To My Beloved Thief: Episodes 13-14
by mistyisles
As our story prepares to enter the final stretch, lines are drawn in the sand and some of our characters are pushed to the breaking point. Loyalties are tested, feelings are tangled, and truths are carefully doled out to serve a larger purpose. Who will win in the end, and what does winning even mean? Only time will tell.
EPISODES 13-14
One perk of swapping bodies is that Eun-jo knows exactly where to look for Yeol. She finds him downriver — alive, but barely — and gets him to safety. Dire as his condition is, it’s heartwarming to see him cared for and worried over by the same people he helped save. Through the long, anxious night, Eun-jo realizes just how much she’s come to rely on his support and companionship. Or, as she puts it: “I’ve forgotten how to endure the winter without you.” These two really do have SUCH a beautiful way of speaking to each other.
Fortunately, she doesn’t have to endure much longer. He wakes to find she’s fallen asleep holding his hand, and she wakes to find him caressing her face. There’s a lot of fretting on her part and gentle assurance on his, and the scene definitely would have ended in a kiss if Dae-chu and Hae-rim took just a little longer to get there. But we won’t hold it against them, because they’re both delightful in their own ways. Hae-rim, for example, may be painfully innocent, but she’s also very open-minded, which I credit to her curiosity and love of reading. Now that she knows about the body-swap, she sincerely ponders which person she actually has feelings for (Yeol? Eun-jo? Both?). Judging by the way she makes herself Eun-jo’s biggest supporter, I think she has her answer, and it’s downright adorable.
Meanwhile, Seung-jae relishes his supposed victory and, with it, Lord Im’s approval. They share a surprisingly tender moment before it all comes crashing down. Yeol rides in, very much not dead, and arrests Seung-jae. Eun-jo and her friends spread word of the assassination attempt, preventing Lord Im from sweeping it under the rug and raising the question of whether Seung-jae had help. When questioned, Lord Im denies any knowledge of Seung-jae’s plot and recommends that his son be beheaded as a traitor. Oof. It’s not unexpected, and Seung-jae kinda deserves it, but that’s cold.
But you know what’s colder? Lord Im promises to rescue Seung-jae, then turns around and feeds him poison to take the wind out of Yeol’s sails. Does he regret it? Perhaps. He does mourn in secret. Or perhaps it’s mostly a show to tighten his hold on Jae-yi. Because Jae-yi knows Lord Im murdered Seung-jae with no more hesitation than a chess player sacrificing a pawn. But, like Seung-jae, there’s a part of Jae-yi that craves his father’s approval. So, when told to become Lord Im’s sword against Yeol or cast off the Im family name, Jae-yi chooses the former.
But there’s another part of Jae-yi that cares about Yeol, and about what Yeol stands for. He tries to deny it, going to so far as to slap Yeol’s description on Gil-dong’s wanted posters. But then the real Gil-dong reveals herself to him and calls him out for propping Yeol up as a smokescreen because, deep down, he doesn’t want to catch the real Gil-dong. Jae-yi can’t argue, and he won’t turn Eun-jo in, so he backs down. He and Yeol return to not-quite friends, not-truly enemies. Yeol even tells him about the body-swap — but only because he knows Jae-yi will take it as a scornful joke.
Meanwhile, Geum-nok is sent to procure more incense while Lord Im tries to keep the king from succumbing to withdrawals. Geum-nok is delayed, the king hallucinates that tiger again, and our heroes spot a window of opportunity. Yeol follows Geum-nok’s trail hoping to uncover more of Lord Im’s plot. He plans to return in two weeks or less, but his and Eun-jo’s parting is so full of mutual yearning, you’d think he was embarking on a years-long voyage. (And Dae-chu, I love you, but can you please stop saying scary, foreshadowy-sounding things like, “You’re not leaving forever, you know”?)
Anyway, that brings us to our hourly “But, Lord Im…” Having found Jae-yi’s discarded wanted posters, Lord Im congratulates Jae-yi on a genius plan to smoke Gil-dong out of hiding. Then he starts rounding up anyone and everyone Gil-dong has ever helped. When he fails to torture Gil-dong’s identity out of them, the king orders that one person be hanged by the city gates every night until Gil-dong comes out of hiding.
Eun-jo, of course, can’t have that. She sends her mother and Dae-il away, but Jae-yi stops her from turning herself in. He says he has a plan to save everyone, and I do think he means it — he just doesn’t count himself as part of “everyone.” He locks Eun-jo in the shed and goes to take her place as Gil-dong. He figures no one else — least of all Lord Im — will care to stop him, and there’s something tragically poetic in how discounting his own worth is exactly what saves him. He leaves the key to the shed with a servant, trusting that the man loves Eun-jo enough to keep her safe… never dreaming that he cares enough about Jae-yi’s safety to let her out.
That night, a whole host of Gil-dongs appear on the rooftops. The hanging stops before it begins, as the guards give chase and the captives are freed. In the confusion, Jae-yi goes completely unnoticed… by all except Lord Im, who orders that he be taken safely home. Eun-jo, armed with intel from one of the rescued dancers, gets Lord Im arrested and spreads papers all over the city explaining the true nature of the poison incense. But the king and his men close in on her location, backing her into a corner. One of the false Gil-dongs yanks her out of sight — and what do you know, it’s Yeol. Lol, he has no idea what’s going on, but he saw people masquerading as Gil-dong and figured he should join them.
With the king’s guards about to break down the door, Yeol and Eun-jo go back and forth on who’s going to sacrifice themself for whom. In the end, Eun-jo has the best argument: The rebels are ready to launch their coup, and they need him more than they need her. Yeol’s feelings are beautifully, achingly complicated. He knows she’s right. He hates that she’s right. He believes in the rebels’ cause, especially now that he’s seen Joseon through her eyes. He’s afraid of disappointing her. He’s more afraid of losing her. But our eloquent prince doesn’t say any of this out loud. Instead, he pulls her into a desperate kiss. And Eun-jo follows it up with another.
Like Yeol, I’m conflicted: I don’t want to say goodbye to this show next week, but I also can’t wait to see what kind of ending it serves up for the characters I’ve come to love. All this talk of sacrifices and dreams that transcend the people who set them in motion is making me nervous. And realistically, I don’t see how Yeol can both be the ruler the people need and be with Eun-jo. But I also genuinely thought we were about to see Jae-yi die, so for now I’m holding onto hope that To My Beloved Thief has several more satisfying surprises in store.
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