The Apothecary Diaries, episodes 29 and 30

Rating – Episode 29: A-

Rating – Episode 30: A-

Episodes 29 and 30 represent two different mysteries which may or may not be connected, though they do both fall under the general umbrella of being derived to some degree from the caravan’s arrival earlier this season. They are also, in some ways, contrasts: one represents an external threat to the order of the palace (and the Rear Palace in particular), while the other mostly represents an internal threat.

The first half of episode 29 finishes resolving the matter of the Moon Fairy by showing the execution of the scheme to pass a cross-dressing Jinshi up as the legendary beauty. The pivotal display was remarkably well-executed within the confines of the animation budget, especially in its careful use of lighting and color schemes, but the most impressive detail was actually a background one: the explanation for the drifting lights in the old matron’s painting. Just explaining them off as luminescent moths would have alone been a neat trick, but connecting them to the insect carcasses rubbed on the matron’s clothing (as described previously) explains why they would have been hovering around her as she danced. The way this series covers its bases on the gimmickry it uses is a constant delight.

But that still leaves the question of what, exactly, the envoys are playing at. Clearly they’re scheming to get close to the Emperor and his brother, as evidenced by the bold approach of one of them to the Emperor during the show, but how involved are they in scheming beyond that? How much, if any, connection do they have to what else is going on? The one shot of the envoy in the darkened room certainly suggest that there’s more going on involving them, though the story doesn’t returning to them again before the end of episode 30.

The second half of episode 29 introduces the clinic, where ill court ladies and ladies-in-waiting go for isolation when contagious. Jinshi’s ruminations on it when he encounters Maomao outside of it brings to light the awkward state of medical care in the Rear Palace: since only men can be doctors, there can’t be any in the Rear Palace, which leaves them woefully short on trained medical personnel. Older ladies-in-waiting seem to be effectively serving as nurse practitioners, though they aren’t allowed to compound medicines. Starting the school may have set the path for one long-term goal, but this is another issue which must be dealt with eventually.

The clinic’s introduction also provides the set-up for episode 30’s focus: the ill servant at the Crystal Pavilion. This is, presumably, the same one we saw coughing a few episodes back. The way she’s being treated here illustrates a point that’s been brought up before about how servant girls can be treated as disposable, but it also provides a doorway to the episode’s feature crisis: why some of the banned scented oils are still tucked away in the storehouse of the Crystal Pavilion, despite Jinshi’s edict that they be removed. Again the culprit is a scheming chief lady-in-waiting, but this time for completely different motives. Though her actions were misguided, Fengming did at least act out of loyalty to her mistress Ah-Duo, but by contrast, Shin quietly has an antagonistic attitude towards Lihua, her mistress (and cousin, it turns out). She’s long felt slighted that the Emperor chose Lihua over her to be a high-ranking concubine despite her equally good looks (the difference-maker is, of course, implied to be that Lihua is simply bustier), and so she may or may not have been carrying this to the level of promoting a miscarriage for the newly-pregnant Lihua.

That also raises the very big question of whether the way Lihua was wasting away in the early stages of the series might have at least partly been a deliberate machination, too. At the very least, Shin was at least partly indirectly (and perhaps unintentionally) responsible for the death of Lihua’s son since she was the one who brushed away Maomao’s warning back in episode 1. But the big delight here was Lihua’s dramatic slap and clear intent to do more if needed. As Maomao observed, that feistiness is a clear indicator that her recovery from her earlier depression is complete.

There’s still a big loose end here, though: who is educating the denizens of the Rear Palace on poisons and abortifacients? And perhaps more broadly, what is the ultimate goal of it all? That underlying mystery still lingers, even as the end of the episode is busy setting up the next story arc: the Shrine of Choosing.

As a final thought, surely I’m not the only one who can’t look at those scratches on Maomao’s face and not thing of cat whiskers, right?