The writer of Last Empress is just extraordinary. It’s all makjang, yes, but she has this ability to make normal drama happenings that usually take 8-ish eps in other dramas to go through, and condenses it to 1 or 2 eps — for example, the setup and reveal of a birth secret. Then she moves on and throws in something new. Her list of Things to Happen is endless. Then she throws in random tricks that may or may not be relevant to the show, like a makeover scene, an awesome car chase, a people-morphing-into-anime sequence, etc. That’s how she sustained interest for 50+ hours in Jang Bori, and how she’s doing it now in Last Empress. She must be such an interesting person.