Mandate of Heaven: Episode 10

by javabeans

It’s a particularly good episode for Jung-hwan, which is a treat since he was already smart and sexy to start with—upping the intensity on both makes me a happy camper. There’s something about these kinds of upright, passionate, yet antagonistic characters that makes for a richer character conflict, in the way that Prosecutor was such a fantastic foil for City Hunter. You can’t blame the guy for upholding the law, even as you wish he’d bend it a little for our good guys, but the very fact that he refuses to bend is what makes him so great. And then you get them both on the same team and make everything even awesomer. We’re not completely there yet for Won and Jung-hwan, but I love watching the process unfold—it makes for a fun sort of anticipation.

SONG OF THE DAY

Nemesis – “애원” (Plea) [ Download ]

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EPISODE 10 RECAP

Woo-young rushes to her brother’s side and asks what happened to his vow to come for them after he’d cleared his name of false charges. Jung-hwan smirks that the charges have to be false to be cleared, but she says he’s wrong. Turning to Won, she asks hysterically what happened to his proof of innocence—why is he here now, caught as a criminal?

Won says he knows who the true murder is, and Jung-hwan humors him—who is it? However, the arrival of Gon-oh has Won clamming up, since he recognizes him as part of the opposite faction.

Meanwhile, in the throne room Eunuch Hwang is presented to offer testimony to the king, who demands to know whether it’s true that Lee Ho harbored criminals in his private quarters. The evil ministers wait expectantly for the confirmation and Lee Ho steels himself to be incriminated… and the eunuch exclaims, “The prince has never done any such thing!”

Yesssss. The betrayer has gone and betrayed again… or was a double agent? A flashback to a recent encounter clues us in:

Eunuch Hwang goes to Lee Ho in remorse, begging for forgiveness and crying that he doesn’t deserve to live. He informs him of the evildoers’ plan to have Deok-pal killed, and asks to be killed in return. Lee Ho merely says that he won’t kill him, as he won’t stand to have any more blood on his hands.

Jung-hwan interrogates Won, who shares with him the clues pointing to the real killer, namely the cut on the hand sustained during the killing that lines up with the wounds on the corpse. He names Vice Premier Kim as the culprit and explains the motive as well—Do-saeng failed to poison the prince, and was eliminated for it.

Jung-hwan has to laugh at the outrageousness of the claim, but Won swears up and down that he’s telling the truth and urges him to check on the clues he stated. I suppose it would be too easy to point out that Won could have fabricated “clues” to fit his story (a knife scar could be attributed to a lot more than murder), but I suspect it’s Won’s earnestness that Jung-hwan clocks. He doesn’t buy the story outright, but we can be sure he’ll be checking it out, just in case.

Once the audience with the king is over, Lee Ho confronts the two ministers with Eunuch Hwang at his side. Despite the fact that the prince is the subject of as much gossip and scrutiny as ever, he stands tall and speaks with conviction as he asks the men whether they now plan to have the eunuch killed. You had better do it now, Lee Ho advises, in front of my eyes, because you will have no other chances. If any harm should henceforth befall the eunuch, he will consider it the ministers’ doing. Booyah.

For the time being, the ministers don’t consider Eunuch Hwang an immediate threat in exposing their perfidy to the king—he had his chance to tell the king just now and didn’t. However, the queen is going to go ballistic when she hears about this, and that’s another concern entirely.

Prince Gyeongwon is surprised to hear that his brother is in danger of being stripped of his royal status, but Queen Munjeong has been preparing for just this day. She explains that that’s why she’s treated her son as a future king all along, grooming him to take the throne. Thus she’s incensed—just as Gyeongwon is relieved—to hear of Eunuch Hwang’s false testimony, which has spared Lee Ho this time.

Won is locked up in a cell with the fraud who tried to rat him out for the bounty, and next to his thieving stepmother. When Woo-young comes by with food for him, it’s Stepmom who angles for the rice instead, and Fraud who steals it. Woo-young has to tell Won the bad news that Rang isn’t here, though fortunately he counters that with better news that she’s safe.

At least Rang has Chun-bong to monitor her health at the bandits’ home base; she’s still feverish and unconscious but deemed to have escaped death for now. So-baek worries about what happened to Won, but when it’s suggested that he got caught she leaps up and shouts no, unwilling to fathom that thought.

Da-in is lost in concern, and a flashback shows us her conversation with the prince the night before:

Lee Ho finds the scrap of flower in Rang’s purse—taken from the queen’s secret message ordering her hits—and fumes. But that’s nothing compared to his reaction when Da-in informs him of Vice Premier Kim’s offer to give Rang up if Won killed Deok-pal. She states that Won was unable to make that deal and that the death was unrelated, but Lee Ho realizes that Won was so consumed with worry for his daughter that he gave zero consideration to the prince. It hurts, that blow. He orders Da-in to never mention Won to him again.

Da-in wishes for a way to clear up the misunderstanding before Lee Ho decides Won did kill the patient, but Jang-geum advises her to let it rest for now. The prince is bound to be deeply disturbed already with recent events affecting him, plus whatever it is he saw in Rang’s pouch has spurred a strong reaction.

Da-in asks if she means the peony drawing, and Jang-geum starts in alarm—a peony? Her eyes grow wide as she registers what this means. Da-in comments on Jang-geum’s shock mirroring the prince’s, but her own reaction is merely quizzical as she doesn’t know of the queen’s fondness for painting those flowers.

Sitting in jail, Won mulls over his interrogation with Jung-hwan. It has yielded one helpful conclusion: Deducing from Jung-hwan’s reactions, he is not one of Vice Premier Kim’s cronies. That, at least, is a huge relief.

Right next to him, Tweedledee and Tweedledum bicker about how they came to be stuck in jail, with the fraudster blaming Won and Stepmom blaming the fraudster. I blame their stupidity, but let ’em delude themselves.

Jung-hwan checks the case file on Do-saeng’s murder and finds that Won’s claims are surprisingly on-target. The description and drawing of the fatal wounds do indeed suggest that one stab wound would have injured the murderer’s hand as well, and this gets the wheels in his brain turning.

Gon-oh attempts to deflect his interest by arguing that the case is closed and that Jung-hwan is crazy for suspecting the vice premier. Jung-hwan barks back that it’s his job to be suspicious, and Gon-oh has to back down lest he give away his own connection.

Jung-hwan meets with the ministers to first inform them of Won’s capture, which they are very pleased to hear. They are less pleased to have Jung-hwan share the tip about the murderer’s injury, then ask to see Vice Premier Kim’s hand. There’s a lot of gasping and indignant huffing, but Kim decides to play along and starts to outstretch his hand… slowly… at which point Minister Yoon cuts in and blusters that this is an outrage.

Jung-hwan doesn’t press the issue, but he’s smart enough to smell something fishy. The case isn’t over by a long shot.

As he leaves, he comes across Lee Ho and informs him of Won’s capture. He refers to something the prince had said the last time, which probably comes as a painful reminder now—that Lee Ho had wanted to apologize to Won for not being able to save him. Things have changed now, which is why the prince is so curt when he finds Da-in treating his tortured guard. He states that he can’t trust someone who’s so loyal to a man who betrayed him and scoffs at her insistence that it’s a misunderstanding.

Lee Ho sends her off saying bitterly, “If he was going to deceive me so, he should not have gotten himself caught.”

Thus Da-in heads straight to the prisons to see Won, though she isn’t allowed inside. As a former escapee, Won is under strict orders to have no visitors. Thankfully Jung-hwan arrives and is amenable to letting her have a word with Won, because he’s on his way in to see him too.

Gon-oh won’t bend the rules even for Jung-hwan, but that’s no problem. I love that Jung-hwan just works around the roadblock by rewording his statement from “I’m here to visit the prisoner” to “I must investigate the case further, so send him in for questioning.” The first instruction gets rejected, while the latter is obeyed. Heh. He’s so slick.

Sitting in the office, Won and Da-in send each other anguished looks in silence, both thinking despairingly of Won’s predicament and how hard she worked to help him. Jung-hwan tells them to go on and talk normally, all, Don’t mind me, standing here judging you. Hilariously, he explains that his primary goal is to suss out whether they’re actually lovers: “Pretend I am not here, and do what you want to do.” Lol.

Won and Da-in look at each other in puzzlement, because I’m pretty sure they’re the last ones to realize that they are lovers. Everyone else has caught on to the vibe in the air, but they’re still dancing around the issue. (For what it’s worth Da-in is aware of her feelings, but I’m thinking Won would have to be bludgeoned over the head with his heart to cotton on.)

Won tries to send Da-in away, saying that he can’t put her in any more danger for his sake. She argues that while she is afraid of what may happen, she’s even more afraid that he will die a wrongful death. Jung-hwan listens intently—their earnestness may be the proof he seeks after all, even without any specific mention of love or feelings.

Lee Ho asks to speak with Won, and charges him with betraying him. Not only does he believe Won killed Deok-pal to save his daughter, he tosses over Rang’s pouch and the flower painting contained therein. OH NO. He assumes that Rang has the flower because the letter it was ripped from was the one ordering Won to kill. It’s completely the wrong conclusion, but given that this is exactly how the queen operates it’s pretty damning in the prince’s eyes.

Won begs for a chance to unravel the misunderstanding, but Lee Ho has made up his mind and nothing said in Won’s defense will come across as sincere. So sad, this fracturing of a bromance.

Watching from a distance, Jung-hwan finds this turn of events quite entertaining and chuckles to himself. Woo-young finds it much less funny and shoots him a hateful glare, accusing him of barreling forward in the prosecution of an innocent man because he’s afraid of being wrong. There’s enough truth in her statement to have Jung-hwan glowering at her, no longer enjoying himself.

Da-in is allowed a moment to speak with Won and they both lament the role the painted flower has painted in reinforcing the prince’s misunderstanding. They don’t know what it means so they can only guess at the reason, but the bigger question is how Rang came to have it with her. Won starts to as Da-in to ask Rang since she knows where the hideout is, but then cuts himself off to remind himself that he doesn’t want to endanger her further.

I love how matter-of-fact she is in calling out the fact that he knows she’s going to do so anyway—does it make him better to at least say that he doesn’t want to endanger her even as he does it? Ha. Gotta love a straight shooter. She adds, “I am the only one left to help you. If anything, why don’t you tell me you’re glad you have me to support you?” Because that would require him to be in touch with his feelings?

Now she brings up something I’ve been wondering—was that tortoise “gu” character really a reference to Deok-pal? Yes, it did lead them to a crucial clue in the case, but considering that Deok-pal wasn’t the actual killer, perhaps there’s another meaning beind Do-saeng’s dying message.

Rang remains in serious condition, but finally stirs from sleep. Hilariously the first face she sees looming over hers is Geo-chil’s huge grizzled head, and she squeezes her eyes shut until the others have to assure her that he just looks like a scary beast. Haha. And then when Rang starts crying for her father, Geo-chil hurriedly covers up his face in case he’s scaring her again. They are so cute. Dim bulbs all around (aside from Keok-jung), but adorably good-natured folk.

Both Won and Jung-hwan puzzle over the question of the “gu” character. Sitting in jail, Won dreams of a conversation he’d had with Do-saeng not long before his death, where Do-saeng had admitted to having a sweetheart he wanted to marry.

They reminisce on old times, like the secret hiding place they’d designated that the prince had begged them to let him in on. (Aw, that’s so sad and sweet. Always wanting to tag along, like a little brother.) It was Won who ended up taking Lee Ho and letting him on the secret, which was a rock called Guryong Boulder. But it was Do-saeng who had called it Tortoise Boulder because he liked that name better, and in fact set up a home for himself and his sweetheart near it.

Jung-hwan’s attention fixates on the curious case of the disappearing “gu,” because he has hitherto believed it to be nonexistent. Just a thing Won made up to sound innocent. Yet he risked his life to save Deok-pal, which suggests that it may be real after all. He heads back to the murder scene and confirms with the slave woman who cleaned it that there had been a smudged bloodstain that looked like something had been blotted out of it.

There’s a cute bonding scene between Rang and So-baek, especially since sometimes it seems like Rang may be the smarter of the two. Fine, maybe not sometimes but in fact all the time. Rang comments that So-baek looks like a boy, which actually cheers her up because that’s exactly the look she was going for. Ha.

So-baek promises to sneak out behind her father’s back and rescue Won, and Rang recites that it’s bad to disobey your father. Gee, I wonder who taught her that. Lol. When So-baek boasts that she’s a good fighter, Rang says that fighting and stealing is bad. Still, she says cheerily that she likes unni and thinks they’re all good nice people.

Rang starts crying at the thought of her poor father, and reminder of Won’s pain makes So-baek’s heart thump, to her chagrin.

Having made that long-forgotten connection to Tortoise Boulder, Won calls for Jung-hwan and tells him of Do-saeng’s sweetheart, a court lady named Wol-ha. Musing on the lengths Do-saeng went to to keep Wol-ha safe, Jung-hwan comments that Da-in must love Won quite a lot too, which is news to Won, who protests out of reflex. Jung-hwan has to point out that she put her own life on the line to clear his name.

Wol-ha has been missing ever since Do-saeng’s death—or more specifically, since just before it when he had her sneaked out of the palace. Won directs Jung-hwan to a house near Guryong boulder, suspecting that’s where she’s living. Unfortunately, Gon-oh is lurking and overhears the tip.

The news also reaches the prince’s ears via his once-again-faithful eunuch, who tells him that the ministers tried to have Wol-ha killed, but that she slipped away too soon. Lee Ho decides he must seek her out personally.

Unfortunately for our good guys, Jung-hwan arrives at the house one step behind Gon-oh, who has tricked Wol-ha into following him with a lie. He says that Won is in danger of being executed, and that gets Wol-ha to share that there’s a way to save him. In fact, Do-saeng left behind incontrovertible proof of the villains’ attempt to assassinate the prince.

The Evil McEvilsons are in panic mode to hear that Jung-hwan is getting nosier. If he starts to believe Won’s claims, they’re in trouble ’cause Won sure knows a lot. To that end, they have put pressure on the palace to have his execution moved up.

The queen shocks them all by joining them in their secret meeting, abandoning her letter-writing methods to come here face to face. She no longer trusts them to succeed in all their promises—and you can’t blame her, given their poor track record—and is here to speak to Merchant Jang. Specifically about his surrogate daughter.

The next thing we know, a confused Da-in bathes in the queen’s private chambers while the queen tends to her like she’s the servant. Gah, I hate when she does that. It’s so creepy. She’s a formidable opponent when she’s the one wielding that power like a big ol’ bludgeoning weapon, but when she’s playacting the supplicant role, it sets everything off-kilter. Which I’m sure is her point.

The queen tells Da-in that she will be named Lee Ho’s official physician, not bothering to hide that she wants her in the prince’s proximity to do him more harm than good. She adds in a threat about her father’s life to make sure Da-in knows this is not a request. The queen plays with the blossoms in the water and comments on how nicely blood-red the peonies are today. Ding-ding-ding, clue!

Granted, maybe Da-in isn’t so quick on the uptake because it takes her a full scene to figure out the connection. She first tends to the prince, who rejects her as his doctor and sends her medicine flying—there’s no way in hell he’ll trust her or any of them anymore. In fact they all scare him, he says, and he orders her to remove herself.

All the strain of recent events has taken a toll on the prince’s health, never robust to begin with, and he staggers to the ground. But when Da-in rushes to his aid, he barks at her to stay away.

And now Da-in puts two and two together to realize that the flowers are a link to the queen. Well, better late than never?

Jung-hwan drops by the jail to tell Won he was too late to get to Wol-ha in time. Won takes a careful look around and brings Jung-hwan in close before whispering that there’s a mole in the police department. Jung-hwan immediately thinks of Gon-oh, whom he saw leaving Kim’s residence, and Won confirms it by naming him. I laugh a little at Jung-hwan’s exasperation at Won withholding this information (uh, because you were so willing to believe him?), but he figures out on his own that it’s because Won didn’t trust him not to be evil. Seriously, really loving how sharp he is.

Gon-oh doesn’t even bother to hide his smugness when he informs Jung-hwan that he’s been ordered off the case—the investigation of Won’s incident is closed. The news has the opposite of its intended effect, though, because Jung-hwan just gets more fired up—this is more proof that there’s something to cover up. He declares that he’ll reopen the case. Yay!

Recuperating up in the mountain hideout, Rang recalls that Chun-bong called her father a quack and gives him an adorable mini-harrumph. Grandma tells her that the old man is himself a quack, and Rang quips that she realizes why he called her father one: “Quacks see other people as quacks.” Heh.

Rang is feeling better, and now worries about her lost pouch. Did they see it and her peony flower drawing? She has to explain what it is—she picked it up in Grandfather’s room where he was found dead. And now that gets Chun-bong sitting up at attention.

At the station, Woo-young overhears Gon-oh ordering Won to be transferred, and that can only mean bad news. If he’s being moved, that means he’s one step closer to beheading, and Woo-young storms in on Jung-hwan to ask why. But this is news to Jung-hwan, and he leaps up in alarm. Go, go!

Won doesn’t realize until it’s almost too late that Gon-oh is leading him down the wrong path. Gon-oh smirks that he’s dead in any case, so what does it matter that he’ll die this way?

Won makes a brief attempt to flee, but he doesn’t get far and is soon at the mercy of Gon-oh’s sword. Just as he’s about to be struck, something flies through the air and knocks the sword away—Jung-hwan to the rescue!

Gon-oh attempts a paltry excuse, but Jung-hwan sees right through it and the two men fight. It doesn’t take a whole lot for Jung-hwan to disarm Gon-oh, and he demands to know who gave this order.

Won takes advantage of the distraction to run off, and manages to stumble his way to the bandits’ hideout. (Hilariously, Geo-chil has taken to actually tying a rope around So-baek like she’s five, since this is the only way to ensure she won’t go sneaking off to save Won. He has a real bad feeling this time and can’t send her walking into death, even though she protests that the thought of never seeing him again makes her heart feel like it’ll stop.)

Thankfully for Geo-chil and So-baek’s heart, Won comes stumbling into camp, tired but safe.

He rushes to Rang’s side as she’s having a nightmare and crying out for him not to die, and holds her close. He praises her for being a brave trooper and they finger-kiss while everyone looks on tearfully. Not a dry eye in the house.

Deok-pal’s wife is still here as well, and she asks after her husband’s last moments. He apologizes for not being able to save him, but she doesn’t blame him and asks him to name their child—after all, they owe him their lives. She also shares something Deok-pal had told her, that he didn’t think the “gu” was a reference to him. Do-saeng had hated people mocking Deok-pal with the nickname, so it seems queer that he would write it in reference to him.

That solidifies Won’s suspicion about the boulder, and he heads out. The question is, can he beat the baddies? They have Wol-ha in their clutches now, and a thorough round of torturing wears down her defenses and she finally blurts out the name of the boulder—that’s where Do-saeng hid his damning evidence.

And then they kill her anyway. Poor girl.

Won hurries to the secret meeting place, but slumps in dismay when he finds nothing there. He wonders if he guessed at the wrong clue again, and what it could really be.

But then, he glances up at the underside of the rock and uncovers writing. Directly below it, underneath a layer of dirt, he finds a box. Opening it, Won finds a stash of letters, the first one addressed to the prince explaining his plan to counter poison with antidote.

And as he sits and reads, Do-moon races toward the rock with his team of assassins.

 
COMMENTS

Jung-hwan was my main reason for excitement in this episode, and it’s particularly gratifying to see him get over his smugness over Won being the criminal when he entertains the possibility that his baseline assumption may be false. He has an interesting reaction to Woo-young’s accusation of the same, that he’s too weak and afraid to contemplate the thought that he might have screwed up, and that it’s easier for him to shove on blindly forward than to back the eff up. I won’t go so far as to point to Woo-young as the cause for his shift because he’d been entertaining doubts before that point, but she has a way of needling at his conscience in a very pointed and disturbing way. Disturbing to him, I mean; I quite enjoy it myself.

It takes a big person to come on super strong with one assertion and then to completely reverse direction and reassess his stance. Good to see he’s up to that task.

On the sadder side of things, the prince’s rejection of Won was an unfortunate turn, though dramatically speaking I like where that takes us. His unwavering faith in previous episodes is what makes the betrayal cut so deep, and thus I found his reaction credible and understandable. It’s what makes the bad guys crafty, because they’ve put together a false truth that seems so believable.

Given how strong Lee Ho has been recently, it’s dangerous for him to cut off his sole sources of support, and that has me uneasy for his immediate future. He needs the emotional backing as much as he does political might, and now he’s got neither. On the bright side, at least he hasn’t actually lost their loyalties; he just thinks he has. So there’s hope.

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