Early Access: The Red Sleeve E1 (Patreon)

E1. This is one instance where I feel like this first episode was solid, but also, that the entire thing was just an opening act, to get us to the actual story. As a result, even though I feel like I've watched a lot of happenings on my screen so far, it somehow also feels like I haven't actually started the story proper yet. Does that make sense?

To be brutally honest, I found this opening episode just ok. It didn't blow me away, nor did I feel extremely engaged (versus the opening episode of The King's Affection, for example).

I'm sorry to say that in spite of Show's painstaking efforts to lay the groundwork, I found this episode almost.. perfunctory? 🙊 Like, there are X number of things that need to be in place, in order for Event Y to happen, and these X number of things are trotted out, one after the other, in quick succession, so much so that we can basically see Event Y coming at us, from a good distance away.

When stuff shakes out this way, the most important thing is the delivery by the actors, and while I found our child actors solid, again, they didn't blow me away. I do tend to generally give child actors a lot of leeway, because they are so young, after all, but maybe it's just my mood; I found them just ok, even though our young prince does a solid job of some of his more difficult crying scenes, and our young court lady in training is nicely precocious.

It all just comes together as rather archetypical, to my eyes, unfortunately.

All that said, I consider this more or less par for the course, as a necessary set-up to our main story, which looks like it's ready to kick off properly, with the time skip and our characters growing up, by the end of the episode.

I'll also say that even though I found it rather perfunctory in writing, execution and delivery, Show does a solid job of telling us things that we need to know, in order to position us properly, for the Main Story.

Here's a quick list of the story-specific things that I appreciated about this opening episode:

1. The young court ladies in training are a bright spot. I like the look of the sea of pink and blue, when they are gathered together, and I also like the youthful vibe that they bring to the palace, which is a very adult sort of setting.

2. I always find Jang Hye Jin a delight; I love her comic timing and expressiveness, so her Court Lady Seo was a highlight for me, just by virtue of the fact that she's played by Jang Hye Jin.

3. A childhood connection between the OTP is basically par for the course in a story like this, so I did roll my eyes slightly, on principle. However, the execution of this was.. not bad, I felt. It did feel clichéd and predictable, but I liked the idea that Deok Im turned out to be a forthright, sensible yet sensitive source of support for Yi San, at a vulnerable moment in his life.

In particular, I liked Deok Im's reframing of Crown Princess Young's death for Yi San, because it causes his greatest regret, to become his source of comfort. Rather than thinking that the Crown Princess died never knowing how he feels, he now thinks of it as her finally knowing how he feels, because the dead know everything.

4. The scene of Deok Im sitting with the King, as he pays his respects to Crown Princess Young, is quite nice. I like the idea of the King's gift of the book to Deok Im, but I thought the bit where he says to her, that her fate might follow in the footsteps of Crown Princess Young's, rather heavy-handed. Like, we know this, Show, you don't have to spell it out for us like this in big blinking lights. 😅

And here are a few story-specific things that gave me pause:

1. Court Lady Jo and her spiel to young Deok Im, about how it's every court lady's dream to die in the palace, struck me as pretty dysfunctional. I personally didn't like this beat, even though I think it's Show's intention, to give us insight into Court Lady Jo and what makes her tick.

2. I feel like the idea that King Youngjo's a little bit mad, like his son Sado had been, is a good one that is likely to drive our story forward. I just found the execution rather archetypical, and a touch hyperbolic. Like, ok, this king is supposed to be a little crazy; here are X number of events to demonstrate that.

3. I already don't really like Deok Ro. Just the fact that he lies to Yi San about how the page in the book came to be torn, gives me pause. If he's lying to Yi San at this young age for self-gain, isn't it likely that he's going to do more of that, on a bigger scale, once they grow up? I suppose this is by design, ie, that's just how his character is designed, but yeah, I'm on guard against this character already.

4. I like Lee Se Young, but I have to confess that the extremely bright, run-everywhere sort of quality to her character, is throwing me somewhat. I think I prefer when Lee Se Young is more serious and restrained. 😅

All that said, even though the ending of the episode is completely clichéd, I liked that moment, just before the credits rolled. For one thing, Deok Im's squarely in that more restrained space, and then, there's the introduction of adult Yi San, which, in just 2 seconds of screen time, is working very well, for me.

I like Lee Jun Ho when he's playing more serious, and Yi San is exactly that. I know it's not much to go on, but I really like the sense of steady smolder that we're getting from Yi San, in these last seconds. And this is the main reason I'm actually curious to keep watching this show, despite my just ok experience with this first episode.

If Lee Jun Ho as Yi San is going to be serving up this sort of moderate-to-intense level of smolder, I feel like I could very possibly roll with this. 😉

Next episode notes will be out on: Thursday, 9 Dec 2021!

*This show will be covered on the Early Access Plus (US$10) Tier*