GUARDIAN REWATCH - Episode 19

[trobadora]

Beginning of episode: Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng are driving Bo Bi and the young men Ye Huo protected out of town
Ending of episode: after being captured on the rooftop, Zhu Jiu asks Shen Wei if he remembers him

Important scenes/developments:

• the car Chu Shuzhi is driving breaks down and Zhu Jiu attacks
• Zhu Jiu taunts Bo Bi and reveals the truth about Bo Bi's brother's death
• Ye Huo catches up and confronts Zhu Jiu; everyone is nearly blown up
• Zhao Yunlan touches the Mountain-River Awl and has visions
• Shen Wei finds Zhao Yunlan passed out, and aggressively wipes Zhao Yunlan's nose
• Zhu Jiu sends a video message and wants to exchange Chu Shuzhi, Guo Changcheng and Ye Huo for the Hallows
• Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei plan to capture Zhu Jiu
• Zhu Jiu attempts to recruit Chu Shuzhi
• Zhu Hong and Shen Wei talk about love
• Zhu Jiu leaves the lab and turns on the mechanism to chill it down to absolute zero
• Shen Wei, Zhu Hong and Ying Chun convince Fourth Uncle to keep Ya Qing busy
• Lin Jing and Cong Bo hack the power grid
• Xiao-Guo attempts to say his good-byes
• on the rooftop, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan confront and capture Zhu Jiu

( Thoughts )

Discussion starters:

• Favourites, discoveries, memories: What's your favourite moments in this episode? (Mine, as I said above, is definitely the nose-wiping. :D) And did you notice anything this time round that you didn't before, or that looks different in retrospect?
  
  And if you remember your first viewing of the episode: did you put together what they were doing with the blackout before it happened? I keep forgetting that it's not actually spelled out for the viewer until then - but it's entirely possible to figure it out. Zhao Yunlan has been thinking about how to trap Zhu Jiu from literally the second he discovered what medium Zhu Jiu's teleportation uses!


• Zhu Jiu:
  • Given that Lao-Chu's car breaks down just before Zhu Jiu attacks, the implication is that Zhu Jiu made this happen somehow. But how? Does he know someone with an anti-technology power? Did he engage in some old-fashioned sabotage? Or did a Crow do it for him? What's your theory?
  • Given that Zhu Jiu quotes Bo Bi's brother's suicide letter verbatim, which is it: a) he has photographic memory, or b) he memorised it in hopes of taunting Bo Bi with it one day? *g*


• Zhao Yunlan and the Awl: What does Zhao Yunlan expect the Awl to give him if he does get lucky? He's touched it before and it gave him past-and-future flashes, but I didn't think he'd realised that yet. Has he realised some of the flashes were from the future after they came true?


• Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei: What do you think Zhao Yunlan makes of Shen Wei's reaction to his fainting and nosebleed? He's never seen Shen Wei so angry, or get so physical about expressing his frustration, and his usual strategy of trying to defuse a situation by making light of it very much didn't work at all. Do you think he recalibrates his understanding and his responses after this?


• Shen Wei and the SID: What do you think the SID makes of Shen Wei being so prominently addressed by Zhu Jiu, and taking such a lead in this case? (It's even Shen Wei who says that since they can't give the Hallows to Zhu jiu bujt need to rescue the hostages, they have to capture Zhu Jiu and get the location from him. Not that that plan will end up working - but everyone seems to immediately accept it.)
  
  Also, why does Da Qing turn to Shen Wei to ask what they should do after they receive the hostage video?
  
  And what is going through Zhu Hong's head on the rooftop - has she been told anything or figured it out? It always seemed to me that she doesn't know about Shen Wei being the Envoy until then, but if that's the case, what does she think Zhao Yunlan's plan is for subduing Zhu Jiu?


• Dixing education. I love that it's Ye Huo who explains to Xiao-Guo about thermodynamics and absolute zero. He's the star of an underground fight club, but that doesn't mean he isn't well educated!
  
  In fact:
  • random areas Ye Huo knows something about: thermodynamics
  • random areas Lao-Chu knows something about: the nervous system and its responses to hypothermia
  Are such things common knowledge in Dixing, or did they learn them in Haixing? What do you think? (Lao-Chu has been in Haixing for less than three years at this point; we don't know where Ye Huo grew up.)


• Handcuffs: Do the handcuffs Zhao Yunlan uses on Zhu Jiu actually restrain his black energy? It certainly looks that way, but I don't remember these handcuffs ever being used for anything or anyone before or after.
  
  Alternately, is Zhu Jiu's inability to summon his powers the same as what happened to Chu Shuzhi earlier this episode when he was kicked so hard he couldn't for a while? Ye Huo, who is injured enough that he never attempted to help the others search the lab, has similar trouble, unable to use his powers to warm up. (Lots of parallels!) Shen Wei doesn't just cut Zhu Jiu - there's visible black energy on the blade.
  
  (Perhaps the handcuffs only work on someone who's already weakened? Thoughts?)

Let's talk about episode 19!
Come and talk about this episode - anything from favourite scenes or lines of dialogue to notes/questions about continuity or translation, most gorgeous (or angsty) smile, or anything else that strikes your fancy! And share links to your own and/or others' episode-related meta, picspams, and fanworks, new or old!