GUARDIAN REWATCH - Episode 29

[trobadora]

Beginning of episode: Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are going to see Fourth Uncle
Ending of episode: Shen Wei, Sha Ya and Hua Yuzhu are at the locust tree gate and about to go to Dixing

Important scenes/developments:

• Shen Wei deduces a number from a payphone's push buttons
• Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan discover the jeep and Minister Gao
• flashback: Bai Suxia's and Wang Xiangyang's wedding pics at the jeep
• Vice Minister Guo fetches Minister Gao
• flashback: Zhao Xinci scolds little!Zhao Yunlan about searching the wrong way for their lost dog
• Wu Xiaojun attacks the Pillar; Wu Tian'en saves him
• the SID watches a DVD Wang Xiangyang recorded and deduce the location
• Flashback: Bai Suxia and Wang Xiangyang are expecting a child
• Sha Ya tortures Zhao Xinci and discovers he has two personalities; Zhao Yunlan et al. interrupt Wang Xiangyang's plan to kill Zhao Xinci
• flashbacks: events of Reunion Night for Wang Xiangyang and Bai Suxia
• Zhao Yunlan offers to take Zhao Xinci's place as his son; big confrontation between SID and Wang Xiangyang
• flashback: Zhao Xinci in the hospital
• Wang Xiangyang gives the Merit Brush to Zhao Yunlan and is dissolved into ashes
• SID speculation on the Merit Brush is interrupted by a quake; Ya Qing explains the Merit Brush broke Ye Zun's prison
• Ye Zun kills Wu Tian'en
• Shen Wei takes Hua Yuzhu and Sha Ya to the Dixing portal
• flashbacks: Gu Ban's death, Gu Ban's feelings for Sha Ya

( Thoughts )

Discussion starters:

• What's your favourite scene in this episode? I find it hard to pick between the payphone deduction (more lighthearted) and Zhao Yunlan on the rooftop (more angsty).


• What's your favourite line? Mine has to be Zhao Xinci's "I could just not explain anything to you, but I don't want you to die stupid!" :D


• Why do you think the SID never checked out the contents of Wang Xiangyang's home before? Shouldn't they have done so as soon as they realised who the Master of the Merit Brush was?


• During Wu Xiaojun's first visit to the pillar, An Bai's two friends (An Song and Dandan) emerge from a cloud of black energy. Later, after the quake and the Pillar breaking open, Ye Zun appears as a black cloud, and An Song and Dandan emerge from it somehow, only to then vanish again. Is Ye Zun his absorbing and releasing and re-absorbing them? That's what it looks like to me! Did he eat them, and spits them out again whenever he has use for them?! Or if this is some sort of portal-adjacent power and he's calling them from somewhere else?


• After Wang Xiangyang's death, everyone tries to figure out what Team Merit Brush was after. Why do you think they didn't realise earlier that it was about freeing Ye Zun? After all, Zhu Jiu with his energy-gathering already temporarily/partially broke him free from the Pillar once (when he appeared as an energy projection and Zhao Yunlan got blinded). Freeing him seems like an obvious goal, doesn't it?
>

• The energy spectacle in the sky that accompanies/follows the quake also involves a stream of black energy going upward. Is that coming directly from the Pillar? And what do ordinary people make of this spectacle? (The implication seems to be that everyone at the SID is seeing it, so I would assume people can generally see it! And I also assume the uproar among the Yashou is also related to this.)
  
  
  


• At the locust tree where the passage to Dixing opens, Shen Wei has Sha Ya and Hua Yuzhu with him. How did that happen?
  
  Last we saw Sha Ya, she appeared to be leaving from the rooftop. And now, she seems to have no interest in running away, even though her revenge was not completed and she doesn't yet know it was misdirected. Was she captured? Why has she given up on her revenge?
  
  And last we saw Hua Yuzhu, she left the forest. How is she with Shen Wei - especially given Shen Wei doesn't seem keen on taking her to Dixing? He specifically tells her she lived in Dragon City for so long and committed no crimes, and offers to let her go.


• Speaking of Sha Ya, she looks red-eyed and drained. Is that emotional, or has all the boosting from the Merit Brush gone away after Wang Xiangyang died? (Or are those boosts permanent, do you think? Is she still superpowered? Can she still zoom into the sky?!)


• And regarding the Merit Brush's enhancements: if Shen Wei learned Sha Ya's power from observing it, would he only learn the basic version, or would the Merit Brush enhancement come across as well? Or do his own power levels mean he can accomplish something similar without enhancement?


• After Gu Ban is shot, Zhao Xinci tells Hua Yuzhu to call an ambulance, but he doesn't know Gu Ban is Dixingren, and the black energy gun shouldn't harm humans. Does he realise Gu Ban is Dixingren, or is he so distracted by the other guy that he thinks Gu Ban is only down because the guy strangled him, and the gun did nothing?


• When the perpetrator takes the gun and tries to fire it at Zhao Xinci, nothing happens. It's not just that it has no effect on Zhao Xinci - it looks like it's out of bullets, and doesn't shoot at all. But we've never seen it actually need ammo, and Zhao Yunlan uses it freely in YOHE. Does it need time to recharge? *g*

Let's talk about episode 29!
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!