The First Night with the Duke: Episodes 9-10
by DaebakGrits
Our story takes a dark turn as we enter our penultimate week. Our villains have shed their facades and are doing everything they can to further their agendas and drive a wedge between our transmigrated heroine and her leading man.
EPISODES 9-10
The search for our missing lady is in full swing when we rejoin our characters, but even with the capital soldiers aiding Yi Beon and Seon-chaek’s family in their hunt, it’s a nearly impossible task. They have no substantial leads, no suspects, and their only witness is a ginseng digger who claims he saw a suspicious palanquin in the area at the time of the kidnapping. In short: Seon-chaek is on her own.
Thankfully, she’s resourceful and stalls for time long enough to free her bound hands, stab her kidnapper in his thigh, and run away. Her kidnapper’s new injury slows him down, so Seon-chaek is able to sprint ahead and locate a ceremonial drum. While the banging of the drum alerts a nearby Yi Beon and draws him to her location, it also aids her kidnapper, who finds her first. He wrestles her to the ground so he can finish the job he was paid to do, but luckily Yi Beon arrives in time to rescue his lady love and point his sword at the kidnapper’s throat. Yi Beon’s gaze is murderous, but Seon-chaek’s plea for her kidnapper’s life restrains Yi Beon. Instead of dying by Yi Beon’s sword, he’s locked away so Yi Beon can interrogate him later.
For now, Yi Beon carries Seon-chaek home to her extremely worried family, and her father is so grateful that he decides to grant Yi Beon permission to marry Seon-chaek — under the condition that Yi Beon can out drink him, but this is simply a pretense because they both know Yi Beon will win the challenge. As excited as Yi Beon is to finally gain her father’s approval, Seon-chaek’s kidnapping has rattled Yi Beon and given him nightmares of a future where she’s murdered as a consequence of being his wife and weakness.
Seon-chaek assures him that she’s not afraid to live by his side and face potential threats together, but she is undeniably shaken by her recent near-death experience. Suddenly this fictional world seems a lot more real, and in order to find long-term happiness in her new reality, she decides that she will protect the titular “obsessive tyrant” and prevent him from killing more people in the future. In other words, Seon-chaek has entered her savior complex era, and like many female leads before her, she feels compelled to save him from the darkness and help guide him towards a happier life with less blood on his hands.
The thing is, Yi Beon has clearly never enjoyed killing, and he only became the king’s “hunting dog” out of self preservation — two facts that Seon-chaek, as an omniscient reader, knows. So, the issue isn’t that he relishes in the act of murder and needs to be convinced that it’s morally wrong. No, the problem for everyone in this story is the batshit crazy king who has Yi Beon by a leash, and I’m very curious to know where Seon-chaek found the confidence to believe she has enough plot armor to save herself and Yi Beon from the king, who — by the way — was so threatened by the fact that Yi Beon abused his position to summon the army to aid his search for Seon-chaek that he ordered Yi Beon to kill an exiled prime minister to prove his allegiance. Perhaps the only thing that would convince me that Seon-chaek has a reason for being so confident is if a solution to the paranoid-king was conveniently revealed in the original plot of the web novel, but that doesn’t appear to be the case for two reasons:
First, the web novel was incomplete, and since we are clearly entering the rising action stage of our story (woo, penultimate week!), we’ve presumably reached the unwritten chapters of the novel — not that we’d know for sure. We have very little reference to know how much of the story has changed due to Seon-chaek’s influence versus what plot elements are simply continuing as written but with a different character filling the leading lady’s role. (And does that bother me? Yes.)
Second, if Eun-ae had successfully helped Yi Beon sever his ties with the king without either of them getting executed in the process when she was the novel’s leading lady, then that would completely undermine the idea that Seon-chaek, as the transmigrated heroine of our drama, is special and integral to changing Yi Beon’s destiny. Plus, knowing what we know about Eun-ae now, it seems more likely that she would have manipulated Yi Beon into assassinating the king in order to get their happily-ever-after instead of vowing to save him from the pain of killing others.
Yes, that’s right. Even though it has been obvious from the start, Eun-ae is officially our story’s villainess. She has a thirst for power, and she’s had her eyes set on Yi Beon from the beginning. She and her father desire the influence that would come from her marrying a prince. So when Seon-chaek became an obstacle in her way that not even Hwa-seon could get rid of, Eun-ae stepped forward and pushed Seon-chaek into the pond. (They got me with that red herring.) Then, after Seon-chaek survived the near drowning, Eun-ae then paid to have her kidnapped and killed. And she would have gotten away with it, too, if it were not for the fact that Soo-gyeom recognized her hired killer as the man he’d seen her meet with earlier that day.
Soo-gyeom is, understandably, distraught by this realization, and lives in denial that Eun-ae would ever do something so sinister…right up until the moment he finds the papers she used to practice Yi Beon’s handwriting and forge the letter that lured Seon-chaek to her kidnapper. But, even with the truth staring at him in the face, he hesitates to do anything with this information, and that hesitation gives Eun-ae the opportunity to reveal she’s even more vile than even I could have predicted.
You see, after Yi Beon leaves the city to do the king’s bidding (re: kill the exiled prime minister), she frees the kidnapper from prison and tries to kill him. The attempted murder part isn’t what surprises me, though. No, it’s the fact that she first acts like she’s helping him, insisting he take a sachet of money so he can limp away and hide, and then, when he turns his back on her to leave with the money she oh so generously gave him — stab! (Gurl, I never liked you.)
Although Eun-ae is a grade-A manipulator, she’s not so great at killing large men with her tiny knife, and that’s when Yi Gyu steps in, finishes the job with his sword, and offers an alliance. He’ll take care of the body if she, as Seon-chaek’s “friend,” will whisper what he wants in her ear — clearly with the intention of driving a wedge between Yi Beon and Seon-chaek. Then, either by design or by coincidence, Seon-chaek runs into Yi Gyu at the temple she visited to pray for a happy marriage.
Yi Gyu was (supposedly) there, too, to greet his deceased parents at the temple where he held their memorial service before he was exiled. Seon-chaek is clearly moved by his backstory, but she has to stay on her toes because Yi Gyu asks her some very probing questions, clearly suspicious that she may not be his real childhood friend. He simultaneously tests her while acting in an overly familiar manner that gaslights her into believing his friendship with the real Seon-chaek was close — so close that Seon-chaek was comfortable with Yi Gyu to allow him to take a nap with his head in her lap. (Ugh, such a slimeball)
After taking advantage of Seon-chaek’s lack of memories and putting on quite the show of being a puppy-loving prince, he leads Seon-chaek to the location of her kidnapper’s staged body. When Yi Beon arrives on the scene and comforts a distraught Seon-chaek, Yi Gyu publicly accuses Yi Beon of enacting personal revenge against Seon-chaek’s kidnapper, stirring up rumors among nearby spectators and planting a seed of doubt in Seon-chaek’s mind that grows when she later sees blood on his sleeve.
She expresses her desire for him to stop killing people, and he’s immediately on the defensive and (justifiably) suspicious that Yi Gyu is trying to come between them. He orders her to stay away from Yi Gyu, but he refuses to explain their complex history or why Yi Gyu bears a grudge against him. Seon-chaek grows frustrated that he will not communicate with her, and Yi Beon is equally upset that she doesn’t trust his judgement or believe that he did not murder her kidnapper. They part ways on bad terms, and Yi Beon hyper-focuses on finding the real murderer — or murderers as he quickly deduces from the two very distinctive stab wounds on the body.
Meanwhile, Soo-gyeom confronts Eun-ae with the papers he found, hoping he can convince her to turn herself into the magistrate, but she laughs in his face. Soo-gyeom is shocked by her lack of remorse, and when she refuses to confess her crimes, he sadly informs her that he will tell Yi Beon. (Yay! Bros before ho-rrendous evil witches!) But just when the audience is celebrating Soo-gyeom’s loyalty to Yi Beon, Eun-ae drops a bombshell on him: Soo-gyeom’s father is a member of the Heuksa Clan — the same clandestine clan the king has tasked Yi Beon to eradicate.
The Heuksa Clan is also led by Yi Gyu, and if Yi Gyu wasn’t so smarmy I’d almost applaud his ability to weasel his way into the king’s favor. First he charms the king by feeding the king’s desire to improve relations with China, and then, when it comes to light that Yi Beon delayed killing the exiled prime minister so he could see his youngest daughter’s wedding, Yi Gyu steps up and kills the exiled prime minister himself. So while Soo-gyeom’s father and the other secret members of the Heuksa Clan demand Yi Beon be executed for failing to follow the king’s order, Yi Gyu becomes the wolf in sheep’s clothing whispering in the king’s ear.
The king does not immediately issue a punishment for Yi Beon’s disobedience, so while Yi Beon waits for the king’s judgement, he confronts Eun-ae. Soo-gyeom, good guy second male lead that he is, told Yi Beon that Eun-ae was behind Seon-chaek’s kidnapping, and Yi Beon takes her into custody to interrogate her and find out the identity of her accomplice. Eun-ae is surprisingly stoic throughout the ordeal, but she also knows that he’s grown soft and won’t disappoint Seon-chaek by killing someone else — especially someone Seon-chaek still thinks is her friend. While that may be true, he can send her to the Royal Investigation Bureau and completely ruin her reputation and business, and with that ultimatum lingering in the air he leaves her to consider his options.
As he walks home, Yi Beon is pelted with eggs by the wife of the kidnapper who blames him for her husband’s death, but Seon-chaek steps in as his human shield and protects him. Together, they clean off the egg yolks from their clothing and reconcile. Seon-chaek apologizes for hurting him and not giving him her trust, and Yi Beon admits he’s ashamed of his dark past and avoided talking about it for fear that he would scare her away. Yi Gyu is justified in having a grudge against him, and that’s why he reacted so strongly seeing her with him. He was worried that Yi Gyu would harm Seon-chaek to get to him.
Seon-chaek vows to help him find peace and happiness, and the first step to safeguarding their future together is to ensure Yi Beon isn’t executed by the king, which is how Seon-chaek ends up on her knees, swearing to Yi Gyu that she will do anything if he lets Yi Beon live. Yi Gyu works his magic to convince the king that it isn’t in his best interest to execute Yi Beon, but Yi Gyu offers up an alternate punishment — send Yi Beon the boarder to fight the barbarians that are giving China trouble — that is just as likely to kill him. Yi Beon accepts his fate gracefully, but he offers the king one final warning: Beware of Yi Gyu.
Yi Beon spends his last night with Seon-chaek, and together they have a small private wedding with just the two of them. The somberness of their eventual parting is unavoidable, but Seon-chaek tries to remain optimistic right up until the moment they part ways. Only then does she inform her family that she married Yi Beon and will be moving into his house while he is gone. Her father objects to the hasty union and to the idea of his daughter living by herself (presumably as a soon-to-be widow), and he insists on living with her. It’s a comical moment that preambles a quick succession of events — Seon-chaek fainting after finding a charm that matches the one she had back in the real world, Eun-ae getting released from Yi Beon’s prison, and Yi Beon being ambushed on his way to the boarder — that end us on a cliffhanger as we head into the drama’s finale.
Overall, I actually enjoyed these episodes, but the closer we get to the end of the drama, the more it feels like it’s lost sight of its original selling point: the transmigration plot device. That isekai element was the bit that had me the most excited to watch this drama, but — objectively — it has added nothing substantial to the story. Sure, Seon-chaek has some spunk and amusing mannerisms that are out of place in this fictional Joseon setting, but we’ve seen quirky female leads who acted ahead of their time — and not due to time travel or transmigration — in sageuks before (e.g. Moonshine). So really, what’s the point of her being from the real world, possessing knowledge of the plot and characters, if the writers are barely going to acknowledge or use that plot device to impact the story after the first few episodes?
However, if we were to remove all references to the real world and “The Obsessive Tyrant” web novel, this drama would be a fairly solid sageuk. I found Yi Beon’s character development in these latest episodes to be quite striking, and as much as I dislike Yi Gyu, I wish he had been introduced to the plot earlier so the grudge between the two princes could have been fleshed out more. Their conflict — and the woman caught in the middle between them — would have made for a very compelling story, especially if they eventually set aside their hostility and teamed up to fight their real enemy: the king.
But, alas, I have very little confidence that either the isekai or sageuk elements will wrap up satisfactorily. So instead of wishing for a solid ending where the plot holes are filled and everything falls into place logically, I am, like Seon-chaek before her transmigration, just hoping everyone finds their happily-ever-after — and after this week that includes Hwa-seon, who has become my one of my all-time favorite redeemed mean girls.
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