I am bowled over by the gusto with which Honey Lee plays this role. Even something as simple as stepping out disguised as a man, the joy she takes in this little freedom is so darn pleasurable to watch. Yup, totes fallin for her—as is our male lead. I can’t speak for the OG, but this Sheriff is taking a shining to our Robin Hood. Sure, he plays it straight, but we see that twinkle in his eyes, those little smiles. And I’m pretty sure she won’t be too far behind (Wang! 😂).

While this show is just so fuuuntastic, it does make all the abuse stand out in greater contrast. It was particularly hard to watch the Finance Minister’s wife being beaten and the “choice” our other widow faces. However, it will be so satisfying to see these evildoers get their comeuppance.

I liked how they layered the father-in-law: lovely to his DIL and wife, hinting at his true nature in the court, before fully revealing his evil self in his last scene. It makes me wonder if they will add more complexity to the MIL when she figures out who her husband really is. (Tho I don’t think I really want a redemption arc for her.)

Amongst my gripes, I’ve been a little bored by the stock evil Pil-jik, but seeing him as just another cog in this awful hierarchy might make it a little more interesting.

I just hope all these dark elements—and we haven’t even gotten to the grand mystery—don’t overwhelm the fun. It’s the show’s secret sauce; don’t dilute it too much.

Loved both episodes, the comedy continues to be top notch and I'm very glad for it because there is so much underlying darkness with the social structure of the story. Kudos to the writers and very definitely Honey lee for managing to make it feel like a proper mix of comedy and drama (and romance!) given that the two episodes also contained brutal domestic abuse and instigations of suicide.

I loved every scene of Yeo Hwa and Soo Ho together, they have excellent chemistry and I love that the writers had Soo Ho figuring out who she is and kind of working with her. Credit to him for trying to bring Pil Jik to justice the right way, but he's probably already learning the sad truth about being righteous in a world where money and power rules the law and I hope he will start working with Yeo Hwa more to get justice a different way when the law won't suffice.

Yeo Hwa and Yeon Seon's bond is really charming too, I love how she doesn't want to leave because Yeo Hwa won't be able to visit, and how clever she is and manages to be a perfect assistant for Yeo Hwa's undercover heroics.

Soo Ho getting offended when she said she didn't care if the goon killed him during the confrontation with Pil Jik's men, Yeo Hwa's eyes popping out like a cartoon wolf at Soo Ho's abs and the hilarious epilogue where all she could see was his abs, her amazing transformation into a mustached nobleman enjoying her night off with some wine and snacks before getting to business, Soo Ho's bizarrely funny daydream about a roof vaulting Yeo Hwa, these were all so good. I hope the show continues to keep the light/sweet/fun moments even when the drama gears up more.

The mothers in law continue to be horrendous, I wonder if the other widow will play some part too from now on, or if we're going to be seeing a tragic end for her, though I hope not. I also don't care for whatever romance they seem to be setting up with Soo Ho's brother and Yeo Hwa's assistant. She's too cool for that, and his storyline is better kept with the king and Soo Ho, I like their brotherly moments.

The big bad reveal was the most unsurprising thing, but I am curious to know what happened with Yeo Hwa's brother, and if he's going to return alive.

Yes, for sure we had to be set up for Yeon Seon being able to end up with Hyung, I was thinking she might even turn out to be a lost (or stolen) noble daughter.
Can’t wait to have the mysterious petals explained!

I think this role fits Honey Lee like a glove.

I also think something is supposed to be on the horizon between Yeon Seon and Yoon Hak which confused me cause the class difference. So a noble can get with merchants?
Well, it's fictional and a bit fantasy so why not.

Lee Ha-Nee - Where do I join the fan club!! Totally smitten and fan girling in MAX capacity mode.
Her expressions and body language are amazing and I am laughing so hard at times. The whole scene of her side eyeing in the bar (whatever you call it in Joseon) was perfect - you didn't need the follow up scene, you knew she drank!! lol..

Also, I am having so much fun with the male lead. I am totally warming up to him. Their fight flirting is too good! I could watch them fight all day.. He is already in a 'protective' mode, while she is like 'what is heck is this dude upto now' mode. But she is 'wang'-ed!!
His little smiles and smirks are delish. I can't wait for them to team up at some point. But for now, I want them to be reluctant partners, because their bickering is the BEST!! (Almost all of them have a flirtatious double meaning in my head!! lol)

And some one please send a ToD to Joseon, have a few MIL's to take care off.. sigh...
And less of Pil dude please. I don't need to see him on my screen so often.

I want the show to end with Yeom Seon becoming a savvy merchant under the guidance of our senior merchant lady - because girl got enterprise!!

The show would be so much better without Pil Jik, lost brother mystery, and evil father-in-law. That is all to say, I did not enjoy the fourth episode as much as every other, primarily because if focused on all the aspects of the show that I am not a fan of. The mother-in-law and her club of women with too much free time are anger inducing, but at least they bring some less discussed topics on Dramaland table. It also helps that the FL can handle everything that is coming to her.

I do hope our Hong Gil Dong saves the other widow. Fiction or not, watching a woman get crushed by the society she lives in is always painful.

Finally a FL that doesn't immediately make you realise that a woman has disguised herself as a man.

My personal highlights of the last few episodes were always the verbal duels between the mothers-in-law. If looks could kill.

And I learnt something new again this week. I knew that women, and widows in particular, were subject to various customs and rules that placed extreme restrictions on their lives, but I was unaware of many details. For example, I didn't know that objects should only be exchanged between men and women in a basket to avoid accidental contact.

This show is really fun, so much that I can't really take it seriously. 😅

I wish we knew more about Yeo-Hwa.

I need all the fun OTP flirtiness I can get to balance out the horrific conditions for widows, women and the poor. Kudos to the writers for having Soo-ho recognize Yeo-wha’s identity relatively quickly. I actually think it makes their interactions more meaningful — first that he really sees her and also that he can appreciate the risks she is taking on behalf of the common people. Besides, they have so many wrongs to right that they don’t need to be sidetracked with mistaken/mysterious identity subplots.

I liked how the flashbacks showed that Yeon-hwa has always had the heart of a hero and an irrepressible spirit. I don’t know how she would have survived the 15 years if her masked alter ego hadn’t provided an outlet and an escape.

I enjoyed these episodes more than the premiere week. The politics still bore me though. I knew Lord Seok was bad. His kind facade looked so fake.

I did like the scenes of Yeo Hwa & her brother.
He has to be alive...

I felt bad for Lady Oh. She looked a little shady at first and also fake, but she is hiding her true feelings and intentions. She is a neutral character for now.

I love all of the encounters between Yeo Hwa & Soo Ho! Definitely the highlights of each episode. I love that he already figured out her identity, but is keeping it a secret. Their fight scenes are great and full of fun tension and over-the-top moves.

I love how this show blends comedy and darker elements of Josean society seamlessly. It actually shows us that Josean was not great time for anyone other that few yangban houses (males mostly) i.e. chaebols of Josean time.
On another note, I love every encounter between Yeo-hwa and Soo-ho. I mostly look forward to their fight-flirting. I hope it soon terns to real flirting and then love-fighting.
The biggest baddie to no one’s surprise is left minister. I called it. There is no such thing as good left minister in K-dramaland Josean.

Lol I started looking at comments and then realized I had 20 min left of ep 4 (boo! I got pulled away before I could finish). Will be back!

The ML is so enjoyable to watch. His facial expressions have been a delight.
The comedy in these episodes has been the highlight for me.
I hope they can keep it up as I'm suffering from sageuk villain fatigue - they all become the same one dimensional character that I couldn't care less about.

The scene of Yeo-hwa seeing abs in the furniture had me almost doing a spit-take!

Honey Lee's physicality really makes her character difficult to emulate. The way she makes Yeo-hwa clumsy (and not in a cute way) and struggling and failing to hold every muscle and gesture to the perfect widowed DIL that the MIL demands. Her "save me!!!" eyes when she was about to collapse from an entire day's practice of getting out of the palanquin.

I'm warming up to the ML. I was expecting to be a "rules rule rules!" guy since he didn't share any enthusiasm for his coworker's praise of the elusive, masked heroine, but he knows to let something slide and the way he worked his supervisor to arrest Kang was awesome.

Again, the drama does a great job at skewering the noble ladies' virtue olympics in both a funny way and a dark way - that graceful widow's family shows her off to the other ladies, while in private, pushes her to commit suicide to get the Chastity Gate title. I hope Yeo-hwa can save her. I also hope Lady Oh can be free from her husband. I love how she tries to give Yeo-hwa opportunities to be outside.

In a show filled with comedic moments, the use of the Mishil's Theme music for one of the scenes was just so unexpected and funny!

What a treat to see Honey Lee in this role! She's doing great!

"The 15-year-old mystery involves the death of the previous king, the death of the head of the king's guard (Soo-ho's biological father), and the disappearance of the other guards — one of which includes Yeo-hwa's brother. "
It seemed to me that from this scene between the king and his friend, ML's fake brother, that ML was not really the son of the king's guard, but the son of the previous king, the younger brother of the current king. A theory was born in my head that the younger brother was actually the rightful heir to the throne, because his mother was the queen, and the older brother (the current king) was the son of a concubine. ML was raised by the king's guard as his son for his safety. ML's half brother became king after his father's death, because his mother came from the family that led to the king's death and that is why the current king is so dependent on a two-faced minister. So, according to my theory, ML is living for the second time in his life as a member of a family he is not.

When they revealed the title of that novel Yoonhak saw YeonSeon had, it reminded me of SamSoon as Hwarok in The Matchmakers. 😊

I like that SooHo is smart and already figured out that the masked culprit is none other than YeoHwa. I love Yeo Hwa and hate her in-laws.

Widow Baek, please don't kill yourself!

I need someone to deduce their age difference. She's 32 according to my calculations, married at 20, and it has been 12 tears since she reached her maid, which was around the time she became a widow. I'm confused about our sheriff though, the "incident" took place 15 years ago, he was I want to say a teenager ? But I'm horrible at guessing kids ages. If he was let's say 13 that would make him 28 today.
Also am I the only one who thinks sheriff-nim looks like he could be Moon Ga young's brother ?

@marcusync20 @kiara This drama so far has been a joy to binge, thanks for reminding me about it! It's been so long since a drama made me laugh out loud. A few random thoughts:

1) I don't mind it if widows becomes the next sageuk trend. Their situation was so difficult, they were supposed to conform to impossible ideals of virtue, and yet we see here as we did in BOSSAM that they did have some agency in their lives. Maybe they weren't becoming Hong Gil Dong, but what's to say that widows were not donning disguises and leaving their homes once in a while? The fact that Confucian society insists so much on rules about the behavior of women means they were regularly being broken.

2) The references to Hong Gil Dong. Honey Lee, Kim Sang-joon and Seo Yi-Sook reunited. It blows me how Kim Sang-Joong can create a totally different character with just modulating his voice. He sounded so condescending from the first episode that I was sure he was the Big Bad hiding behind that beard. So I'm not surprised on that account.

3) Mishil's theme. The laundry pounding session was most likely a reference to Mishil as well. Actually, there is something about this drama that reminds me more of Silla or Goryeo than Joseon. Maybe it's the fact that we have a merchant guild with a female head or villain Kang Pil Jik's flamboyant silks.

4) The petal fireworks. 😂 I wish I hadn't been spoiled by too many dramas because my brain immediately did the following somersault:
petals -> poison -> poisoned tea -> death of the previous king . At least it's not poisoned fish.

5) Honey Lee as Yeo-hwa. She can jump over walls, fly on rooftops, fight 17 men, but can't for the life of her exit the palanquin gracefully. I mean, I don't blame her, it looks like it requires incredible core strength. But she has a fan in Officer Park's assistant. And Officer Park seems to like the Kitty Portrait as well as its artist. (Not sure how a romance would work between them but I'll let the drama take me where it wants).

6) "I Woke Up and was the Royal Secretary's Wife" sounds like the title of a Chinese drama. The foreshadowing of a secondary love line is strong. I'm not sure it's necessary, but Yoon-hak is a widower himself so it does sort of fit the theme.

Will keep watching and tagging you if you don't mind, so I don't feel like I'm talking to the void.