If you’re lost on any of the characters, I did a quick rundown of them at the top of episode 1 that you can consult.
Recap
Li and Jia’s plan goes south as Pin is worried about her drowsy father and literally spills the tea. She wants a doctor but Li keeps stopping her and Tian is useless because he drank the tea. Pin pushes past Li and runs into Jia, in disguise, at the gate. Pin cries for help and Jia takes her out with a block of wood to the head.
Jiu knows something is up and abandons the pointless yard work. He sees Li and Jia lock Tian away. Yang hears Pin’s cries for help and finds a way out.
Pin wakes up in the bed, her head bloody. Tian is out of it and collapses on top of her. Right then, Jiu breaks in with Yang right after him. Yang takes care of Pin while Jiu gets Tian.
Tian is hot and bothered so Jiu wipes him down. Tian tells Jiu he likes him and kissing happens. There’s more, but we don’t get to see.
Song, far away from this madness, is starting to think Tian is maybe, possibly homosexual. But even if he is, Song tells Bua he can force him to not be homosexual.
Bua is MVP for saying one of the show’s themes, that the one who is suffering is the one who does not accept the truth.
Xiaotong finds them and tells Song that there are suspicions that Jiu is Ma’s assassin.
Song rushes home, where Bua rushes to make tea. Now that the audience has arrived, Jia lures everyone to see Pin and Tian.
Right then though, Tian is waking up next to a naked Jiu. He’s confused and upset, so Jiu back hugs him to calm him down.
Li opens the door. She sees them. She closes the door.
Li won’t let anyone in. Jia claims Pin is in there but Pin arrives with Yang. Yang says Jiu and Tian are inside but Li says the room she won’t let anyone in is empty. Song forces his way in and it is empty.
As usual, accusations fly. Chan blames Li. Song announces that Jiu is Ma’s subordinate. Jia changes up her lies to blame Jiu. Li acts faint and declares she’d never hurt her son.
In her room, Li tells Jia that now Jiu knows Tian’s secret. Yes. True.
Jiu and Tian hide out in an abandoned home in the woods. Tian upsets Jiu by calling what happened a mistake. Jiu tells Tian he’s been pushing him away since the beginning and suppressing his feelings. Tian is astonished. There’s happy hugging and crying.
Song yells at Yang again, blaming Chan because of suspicions about her and Ma. But he can’t deny Li ordered the workers outside.
Li demands Chan tell her where her son is. Chan rightly points out all this nonsense is because Li keeps trying to protect Tian.
Jiu finds Tian outside at night, worrying about his family. Jiu would go back with him, but Tian is terrified his mother will hurt Jiu. Jiu realizes Tian’s homosexuality is the secret and doesn’t understand why that matters when he’s a great son and leader. Tian tells Jiu about Zhang and gets a comforting hug.
Pin and Yang share notes. Pin doesn’t think Jiu kidnapped Tian to hurt him. Yang follows his mother, who is going to see Ma, and Pin follows Yang. Yang has to sneak his mother out when Song shows up at Ma’s.
As they leave, Yang discovers Jiu’s siblings. He tries to rescue them but is discovered. With Pin’s help he escapes, but only with the sister.
Song demands to know where his son is and one of Ma’s subordinates demands proof that Ma is involved. Song throws something at him. All the guns come out. Song says he can’t stand that Ma hurt his child. Ma again says he knows nothing and Song threatens to kill him.
Thoughts
So much happens in this episode.
I can’t stop writing about how much I adore the way the ‘loving’ parents are portrayed. For once, suffocating parental love is an inescapable nightmare instead of acceptable because it comes from a good place.
The entire sequence with Tian and Pin is ugly and awful. The drug’s effect on Tian doesn’t come off as sexy, more disorientating and uncomfortable. I think the decision to have them fail to drug Pin and then knock her out makes absolutely clear the extent of Jia and Li’s willingness to hurt people. Luckily Pin and Tian get saved and will recover with soap-opera quickness, but the show didn’t shy away from the horror.
Nor does it let Li off the hook with her own son. Tian is terrified of her, and the fact that she acts out of ‘love’ doesn’t change that. (Admittedly, he’s telling this to his assassin boyfriend who killed people to protect him the first time they met but… The circumstances are different.)
After all that horror though, is the pleasure of seeing Li’s schemes fail. The look on her face when she sees Jiu and Tian instead of what she expects, is very satisfying. Also satisfying was seeing Chan get in that shot about how all of this is because of Li. Not that any of this gives Li much pause, because she is also a soap opera character and recovers quickly.
Li and Song are amazing hypocrites in this episode. First Li declares she’d never hurt her son and then Song is enraged at Ma for hurting his son. Sure, Ma has tried to kill Tian, but Li and Song have hurt him much more with their actions. Neither of them really cares about hurting or not hurting their son.
Poor Yang. Has Song ever NOT yelled at him?
I’ve said that this show isn’t a BL, but it still has the BL tropes. Plenty of accidental skinship. That funny secret kiss. And here we get that strange staple of the BL genre, the wipe-down.
Jiu’s astonishment at Tian’s secret is almost funny. Jiu’s background makes the innocence a little unlikely, he knows how brutal the world can be, but it does allow him to state something that feels like it should be obvious. It is absurd that Tian being homosexual has anything to do with anything else. Really, Jiu is the only one on screen for whom Tian’s sex life matters.
Also, they’re finally together! Yaay!
Maybe the only time I’ve sympathized with Song is when he threw something at Ma’s henchman for being the thousandth person to deny accusations and demand proof. It does get a little repetitive.