the weekly binge

Cut to nighttime, with the Lan cultivators all standing guard and Mo Ziyuan about to do the most stupid thing in his life. Yep, he and his accomplice takes the spirit attraction flag.

And then Wei Ying starts playing WangXian. And he does it AMAZINGLY, I might add, considering he’s doing it on a blade of grass.

Sizhui remembers the song but Jingyi doesn’t, which means that Wei Ying must have played it so much during their time in the Burial Mounds that even Sizhui’s amnesia-riddled mind could remember it. And it’s also possible Lan Zhan had played it for Sizhui and Sizhui only, probably right after rescuing him from the Burial Mounds.

Either way, Jingyi the harsh music critic is not hearing it. He says it sounds horrible and he gives it a 1-star review on Amazon.

We get the same neck-down flashback of Wei Ying’ first glimpse of his future husband, and then he whispers: “Lan Zhan.”

It’s like saying his name is both comforting and painful. He wants to see him, he needs to see him, everything reminds Wei Ying of him — but he also wants to just forget all the horrible things that happened and just not be the Wei Wuxian that was at top of the “wanted” list. He can’t have it both ways.

The peace is broken when Wei Ying is roughly dragged out of his room to where Mo Ziyuan has turned into a puppet. Wei Ying only has a second to be thankful that Sizhui can’t recognize him before Mo Ziyuan goes crazy and Madam Mo accuses Wei Ying / Mo Xuanyu of killing her son and tries to whack him with this random, weirdly shaped piece of wood.

It’s up to Sizhui to protect his parent by arguing that there’s no evidence, but Madam Mo says that Mo Xuanyu’s father (Jin Guangshan) is a cultivator and so he had learned demon cultivation — the evidence is what happened to Mo Ziyuan, and that Wei Ying had said he’d break his arm.

Two things jump out at me here:

There’s some truth in what she’s saying. Mo Xuanyu’s father IS a cultivator, Mo Xuanyu HAS dabbled in heterodox methods (which is how Wei Ying got resurrected in the first place), and Mo Xuanyu / Wei Ying DID threaten to cut off his arm, even if it was all bark and no bite.

Even if everything in #1 was true, there’s no truth to the accusation that Mo Xuanyu / Wei Ying turned Mo Ziyuan into a corpse puppet. Madam Mo just needs a scapegoat and Mo Xuanyu is an easy victim; he has a questionable reputation and no one to turn to. It’s just so reminiscent of how the main sects had treated Wei Ying in his past life. The world just needs someone to blame. But one person could make all the difference: Lan Zhan defended Wei Ying then, and Sizhui defends Wei Ying now.

Wei Ying discovers the spirit attraction flag that he stole and Madam Mo turns on the Gusu Lan cultivators, blaming them for not protecting the child that is Mo Ziyuan. Lady, he’s like 20 years old.

Wei Ying, ever so righteous, immediately jumps to their defense and it’s like Madam Mo is rendered speechless by Mo Xuanyu’s sudden coherence. Nobody notices Master Mo’s left hand shaking until he too becomes a corpse puppet and attacks people outside.

Sizhui tells Jingyi to send the signal to Hanguang Jun and hearing that Lan Zhan could be nearby, Wei Ying goes into PANIC mode. There’s no need to bother him, it’s unnecessary, I can solve it myself (he probably can actually), he says, but to no avail.

Wei Ying immediately recognizes the Stygian Tiger Amulet and his smart brain is already starting to plan.

Here we see something that made me question the quality of CQL on my first watch: the demonic left hand glove that they probably got for $1.99 at Party City.

Even though it’s ugly, Sizhui and Wei Ying’s brains combine against the backdrop of Jingyi’s sassy commentary to figure out the issue is the left hand, which has now taken over Madam Mo. The Lan cultivators...strip to stop her while Wei Ying implements a plan of his own, which is constructing a new puppet army with Master Mo and Mo Ziyuan. Yup, alive for less than a day and he’s already back at it.

Meanwhile, Lan Zhan is elsewhere, staring up at the sky like he always does, when he sees the signal from the juniors.

Wei Ying has fought alongside Lan Zhan so many times he immediately recognizes the iconic blue glare, and for the second time Wei Ying goes into panic mode, hiding behind a curtain.

Lan Zhan appears looking like a god and all his Lan ducklings cluster around him; Jingyi is the first to call him and throughout the series we’ll see that even though Jingyi is the opposite of Lan Zhan in terms of personality — he’s like young Wei Ying in that he says whatever’s on his mind, whatever everyone else is too afraid to say, manners be damned — he looks up to Lan Zhan so much he never really questions his judgement even after finding out that Lan Zhan was aware of Wei Ying’s identity.

The corpse puppet situation is no sweat for Lan Zhan, so Wei Ying is happy just admiring him from behind his curtain. And yep, that’s the look of a boy in love.

Wei Ying comments on Lan Zhan’s funeral-like clothing, which would be a funny reference except Lan Zhan actually has been in mourning for the past sixteen years, you oaf.

Lan Zhan easily attributes the culprit of the chaos to the spiritual energy hiding in a sword, but as the conversation drifts dangerously close to the Stygian Tiger Amulet, Wei Ying seems to snap back to reality — time to go.

When Lan Zhan recognizes signs of the Stygian Tiger Amulet, he feels everything at once — disbelief, nervousness, hope, and fear of getting his hopes up again. In the past sixteen years, I can only imagine how many times a bit of demonic cultivation might’ve given him hope, just for it to be a copycat.

And I don’t know what Lan Zhan has been telling these kids on the down low, but Jingyi looks way too excited at the possibility that Wei Ying could be alive.

Lan Zhan continues to stare for an abnormally long time at the sword (and Jingyi actually seems to catch onto something), while Sizhui notices the disappearance of his other parent.

Lan Zhan’s yearning is rudely interrupted by a shadowy figure running away. He doesn’t catch up but he wonders if it’s Wei Ying and I just love this scene because of the tentative hope in Lan Zhan’s voice.

Cut to the next morning, and Nie Huaisang, with his iconic patterns and fan, makes his second appearance tossing a chunk of gold to the storyteller. It’s kind of Nie Huaisang’s MO, to give people something precious in exchange for their role in his revenge plot — gold for the storyteller, jewelry for Bicao, the opportunity to revive Xiao Xingchen for Xue Yang.

Then comes Wei Ying, dressed once again in his iconic black clothes and red hair ribbon. There’s just one revenge scar left — Jin Guangyao.

So there we go, first episode rewatched!

Up next: Episode 2 — Wei Ying meets his bratty nephew, Lan Zhan fights with his in-laws, and we have our official WangXian reunion before jumping into the longest flashback ever.

Wei Ying is trembling as he clutches Chen Qing and my heart is already hurting because I know what’s coming.

Meanwhile, we see the cultivators fighting over the Stygian Tiger Amulet. Now that I know the characters I’m paying attention to who’s doing the murdering — and omg it’s Clan Leader Yao and Clan Leader Ouyang, two characters who will get on my goddamn nerves later on for utter stupidity.

Cut to Wei Ying crying again and when he closes his eyes it’s like you can see the fight go out of him as he decides to give up and lean backwards off the cliff.

But Lan Zhan glides over and grabs him at the last minute — the face that Wei Wuxian looks up at him with is so full of relief and hope it kind of tricks me into believing for a second that this drama won’t start with a tragedy.

Wei Wuxian says his first words in the show: “Lan Zhan.” He tells Lan Zhan to let go, which he, of course, doesn’t.

Enter Jiang Cheng, holding out his sword, and the little hopeful smile that Wei Ying gives him breaks my heart even more than his interactions with Lan Zhan so far. Upon rewatch I remember just how complicated the relationship between the brothers is and it feels like part of Wei Ying is hoping that Jiang Cheng will tell him to come back the same way Lan Zhan did after they just fought each other.

Of course, Jiang Cheng is Jiang Cheng and so that won’t happen. His first words in the drama are “Wei Wuxian” and it’s full of anger and hatred (both of which are basically Jiang Cheng’s main emotions throughout the entire show tbh) and then for the second time in 5 minutes Wei Ying just completely deflates.

One thing I didn’t remember: the cut in the first episode really makes it look like Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei Ying directly to make him fall. Question: does it matter? A lot of this drama questions intent vs. impact and regardless of where Jiang Cheng put his sword exactly, it resulted in Wei Ying’s death. Sixteen years later, Wei Ying will say a lot of things “no longer matter” because Yiling Patriarch is evil to the cultivation world no matter what; to the whole world, Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian — it doesn’t matter how it happened.

For drama viewers though, knowing the details adds so much more to the Jiang Cheng / Wei Ying relationship dynamic even though it doesn’t change the story. I remember watching this the first time not knowing they were brothers, since the scene sets them up to be potential enemies, especially with the way Jiang Cheng saunters off, leaving Lan Zhan staring over the ledge.

We hear the storyteller’s voice again and cut back to sixteen years later, starting from the perspective of...the tea?

In Gusu Lan sect’s iconic outfit, it’s Lan Jingyi! My favorite junior and nonstop sass machine. When he asks the storyteller if Wei Wuxian is really dead, the guy looks nervously over at who we now know is Nie Husaisang and his iconic fan. By the time I got to the post-resurrection questioning of Nie Huaisang in Ep. 35 I had unsurprisingly forgotten the man behind the curtain from Ep. 1, but seeing it again, that fabric pattern is unmistakable.

Jingyi actually seems to catch on to something being suspicious, but the storyteller keeps going and says that Jiang Cheng was unable to find his body.

Then we pan to Lan Sizhui, who I totally didn’t pay attention to the first time I watched. The storyteller ominously discusses the possibility of Wei Wuxian returning and on cue, everything becomes dark and windy and the spiritual swords start shaking.

There’s some old guy outside talking about souls coming back and honestly I still don’t get that, but we see his talisman fly over to the room where Mo Xuanyu has done his Sacrificial Ritual. Poor Wei Ying. The first thing he has to deal with after 16 years of death is a kick to the chest.

Mo Ziyuan the schoolyard bully turns up his nose at the talismans and the irony is not lost on me — his arrogance is going to get himself killed when he steals a spirit-attraction flag later.

After the Mo people leave, Wei Ying washes his face and questions Mo Xuanyu: “I’ve already died well. Why did you save me?”

There’s some truth to the overquoted “Dying is easy, living is hard.” For Wei Ying, who died of his own accord sixteen years ago, he probably would have preferred staying dead over having to deal again with the entire cultivation world trying to kill him and everyone he ever loved turning on him. Lan Zhan’s full sixteen years was pain, yearning, and regret, but for Wei Ying it was probably a little breather.

Wei Ying eyes the revenge scars on his arm before a random cultivator starts chatting with him, both insulting Mo Xuanyu for being crazy but also wanting to gossip; I didn’t pay attention to his “What did the LanlingJin clan do to you? Why did you become like this after going to Jinlintai / Koi Tower?” but now we know that that’s an important line.

The Mo cultivator starts chasing after Wei Ying and hitting him with a wooden plank, but our OP king just snaps his fingers and the guy is frozen in time. Wei Ying proceeds to steal his peanuts from him. And litter.

Wei Ying runs into the Gusu Lan juniors — led by Sizhui and Jingyi — and very subtly turns away to not be recognized. They still look at him suspiciously. The cogs in Wei Ying’s big brain actually start turning here as he realizes that Mo Xuanyu’s sacrifice coinciding with Gusu Lan sect’s arrival is just a tad bit suspicious.

And then...Wei Ying mentions Lan Zhan! Though not by name. But after he wonders if Lan Zhan is here, he grabs Mo Xuanyu’s mask. As close as they were, the last interaction Wei Ying and Lan Zhan had was a painful culmination of a lot of secrets; Wei Ying’s just not ready to face him (along with everything in the past) yet. But he’ll admire from a distance.

Wei Ying, in Mo Xuanyu’s mask, goes to peek at the cultivator event and waits for his cue. The second Mo Xuanyu is mentioned, he starts acting childish and crazy, and I get the distinct feeling that Wei Ying is actually really enjoying the opportunity to let loose and not have his name (or the Jiang family name) tarnished while he does so. Mo family looks horrified, but Jingyi is having a great time until Sizhui shows off some of the sternness he inherited from his dad Lan Zhan.

In front of everyone, Wei Ying accuses Mo Ziyuan of stealing from him and then pretends he got kicked; Mo family can’t punish him in front of anyone but it’s pretty much too late — their reputation is in the gutter.

Sizhui, ever so tactful, just discusses the cleansing they’ll do later and tells the Mo family to stay away from the courtyard. I’m sure they’ll listen.

Mo Ziyuan is still pissed over Wei Ying’s antics, but his parents play it down in front of the Gusu Lan cultivators; if you ask me, regular Mo Ziyuan and fierce corpse / puppet Mo Ziyuan look equally crazy.

Unfortunately, Wei Ying sees that the Sacrificial Summon scars are still there. It’s so hard to reconcile this Wei Ying with that twenty-something-year-old who threw himself off a cliff whose body count is supposedly in the thousands.

The Gusu Lan cultivators walk by with their spirit attraction flags and Wei Ying points out the utter hypocrisy of it: the entire cultivation world tries to kill him but uses his inventions when it’s convenient for them. In terms of Gusu Lan sect, I get why Lan Zhan and Lan Xichen would be okay with it, but Lan Qiren?

Wei Ying, still taking advantage of his lunatic identity, takes a spirit attraction flag and Jingyi, the most un-Lan Lan, goes on the offense and threatens to hit him. Of course, it’s up to even-tempered Sizhui — who is actually amused by his other dad Wei Ying’s antics — to calm him down, while Wei Ying actually takes this time to analyze the quality of the flags.

He sees the cloud patterns on Sizhui’s clouds and there’s our second post-resurrection yearning moment as Wei Ying remembers the very first time he sees Lan Zhan in front of the gates of Cloud Recesses, looking snazzy as ever even dressed in those funeral-like clothes. The gentle WangXian / WuJi theme song playing in the background is killing me.

Tumblr stingily only allows 10 images per post so the rest of my episode 1 rewatch will be here, in part 2!

The Untamed — Rewatch Analysis

I usually never rewatch anything in full — usually I just pick scenes that I really liked (which for CQL has been mostly post-resurrection WangXian scenes) but in the process of doing that I kind of realized just how rich the story and character arcs are, and how much foreshadowing I missed the first time around.

So here we are! For the next few weeks/months I’ll be rewatching CQL (no fast forwarding which means LOTS of detail) and focusing on WangXian (obv), Nie Huaisang’s big brain, Sizhui hints, horrible CGI, etc. Except for a few nods to the novel where the drama was an unfortunate victim of Chinese censorship, I’ll be going off of CQL only (which is still BL, so don’t give me any of that bromance nonsense).

And of course, this is a rewatch so there will be spoilers for all 50 episodes. Enter at your own peril...

[1 — Part 1 | Part 2] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50]

The Living Dead [tbd]

Fatal Journey [tbd]