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On to episode two! I love these early, Nihuang-heavy episodes, when the action is still all quiet and domestic and we begin to discover the pre-existing relationships between the characters. Xia Dong, Nihuang and Prince Jing all tangled up in a complex web of friendship and hostility; Prince Yu and the Crown Prince, endlessly squabbling in ways that show just how alike they are, while their different reactions to the discovery of MCS’s identity creates the firm impression that Prince Yu, for all his faults, is the better of the two.

I love the first appearance of Mu Qing, overcome with outrage at the low standard of his sister’s suitors. Oh all right, I love everything about Mu Qing all through the show, but it’s a particularly satisfying entrance. I also love watching Jingrui’s face as Prince Yu and the Crown Prince fall over each other to suck up to MCS. Of course, he doesn’t know about the messages from Langya Hall that make MCS’s favour such a desirable prize, so it’s a complete mystery to him why they keep trying to shove expensive gifts in his face.

The Emperor gives us the first glimpses of his true self in amongst all the avuncularity when he explains to Gao Zhan why he wants to marry Nihuang off – it’s Prince Qi all over again; he knows Nihuang and he knows she’s loyal, but just the fact that she could rebel if she wanted to makes her intolerable to him. And he shows us his nasty side again in his Catch 22 treatment of poor Prince Jing. For Gao Zhan watchers, there’s a flicker of dissent in both his observation to the Emperor that Nihuang could only marry someone extraordinary, and, of course, in his tactful reminder that Prince Jing is still waiting outside.

This time around I watched the scene with the Grand Dowager Empress from Nihuang’s point of view. In spite of what she tells Liyang, she’s always been curious about MCS, ever since she recognised Wei Zheng and figured out that he’d been sent by the Jiangzuo Alliance, but I don’t think she ever suspected for a moment that Lin Shu was its leader, or even that he’d survived the massacre. When MCS shows up in the hall, she’s very, very interested, but not in a hopeful way. And then the Grand Dowager calls him “Xiao Shu” and her whole brain lights up. Watching that scene play out, I think she’s onto him from the moment he grabs her hand, but her confidence in her theory is knocked when MCS very plausibly says that he did it because he didn’t want to offend the Dowager.

I note that when Nihuang and MCS comes across the eunuch beating Tingsheng, Nihuang has no idea who the boy is, she intervenes because she’s that kind of person, not because of any loyalty to his father.

Most significant of all, right here, in the very second episode, we get the first mention of the all-important hazelnut pastries.