Guardian Episode by Episode: 32

[extrapenguin]

Welcome to the rewatchalong! This week we watch episode 32. The Imgur screencap album has 71 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, Episode 25, Episode 26, Episode 27, Episode 28, Episode 29, Episode 30, Episode 31

This week, Zhao Yunlan rails against the establishment, Chu Shuzhi tells us his backstory (part 1), and Shen Wei continues taking an unergonimic nap while making delicious noises.

Characterization
Zhao Yunlan is really under stress this episode. He hasn't dared sleep, his department is under attack from all sides, and his superiors are being idiots. His stress reaction is to yell at people – at Chu Shuzhi so he'd maybe quit the SID and get out of the firing line, and at Minister Gao for not releasing information to the public even if the cat's already out of the bag re: Dixing. The precise thing he yelled at his boss was "You're not qualified to sit here and judge us," which is ... quite strong language to use with your boss. He really needs a nap.


"Fuck you and the hobbyhorse you rode in on, Sir!"

Regardless of his distancing attempts, he does care about his subordinates. He went to the Ministry to bat for Chu Shuzhi, and goes to the trouble of spelling out the enemy plot item by item so that Chu Shuzhi wouldn't fall in the trap.


"I am in charge of you because you are stupid and I am smarter than you. Knock it off."

Da Qing is an excellent cat (who interrupts Zhao Yunlan almost-firing Chu Shuzhi in anger because it's an emergency). Even if he doesn't know how to knock. And he's a nosy gossip who wants to know all the salacious nsfw details that surely must've happened in Zhu Hong's dream.


"You ordered a feline interruption?"

We get a lot of Chu Shuzhi this episode! Let's start with the first bit; namely, how his bit mirrors Zhao Yunlan's earlier bit. Both of them have a serious confrontation with a superior of sorts (Minister Gao, the Regent), and then try to make other people go away for their own protection. Chu Shuzhi does that by ... telling Guo Changcheng he's a cannibal while acting surprisingly coquettishly.


"I eat people! Starting with the lips."

He also handled the Regent pretty well! He refused to be roused by the intimidation and called out the Regent's shadiness/pretended to be a mad lunatic to threaten information out of the Regent. (Though given how he usually acts, his pre-prison self, and the act ... one wonders what Dixing's prisons are like. Beyond apparently making everyone do 100 pushups daily.) Before that, he also did some pretty astute manipulation of Zhao Yunlan by offering to go to Dixing to fetch "Professor Shen" (vs. calling Shen Wei by his Dixing title), which was neat, even if it didn't work.


Chu Shuzhi wears his invisible shackles voluntarily because they are so good for strangling annoying politicians.

I wonder whether the puppet was stolen by the Regent as retribution for humiliating him. The bit at Ye Zun's pillar, however, was pure Ye Zun – I suspect Ye Zun was working out his gege/abandonment issues via proxy. He says he'll take good care of Chu Nianzhi (might be his own issues, might be just trying to get a lever on Chu Shuzhi), and makes Chu Shuzhi choose between his brother and Guo Changcheng, as Zhao Yunlan didn't show up.


If in doubt, apply violence.

What is dream, what is reality?
Chu Shuzhi stays awake all night, so the dreams in this episode are the short one Guo Changcheng had about Chu Shuzhi strangling him, and the bit at the end starting from Chu Shuzhi resting in the library after reporting to Zhao Yunlan and "waking up" to Guo Changcheng's return.

Canon details

• Chu Shuzhi's puppet only comes out if there's danger
• Chu Shuzhi's past as a murderer is known only to Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing from the SID
• Chu Shuzhi has been at the SID for 3 years, so Zhao Yunlan must've been Chief for 3 years (since only Da Qing worked under Zhao Xinci)
• The Envoy-summoning incense cones don't work if they're broken
• Dixing has bread
• The Regent and Attendant were present "100 years" ago, which is at odds to Zhu Jiu considering Sang Zan a monster for being alive after 100 years – is Dixingian lifespan heavily variable? Do Dixingians only live long by doing unsavoury things?
• Ye Zun says he'll "borrow" the Nightmare Master's power – can he actually borrow powers, or is this, say, Ye Zun mind controlling the Nightmare Master and "using" the powers that way?

Cinematography
Let's start with Chu Shuzhi's "ah yes I am a cannibal" sequence – the camera did an admirable job of shaking around derangedly!



Also, I know this is a longish sequence, but: wow.

The claustrophobic shots of Chu Shuzhi after he's learned his brother's spirit doll was stolen are also good!

There are also a few shots through framing devices:

Chu Shuzhi keeps the secret of his murder sentence. The doll has been stolen.

And this subtle framing device shot:

Which also looks super good.

The album has some additional shirtless Chu Shuzhi and Shen Wei's torture face.

Teasers.

Zhao Yunlan jacket watch
This episode happens over three days, though Zhao Yunlan only changes jacket once.

Day 1 in the blue affair, days 2 & 3 in the brown coat.

Did Shen Wei remove his glasses?
Still too busy being the unwilling participant in his brother's BDSM practice to take off his glasses.

Comments

[phyrry]

The incense only working if it's not broken is an interesting design decision. There's some good Dixing worldbuilding and politics in this episode! But in general the dream stuff is very much not my thing, so not a lot to comment on there.

A few questions I continue to have about this episode:
Which doll is Chu Nianzhi's remains (if any)? Which doll was buried in the box and lost? (Or perhaps it was the original, of which the other two are copies?) The hundred year thing - was Zhu Jiu perhaps referring to Sang Zan being human and humans considering Dixingians monsters? An oblique bias reference, essentially?

[extrapenguin]

Which doll is Chu Nianzhi's remains (if any)?
The small doll is one Chu Nianzhi transported his spirit to, and was buried in the box and lost/retrieved(?). The large one in Haixing is something completely different.

The hundred year thing - was Zhu Jiu perhaps referring to Sang Zan being human and humans considering Dixingians monsters? An oblique bias reference, essentially?
IIRC it was more specific than that (and a direct reaction to Sang Zan calling him a monster), but I don't actually speak Chinese. I dunno. I wouldn't put it past the Regent and Attendant to do unethical things to extend their lives, but that leaves Chu Shuzhi. (Maybe he did actually eat someone in a dark energy ritual to outlive his lifespan and sentence? IDK. More papiér-mâche is necessary here.)

[clevermanka]

Which also looks super good.
Oh that is a good shot.

And real talk, that Lao Chu/Xiao Guo scene is just...flabbergasting in its shippiness.

[extrapenguin]

Oh that is a good shot.
IKR? Guardian just looks so pretty!

And real talk, that Lao Chu/Xiao Guo scene is just...flabbergasting in its shippiness.
Yeah. I guess they thought they could get away with the thing if they filmed their almost-kiss with accompanying cannibalism speech? (Now I wish Zhao Yunlan or Shen Wei had been affected by the personality change virus or something and we'd have gotten something similarly shippy past the censors. Alas.)

[clevermanka]

Seriously alas.

[teaotter]

(Now I wish Zhao Yunlan or Shen Wei had been affected by the personality change virus or something and we'd have gotten something similarly shippy past the censors. Alas.)

This is what fanfic is for! (Someone should write this up for the plot bunny farm, is what I'm saying.)

[teaotter]

I got so very confused the first time I watched these episodes. I couldn't tell what had actually happened and what was a dream. The fact that everyone's acting weird from lack of sleep didn't help.

I'd missed the very lantern-shaped desk lamp in Zhao Yunlan's office til that screencap about Da Qing's intervention. Nice shot!

[extrapenguin]

The initial watch was a bit confusing and I was fully prepared to be confused on rewatch, but it turns out that with knowledge of where it's going, it's pretty easy to to distinguish?

I'd missed the very lantern-shaped desk lamp in Zhao Yunlan's office til that screencap about Da Qing's intervention
...Oh wow, I didn't notice that! Nice catch.

[ranalore]

Huh. I would say the dream starts when Chu Shuzhi falls asleep/passes out on the steps of the Sky Pillar. Because he then "wakes up" at his desk at the SID in a scene that parallels the earlier scene in which Xiao Guo woke up from the dream where Lao Chu was strangling him, and is clearly very confused about how he even got to the SID. Then, there's nobody in the building except for him and (a lollipop-less) Zhao Yunlan, who a) doesn't yell at him for disobeying orders, b) doesn't immediately lose his shit on finding out that Shen Wei is chained, unconscious, to the Pillar Formerly Known as Ye Zun's Prison, and c) doesn't react to the news that Lao Chu sent Xiao Guo back to the SID earlier by saying he never showed up, let's go look for him. Then, there's the fact that Lao Chu even says he sent Xiao Guo back, with no apparent awareness it contradicts what actually happened; it's what he wishes had happened, just like it's his wish that Shen Wei isn't in danger and Zhao Yunlan isn't mad at him, and we only see things playing out that well-but-wrong in the dreams. It's stage one of the dream the Master of Nightmares needs to give him to masquerade as Xiao Guo and try to get Chu Shuzhi to sleepwalk out of Dixing and up to destroy the shield around the SID.

I don't think Lao Chu actually wakes up at the SID until the final waking, when I posit they probably found him collapsed in the vicinity of the building after resisting the Master of Nightmares. Or possibly he resisted breaking in and managed to just walk in on his own, but still asleep until the Master of Nightmares abandoned him as a failed ploy.

[extrapenguin]

I would say the dream starts when Chu Shuzhi falls asleep/passes out on the steps of the Sky Pillar. Because he then "wakes up" at his desk at the SID in a scene that parallels the earlier scene in which Xiao Guo woke up from the dream where Lao Chu was strangling him, and is clearly very confused about how he even got to the SID.
Huh, interesting! I'll have to see where and when he wakes up next week. I guess Zhao Yunlan's reaction is not necessarily that unbelievable if e.g. he were under the impression that Chu Shuzhi had been dreaming and might not know when he snapped out of it. But I'll have to refresh my memory of the reality bit of next episode – I don't recall much beyond Shen Wei finally being freed from the pillar.

[ranalore]

I'll have to see where and when he wakes up next week.

If it helps, I did watch a bit of 33 before commenting, precisely to make sure I remembered where and when he woke up correctly, and how Zhao Yunlan responded. I feel as though Zhao Yunlan's whole serious/disappointed/bleak attitude when Chu Shuzhi wakes up in 33 is both incompatible with his casual, if nonplussed, reaction in 32, and is much more realistic of a boss who stumbled across an employee either napping in an alley, or possibly passed out on the couch upstairs, after clearly getting into something he'd been ordered not to get into, with his partner missing—presumed dead—and without even a prize professor to show for it.

[extrapenguin]

Okay! I'll see what happens next week.