Slo-Mo Rewatch: Guardian episode 1, part 2

[trobadora]

Hi, welcome to our second instalment of the Guardian drama Slo-Mo Rewatch! Join us to watch half an episode a week (at your leisure) and then come and chat about it here in comments. Or you can just jump into the comments without rewatching, of course!

Here is last week's half-episode. On to the second half!

Episode 1, from 22:28

Summary: Guo Changcheng is having a day! After being dangled from a window and falling, now he fails at tailing Shen Wei and Li Qian, takes a lost grandma home, and promptly runs into a shadowy attacker! But action hero Chu Shuzhi comes to the rescue. Shen Wei studies Zhao Yunlan's file, and we get our first YOHE flashback. Zhao Yunlan, who has concluded the attacker mistook Lu Ruomei for Li Qian, tails Li Qian and has another intense encounter with Professor Shen. The Shadow Man attacks Li Qian at the university, but Shen Wei protects her - until he's thrown off the roof, just as the SID arrives. The team meets the Black-Cloaked Envoy for the first time.



Quote:

Zhao Yunlan: "Tell you the truth, I really don't know why, but from the moment I saw you, I've had this feeling like we've known each other a long time."

Shen Wei: "Who knows, maybe we really have met before."

Detail:

One of my favourite details in this half of the episode is the Envoy's very dramatic arrival on the rooftop - storm clouds and lightning and time stoppage and all. The best part about this is something a first-time viewer can't know - that this is clearly a choice on Shen Wei's part. He's looking to make an impression, hee! :D

Questions:

What's your favourite moment or line in this half of the episode? Anything you noticed that you'd completely forgotten about, or never noticed before? How literally do you take Shen Wei's "I've searched for you for 10,000 years"? What do you think Zhao Yunlan is thinking when Shen Wei just gives away that he knows about Dixingren? If you were on that rooftop when the Envoy took the Shadow Man away, would you speak up like Xiao-Guo? And if you're familiar with the novel, any thoughts about how this compares?

(These are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the rewatch to join in!)

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Comments

[trobadora]

the version I'm watching calls the Dixingren "undergroundians" and I just cannot take that seriously

Oof, yeah! That is such a bad translation in multiple different ways. (It doesn't even have being a literal translation going for it, since it's not!)

It sets up a *very* different idea as to what happened in the past then what actually plays out.

Oh! Now that you say this, I wonder if it's possibly here as a red herring, adding more obfuscation to the backstory?

I hadn't noticed before that an instrumental version of the opening song plays when Li Qian is handing out the pamphlets/papers. I like it.

Yes! It's very nice, I like it too!

Interesting that the team sort of lowers their heads/bows when the Envoy comes, even though it's obviously not from practice since he hasn't been since ZYL took over as chief. But it's something they've been trained to do/a policy so ingrained that everyone but the newbie knows it.

It's just traditional/old-fashioned, isn't it? Goes with the Envoy wearing robes, too.

(Here, again, is a slight issue with the timeline and change from the book to the drama - assuming Shen Wei is the only Black Robed Envoy there's ever been then he hasn't *had* the time to seriously build up a routine/system that's this ingrained- what were they doing before he awoke/unearthed? How were captured Dixingrens deal with? Or were they not an issue?)

Shen Wei woke up in the present day over 20 years ago (which we know from Butler Wu's backstory), so there was plenty of time to build a routine and reputation. And before then, there wasn't an SID either (the Zhao Xinci and Zhang Shi flashbacks talk about it being planned), but there is diplomatic contact between Dixing and Haixing, since the Regent has permission from upstairs to do a search when they find Shen Wei. But I'm so curious about what Dixing-Haixing relations were like, and what they did about Dixing offenders in Haixing pre-SID! There's so much history I would love to know more about ...

[china_shop]

Now that you say this, I wonder if it's possibly here as a red herring, adding more obfuscation to the backstory?

Ha, I thought we'd all been assuming that. :-)

But I'm so curious about what Dixing-Haixing relations were like, and what they did about Dixing offenders in Haixing pre-SID!

Presumably they "had" to kill them if they couldn't contain them. Maybe that's why ZXC is so trigger-happy. /o\

[trobadora]

Ha, I thought we'd all been assuming that. :-)

Heh. I guess!

Presumably they "had" to kill them if they couldn't contain them. Maybe that's why ZXC is so trigger-happy. /o\

That would make sense for ZXC, yeah. :( :( :(

Though presumably the less dangerously powered Dixingren could be contained, though - plenty of powers wouldn't help at all with being locked up. I assume these were handed back to Dixing in some fashion, as per the treaty. I mean, there clearly is diplomatic contact, and presumably Haixing has some interest in maintaining good relations, if only to not make an enemy of Dixing.

[china_shop]

I assume these were handed back to Dixing in some fashion, as per the treaty. I mean, there clearly is diplomatic contact, and presumably Haixing has some interest in maintaining good relations, if only to not make an enemy of Dixing.

That's a good point. I wonder how they did that. Did Dixing have a previous ambassador, before the Envoy?

[trobadora]

They don't have an embassy, so presumably not someone residing in Haixing. But regular meetings between diplomats, maybe?