Six Flying Dragons: Episode 12

by HeadsNo2

Oh, how I love to love this show. I would write it a sonnet if I knew how to write sonnets, or a song, or maybe even some slam poetry. Fortunately I know how to write none of those things, but it’s the thought that counts when it comes to truly great episodes of television like this. But unfortunately for Bang-won, his pain is our gain as viewers. Go on, Jung Do-jeon, teach him more hard-earned lessons about life. We can take it.

SONG OF THE DAY

XIA – “너라는 시간이 흐른다 (Time Flows, It’s You)” from the OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 12 RECAP

In front of the dodang assembly, Officer Nam, the man appointed to head the investigation into the tax revenue rumors, promises that he’ll continue his investigation in light of the letter found, and will interrogate Bang-won until he gets a confession.

Meanwhile, Jung Do-jeon feels pretty confident that Lee In-gyeom will do his best to make the letter incriminating Lee Seong-gye as the orchestrator of Baek Yoon’s death go away, since he’ll be far too afraid to take the great general and his even greater army on. And if he isn’t afraid, the other ministers will be.

Cue the other ministers shaking in their boots at the thought of investigating the general who just achieved victory over Hobaldo (also spelled Hubadu), chief of the Jurchens. Instead of the bloodlust they displayed earlier, now they’re all critical of the fact that the letter found in Bang-won’s room has neither his name or his father’s name on it.

They can’t use an anonymous letter for evidence, they claim, because that’d be wrong. Jung Do-jeon’s plan works flawlessly to distract the dodang away from the border plan, which understandably infuriates Lee In-gyeom.

Bang-won is confronted with the letter found in his room, recognizing the contents as the one he read in the New Joseon Cave. All hope seems to leave him as he suspects Jung Do-jeon planted the letter because he wants him dead, though he’s saved from more crippling torture when the order comes down to release him. No one’s willing to prosecute Lee Seong-gye as Baek Yoon’s killer when he’s just fought off an invasion.

Gil Tae-mi thinks that Lee In-gyeom forged the letter, but can’t figure out why he’d accuse Lee Seong-gye of murder unless he was planning to go to war with him. Minister Hong has to tell him that he suspects it wasn’t Lee In-gyeom’s scheme, but they’re interrupted when news of Jukryong’s return with Bang-woo reaches them.

Lee In-gyeom is left blaming “The Shadow” for switching out the letter he planted, with Cho-young just as confounded as he is. Even though Lee put a stop to Bang-won’s interrogation, she worries that Officer Nam is too stubborn to actually heed the order.

Everyone’s under the impression that he and Officer Nam are practically enemies, and that worked in Lee In-gyeom’s favor when it came to appointing him to the investigation. But he proves to Cho-young that the opposite is true when he opens a trapdoor to a secret corridor, revealing Officer Nam disguised in a woman’s jangot.

So they’ve been in cahoots this whole time, which renews Cho-young’s faith in Lee In-gyeom’s cleverness. Together, they begin to suspect that it’s actually Jung Do-jeon operating behind the scenes, since the last time Lee was tricked like he was with the letter, he was tricked by Jung Do-jeon.

Bang-woo brings Jukryong to his meeting with Minister Hong and Gil Tae-mi, announcing his family’s plan to do whatever it takes to rescue Bang-won. While everyone but Minister Hong gets distracted in the search to track down the man Cho-young used to plant the letter, Hong wonders why there’s been no word from Jung Do-jeon.

Cho-young sends one of her female warriors to kill the man they used, but she’s stopped before she can carry out the deed by the men Jukryong & Co. have sent to question him.

She chases the man called YAK SAN into the street and hurls a dagger straight for his heart, only for Bang-woo to jump in and deflect it with his sword. Then he faces off against the amazon.

Bang-won may not be getting his knees crushed or his skin burnt, but he’s still been deprived of food, water, and sleep for the past three days. This makes him perfectly vulnerable for the lie Officer Nam proceeds to tell him about his father having gone missing after being badly defeated by Hobaldo. He’s presumed dead.

Poor Bang-won can’t believe that his father and his great army were defeated, and the shock (along with the exhaustion) causes him to pass out. Officer Nam’s plan is to sap Bang-won of all hope so that he’ll make a confession, that way they don’t have to torture it out of him and probably kill him in the process.

All this maniachal scheming is undercut by a sound coming from the ground… and Lee In-gyeom realizes with dawning horror that Bang-won’s snoring. Hah. But what worries him is how Bang-won can sleep after finding out what should be soul-shattering news.

Since no one’s told Bang-woo that Officer Nam isn’t to be trusted, Bang-woo brings Yak San to him hoping for a fair investigation, since he already confessed to planting the letter in Bang-won’s room. And of course Officer Nam hears his confession in the torture chamber before warning him to never repeat it if he wants to live.

He reports this to a concerned Lee In-gyeom, which is how Minister Hong and Gil Tae-mi find them. Lee In-gyeom is doing his best to cover his tracks, but there’s no doubt that Minister Hong suspects him and Officer Nam of foul play.

Since Bang-woo agreed to take in Moo-hyul’s family, Moo-hyul presents his small village of siblings to him. I love Moo-hyul’s straight reaction to Bang-woo’s curiosity about the sheer number of them: “Yes, our family is blessed.” It’s even funnier when all his siblings introduce themselves in order, since their names all correspond with a number starting from one. I guess to help keep track, which, hah.

Former Master Hong gladly introduces himself with the children, much to Moo-hyul’s displeasure at having him count himself as part of his family. Only then does he find out about Bang-won’s plight, and blames himself for not being around to protect him. He wants to help in order to earn his family’s keep, but Young-kyu makes it seem like they’ve got it all under control.

Acting on Jung Do-jeon’s plan to save Bang-won, Boon-yi delivers a secret letter to the taffy salesman in the market, who she’s not supposed to act like she knows. That’s difficult when he’s one of the ahjusshis from her village (now gainfully employed thanks to Bang-won’s request), but he slips her a letter hidden in taffy which she passes off to a mysterious man in a back alley.

Jung Do-jeon chows down on rice a kindly Gab-boon gives him while asking innocuous questions about what she and Bang-ji do as professional storytellers. Thinking that Jung Do-jeon is just some poor nobody, Gab-boon is shocked when Bang-ji grabs him by the collar and all but throws him out.

“Did I not warn you that I might kill you if I saw you again?” Bang-ji grits. But then his tone softens as he tells Jung Do-jeon that he’s going to try and forget about him, and that Jung should do the same. (Aww, don’t break up!) Yet even Yeon-hee wonders why he can’t stop coming to see Bang-ji, to which Jung Do-jeon stoically replies, “I have an answer to give him.”

Back in the New Joseon Cave, Jung Do-jeon isn’t at all as worried as Yeon-hee is about Lee Seong-gye possibly coming to the capital, knowing that he’d want to negotiate with Lee In-gyeom first to prevent total bedlam. He also reminds Yeon-hee that while he promised to save Bang-won, he never said he’d fix everything for him.

Bang-won acted on his own by incurring his father’s rage and by meeting with Minister Hong in secret, which led to his arrest by Lee In-gyeom. “He will come to learn that all the words he loudly proclaimed were all for nothing,” he says, adding that the isolation will strip Bang-won down to his core.

And should he choose to not give up when there’s nothing left of him but desolation and hopelessness, he’ll learn the true meaning of responsibility. But that’s something Bang-won has to do on his own—or not, if he can’t handle the pressure.

Indeed, Bang-won despairs in his prison cell, wondering if his actions led to his father’s death on the battlefield. This is what Officer Nam and Lee In-gyeom are counting on, but they’ve got a problem in Yak San’s continuing existence.

Yak San is also Team Hong’s only hope to win against Lee In-gyeom, though the normally effervescent Gil Tae-mi gets lost in thought as he remembers having Officer Nam show him the letter found in Bang-won’s room. Worse yet, he keeps mum about it, which means he must be onto something serious.

Lee In-gyeom wants to get rid of Yak San without looking suspicious, and makes it so that Yak San can stage an escape… only for Officer Nam to shoot him down with an arrow. It’s less suspicious that way, but Minister Hong isn’t fooled.

Team Hong thinks they’ve lost their last hope with Yak San’s death, but Gil Tae-mi offers another lead: he’d asked to copy the letter found in Bang-won’s room so he could study the handwriting. Since a warrior’s fighting style can be seen in his brushstrokes, Gil Tae-mi knows that the mysterious swordsman he encountered authored the letter. It’s not a fake.

Which means that Lee In-gyeom was behind the secret swordsman (aka Bang-ji) if he got him to write a letter for him. Of course, he doesn’t know that the letter they found isn’t the one Lee In-gyeom wanted them to find. But he’s also able to tie Bang-ji to Baek Yoon’s death and the fight at Biguk Temple by asking Jukryong to replicate the duel he had with him there.

Lee In-gyeom is satisfied knowing that Lee Seong-gye will have to negotiate with him to save his son, and he plans to make the general withdraw the border plan and end his alliance with Minister Hong. In the meantime, he’ll keep interrogating Bang-won in the hopes that he’ll reveal who “The Shadow” is working behind him.

Officer Nam thinks Bang-won is about to crack, and presses him to answer whether he answers to Jung Do-jeon. But Bang-won simply asks Nam to tell him again how his father died. And it becomes clear from the moment he asks that he doesn’t believe a word coming from Officer Nam’s mouth.

But it’s when Officer Nam tells him that his father died during the siege that Bang-won really knows, and fearlessly tells his tormenter that his father has never led a siege in over one hundred and fifty battles.

Moreover, if Hobaldo had defeated his father’s army, the capital would’ve been invaded within three days. Officials like Nam wouldn’t have the leisure time to spend torturing a prisoner if that were the case, and Bang-won cracks a smile as he tells him:

“You will never be able to make me surrender. You will not be able to learn a single thing from me. Why? Because I know war, and you do not. Do you know what war is? War ultimately means killing people. I started a war when I was twelve. I, Lee Bang-won!”

Now, even when Officer Nam pulls a sword on him, Bang-won has nothing to fear. He can’t be broken, and Nam knows it. Not only does Bang-won fly in the face of Lee In-gyeom’s plans, but his father does too, by paying a very unexpected visit to Lee In-gyeom’s house. He’s still in the same bloodstained armor he wore in his fight against Hobaldo, having not taken even the smallest breather between that war and this one.

Lee Seong-gye cuts right to the chase and doesn’t ask, but tells Lee In-gyeom to release his son. The minister asks if he would withdraw his border plan, to which the great general replies that if he’d come to negotiate, he wouldn’t have set his bow on the table between them. This. Is. Awesome.

Lee In-gyeom attempts to bring him in line by reminding him that he swore loyalty to him once, which Lee Seong-gye doesn’t deny. But he’s no longer afraid when the minister threatens to reveal his betrayal of Jo So-saeng, because his fear of losing his son trumps that. “Honor is the most important thing in a man’s life!” he bellows, adding that he held himself to a high standard of honor so he could protect his people.

But Lee In-gyeom crossed a line he shouldn’t have crossed by daring to threaten his own flesh and blood, his own child. And he is pissed. Lee In-gyeom attempts to intimidate him into backing down by having the guards flanking him draw their swords, but Lee Seong-gye already has an arrow waiting for his bow.

With a collected voice that could only come from a man who’s fought in countless battles (and won), Lee Seong-gye tells the minister and his guards that there’s a common misconception about the bow and arrow being a long distance weapon.

He assures them it isn’t for him, and tells the guards that no matter how fast they move, they won’t be able to prevent Lee In-gyeom from taking an arrow to the heart. Yeah, I’d probably listen to the guy still covered in the blood of his enemies.

The two men spend a few long moments waiting to see if the other will act, until Lee In-gyeom finally motions for his guards to stand down. Lee Seong-gye orders that his son be released by morning before leaving.

It comes as a surprise to Jung Do-jeon that Lee Seong-gye paid a visit to Lee In-gyeom with only Ji-ran as his escort, and he’s desperate to try and meet the general while he’s in the capital. Luckily, a wide-eyed Shin-jeok comes to the cave with an urgent visitor—it’s Lee Seong-gye, disguised as a commoner.

A very angry Lee In-gyeom wants to take advantage of the fact that Lee Seong-gye is alone in the capital (as opposed to bringing his private army with him), and mandates that the dodang call for his arrest in the morning for the murder of Baek Yoon. That means they’ll have to get Bang-won to confess tonight, one way or the other.

Lee Seong-gye starts off his conversation with Jung Do-jeon by telling him he doesn’t want to create a new nation with him, and that he’s only concerned with protecting his people. Jung Do-jeon, a little cockily, asks why he came to the capital alone if that was all he wanted to do, and why he visited him in his cave.

Of course, Lee Seong-gye said he came to save Bang-won. But when Jung Do-jeon asks if that’s all he came to do, the general surprises him by stoically announcing that he’ll go into politics in order to protect his people. He wants a voice in the dodang, and now calls upon the promises Jung Do-jeon made to him before.

Did he not say he’d serve him as his master and act as his advisor, and if so, does he have a plan to save Bang-won? Jung Do-jeon takes all this in for a moment, but Lee Seong-gye doesn’t have a moment to spare: “Do you have a plan or not?!” “Of course I have a plan,” Jung Do-jeon responds easily.

In the wee hours of the morning, Bang-won is taken away from the prison with a burlap sack over his head. In the meantime, Gil Tae-mi follows up on a lead from Jukryong to find the most famous storyteller in the capital, hoping he’ll find the mysterious swordsman.

Bang-ji comes down to greet him in his trademark(?) mask and face paint, acting flamboyant and loud and every part a professional actor, not a highly skilled swordsman. But when Gil Tae-mi asks if he can remove his mask, all Bang-ji can do is swallow nervously.

At the dodang’s morning assembly, Lee In-gyeom acts like he believes all the suspicion surrounding Lee Seong-gye is nonsense, buuuut in order to prove how nonsensical it is, he’ll need to arrest the general for a thorough investigation. “You don’t need to arrest him!” Jung Mong-joo declares. “Because he’s here, now.”

The doors open to reveal Lee Seong-gye in ministerial garb, and he stares down Lee In-gyeom before addressing the assembly. He proclaims that the letter found in his son’s room was fabricated, and much to Lee In-gyeom’s surprise, he has proof. He calls in Bang-woo, who brings… Yak San? Alive?

Cut to the burlap sack being lifted off Bang-woo’s head, only for him to come face to face with Jung Do-jeon. What.

Now all the pieces start coming together. In a flashback, we see that it was Jung Do-jeon who asked Jung Mong-joo to recommend Officer Nam to head the investigation, knowing Lee In-gyeom would feel safe using someone (he thought was) under his control.

Everything was carefully orchestrated, even Yak San getting shot by Officer Nam’s arrow—he wore armor underneath his clothes, and Moo-hyul and Young-kyu were there to catch him under Bang-woo’s watch. What’s more is that the man Boon-yi traded correspondence with in the alley was none other than Officer Nam. (“Are your minds still in your freaking skulls?!” asks the show.)

Bang-won is just figuring out that Officer Nam was working under Jung Do-jeon, but at least Nam’s report on him is good, since he never once caved and revealed Jung’s name. Jung Do-jeon introduces the two of them, and it’s revealed that he and Officer Nam are as close as brothers.

Officer Nam is introduced to the audience as a revolutionary comrade of Jung Do-jeon’s who stays with him till the end, but it’s a little tough for Bang-won to suddenly act friendly with the man who brought him so much suffering.

Bang-won wonders why Jung Do-jeon wouldn’t have just killed him to achieve his goals, unable to believe that Jung could’ve been moved by plain ole empathy. But Jung Do-jeon, now much warmer and friendlier to him, tells him that’s not the case.

“Apart from one thing. I decided to place my bets on that. That you are still young. Because you still have a chance. That is what I placed my bets on.” Bang-won is elated, but covers it up by asking why Jung Do-jeon wouldn’t have gotten rid of a rebel like him while he was still young and easier prey.

Jung Do-jeon grabs him by his collar and tells him that this is what it means to be young, but that he’ll nip any bad kind of thinking in the bud (or more literally, grab it by the roots and pull). “From now on, call me your teacher,” Jung Do-jeon throws over his shoulder as he walks away.

Bang-won smiles.

 
COMMENTS

If I thought Bang-won had his moments to shine before, then he was practically blinding here. That moment when Jung Do-jeon admitted to putting faith in him hit us in the heart as triumphantly as if Bang-won had emerged from battle doing a slo-mo hero’s walk. To see his face light up the way it did was just the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that was Yoo Ah-in’s pitch-perfect performance this hour.

It’s always a struggle whether to mention the actors playing the characters or just the characters themselves, since discussing the acting does take us out of the action and into the production side of things a bit more. At the same time, it feels like it would be remiss not to mention that there are some mind-blowing performances happening on our screens in favor of discussing the characters in the world they live in. So I see no compelling reason to not just do both, since this is the kind of show that has little to fear from being scrutinized from multiple angles. It just knows it’s good. (Although an extra thousand candles in the New Joseon Cave wouldn’t hurt.)

But if perfect twists are always the ones that surprise us with how much sense they make, we really couldn’t be in better hands. Just when you think things are going one way, you can trust Jung Do-jeon to have inception’d a plan within a plan within another greater plan—and even still, the revelation regarding his orchestration of Bang-won’s torture down to the man carrying out the gruesome task came as the best kind of shock. To know that Jung Do-jeon had Lee In-gyeom under control this whole time without him even suspecting it was pure gold, but I wonder if Jung Do-jeon will ever be able to pull one like it on our curmudgeonly minister again. Wait, who am I kidding? Of course he will.

Likewise, Bang-won may have been down and out (and bleeding, and hungry, and exhausted), but his wits never once left him. Lee In-gyeom may not have been pulling all the shots he thought he was in that interrogation room, but at no point did it seem like Officer Nam was ever giving Bang-won a break. Jung Do-jeon wasn’t joking about letting Bang-won learn what responsibility meant while he had only his pain to keep him company, and now we know why he wasn’t at all concerned about Bang-won dying in the process. He knew it was going to hurt, he knew that whatever happened in that room could potentially break Bang-won for life, but he also knew that if Bang-won passed, he’d not only be a better version of himself, but also a better ally.

There was a strange kind of likeness in the journey Bang-won took as compared to his father’s, especially in the way that both of them ended up facing and overcoming some of their worst fears. It was like Bang-won came to believe in his father again, and all he needed was the chance to realize it—and that’s without him even knowing what his father was doing to save him, which helped us to believe in him too. Lee Seong-gye: a badass among badasses.

 
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