This series was unique from other “revenge/conspiracy” shows in that early on it revealed the villain. Thus the direction of the main plot was exposing his evil deeds. Sometimes it can be difficult for this type of story to work because the enemies of the leads is no longer a mystery which eliminates much of the intrigue in the plot. This was painfully apparent here.

At times the story could be interesting, especially in the beginning but it started to drag due to nothing much happening half way through the series. Or something would happen and it would drag out too long.

The conspiracy plot just wasn’t that good and the revenge plot was non existent. The love story between the leads was good until it wasn’t. Going completely off the rails into angst for no other reason other than drama for drama’s sake. The 2nd “love” story between the Crown Prince and the General was ridiculous at best. He was a horrible person who’d been obsessed with her since he was a teen while she was in love with the ML, Jinghe. She vehemently rejected the Crown Prince’s marriage proposals then suddenly after one major event claimed he was her “beloved.” It made absolutely no sense as there was no built up whatsoever to her falling in love with the him. Literally one episode she was vehemently rejecting him. The next episode she was reluctantly accepting his proposal (mind you after he drugged and planned to r*pe her but changed his mind out of honor towards her RME), then the next episode she was claiming him as her beloved with whom she was deeply in love. It was ridiculous.

Moreover , she had to be the worst general I’d ever seen. Though she held herself to a high standard of goodness and integrity when she learned the Crown Prince killed thousands of innocents due to his personal vendetta against his bother she slapped him a couple of times then resumed the relationship. She continued to “love” and comfort him, and allowed him to be by her side despite his monstrous behavior. She had much potential but unfortunately she was turned into a mindless pushover driven by “love” instead of a smart badass who could love but be intolerant of evil and thus not hesitate to strike it down.

The show started to go south around episode 20 with some senseless twists in the story but nosedived into absurdity around episode 22 which is where I dropped this series.

The actors were really good in this. The leads had nice chemistry but the love stories and the conspiracies failed to live up to their potential.