this will be more important in the future)
  • Shisui appearing just as Maomao is pondering who might have taught Lady Shin about abortion inducers is suspicious timing
  • Shisui hides away from the Empress Dowager, something which a regular palace maid would not really need to do.

• I finally got an answer to why Maomao dresses differently from Gyokuyou’s other attendants (except for formal occasions). It would appear that while she is nominally attached to Gyokuyou’s palace, it is more a temporary base in between her other assignments for Jinshi which often involves going to other parts of the palace. Perhaps that was not the original intent, although given how early on Jinshi came to her, and given her different attire from the start, it is possible that that was arranged with Gyokuyou from the beginning. However, it looks like the strain of the arrangement is beginning to show so I wonder how much longer this will continue.