Guardian Episode by Episode: 25

[extrapenguin]

Welcome to the rewatchalong! This week we watch episode 25. The Imgur screencap album has 60 images.

Previously on:
Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12, Episode 13, Episode 14, Episode 15, Episode 16, Episode 17, Episode 18, Episode 19, Episode 20, Episode 21, Episode 22, Episode 23, Episode 24

This week, we have the personality swap virus case and continue with Zhao Yunlan's FML faces.

Characterization
Doctor Cheng keeps making appearances! She consults with Zhao Yunlan about the case, both by giving him info about personality disorders and by ... spilling all of Kong Jing's diagnoses. I assume doctor-patient confidentiality doesn't exist in this universe? She's also the source of all the info about Lin Jing obviously only escaping the personality change thing because he's hiding his own personality/hiding something big.

We meet Minister Gao, briefly! He yells at his subordinates over the phone until Zhao Xinci arrives, at which point he immediately transitions to perfect civil servant mode. He's also confused at Zhao Xinci/Zhang Shi calling him Jing Feng – does the name come up at any other point?


"Sorry, what was your name again? I never can keep track of you butt-kissing sycophants."

Lin Jing shows some shiftiness about not changing his personality. There's also the needle weirdness and him turning up to investigate the crime scene personally, though we'll get more of that in the next episodes. OTOH, his boss keeps deducting his bonus and thwapped him on the nuts just this episode.


"Guo, please put that down before you hurt yourself! I don't want to lose my bonus again!"

Ya Qing seems to be living in a wuxia film – she gives Wang Xiangyang a speech on people deserving to die with at least some shreds of dignity, even if that'll give the SID crew a few days of reprieve, and also gave Guo Changcheng that IOU necklace! Complete with declarations that she'd never met a decent human before him and that she wouldn't kill him before Dong Nan's corpse.


100% goth wuxia, complete with menacing calligraphy.

Meanwhile in Dixing, Ye Zun has found the wind generator. The forcefield keeping him in is cracked after 30-odd sigils drawn by the Merit Brush, and 3 more will let him out! He is obviously a bit cheerful at Wu Tian'en. He also says "I've been behaving for so long" when told to behave, and I end up side-eyeing the Hallows even more. What must've been intended to be the lifetime of the planet, confined in a pillar?! Sheesh. This is no just punishment!

Meanwhile on the surface, Ye Zun's minions give Zhao Yunlan yet more bad days. He absolutely hates everyone's sudden personality changes – he'd rather escape to talk about case stuff elsewhere than talk about Zhu Hong's feelings, and this all continues what I think is a running thread of Zhao Yunlan not appreciating useless people in his department. He runs a tight ship, even if no-one else seems to realize it.


Yet another episode of Zhao Yunlan showing off his DNW face!

He's also his usual self, very good at social maneuvering. He expresses his condolences about Zu Ma to Doctor Cheng, investigates the taxi driver case because his higher-ups told him to even if he privately thinks it has nothing to do with Dixing, and if you watch the scene where he's been captured by Kong Jing, you can watch him disengage his mask when Kong Jing's behind him and put it back on when Kong Jing can see his face again. (At this point of his life, Zhao Yunlan's default expression is "fuck my life". See also: Zhao Yunlan telling Kong Jing "You're mistaken, I'm not awake yet.")


"Yes, yes, could you please untie me so I can go be annoyed at my subordinates now? I can promise you a ringside seat!"

When Kong Jing tried to transfer his personality (or one of them, at any rate) into Zhao Yunlan, there was a dark energy kaboom and Zhao Yunlan had dark energy swirling around his hands. Do you think this was some side effect of the Longevity Dial thing, or Shen Wei doing something one of those times Zhao Yunlan slept? Shen Wei must've known about the defense against personality switching, since he said "Anyone but you is susceptible".


Option B is that his mother Shen Xi was secretly Dixingian, and Zhao Yunlan is now manifesting his Dixing power of being a supreme pain in the ass.

Shen Wei's method of dealing with the SID getting all personality change-y was to run away to the university and hold class to a bunch of women. (The faculty seems to have solved the problem of women not going into STEM programs. The solution is Professor Shen in a nice suit.) He did offer some sympathy for Zhao Yunlan in the form of a shoulder pat as he went past (there was no nice still opportunity, but it's at around 13:54 for you giffers!). He didn't catch the personality change thing, but IDK if that was meant to be personality change viruses being afraid of the Envoy, some dark energy thing of his, or simply him not being in close enough proximity to the SID members who caught it.


This image was chosen with no regard to the above paragraph. Instead, it's showcased because I want Shen Wei to take off all his clothes (so I can steal them).

Other miscellanea we now know about Professor Shen: He changes into a less formal suit between lecturing and going to the SID, he hasn't been home much, and he doesn't like cutesy talk from Zhao Yunlan.


"Yunlan pls."

Canon details

• The SID has no cells
• The personality-changing virus seems to take some time to incubate
• The Regent claims the change and evolution of Dixing powers has no pattern
• Kong Jing was a normal human, so Feng Qubing and Zu Ma must've been part-Dixing
• Crow Yashou turn into their animal forms at death

Cinematography
Shots from above!

The SID team sharing a meal through a framing device just before the personality changed Guo Changcheng turns up. Guo Changcheng and a dying Dong Nan.

A shot from below!

Zhao Yunlan is very, very exasperated.

Shots from afar!

Zhao Yunlan yelling at his superiors for letting a taxi driver escape custody. Shen Wei helping by talking to the Regent in his civvies.

Zhao Yunlan doing kung fu while tied up!

It was super effective!

The episode's mandatory hand close-up is of alpha asshole Guo Changcheng brushing off Chu Shuzhi's hand:


Zhao Yunlan jacket watch
Four! The black affair seen last episode, a black leather jacket, a nice brown coat, and another black leather jacket.


The jacket of interrogation + Guo Changcheng day, the jacket of Zhu Hong day. The jacket of Chu Shuzhi day + captivity, the post-case jacket he goes to Shen Wei's apartment with.

Shen Wei shoe watch
Brown bootlets, against Kong Jing's arm!


Did Shen Wei remove his glasses?
No.

Comments

[maggie33]

A shallow comment first - this dark blue suit with stripes is probably my favorite of Shen Wei’s suits. He looks fantastic. And this is such a pretty screencap. :)

I admit that this episode made me cringe a little bit when I watched it for the first time. But I re-watched it at least 3 times and now there are a lot of things I love in it. That non-scripted “Heipao-gege” scene is hilarious. Zhao Yunlan’s reactions are hilarious, too. And I love watching Zhu Yilong trying very hard not to laugh in that scene when they see Chu Shuzhi with the changed personality for the first time. :D

Option B is that his mother Shen Xi was secretly Dixingian, and Zhao Yunlan is now manifesting his Dixing power of being a supreme pain in the ass.

LOL But you know what, Shen Xi being secretly Dixingian is a nice AU idea. I would read that fic.

[extrapenguin]

It's much better on rewatch, true! If only so one can fully appreciate Zhao Yunlan's various ARGH reactions.

[clevermanka]

Option B is that his mother Shen Xi was secretly Dixingian, and Zhao Yunlan is now manifesting his Dixing power of being a supreme pain in the ass.
Okay but seriously I fucking love this idea.

Zhao Yunlan is very, very exasperated.
And god he looks good at it.

[extrapenguin]

And god he looks good at it.
He does! 24 and 25 were very good episodes in this respect.

[lannamichaels]

That "Zhao Yunlan is very, very exasperated." pic... god how is he so gorgeous.

[extrapenguin]

how is he so gorgeous
Obviously it's his Dixing power! *g*

[lannamichaels]

You know, I'd buy that. Considering people have various types of people they find attractive, ZYL could have that thing that Morpheus has in the sandman comics, where he looks different in different contexts. Ergo, Da Qing actually does see ZYL as a kitty.

[extrapenguin]

Ergo, Da Qing actually does see ZYL as a kitty.
Hee! Though now I want to see Zhao Yunlan actually realize what's going on and be all DDDD: at the sudden revelation.

[solo]

Do you think this was some side effect of the Longevity Dial thing, or Shen Wei doing something one of those times Zhao Yunlan slept? Shen Wei must've known about the defense against personality switching, since he said "Anyone but you is susceptible".

My utterly unscientific theory is that when Shen Wei he fixed Zhao Yunlan's sight, he also in general dealt with the dark energy 'corrosion' that he kept going on about - he didn't remove it but he tweaked it, and Zhao Yunlan now has some 'tamed' dark energy in his body which helps him in situations like that.

But even if that's not how it works, I personally prefer to think he did it during the Longevity Dial exchange, rather than creepily doing stuff when Zhao Yunlan is asleep and without his consent.

[jo_lasalle]

But even if that's not how it works, I personally prefer to think he did it during the Longevity Dial exchange, rather than creepily doing stuff when Zhao Yunlan is asleep and without his consent.

It's really not impossible, but I also don't recall us being given any active indication that Shen Wei did anything to Zhao Yunlan while Zhao Yunlan was sleeping, except watch him. (Because that's his hobby! Every man needs a hobby for a healthy work life balance!)

[extrapenguin]

So, extending/overstepping his mandate vs doing stuff where Zhao Yunlan didn't consent to anything even in the vicinity? Yeah, that's probably more likely. I'm not sure how to think about the concept of "tamed" dark energy; I'll have to see if it comes up later in the show in any way.

[solo]

Yeah, kind of. I mean, I'm assuming that what he did could never just be about 'make Zhao Yunlan see again' because then the ongoing damage from the Holy Tools/dark energy could simply make him blind again at the next exposure. Shen Wei had to be fixing the cause, not just a random symptom.

To that extent, he might not even be overstepping his mandate - though I have no problem if he did.

But anyway, so maybe 'tamed' isn't right, but he did something with that dark energy that it couldn't harm ZYL anymore but it's still *there*, so maybe what happened in the personality change ep is just a benefit, or it came from an extra tweak.

Is my quasi-coherent thinking.

[jo_lasalle]

Man, this episode is so ambivalent for me. It has a lot of details that I like, like, um, the utter hotness of Zhao Yunlan with a knife to his throat just for example, and I do find the campness of the personality changes entertaining. (The dawning "LOLWTF?? ... okay, wtf?" progression on Chu Shuzhi's face when Guo first gets aggro about the diary is IMO wonderful.)

But it also has my hands-down least-favourite scene in the entire series, Zhao Yunlan's actual disgust at Chu Shuzhi's effeminate behaviour, saying he'd never have hired him if Shen Wei had introduced him like that, and Shen Wei basically saying that Chu turning effeminate like that is worse than killing him. (And sounding serious about it.) If I could just remove one bit of dialog from the show in some magic edit, it might actually be that, it makes me cringe so hard. I find it very tonally off for the show, for it to just suddenly flip into meanness towards campy/effeminate people. >.< (And FWIW, I totally think that Chu Shuzhi would find this whole thing incredibly embarrassing, and Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan could totally have commented/riffed on that, but the straightfaced presentation here just reads as mean to me.)

So, lots of ambivalence, and the plot still has confusion potential for me a couple of rewatches in, but very enjoyable recap as usual! I especially appreciate the two shots from afar and the highlighting that they kind of mirror each other, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan both off to talk to politicians.

I assume doctor-patient confidentiality doesn't exist in this universe?

That's kind of my assumption too. Or at least, that it's a lot more flexible wrt interaction with law enforcement. (We also never hear anything about needing or waiting for search warrants or anything like that, so I'm assuming this might be a more general 'privacy? you say whut?' thing.)

Ya Qing seems to be living in a wuxia film – she gives Wang Xiangyang a speech on people deserving to die with at least some shreds of dignity, even if that'll give the SID crew a few days of reprieve, and also gave Guo Changcheng that IOU necklace! Complete with declarations that she'd never met a decent human before him and that she wouldn't kill him before Dong Nan's corpse.

LOL! Yeah, Ya Qing is going through some turns in this one! It's interesting to be reminded on the rewatches how often she actually kills someone, mostly because she's one of the better villains and isn't mwahahha! evil and basically gets her redemption moment at the end. But yeah, there were a few murders!

and if you watch the scene where he's been captured by Kong Jing, you can watch him disengage his mask when Kong Jing's behind him and put it back on when Kong Jing can see his face again.

Zhao Yunlan trying to / succeeding in manipulating this guy is one of the highlights of this episode for me. I LOVE HIM.

Between the two grey suits and the patterns (Shen Wei's suit vs. Zhao Xinci's vest) this is the episode where (I think) I find it most noticeable that the two of them have a similar go-to style.

And speaking of styles: the personality change finally gives Chu's floofy scarf its proper purpose! ❤️

Excellent jacket time in this episode! Though I think the two black leather jackets are the same?

The music playing when Crow Girl is dying is Shen Wei's theme, btw. Because of course. *sigh*

Though to come round to a less tragic note:

[extrapenguin]

But it also has my hands-down least-favourite scene in the entire series, Zhao Yunlan's actual disgust at Chu Shuzhi's effeminate behaviour, saying he'd never have hired him if Shen Wei had introduced him like that, and Shen Wei basically saying that Chu turning effeminate like that is worse than killing him.
Yeah, this is in several ways a nice episode (all of Zhao Yunlan's ARGH!) but ... that. It's possible to interpret it as Zhao Yunlan not liking wishy-washiness, or a personal opinion/flaw of Zhao Yunlan's (who canonically doesn't like talking about his feelings), but. As you said, they definitely could've milked the comedy in a better way.

It's interesting to be reminded on the rewatches how often she actually kills someone, mostly because she's one of the better villains and isn't mwahahha! evil and basically gets her redemption moment at the end. But yeah, there were a few murders!
Now I want to go through the episodes again on rewatch and count how many people we see Zhu Jiu, Ya Qing, and Ye Zun kill onscreen, and compare that to Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's kill counts. Our villains do more stuff offscreen (the underground fighting ring stuff, etc), but it'd be interesting to see their comparative murderiness with the heroic references.

Between the two grey suits and the patterns (Shen Wei's suit vs. Zhao Xinci's vest) this is the episode where (I think) I find it most noticeable that the two of them have a similar go-to style.
This is very interesting! Hmm, do you think Shen Wei patterned his humanwear after Zhao Xinci's, in an effort to make Dixingians seem more human or subconsciously or whatever?

The black leather jackets might be the same – I didn't really pay that much detailed attention. But he does change jackets in between, so it happens over at least 4 days, with potential gap days between!

Have a pic without the subs:

[jo_lasalle]

HNG. I will look at various permutations of this pic happily...

Hmm, do you think Shen Wei patterned his humanwear after Zhao Xinci's, in an effort to make Dixingians seem more human or subconsciously or whatever?

Oh, no, I don't think so. I do find it likely that he took his cues from someone (maybe a senior professor), I think he dislikes Zhao Xinci too much for anything like that. I'm mainly amused by the style similarities because Zhao Yunlan finds his dad so URGH but found himself a dude who has at last some style overlap with URGH dad. *g* (It is really, really not a major or terribly relevant similarity, it just amuses me.)

[ratbones]

No coherent thoughts on the episode this week but I felt compelled to at least contribute something, so

[extrapenguin]

Oh my god that's hilarious! :D

[marycrawford]

Thanks so much for that FABULOUS fucking cap of SW being so, so, SO done with ZYL's shit. (I can't help it, I love him cranky.) And I loathe the rest of this episode, so it's really nice to have something good come out of it.

[extrapenguin]

OH FUCK I failed the copypaste!

is from the end, when they're approaching Shen Wei's apartment and he smells something fishy. It has been replaced with a more appropriate image now!

[marycrawford]

Awww, I totally misinterpreted there, ha! But still an awesome cap, leading into the scene with the Orange in the next ep <3 <3 <3

[extrapenguin]

the scene with the Orange
I ... have completely forgotten this! But I assume that this means I have a good time ahead of me?

[marycrawford]

Dude. (all-gender dude is my fave form of address, sorry) Duuuuuuuuuuude. Allow me to expand a bit. :D

I am watching for the first time round, while trying to avoid spoilers, but also rewatching and lingering as I go, because I already feel like I don't want it to be over. (Am at ep 28 right now and things are getting TENSE.)

And I feel like the Scene with the Orange in ep 26 (basically the very opening scene, ignore the bit with the crows, and then the scene after that, which are one moment) is giving us a fantastic, emotionally charged baseline for the relationship, from which things are going to ramp up.

There is NOTHING HAPPENING in this scene that is plot-related, nothing that needs to happen, and I want to build a house in this scene and live inside it. To jog your memory: they get home, find out SW's apartment has been broken into and set somewhat on fire (not that SW was living there anyway, koff), strategize on ZYL's couch for a bit, and then SW goes into the kitchen to delicately cut up an orange for ZYL.

When he comes back, he's on the point of calling out to him, then stops--and stares--his gaze is open and vulnerable and loving--and we see that ZYL has fallen asleep. SW comes to sit with him, actually sits on the CORNER OF THE COFFEE TABLE as if he's ZYL and has forgotten how to comport himself politely, and just stares with utter heart eyes at ZYL, who looks soft and tired and lovely in his sleep. Then SW gets out his pendant and stares at ZYL some more, and smiles. OH and also SW covers him with his own grey suit jacket, just to make him more comfortable. <3

The whole thing lasts about three minutes and all it needs is some music to turn into a fanvid.

[extrapenguin]

I am watching for the first time round, while trying to avoid spoilers
*screams in quiet terror* Begone! This rewatchalong is a lair of spoilers! (Well, okay, not so much this episode, but in general.) Tread very carefully!

Aw, Shen Wei being devoted is adorable. I'm glad there's nice stuff coming up so soon!

[marycrawford]

Thanks, I will be careful! It's frustrating because I want to dive into the deep end, but otoh I also know that I will love to just be surprised and not be like "ah yes I knew that was going to happen".

[extrapenguin]

Yeah, I was spoiled for a few things, and while I don't think i'd have picked up the canon if I hadn't known about one, I think I'd have preferred not knowing about the rest. Best of luck avoiding all the spoilers!