To My Beloved Thief: Episodes 11-12
by mistyisles
Our prince and thief have come to understand each other inside and out, but that doesn’t mean they always agree on how best to protect their people. But with twisty politics at play and whispers of revolution around them, the time is coming when they’ll have to pick sides — and it just might put them at odds with each other.
EPISODES 11-12
Our leads have swapped bodies again, and Eun-jo faces the king. But before any more blood can be shed, the QUEEN (Kim Ji-soo) convinces the king to take the discussion inside. Eun-jo grabs a dagger on the way, but only for self-defense. She’s learned her lesson — killing the king won’t solve anything. And fortunately, she doesn’t need to use it. She answers the king’s questions carefully, and soon Jae-yi brings “Eun-jo” in with evidence of Dae-il’s poor archery skills. Case closed, crisis averted, and everyone lets out a breath of relief.
But why — and how — did Eun-jo and Yeol switch bodies again? They’re no closer to an answer yet, though Eun-jo does observe that if they hadn’t, Yeol might have provoked the king into killing him. This eventually leads Yeol to a hypothesis, but we’ll put a pin in that for now. In the meantime, they agree to meet in the bookshop each day to compare notes and problem-solve. They also let Dae-chu in on the secret, since he’s well-positioned (and motivated) to help. He doesn’t believe them at first, and even after he’s forced to accept it, he decides it’s easier on his brain to pretend they’re playing a really weird game. He proceeds to jump out of his skin whenever they speak as themselves, and I cackle every time.
But one other person is close enough to our couple to realize something’s amiss — and no, it’s not Jae-yi. Hae-rim has been volunteering at Hyeminseo, and her spidey senses start to tingle when “Eun-jo” fumbles through the normal routine and “Yeol” takes charge in a medical crisis. Then, when “Yeol” fails to recognize the queen of all people, Hae-rim cleverly tests “him” with a made-up memory. Eun-jo walks right into the trap, and at that point it’s easier and safer to just tell Hae-rim the truth. Ha, she takes it a bit better than Dae-chu did, even if she’s slightly mortified to realize she accidentally confessed her feelings to Yeol when she thought she was confiding in Eun-jo.
Meanwhile, the rebels kick their plan into gear, and we finally learn the name of their lady monk leader. SUK-EUI (Han Ji-hye) was one of the late king’s concubines, and is still in good standing with the queen dowager. When she shows up at the palace, Eun-jo realizes the rebels need a royal to rally behind. And sure enough, Yeol (as Eun-jo) is invited to the secret rebel meeting wherein they announce their intent to overthrow the current king and install Yeol in his place. His carefully crafted image as a wastrel is disintegrating the more time he spends with Eun-jo doing noble, compassionate things.
Horrified, Yeol begs Eun-jo to run away with him. When she resists, he realizes that not only does she already know about the rebels’ plot, but she’s made up her mind to join them. And oh no, he’s hurt. Yes, his half-brother is cruel and unjust. But treason is treason. And he doesn’t like that so many people, Eun-jo included, are prepared to die in his name. He threatens to report the rebels to the king if Eun-jo won’t reject their invitation once and for all. But Eun-jo understands that he’s acting out of fear, and they table the discussion, at least until they return to their rightful bodies.
Besides, soon they’re too busy to talk about it, because Eun-jo stumbles across Lord Im’s latest atrocity. In punishment for letting the king wake up, Lord Im strings Geum-nok up in his home, with only a rickety wooden block keeping her from a hanging. Eun-jo rescues her, earning Yeol a promised favor in return and Lord Im a summons from the king. The confrontation is truly chilling. Brandishing his bow, the king orders Lord Im to sit on the throne and breathe in the drugged incense. He follows threats with real arrows, and I know Lord Im is our main villain, but I really thought for a second or two that we’d be rid of him with four episodes to spare. But Lord Im is nothing if not capable of weaseling his way out of a death sentence. He predicts that soon, the king will beg for him and for the incense. He ends up tied to a literal target in the woods, but he remains alive. And before the episode is over, he’s not just reinstated, but promoted.
Just as Lord Im predicted, the king is wracked with terrible withdrawals. Desperate for a distraction, he forces musicians and dancers to entertain him until they collapse, bleeding and exhausted. Then he makes them get up and do it all over again. Eventually, he sends for Eun-jo, since she reminds him of her father, who seems to represent the last remnants of his sanity. To say Yeol is horrified by the sight of the entertainers strewn around the floor is an understatement. They’re not dead, thankfully, but they will be soon if this continues. Realizing the king is beyond reason, Yeol decides then and there to steal the women out from under his nose.
It’s Gil-dong’s biggest, riskiest heist yet, but this time she’s not alone. Both the queen and the queen dowager help make arrangements to drug everyone in the vicinity — guards, servants, even the king himself — and smuggle the women out of the palace. When the king wakes and tries to follow, Hae-rim blocks the city gates with her palanquins. I’m not sure which is more delightful: the bold but ever-so-innocent way she delays the king, or her giddiness at being able to contribute to the effort (“Me! A woman!”). Even so, the king and his men nearly overtake the fugitives at the river. But Eun-jo looses arrows like a sniper, buying enough time for all the women, plus Yeol and Dae-chu, to escape on the ferry.
The whole ordeal gives Yeol a lot to think about. He’s still afraid of the consequences of revolution, but he can’t deny that he’s complicit in the suffering of his own people. At last, he agrees to help make a world where, at the very least, Eun-jo no longer has to live as a thief. But first, we return to the question of the body-swap. Yeol theorizes that the trigger is mortal danger, and sure enough: Seung-jae lures “Yeol” into a deadly trap, and they switch right back. Eun-jo is safe, while Yeol is bleeding out and drowning in the river. And listen, he may have made his peace with potentially dying in Eun-jo’s place, but I haven’t! Don’t forget you have orphans to help raise for the next ten years!
You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned Jae-yi much this week, and that’s mostly because this was Hae-rim’s (well-deserved) turn to shine. But rest assured, he’s still inching in the right direction. His loyalties are still divided of course — he’s sort of playing reluctant double agent to Yeol and his father at the moment — but I think when it comes down to it, he’ll tip in Yeol’s favor. Yeol tends to have that effect on people, after all, despite his own best efforts to the contrary.
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