FRIDAY ON TRIBES AND EMPIRES - EPISODE 18 ON JOY PRIME @9: PM

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In the forbidden forest, the horses and people are very clearly unsettled as the forest is very spooky. Helan bro eventually tells them to venture further on foot pushing HeYe to advance first. Alas, unknown and unseen, someone casts a spell on them and one by one in lots of cool macabre ways which involve plants and trees, members of the tribe get killed.
I wasn't very sorry. 
I love this forest.  I hope this isn't the only time we're in it.  You know, basically every drama from China that has a forest, the forest is really wicked cool.  Have you noticed that?  It's interesting to me because forests are not what I think of when I think of China, really.

Shaman however proceeds further into the forest seemingly drawn by a higher force (we later see him being marked by the Danyao people). When HeYe tugs on the rope tied around his neck, it comes back empty. He wants to go after him claiming he is the Shuofeng Shaman and an angry Helan Bro reminds him they are part of the Helan clan now. HeYe insists Han people never leave their own and two others are eventually dispatched to get him back but their horses come back alone.
Still not very sorry. So that once-cute Shaman...he seems so naive (and can't act), but I guess he's powerful?
Oooh, we like a secretly powerful puppy.  Very much.

An ominous cloud encroaches where the other horses are tied and HeYe yells to abandon the horses in disregard to Helan Bro orders. Furious, Helan Bro draws his sword and asks if HeYe is rebelling, not noticing that killer vines have crept up his leg till HeYe cuts it. You should have let him die!!!! Urggh
Now I'm sorry! for the killer vines. 
It was such a perfect opportunity to get rid of that dirtbag!  I was very frustrated.

Out of the forest, they count their losses. Their best horses are gone and they’re down to just nine men. The horses loss hurts Helan bro far more than the men and he wants to punish the men who abandoned the horses against his orders. HeYe speaks up for them which enrages him even more. HeYe tells him not to pick on them that he was the one who abandoned the horses and can find him better ones but Helan bro decides he wants the Legendary Werewolves instead.
He was testing He Ye. And since he does not behave like a servant at all, he just wants to break (or get rid of) He Ye. And these Werewolves, you can ride on them? Intriguing.
I hate him.  I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him.  I hate his smirk.  I want to wipe it off his face with a brick. Maybe a werewolf will do it for me.

It is a foolhardy challenge but HeYe accepts it. They are supposedly found in the place of all nightmares that even his father dared not talk about - The Black Forest. After warning Helan bro that if he dares hurt any of the former Shuofeng tribe people when he is away that he will hurt him, He Ye sets off.
But Helan bro could cut their hair. I'd like that. 
Or maybe lend them a comb, at least. A tub.  Some water and soap even.

The Black forest is also coincidentally (so very coincidental it's amazing) the topic of conversation between Muyun De and Yu’er. While explaining why it is so scary, he suddenly gets a premonition and walks to Muyun room where time slows and the fairy walks in.
Muyun De's skin is bad.
That's how you know this isn't a Korean drama.

She asks if he has thought of a name for her yet and he says he has. Before he can say it, Muyun De praises her beauty and suggests a name for her but she shuts him down and wipes his memory. She takes Sheng back inside the bead where he tells her he’s named her Pan Xi.
Muyun De, you scumbag - she isn't yours! Back off! I get a bad feeling about this. It's not good Muyun De has seen her and knows her... (this "she appears"-scene was VERY long, but also very beautiful)
But he doesn't remember her now, so no harm no foul? Why did Pan Xi appear when someone else was there, even?

Coming to, he has strong feelings of deja vu, walks into Sheng’s room and takes the bead but Yu’er takes it back from him. He then needles her about still staying with Sheng even though she’s past marriageable age and that it must be because she has feelings for him. He cajoles her into giving him the bead saying it will help save Sheng’s life. She refuses still though it’s apparent she is conflicted.
Yes, why is she there? Does she love Sheng? Or is it pity that makes her stay? 
I just assumed it was similar to Korea, and court ladies are court ladies for life unless given permission otherwise.  It's different in China?

Pan Xi tells Sheng she has no recollection where she comes from but that there is a voice that wants her to awaken Sheng. She teaches him about Desolation and says he should get his powers from there. He is happy because it seems if he learns to use magical powers without sensing the force of the Yufei star, he won’t bring destruction into the world but she isn’t fully confident about that. She promises to teach him occultism and gives him a test to crack back in the real world.
Nah, I'm not fully confident about that either. I kind of like that he's bringing destruction. He is so gentle, normally. Such a nice contrast.
I tend to think that his gentleness is a deliberate attempt to appease those who think of him only as a force for destruction.  It might be his inclination as well - he may truly desire peace and quiet and all that - but it's in his interest to appear as harmless as possible, anyway.

Sheng gets back and instructs Yu’er he doesn’t want to be disturbed for some days fending off questions from De if he’s learning occultism and the episode ends with Muyun He Ge coming to pay De a visit in his rooms.
Scumbag. 
Every time we see this room I just stare at the orchid tree and wish I had that.  I know they grow on trees in the wild, but I have never seen such an arrangement in someone's home.

CommentsHeYe should have let Helan bro die. He didn’t even thank him for saving his life, the ingrate. That relationship is already very strained, I don’t see it working out well.
Helan Bro wants to use him, I guess. Or is it their past friendship that's the reason why he doesn't kill him?
I think he wants to use him, but that means that as soon as he's not useful, or as soon as his usefulness is exceeded by the threat of his existence, Helan Bro will try to kill him. I don't think there's one drop of loyalty in that man's blood and I look forward to He Ye removing him from this earth. My bloodthirstiness in this matter makes me want to chew raw steak, that's how much I crave that moment.

I am still very curious why De can also see Pan Xi and hope that’s revealed later in the future. He is so good at the art of seduction, that man. Yu’er is completely under his spell.
That makes me angry. I wished for her to be smarter and this to be less predictable.
Oh right, that's why Pan Xi appeared. Normally people can't see her!  Yes, I want to know why Muyun De can see her and they better explain it. As for Yu'er, all she knows of De is what she sees of him with Sheng, so I can understand why she is fooled by him - but I don't think she's into him for herself. I still see everything she does as Sheng-centered.

FRIDAY ON DEFENDANT - EPISODE 8 ON JOY PRIME @ 8: AM

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9:00 a.m. on the day of the Wolha-dong murder incident.

Police swarm Jung-woo’s apartment building. Sung-kyu returns home to his apartment, which is across the hall from Jung-woo’s, and Detective Oh questions him. Sung-kyu says he heard the couple arguing around dawn. Detective Oh notes that Sung-kyu seems quite calm when a murder just happened next door, but he says he only moved in recently and doesn’t know his neighbors well. The police soon leave, and as Sung-kyu enters his apartment, we see his black pants and shoes, which are similar to the ones in the video of the murder.

He sighs in relief as the cops leave, and Ha-yeon emerges from a bedroom, asking who he is. She asks him where her parents are, since she needs to go to preschool. Sung-kyu takes her back into the room and tells her that Jung-woo went to catch some bad guys, and that he left Ha-yeon with “uncle” for a while. He tells her that Ji-soo is sick, but Ha-yeon says that her mom isn’t sick. She notices as well that she isn’t in her own home, and asks Sung-kyu again who he is.

Sung-kyu gets a text from someone telling him to call right away. He asks if Ha-yeon wants to talk to her dad, then dials and hands her the phone. We see now the other side of the conversation she had with Jung-woo when he was in the interrogation room at the prosecutor’s office. After Jung-woo reassures Ha-yeon that he’ll see her soon, Sung-kyu steps out and warns Jung-woo to confess if he wants to see his daughter again.

We flash back to a few hours ago in Ha-yeon’s bedroom, when Sung-kyu picked the sleeping girl up and carried her into his own apartment.

Jung-woo lies handcuffed to a hospital bed, reliving the night of the murder in a nightmare. He is in his bed again, and a voice says his name, telling him to wake up. He gets up, calling for Ji-soo, but when he goes to the living room, he finds her bloody on the floor. He goes to her, frantically calling her name, and she weakly tells him that Ha-yeon is missing. Jung-woo looks at Ha-yeon’s open door, but then Ji-soo loses consciousness and he begs and cries for her to wake up.

Someone says his name again, and Jung-woo looks up to see a man dressed all in black walking toward him and Ji-soo. Before Jung-woo can see the man’s face, he wakes up, losing the image. He thrashes in his bed, gasping and screaming as he wakes and looks around in confusion until he remembers Sung-kyu’s visit, and his deduction that Ha-yeon was nearby.

He begins to call her name again and flails against his bonds when the doctor comes in. The doctor tells him to calm down, since it’s not like he can leave the prison anyway. She says she can’t help him if he continues to act this way. He asks her how long it’s been, and she says two hours—she was worried he might lose his memory again, since it’s the first time he’s actually fainted.

Jung-woo cries as he says his wife’s name, and the doctor asks him what he has remembered, but he’s too overwrought to speak. She says that someone is here to help him, and that they’ve been waiting for him to wake up.

Eun-hye rushes in, and Jung-woo tells her immediately that Sung-kyu came, and that he had Ha-yeon with him. He asks Eun-hye about Sung-kyu’s younger sister, but she relays the news that she died last year, and Jung-woo laughs to realize it was Ha-yeon that Sung-kyu was talking about all along. Eun-hye also reveals that Sung-kyu was living across the hall from Jung-woo’s family at the time of the incident. Jung-woo is shocked to hear this, but says that the man he saw on the night of the incident wasn’t Sung-kyu, although he can’t remember who it was.

Eun-hye tells him that they only have a few days left to file for a final appeal, and she encourages him to do it—his memory is returning, after all. But he shakes his head, saying it won’t work. “It was me. It had to be me. In order to save Ha-yeon, I had to become the criminal. I faked all the evidence, perfectly.” Eun-hye gasps in dismay.

Min-ho calls the warden, angry that his orders were disobeyed, as he’s heard about Jung-woo meeting Sung-kyu. The warden assures Min-ho that the meeting wasn’t recorded, but he still demands that Jung-woo be put in solitary until he dies. The warden says he can’t do that because of the new doctor at the prison. Once he hangs up, the warden plays the recording he has of Sung-kyu’s visit and puts the audio file on a flash drive.

The woman from Sun-ho’s past looks up articles about Min-ho’s death and approaches Min-ho when he arrives at work, calling him by his real name. Recognizing her from their encounter in the hotel elevator, he realizes she must have known his brother, and tells her that he’s Sun-ho. His secretary pulls him away, but before Min-ho leaves, the woman tells him she has something to tell him and will wait in the lobby.

Once in his secret room, Min-ho searches his wall of photos for the woman’s identity, but he can’t find her. When he leaves for the day, he asks his secretary to accompany him. As they’re walking out of the lobby, Min-ho covers his face with his hand, but the woman is nowhere to be seen.

Min-ho returns home to find a jubilant Eun-soo, who shows him a toy that “Aunt” bought him. This turns out the to be the same woman from before, sitting with Yeon-hee. She greets him as “Sun-ho” and says it’s their first time meeting since his wedding to Yeon-hee.

Min-ho looks through yearbooks in his office and guesses that it doesn’t seem like the first time in six years that the woman is seeing him. Yeon-hee comes in and tells him the woman is JENNIFER LEE (Oh Yeon-ah), her friend from university—and Sun-ho’s lover. Min-ho is shocked to find out both that Sun-ho had a mistress and that Yeon-hee knew about it, and asks why she never told him. Yeon-hee says that Jennifer probably showed up because she hasn’t been able to get in touch with Sun-ho for a while. She tells him that Sun-ho loved Jennifer a lot and wishes him luck. He asks her to help him.

Jennifer stays for dinner, and Min-ho puts on a show of appreciating Yeon-hee’s cooking while apologizing to Jennifer for not recognizing her earlier. He tells her that his brother’s death was traumatic for him, and he’s receiving treatment these days because he lost a lot of his memories.

After dinner, Yeon-hee asks if Jennifer wants to get married, but she replies that it’s too bothersome, so she’ll just date instead. She asks Min-ho if he’ll introduce her to one of his friends, and he agrees. Eun-soo wakes up, and Yeon-hee leaves to put him back to bed.

Jennifer asks if he really doesn’t remember, and Min-ho says he failed to recognize one of his oldest friends, which is how he found out that he’d lost some of his memories. Jennifer apologizes for bringing it up, but as she’s leaving, Jennifer asks if he still can’t remember that old friend; Min-ho says that memory has returned, and Jennifer smiles.

Once she’s gone, Yeon-hee says, “Pathetic, isn’t it? That I lived pretending not to know my friend was having an affair with Sun-ho.” She warns Min-ho that Jennifer is very ambitious and won’t give up easily.

Jung-woo returns to his cell, and Mil-yang asks if he’s okay. Rockfish comments that he always ends up back in the cell with them, whatever happens—what kind of connections does he have? Jung-woo, however, is still preoccupied with trying to identify the voice of the murderer he saw in his dreams.

Jennifer goes to a detective agency while Min-ho seems to have contacted one himself, as he receives a report about Jennifer in his email.

Sung-kyu is in a motel for the night. He remembers a nighttime meeting with Seok, who handed him a bag and told him to “finish things well,” telling him not to worry as his sister’s surgery would be taken care of. Seok told Sung-kyu he’d find a suitcase at the designated spot; once he put the kid in the suitcase, everything would be over.

Next, we see Sung-kyu with Ha-yeon on a mountain while the little girl asked if her dad was really there. Ha-yeon said she was tired and grabbed Sung-kyu’s pinkie, startling him. She started to sing her favorite song as they walked. In the present, Sung-kyu looks over at Ha-yeon sleeping next to him and wonders what to do now—should he turn himself in? He mutters that he must be going crazy.

In Jung-woo’s cell, Mong-chi exits the bathroom, and the other prisoners ask why he always puts pain patches on in there, calling it suspicious. Mong-chi says Jung-woo is the suspicious one for never replying to them or telling them what’s on his mind.

Aunt clucks over Eun-hye, who was up all night and is passed out on her desk. Eun-hye mumbles in her sleep, “Wait a little more, Park Jung-woo.”

While the other prisoners exercise, Jung-woo sits by himself once again and repeats, “I had to be the criminal.” He remembers stumbling in from outside sometime after Ji-soo’s death, removing a mask he’d been wearing. He cried and apologized to Ji-soo, with the voice of the murderer in the background telling Jung-woo that he had to become the culprit if he wanted to save Ha-yeon.

Jung-woo had taken a knife from their kitchen and wiped it on Ji-soo’s bloody clothes, screaming in anguish and apology. He wiped the floor clean of footprints and burned their family photographs, leaving one of Ji-soo with an unknown man to make it seem like he discovered an affair.

Jung-woo then thinks of earlier that day, when he told Eun-hye he had to get out of the prison. Eun-hye had warned that it was too dangerous, but Jung-woo said that Ha-yeon was alive. An appeal would take months, and there was no guarantee it would succeed when he’d already confessed.

“Who would believe me? Do you even believe me?” he asked. “I believe you,” she said, and pointed out that he must trust her too, since he was telling her all this. They had to at least buy time with an appeal, she told him. Jung-woo thinks now, I don’t have time.

The deputy chief comes into Joon-hyuk’s office and asks why it’s taking so long to wrap up Jung-woo’s case, and Joon-hyuk says it’s because of Ha-yeon—he must find her before he leaves. The deputy chief says Joon-hyuk has been nominated for the Prosecutor General’s Award, hinting that he’d better finish up soon.

After his cellmates fall asleep, Jung-woo tests the bars on his cell window. Mil-yang asks if he’s trying to get out, but Jung-woo denies it. Mil-yang tells Jung-woo he tried to escape once, before he lost his memory. The old man says casually that there’s a “master of breaking out” who loves cigarettes very much.

The man is prisoner 2460, and Jung-woo approaches this man on their next exercise break. 2460 has his hat pulled over his eyes, but when Jung-woo sits down by him, he says, “It’ll be hard to get out,” and gets up, folding his hat back up (cameo by Lee Deok-hwa). “This place is small and old. There are no blind spots,” says 2640, and tells Jung-woo (as he motions for a cigarette, ha) that human eyes are the hardest to deceive, because they read emotions. He points to the guard tower, saying that it has the most eyes, and unlike cameras, you can’t see where they are looking.

2640 asks if Jung-woo wants to know the way to get out, and motions for another smoke. Once he has the cigarette, the old man says, “There is no way.” If he knew of one, he points out, why would he still be here? Jung-woo says he thought the old man was the master of breaking out, and 2640 laughs and says he was, long ago.

But, says the man, Jung-woo already knows the way to get out; he taps the number on his chest, telling him to think hard, before he walks off. Chul-shik approaches and asks what that was about, but Jung-woo ignores him, and the gangster goes to have a chat with the head of security.

Jennifer meets a private detective and exchanges money for information; once she leaves, Seok gives the man another envelope of money. Jennifer has been given medical records that confirm the lies Min-ho told her, and she wonders if he’s really Sun-ho after all. When she goes back to her hotel room, however, he’s waiting for her. He says, “I remembered who my closest friend was,” and kisses her passionately. He takes her to a villa that the couple used to frequent.

Jung-woo ponders 2640’s words as he sits up at night, when suddenly, the appeal paperwork he’s poring over catches his eye.

The next morning, Jennifer wakes up first and remembers that Sun-ho had a scar on his chest. She carefully moves aside her lover’s robe to find a crescent-shaped scar and is about to touch it when Min-ho grabs her hand. He smiles at her in greeting, and we flash back to the day of the autopsy for a moment, where we see Min-ho taking pictures of the scars on Sun-ho’s body. She smiles back and leaves the room, and Min-ho says to himself, “She still doesn’t believe me?”

He joins her in the living room and says he’ll miss her when she leaves. She offers him white wine, and he thanks her; she smiles, suddenly nervous, and hugs him from behind. She says she’ll be right back, and in a panic, whispers to herself, “Yeon-hee knew about this.” She dials Yeon-hee, but puts down her phone when Min-ho joins her.

Jennifer pours him another refill with shaking hands, and he comes close to her and says, “My brother didn’t like white wine though. You knew that, didn’t you?” On the table, we see her phone call to Yeon-hee is still connected. Min-ho raises a candlestick and hits Jennifer hard on the head; she screams and falls to the floor, her blood splattering on Min-ho’s face. Min-ho slowly walks toward the lake behind the villa, bloody candlestick dripping on the snow.

Eun-hye comes to see Jung-woo, asking why he gave up on the appeal. He says the only way out of this prison is to be transferred out—once his sentence is finalized, they’ll move him to a prison where they do executions. Realizing that he means to escape, Eun-hye asks him if he’s lost his mind, but he says it’s the only way.

Tae-soo’s fellow guards somberly give him Jung-woo’s new uniform now that his sentence has been finalized, and it’s blue with the red labels that denote a death row inmate. Tae-soo takes it to him and asks why he’s given up after making such a big fuss, and if he’s admitting his guilt. He says Ji-soo will be happy. Jung-woo says his name, but Tae-soo tells him to call him Officer Yoon now, and refers to Jung-woo by his inmate number.

Min-ho is drinking at the kitchen table when Seok bursts in to ask if he’s all right. (Dude, really? There’s a dead woman on the floor.) Min-ho numbly tells Seok that Yeon-hee heard everything, and Seok tells him to leave first so that he can take care of it. Min-ho calls his secretary to come and pick him up, and when he arrives, asks him to find out where Yeon-hee is, since he can’t reach her.

Yeon-hee drinks at a bar and ignores Min-ho’s calls, sobbing as she remembers Jennifer’s scream. After a while she leaves, driving drunk and crying, so she’s unable to stop in time when she sees a pedestrian. She hits him dead on.

Min-ho arrives soon after, and she begs him to tell her that she heard wrong. Min-ho agrees that she did, and she repeats after him, whimpering, “That’s right, I must have heard wrong.” She suddenly remembers that she hit someone and tells Min-ho, beginning to cry again. He sends her home in his car, and drives off slowly in hers, giving the police a chance to catch up.

Prosecutor Choi bursts into Joon-hyuk’s office, asking if he will give up looking for Ha-yeon now that Jung-woo has dropped the appeal. Joon-hyuk apologizes while Prosecutor Choi shouts that if Jung-woo had taken Joon-hyuk’s case, he’d never have let it end like this. He leaves, and the deputy chief comes in and asks Joon-hyuk to take care of one last matter—Cha Sun-ho’s hit-and-run case.

Min-ho waits in the interrogation room, wondering again what Sung-kyu could have told Jung-woo that caused him to faint. His phone rings, and he receives the news that Jung-woo gave up his appeal, which mystifies him even more.

We don’t see the interrogation, but as soon as Joon-hyuk returns to his office, the deputy chief comes in and slaps him. He asks how he could put Cha Sun-ho in jail, but Joon-hyuk tells his superior that the man asked him to put him away.

Min-ho rides a prison bus, thinking, Park Jung-woo gave up the appeal. Does that mean I can kill him now? Now that the trial is over, who will care if he dies? The warden serves him dinner after he changes into a prison uniform, telling him that he’ll prepare a solitary cell for him.

Jung-woo’s cellmates celebrate when they hear they’ll soon have a newcomer joining them. Chul-shik prepares to move out of his cell, provoking his scary cellmates as he leaves, when the guard suddenly locks him back in with his very angry companions.

In Jung-woo’s memories, the face of Ji-soo’s murderer finally comes into focus. “It was Cha Min-ho,” he says to himself, as that very man is escorted into his cell. The two men stare at each other, and Min-ho slowly smirks.

MY SWEET CURSE

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Hello great people, hope you are all doing so wonderful. We are continuing with MY SWEET CURSE today and in today's episode,
Rodrigo cannot accept that Aurora loves Rafael and he continues to about it and refuses to understand how it all happen.
Macrina starts casting a curse on Wenceslao because he toyed with Xochitl and it started having effect on him.
Apolonia thanks Aurora for not thinking less of her now that she knows her secret and Aurora responds that she now loves her and admires her even more.
At the cemetery, Rafael and Rodrigo coincidentally run into each other whiles paying a visit on their father’s grave. Rodrigo tells Rafael that he is ashamed about the way his father acted and Rafael says that his situation is worse because he still has to see her mother Apolonia every day after she raised them in a way as if she was the most upright person in the world and yet she acted in a very different manner by cheating on their father. Both of them come close to getting in a fight after Rafael tells Rodrigo that afterall, Aurora now chose him but Rodrigo thinks he is the love of her life but Rafael promises him that he will marry her because he lost Aurora to him. Ponciano then arrives to separate them.
Father Basilio tells Elsa that he’s sorry to see that she is still full of resentment which is keeping her from being happy.
Apolonia and Onesimo realize that the townsfolk think that the party was cancelled because Rafael and Chalo oppose their relationship. Same vein, Chalo tells Aurora that he believes there’s a chance that Andres Villavicencio is his biological father and that is what worries him a lot.
Rafael goes to get Chalo from Ines’ house and he tries becoming mean to Ines but Aurora and Chalo ask her not to mind him.
Dionisio asks Gloria to take advantage of Ponciano’s long nap to take Tobias to talk to him.
Rodrigo warns Dionisio not to mess with Aurora because he is still going to protect her.
Xochitl overhears Macrina and Severo talking about what happened with the Galicias and she finds it odd.
Monica convinces Elsa to let her organize a trip for the three of them so they can get their minds relieved off all the problems they are going through, but Rodrigo doesn’t think the trip is a good idea.
Elsa goes to apologize to Apolonia for her impulse action, but she says that she will never forgive her for taking away her sons’ respect from her and Elsa stresses that now they are even.
Rafael can’t forgive his mum and so he decides not to stay in the hacienda again.
Stay tuned to tonight's Episode of MY SWEET CURSE at 8:00pm! Watch the Repeat every afternoon at 2:30 pm, and omnibus on every Sundays from 12:00noon - 3:00pm. UTV, it's all about you!!