sid_guardian | Guardian Episode by Episode: 03

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Guardian Episode by Episode: 03

Welcome to episode 3 of the Guardian rewatchalong, now back on the comm! The icon battle is still ongoing until April. This post has notes on canon details, characterization, and foreshadowing. Imgur screencaps album. Lots of nice team shots!

Previously:
Episode 1, Episode 2

This episode starts and concludes the "lesbian Dixingren murders her lover's rapists" case, and introduces the "face-stealing power" case right at the end.

Foreshadowing and projection
Let's talk a bit about Zhang Ruonan and Wang Yike's relationship! Zhang Ruonan discovered a very scared, lost, and lonely Wang Yike, and gave her a purpose in life. Wang Yike considered Zhang Ruonan her benefactor, and said "As long as I can protect her, my life has worth", and basically this relationship is very intentionally constructed to foreshadow/mirror the eventual relationship of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. What happened to Wang Yike – not being able to protect a beloved, hurting one's beloved with one's own powers – must also be a nightmare scenario of Shen Wei's. No wonder he went out of his way to save Zhang Ruonan and pardon Wang Yike.

Note also the way Zhao Yunlan has gone elsewhere to have an emotion. He's likely also re-examining his attitude towards Dixingren.

The other piece of foreshadowing comes via a conversation between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan: Shen Wei says some things that are in hindsight very harrowing, such as "Some tragedies were destined from the beginning."

Other characterization notes
Shen Wei is still sad and concerned about Li Qian. He also says something really interesting I can only connect with Ye Zun: "Will seeing through people really lessen the hurt and disappointment?"

Meanwhile, Zhao Yunlan doesn't believe in the blurbs of bestsellers, texts about winning the lottery, or coincidences during a case:

We had a very awkward scene where Shen Wei tried to introduce Zhao Yunlan to Zhang Ruonan, and with the awkward hesitations and eventual "I'm his ... good friend", she 100% came out of it with the assumption they were dating. Perhaps the rumor mill has also heard of it, now? :P (We also see Zhao Yunlan speculate about Zhang Ruonan potentially being traumatized recently. Combined with her "Good intentions might not always be rewarded" at the start, this is quite well foreshadowed.)

Zhao Yunlan's interplay with his team is excellent, from everyone just avoiding him a bit while he coughs on them to bringing exactly the right people for the job over. (Zhu Hong might be checked out when she comforts Zhang Ruonan, but given that the latter got gang raped, getting a dude to try and comfort her would've likely been counterproductive.)

"I'm already sick, don't make me skin you alive [for implying that I only give the orders and do zero work]!"

Guo Changcheng has become less useful: this time, he fainted at sight of the corpse. He did, however provide some foreshadowing: "Though a stolen life is short, a promise can remain unchanged for thousands of years." We also hear him express a desire to guard everyone, since this show's version of "this relationship is totally no homo" is to call that relationship "guarding"

There is only one corpse. The other "corpse" is Guo Changcheng.

This is a thing that didn't really come up in this episode so much as something I realized in this episode, but Lin Jing is a decent and nonsexist human being. We mostly see it later on with Sha Ya, but even when Zhao Yunlan wanted him to zoom in on Li Qian, he called his boss a beast rather than zoom in on the boobs. Here, he's the one to explicitly condemn the rapists' actions, berating how they have "hearts more fragile than potato chips".

Zhu Hong gets a few nice expressions:

Cinematography
The camera steadfastly remained around the characters' heads, this episode, but we did still get the usual shots through blinds. After all, as

no_detective put it, this is "a show about the tensions between two worlds connected by magical pathways" and the shots through blinds are noir-ish and visually indicative of secrets.

...also, I realized that Zhu Jiu is framed by light:

And a nice, nontraditional crop of footage as a bonus:

Canon details

The SID library is mostly decorative
Lin Jing is doing Science well by seeing if anyone else can make the Hallows do stuff, but alas, they only want to speak to the manager
Zhao Yunlan easily picks up and carries Zhang Ruonan
This is the first time we see the Envoy practice catch and release
This is the first time we see Zhao Yunlan threaten to cancel Lin Jing's bonus
It is only in this episode that Zhu Jiu finds out that Shen Wei is not just a university professor
The SID has a freeze-on-spot gun that they use to freeze Shen Wei onto the spot. It seems to function by dark energy? We see it again during this case, but IIRC never afterwards, even if it'd be useful.

...We see Zhu Jiu grumble about Wang Yike being captured, but I can't figure out a way to connect this case to the Hallows at all. Was this his way of trying to figure out this Professor Shen – find a suitable pawn who's in a murderous place already, tell her that Professor Shen should've noticed and magically stopped it all, see if he dies or mysteriously survives? IDK. Any better ideas?

Zhao Yunlan's jacket watch
Three! It seems the dead students case happened over two days only. The second jacket, he wears an interestingly nonwestern shirt beneath it.

A few bonus images of jacket #2 (and Shen Wei's wedgie):

Shen Wei's shoes watch
High. The second pic is a bit dark, but you should be able to see the heel.

Did Shen Wei appear maskless?
When he's chasing the face-stealing killer, yes!

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Lin Jing is doing Science well by seeing if anyone else can make the Hallows do stuff, but alas, they only want to speak to the manager.

At least they're not trying to get anyone fired? >.>

Indeed! Imagine what that'd be like – "Chief Zhao, please fire the scientist dude, he's fondling me!"

Right? Groping is only acceptable by the Chief, after all.

Indeed! Only the post of Chief comes with Hallows-groping privileges ~~and duties~~!

With great power comes great responsibility and all that.

The BCE might get away with it. Maybe. They'll think about it. The Chief does like him a lot, after all.

They do seem to like Shen Wei. They even activate for him to make light signals once!

True! And they did keep him alive all that time, too.

Oh! And doesn't he use the Awl to save Sang Zan?

Oooh, I'd forgotten that. He does.

So, they allow two (2) gropers. And Lin Jing is not allowed. XD

I can't fault their taste. :D

They're like super picky cats who only let their favourite humans pet them, everyone else is shit out of luck.

/she says, eyeing her three troublemakers warily

Aaaah, the lesbian episode.

The first time I watched this, I was not up to speed yet on the censorship in China issue, and I still found them incredibly obviously gay. Wang Yike is like my #1 guest-character-I-want-to-get-a-better-ending-in-fanfic, though I appreciate that Shen Wei helped the lesbians out at the end.

Note also the way Zhao Yunlan has gone elsewhere to have an emotion. He's likely also re-examining his attitude towards Dixingren.

I really did find Zhao Yunlan turning away for the horrible moments of this episode quite, quite interesting. They are softies together.

Meanwhile, Zhao Yunlan doesn't believe in the blurbs of bestsellers, texts about winning the lottery, or coincidences during a case

This is honestly one of my favourite Zhao Yunlan moments in the early episodes. It's where between the cake stealing and the flirting, the cop thing really comes through.

Zhu Hong might be checked out when she comforts Zhang Ruonan

I like that scene quite a bit, both for what it says about Zhao Yunland and Zhu Hong. (Though it took me ages to decide if I was actually supposed to take Zhu Hong as Bad At Connecting or if it was just set up a little akwardly by the show and that really was supposed to be female bonding.)

JACKETS! None of my personal favourites - I am partial to the leather jackets - but the parka is pretty cool.

LOL the shoes. Oh god I will never be unable to unsee that for Shen Wei now too.

The slightly odd cliffhangers start here for real, but I loved the naked Shen Wei face in the coda / face-stealing intro at the end of the episode.

Wang Yike is like my #1 guest-character-I-want-to-get-a-better-ending-in-fanfic, though I appreciate that Shen Wei helped the lesbians out at the end.
Yes! I imagine that she'd very much appreciate it if the power-suppressing handcuffs the SID later acquires came in a bracelet model. I want her to be happy, even if she did technically get to retire with her lover.

Beneath all that boundary-crossing and bluffing, Zhao Yunlan is very sharp, just like the letter opener he gesticulates at Shen Wei with. He's also very clearly a cop here, who speculates and makes inferences and does not believe in coincidences during a case.

Xiao-Wei really likes making himself taller. :P

One learns to live with the cliffhangers; apparently they're pretty standard for Chinese media? Instead of writing An Episode for a case, they just film 40h (or whatnot) of footage that's a compelling story – like a mega-movie – and insert credits every x minutes to chop it up. Even prestige stuff like Nirvana in Fire is cut like that.

I call the cliffhangers "Scheherazade pacing", I don't think they're arbitrary at all. As with Scheherazade, the point is to never let you rest & feel satisfied at the end of a story, you always want to click on "next episode".

But episode 2 ended when the Li Qian case did!

(I do appreciate that they don't fluff up shorter cases or pare down longer ones to make them fit episode constraints, but I actually think I'd like to see a re-cut where it's one episode = one case. This'd mean some cases, like the Li Qian sundial one, are very long, but it'd be an interesting way of looking at the start of the show. In the latter half, there are less defined case boundaries, IIRC.)

I imagine that she'd very much appreciate it if the power-suppressing handcuffs the SID later acquires came in a bracelet model.

Yes, she would, wouldn't she?

I do like that they got a reasonably happy ending - there was some 'price to be paid' but they got to leave together and alive, and I think the dialogue around that reinforced that this was a reasonably happy ending (and that the professor lady might even get better).

One learns to live with the cliffhangers; apparently they're pretty standard for Chinese media? Instead of writing An Episode for a case, they just film 40h (or whatnot) of footage that's a compelling story – like a mega-movie – and insert credits every x minutes to chop it up. Even prestige stuff like Nirvana in Fire is cut like that.

Yeah, I've noticed that. Some of them make sense as classic cliffhangers, while others are really choppy to the point of "in the middle of a sentence".

I think the dialogue around that reinforced that this was a reasonably happy ending (and that the professor lady might even get better).
Oh, yes, they were very happy that they could stay together in peace, despite all that happened, but I can't recall any dialogue implying that Teacher Zhang might improve. What is the secret dialogue of HEA?

I just went to check - you're right, I fused something in my head. The SID team talk about "Even though Professor Zhang was scarred badly, she managed to keep her life."

It's the professor herself who says, to Shen Wei, "For Yike's sake, I will become strong and atone for her sins."

I might have mushed that "become strong" together with what the SID people were talking about!

I'll just have to write fixit fic where she recovers myself, then. :P

I am not saying that I am not on the case, but I suspect even if hypothetically I was trying to fix this along with other things that need fixing, you'll probably get there faster! #slow #wordy >_>

Uhhhh you might actually get there first, as I have at least 16k of words to write in current projects before I'd start with that, and then I would want to write something quick and under 5k for a change in between, so, uh. It was part of one of my masterplans even before this, but additional support is always nice.

LOL! My incredibly optimistic ETA is 'sometime in the summer'. We can have a friendly contest over whose masterplan gets out of control worse. >_>

Oh hey, my incredibly optimistic ETA is also 'sometime in the summer'! (I want to write and finish things and give a round of major edits before posting and doing the final word choice and polish edits as I go.) And of course I might be led astray by some other idea first, but: this idea would let me do worldbuilding.

Has anyone got a translation for Guo's notebook?

I want someone to make a gifset or DW icon saying "Zhao Yunlan stole 40 cakes. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible."

In the discussion about ZYL in this ep, several people worked to develop a theory that ZYL's cold, which serves the plot point of getting him to meet Wang Yike, may be a consequence of him spending so much time holding the Dial in the previous ep.

I so much love all the ways in which this episode ties in with the relationship between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, from the fact that one partner is Haixingren and the other Dixingren, to the worry about hurting the one you love, to being willing to give your life for them. The moment when Zhan Ruonan is actually happy to age dramatically just because it means Wang Yike can finally touch her is really poignant to me.

I never noticed Zhao Yunlan stepping away there. As for re-examining his attitude towards on Dixingren, I don't think we ever get any indication, even in the earliest episodes, that he dislikes them like his dad did. I know we can speculate on the grounds of what happened to his mother, but everything that comes out of his mouth is really about how they're just like humans, you get good ones and bad ones, and IIRC Shen Wei also notes straight away that the SID under Zhao Yunlan is very different from what it was under his dad. Yes, Shen Wei does clearly feel he has to make the point about Dixingren being just like ordinary people several more times, but there's really nothing Zhao Yunlan does to cause that, so I figure it's still a hangover from convos he's had to have (or maybe gave up having) with the dad.

Zhao Yunlan is so wonderfully transgressive in this episode! He's really trying to get under Shen Wei's skin, and isn't it amazing how Shen Wei doesn't even stop him? What normal person just lets some cop steal their cake? Isn't his lack of resistance suspicious?

And what normal person goes to the hospital for a cold? I know, I know, he has to be there for Reasons, but...

I totally forgot about the freeze-on-the-spot gun. Must check that out again.

This is one of the "big" episodes re: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's relationship from the time they're still circling around each other! (Another one is Zhou Weiwei the mirror girl, where the boyfriend expressly rejects the Haixing version.) It's very well done, how they put in foils and foreshadowing right from the start.

As for re-examining his attitude towards on Dixingren, I don't think we ever get any indication, even in the earliest episodes, that he dislikes them like his dad did.
At one point in the past, he boasted to Da Qing about killing each and every single one of them. This was likely mostly empty words, but the background sentiment must've been there. He never loathed Dixingren like his dad did, that I can 100% buy, but I think this was still a point where he did some self-reflection and soul-searching and made a note to confront his attitudes about Dixingren some more. I do agree that Shen Wei's "Dixingren are just like regular people!" pleas are hangovers from conversations with Zhao Xinci (or, hell, even from conversations with Professors Zhou and Ouyang!), but I think we see Zhao Yunlan's attitudes drift over the course of the show.

He's really trying to get under Shen Wei's skin, and isn't it amazing how Shen Wei doesn't even stop him? What normal person just lets some cop steal their cake? Isn't his lack of resistance suspicious?
Indeed! Shen Wei is already on Zhao Yunlan's radar, and here he is, being very suspicious. Does he not want the cake his students bought him???

And what normal person goes to the hospital for a cold?
Apparently it is a Thing in China to go to the hospital for the smallest of things!

I'm loving jacket watch!

I enjoy his denim jacket, but that long green thing is not one of my faves, especially when paired with his pants in a clashing shade of green ... also I've just noticed the elasticated cuffs on the pants.

I do, however, enjoy his putting his hands all over Shen Wei, and Shen Wei's very unconvincing portrayal of being even slightly hurt by Wang Yike's attack.

I don't think we see the green thing ever again, so you're in luck! It's interestingly different to what he usually wears, so Shen Wei must've been a good influence on his sense of dress. :P

I do, however, enjoy his putting his hands all over Shen Wei, and Shen Wei's very unconvincing portrayal of being even slightly hurt by Wang Yike's attack.
It's just like last episode, when he clutched his waist artfully after pretending to be tossed around by a Dixing villain, then blinked his doe eyes and hoped he wouldn't be questioned! He's so bad at pretending to be a human.

Whoa!That's a great observation of the foreshadowing.Zhao Yunlan having an emotion,haha!
Now that I see these caps,there's a lot of green going on with Yunlan,Zhu Hong and Shen Wei at the end.

This show does have a lot of luxuriant greens – such as in the scene your icon comes from! – and I appreciate how every case is lit just a bit differently, in addition to the day/night cycle light changes. (Wang Yike is vibrant and well-lit, the next case is dimmer and more matte.)

First--most importantly--the fashion: I also noticed and liked the interesting shirt ZYL wears under his green jacket. I'm also partial to Shen Wei's suit in this episode. My feelings are mixed on the sweater vest.

You're right about Lin Jing being a very decent person. I feel like he gets the least character development out of any of the SID gang, though, which was a pity.

I didn't think that the freeze-on-the-spot gun belonged to SID? In fact, I don't remember a gun at all--I'll have to rewatch. I had thought that was a dark-energy trap that Zhu Jiu had left to hamper Shen Wei's movements.

I actually like the gray sweater vest over the darker blue shirt, but the other ensemble is a bit less striking and thus less RTMI.

I didn't think that the freeze-on-the-spot gun belonged to SID? In fact, I don't remember a gun at all--I'll have to rewatch. I had thought that was a dark-energy trap that Zhu Jiu had left to hamper Shen Wei's movements.
Next episode, we will see Zhao Yunlan use it to freeze Shen Wei in place. Either Zhao Yunlan very temporarily developed Dixing powers and no-one saw anything wrong with that, or he has a freeze gun thingy. (Shen Wei could break out of the shackles himself, but that'd out him as Dixingren.)

Yet more reasons to keep rewatching! I don't know why they never use it again, though, either. They seem to make a habit of using and then ignoring useful things. Like, why does Da Qing stop turning into a cat? It would have been super useful when he's trying to sneak around in Dixing.

Like, why does Da Qing stop turning into a cat?
Obviously he forgot the skill due to the Hallows turning up and the memory loss getting worse! No other reason. Certainly not budget issues.

Huh? I remember no freeze gun, here or in the next episode. In both cases, what I remember is what

riventhorn says - Zhu Jiu trapping Shen Wei with dark energy.

I remember no Zhu Jiu in the next episode, but I'll pay attention while I rewatch!

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Guardian Episode by Episode: 03

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