Wonderful recap, as always.

These were solid, exciting episodes with just enough Scooby Gang shenanigans, longing, yearning, and PHS doing sports in gorgeous costumes to make me happy.

Random Thoughts:

--I'm really starting to wonder if the head eunuch guy knows that Jae-yi is a woman. I'm not sure if he's aware that the woman she is is Jae-yi, but the way he immediately assured her of future employment after Hwan threw her out, and a few could-be knowing glances here and there make me think he might recognize that Eunuch Go is no eunuch.

--This is not necessarily a criticism because it is understandable in terms of Hwan's characterization, but the writing isn't giving PHS very much to do right now. Hwan is a deeply guarded, stoic, and reticent character who spends a great deal of time living in his own head. But with Jae-yi--the one who took him out into the world, challenged his intellect, turned him into a patient nurse, and clearly turns him on--no longer in close proximity, he has so little to either do or react to.

--In some ways, Jae-yi is like the typical male protagonist in a sageuk, whereby she's out taking charge of her own fate on the daily. I continue to love her intelligence, daring spirit, and penchant for cursing. Even in her petty moments (as when she loudly cheered for Sung-on largely to stick it to Hwan) she's cool.

--I wonder if Myung-jin's intended will end up being in the running for Crown Princess. That part of the plot is clearly going to kick into gear in the next two episodes. I liked the tiny little moment of jealousy and wistfulness when Jae-yi realized she's helping to construct the future home of the woman who will marry Hwan. I don't think she's fully aware yet that her feelings of annoyance with the CP are commensurate with the rate at which her attraction to him is growing, but I liked how the actress subtly played that as a sad recognition of both her own lost marital prospects and the fact that whatever she has with Hwan has a clear expiration date.

--Loved the dialogue on the bridge, although I could have done without the extended dip and stare, complete with swelling OST, at the end of ep. 7. As I've mentioned before, I feel like the PD is still not sure how exactly to highlight the romantic elements of the story without resorting to clumsy tropes. But when these two just talk to each other--or Jae-yi talks and Hwan listens--it's way more sparky and interesting than him saving her from a potential fall.

I could really do without the occult shenanigans….

As he tells “Eunuch Go,” she might have been cheering for him… but she couldn’t take her eyes off Hwan.

Maybe Sung-on could have won the match if he'd been paying attention to the game instead of watching Jae-yi in the audience?

----

shadowy figures atop the roof, black-clad and masked.

So, clad in the traditional ninja uniform -- always perfect for blending in with the crowd while doing covert ops.

I just want to make a suggestion about the romance aspect of this show because I agree with @gikata that excessive use of the love triangle is a waste of a perfectly good charismatic actor, plus its derivative of the comedy sageuk that just appeared and also anticipates the next sageuk that is about to appear. This show is caught in the 2023 Joseon love triangle trap.

In this case, the solution was right before the writer’s eyes: make the princess who has a crush on the sergeant not a pubescent fangirl-relative of the crown prince, but rather a more mature, alluring young woman who is slated to become the wife of the crown prince.

With this easy script fix, the sergeant could still ridiculously have a temporary crush on the idea of Jae-Yi as his betrothed and sense that she's pretending to be a eunuch, but be pulled even more strongly toward the princess who really loves him. The resolution would be him releasing Jae-Yi from her marriage obligation and marrying the princess.

Meanwhile the Crown Prince could battle his sense of obligation to the princess (as I’ve reimagined her) vs. his love for Jae-Yi. The romance resolution would be him releasing the princess from her marital obligation, and marrying Jae-Yi.

The beauty of this romance fix is that the annoying love triangle disappears, the male characters become more complex in their relationships, yet nothing about the occult plot has to change!

Reading this, you might ask: why didn’t the writer and director call Hacja in as a script consultant? He would have made these suggestions free of charge, just to make the drama more to his liking!

Thats an excellent question, that I ask myself as I’m watching this show!

EP 7 was pretty bland. I get that the two leads may have trusted each other too quickly. Hwan still struggles with relationships so I didn't mind him having some time to adjust and face his feelings and mistakes.

Enjoyed EP 8 a lot more! It was infinitely better in terms of action, plot movement, and good old FUN! The polo game was great. I forgot what polo was so it all looked unfamiliar lol. It wasn't a surprise that Hwan won, but it was a nice adrenaline rush, anticipating the moves from the players.

Really loved Jae Yi and Ga Ram's adorably supporting Myung Jin after his rejection. Excited to see the detective crew bonding and working together more.

I randomly watched an old movie Anaconda (1997) recently and just seeing another snake (albeit small in comparison xD) grossed me out hahaha.

Man Deok's wife kept the hometown notice hidden from him so I wonder what came out of that. Didn't seem to have an effect on anything yet or maybe that will be shown next week.

I still think this drama has issues with the different genres.

Hwan's anger and jealousy were weird. It was sudden and the fact nobody questionned the "lover" death is weirder... The guy accused her of murder when they know it's not her, so he lied but why? How convenient his death is? For genius, they're very slow...

I was happy to see that Sung-on was on her side. Now, Hwan promised to make her innocent and get her back to Sung-on, the situation will be more complicated between them. I liked how Sung-on was nice with her as a Eunnuch, he's not jealous of the fact she found the shaman.

I'm impressed by the fact the actors did the polo scene themselves. Being on horse, controlling him with one hand and spinning the cross is not for debutant...

I think there is a tonal shift in the drama. sometimes it is a romcom with love in the moonlight vibes and at other times it is focused on the curse/the murders/ the murder. Episode 7 was the former while episode 8 was the latter. I wish the rest of the plot would blend both romance and investigation together so that we won't get a confusing drama that failed on both ends. Also, I don't want the drama to get too dark.

I struggled with ep 7. But ep 8 reeled me back in. My biggest issue is the way crown prince is written. I am ok if he is broken, scared and distrustful. But the writing seems inconsistent. He just sways too much too soon. I am
Ok if he doubted her for a few days until he gathered his thoughts and then showed signs of regret.
His actions, Be it with Eunuch go or the general
Can be confusing. I think the romantic scenes (the cues music etc) hindered with the story telling. One moment he is swooning (kinda) for her and then promising general to protect her and return her. I was just confused :)

Ep 8 was solid and loved it. I enjoyed the match and the chase. Everything came together beautifully. Loved our detective team. Fighting their own fears yet not losing their selves.

Ga Ram truly showed incredible strength. Love her. Min young seems quite dumb except when it comes to dead bodies. How does he not recognize these two. Lol.

I enjoyed these episodes. I love when the full team gets together with Scholar Park, and he relaxes (slightly). I'm looking forward to seeing the team getting tighter.
I'm still thrown back to 100 Days My Prince everytime I see the couple who run the Inn, even if the husband is a ninja this time round!

I'm afraid the drama isn't grabbing me as much. It's not one specific thing, but lots of little quibbles. The budding romance feels a little forced, the plot too quick on the heels of TFB, too much slapstick, the choppy stitching of the different plot elements, the overacting of the FL, and I hate to say it of PSH, but his acting feels a little wooden. I have hopes on the latter as he's done well in roles where he adored a kickass FL (Happiness, SWBS, Soundtrack) but let's see.

First things first: I might need a more idiomatic translation of “You look like a bird’s nest on a full moon!” What exactly is this meant to convey? She said it at the end of a long string of insults, but I gotta admit, it doesn’t sound that bad. Are we talking a messy clump of twigs, or a neat little swiftlet situation that you might put into soup?

I was glad for a slow-down for a minute in episode 7 to focus on the intertwined relationships between our major characters. We were right that Hwan’s quick reaction was one he regretted almost right away, but I understand his desire to be cautious, especially given his dad’s heartbreaking and questionable advice. Still, trust isn’t always based on evidence, and I’m glad the divide between our leads didn’t last too long. It seems like we might be headed in the direction of repairing the friendship between Hwan and Seong-on also? I mean yeah, Hwan has a massive crush on Seong-on’s fiance, but that can hardly be helped, and he’s being pretty honorable about the whole thing (although I do think he could have let her stay in the library again). Here’s hoping that the lecture Jae-i gave him, the friendly/jealous competition, and the spooky snake incident are going to lead them both in the right direction.

I love that Hwan is the only person in the palace who knows Jae-i’s true identity, and that she’s the only person who knows his identity outside. It makes for some of my favorite interactions in the whole show.

Thank you for your recaps! I watched all 8 episodes so far, this week. I think I might have a thing for these cross dressing sageuks. Something about the lead characters getting to know each other while evading rigid gender roles. It’s probably why I love k drama in general.

I wanted to say about these episodes: I was afraid someone was giving the shaman a baby to kill in jail! So relieved that it was a motif, I mean a snake, instead. Also I fast forwarded through the polo match.

Really loved this week!

I saw some complaints over on MDL, which seem to be shared here, that episode 7 was slow/boring but I disagree. A lot's happened very fast in this drama (as I said last week, it was giving me whiplash), so having an episode allowing our characters to reflect on what's happening, and give Hwan's actions some context - which felt over the top even for him - made for a nice interlude. And set the stage for things to ramp up again in episode 8. Which was a lot of fun!

I will say the romance between our leads is the weakest link in this drama. Not that I'm not totally aboard this ship (I absolutely am!) but it relies too much on tired tropes which aren't necessary. Jae-yi's determination to be loyal to him despite his misgivings, him battling his trust issues, them clinging to each other as a last desperate hope in solving the mysteries threatening to bring them down... there's enough there for a compelling relationship without resorting to the usual rom-com clichés.

It feels like someone in production felt there wasn't enough obvious romance, or didn't trust the audience to see it develop more subtly, so they just went "how about a slow-mo 'she falls and he catches her and they stare at each other swoonily' scene? People still dig those, right?"

Not looking forward to the potential love polygon and Crown Princess selection complicating things, even if it is realistic that the Powers that Be would want to marry our CP off. I am looking forward to our foursome reuniting to do more sleuthing - especially with our budding bromance between Myung-jin and our emotionally stunted Hot Scholar. Though I'm giving side-eye to our resident genius detective not catching on to our heroines' identities (despite literally staring at our girls' wanted posters side by side), but I guess his skill set doesn't extend to anything to do with women, as his attempts at impressing them have shown. Speaking of... how awesome are said women!? I just love them both.

Also I really liked Sung-on in these episodes. I do hope he doesn't go Evil, and continues to be an ally from the sidelines - even if it'll make the inevitable conclusion to our love triangle more heartbreaking. Even if his loyalty toward Jae-yi is driven by duty and his own version of her as a person rather than feelings for the real her, his friendship with Hwan is already so tenuous, I'm not sure it can survive another wedge.

As usual, essay warning)))

Spring is here and everything's in full bloom, show included. Feelings grow, relationships develop, main mystery gets even more colorful than it already was and even actual flowers take some important role. Good stuff))) First of all, contrary to most people here (and there) I liked Ep7 with all its slow pace and little to no action. This drama excels in action and thriller, sure, but I love me some heavy introspection from time to time, and here I think writer did really well in baring our characters feelings and thoughs without rushing the story to get faster to the next meaty action sequence. Hell, I even liked Sung On this week – not sure why, but he visibly loosened up and started to actually resemble the great guy everyone was gushing about since Ep1. You know, the one that's sweet to people, a good friend (I'm still seething that he never properly apologized for the turtle incident, but good for him to make an effort and reaching out to Hwan first, even in such macho form of polo match), a capable professional (few seconds of hesitation more and we could've get Hwan's coronation next episode, what a pity!) and overall cool guy with a nice smile. No wonder the Princess is so embarrassingly smitten (so much family resemblance with Hwan here lol, we've even got to see his own motor mouth in action during the “I'm not here cause I've missed you!” scene). Still idk what to think of this pairing potentially – plus I kind of suspect that Sung On noticed her crush, not that it was hard to do so – but since there are no better options on the horizon... Maybe including Hwan in his family tree by becoming in-laws is the solution to this family vs duty dilemma he's been struggling with lately? Daddy Han still won't approve for sure.

Overall there were so many subtle but still deep moments here that I absolutely loved. Like both leads quietly crying over the loss of each other as trusted allies, Garam's terrifying imagination theater (well, now we know for sure that she's still a slave, which rises the stakes for her and Jaeyi even higher), head eunuch being surprisingly nice to “Soondol” (I also think that he suspects/knows she's a girl), Myungjin's confusion over why his lack of political career prospects is a bad thing when he never wanted the job anyway (another sus guy btw – does he REALLY not know the identities of “guys” he's housing?), Hwan's long and bumpy (that Scholar Park's business-only visit was all kinds of disaster) journey of mustering the courage to admit he messed up and apologize directly and verbally, Jaeyi having a momentarily pause over the mention of Hwan's future marriage... The latter was especially well done since it delivered just right amount of emotions and “aha!” without going too far too soon. We still have those infamous staring contests with swirling OST to fill the weekly saccharine quota, oh heavens... Now with some literal CGI blooming flowers to drive the point...

The trio of crime-solvers continues to be the most entertaining part of the drama. I was glad to see the storyline address the intertwined relationships between Jae-yi, Hwan and Sung-on. I interpreted Hwan’s refusal to let Jae-yi move back to the Eastern Palace to be mostly about setting a boundary with her, even if he himself isn’t entirely clear on what their relationship is, let alone if he has any hopes for what it could be in the future.
No objections to the reduced screen time for scheming ministers and palace intrigue in these episodes. (Btw, am I alone in thinking the rock pile-secret message signal doesn’t seem that secretive?) But, did the blood feud between the Song and Yi families get foreshadowed in any way? Or is this new info coming out of the blue?

The first few minutes of ep7 really lost me, it felt like I missed an episode with the CP suddenly doubting Jae-yi and losing his trust when an ep ago he was going around how much he trusts her. Oh well. However, ep8 with the ladies and the team solving the cases, that was interesting.

I really hope that the ladies or Jae-yi will be able to scientifically prove the snake and the death of the shaman.

I enjoyed reading your recap @alathe. I love the running commentary and snark. Reminds me of the good old DB days.

I enjoyed these episodes. I prefer the trust issues to be dealt with now rather than have an Episode 15 crisis. Hwan has to think hard on what kind of person and ruler he wants to be: "trust nobody and survive" like his father said, or follow Confucius as quoted by Jae-yi: "hold on to trust; it's the last thing you lose'. Coming from the daughter of his mentor, those words must have had an impact on him.

@kiara I so wish this drama were set during an actual Joseon reign. It would make the curse about the downfall of the Yi dynasty so much more interesting. The emphasis on the shaman going to Gaesong - capital of the Goryeo dynasty and previously known as Seongdo - suggests we might be talking about an ancient curse. Any thoughts?

I finished episodes 7 and 8 tonight. A few thoughts:
1. I watched the extended scene in episode 7 between the King and Hwan twice. First time I missed that it was a one year flashback before current events. The King did almost all of the talking and Hwan said very little. Emotionally I think it might have been Park Hyung-sik’s second best performance so far in the drama with the first being the defense of himself in the storage room to the charge of killing his brother. About half way through the scene when the King tells Hwan not to trust anyone PHS lowers his head, his eyes water a bit and he appeared totally alone and defeated. I thought it was a great scene for him.
2. Lee Tae-sun’s Myung-jin is my favorite character. I put a warning out early that LTS could be a scene stealer and I still stick by that. He was wonderful in the return visit by Scholar Park. He looked great in green.
(Also during that scene why did Viki not follow its traditional style on not translating hyung. Everyone time Min-jung called Hwan hyung it was translated ‘older brother’ which was correct but distracting. Later during the polo match Viki returned to not translating hyung.); and
3. As far as sporting competitions go I think the soccer/football match in HWARANG (2016/17) came of better than the polo match in OBY. It wasn’t bad but not as good.

Thank you for the wonderful recap!!

I was already struggling with my lukewarm feelings toward the crown prince and him kicking Jae-yi out like that. She wasn't just dismissed, but carried out and thrown out in disgrace in front of a dozen servants. The taking back of his trust combined with the public humiliation and being forced to find shelter outside of the palace in the middle of night...it felt so unfair. And then demoted to physical labor. This is after she solved the serial killer case (which she took on to prove herself to the crown prince), saved a baby, and received a head injury for her pains.

Other than the commendable work the crown prince did to secretly rehabilitate his arm in a palace that would judge him for being disabled, it seems like he's always just sitting there waiting for answers to come to him and for things to work themselves out.

I love Jae-yi because she's resourceful and driven in the face of adversity and still maintains her compassion. I loved her action scenes in episode 8 - chasing after that shadow figure through the neighborhood and climbing and jumping walls like a freaking BOSS! Incredibly quick reflexes too. She has dodged an arrow 3 times in the show already.

I love all the Min Jae-yi, Garam, and Myung-jin scenes. One of my favorite moments was when Myung-jin was telling Scholar Park how mean the Crown Prince was for kicking Eunuch Go out, explaining it's probably because the CP was spoiled from hearing "Jeonha! Jeonha!" all the time. Garam was laughing and trying to hide it. It felt like an unscripted Pyo Ye-jin moment.

I'm curious at how the Crown Prince hasn't caught on that Garam is a girl either. Her voice is so girly!