Episode 26
This episode to me was REALLY confusing the first few times I watched it. It’s funny to a degree and heartbreaking as well.
Last episode, we had a lot of chaos where there was a miscarriage but surprisingly discovered that our main character 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) is two months pregnant. This pregnancy is quite the surprise and is causing a lot of anxiety and stress in the imperial harem. People who were happy about the miscarriage are now upset to hear there is another pregnancy.
Continuing on the conversation from the last episode, the empress dowager and the empress are still discussing the miscarriage. 太后 (Empress Dowager), the empress dowager, basically says, nothing more can be done about the miscarriage but nothing can happen to this pregnancy because it’s 莞贵人。It’s clear that 太后 (Empress Dowager) cares more about 莞贵人，甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) than the other concubine 富察贵人 (Fu Cha Gui Ren)。I guess that’s generally a lesson on being a good person because 富察贵人 (Fu Cha Gui Ren) was really quite the snooty and pretentious person. Now this tragedy has befallen her, and no one really cares.
[cathy to interject] – I don’t think so…I think it’s more like there can’t be two miscarriages. That would be too obvious, no?
[Karen]
I am highlighting here that 太后 (Empress Dowager) is essentially threatening 皇后 (Empress) and saying that nothing better happen to 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan)’s kid. But of course, this is the Imperial Harem, they can’t say such direct things but the message was abundantly clear.
皇后 (Empress) agrees but we shall see what happens. The acting here is great because 皇后 (Empress) is not being aggressive or defensive. Instead, she’s being really passive and agreeing to everything the dowager says.
She closes the conversation by pointing out that our lovely 华妃 (Hua Fei) has requested to see a doctor from outside the imperial palace. Clearly this is a reputation issue for the imperial family. The empress dowager ultimately says it’s fine but at the end, requests that if this external doctor is a good one, she would like her own head maid to get a chance to see the doctor as well. Pretty innocent and simple right? She’s being a good master and wants her maid to get a check up. No big deal.
—
[Cathy]
With the news of 2 pregnancies so close together, the person that is most upset in the imperial harem is none other than 华妃 (Hua Fei)。 She is sitting in her palace and utterly heartbroken that it seems like everyone in the palace can become pregnant except for her. She stuffs her face with as many pickles as possible and when she starts throwing up, she exclaims! Look, I’m pregnant. It’s really quite sad because you know she really wants to have a child. 蒋欣 – the actress does such a good job here.
In her fit of rage, 华妃 (Hua Fei) storms into the palace of none other than the sickly 端妃 (Duan Fei)。 It’s 26 episodes in and we finally understand what happened to 端妃 (Duan Fei) and why she is so sick. 端妃 (Duan Fei) is one of the oldest serving concubines in the harem. Since we were first introduced to her, she has been very frail – even if you look back in episode 2 when the new ladies were being introduced to the palace.
The reason she is so frail is because 4 years ago, it would seem that 华妃 (Hua Fei)’s miscarriage was caused by 端妃 (Duan Fei). 华妃 (Hua Fei) drank a bowl of medicine that 端妃 (Duan Fei) gave her. Her pregnancy was 6 months along and it was clear she was going to have a baby boy but right after drinking this medicine from 端妃 (Duan Fei), she had a miscarriage and lost her child. 华妃 (Hua Fei) was devastated and in her hatred, turned around and forced 端妃 (Duan Fei) to drink saffron (藏红花). In TV magic, the amount of saffron she drank meant that she would never be able to have children.
[Karen] – we talked about 麝香 (She Xiang) or musk pods as one of the most commonly used ways to induce a miscarriage. Saffron or 藏红花 is another. Saffron does have some harmful properties for pregnant women but there’s little evidence that it’ll make a female infertile.
[Cathy]
From that point on, 端妃 (Duan Fei) has been frail and bedridden. Because of this action, 端妃 (Duan Fei) absolutely hates 华妃 (Hua Fei). In her mind, she never actually did anything to hurt 华妃 (Hua Fei). She didn’t know how or why 华妃 (Hua Fei) had the miscarriage, it wasn’t by her hand but 华妃 (Hua Fei) won’t believe it. 华妃 (Hua Fei) firmly believes that 端妃 (Duan Fei) caused her miscarriage because she was the one who brought her the bowl of medicine which was actually supposed to help her pregnancy. 华妃 (Hua Fei)’s revenge was that 端妃 (Duan Fei) unfortunately will never be able to have children, which in 端妃 (Duan Fei)”s eyes, is worse than death. She will never have any type of support in the palace and basically her value as a woman is gone. The whole point of being a woman in the palace is to produce children and 华妃 (Hua Fei) took that ability from her.
[Karen]
The two women hate each other. The reason why 端妃 (Duan Fei) has been helping 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan)， our main character, is clear now after so many episodes. 端妃 (Duan Fei) hopes 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) will help defeat 华妃 (Hua Fei) because she cannot do it herself.
Because 华妃 (Hua Fei) is so powerful, she has been able to restrict pretty much everything for 端妃 (Duan Fei)。 端妃 (Duan Fei) can’t have fresh food, can’t have lots of servants, can’t get laundry done externally, has limited access to medicine – pretty much everything that should be given to her as a consort of her rank, has been stripped because 华妃 (Hua Fei) hates her. That’s honestly terrible. And as we found out in the conversation, every time there’s a pregnancy announcement, or whenever 华妃 (Hua Fei) is upset, she’ll come over and verbally and physically abuse 端妃 (Duan Fei)。
The interesting piece here is that 皇上 (Emperor) believes that 端妃 (Duan Fei) didn’t do anything wrong. The ultimate reason why 端妃 (Duan Fei) is still alive is because 华妃 (Hua Fei) cannot outright kill 端妃 (Duan Fei) or else 皇上 (Emperor) will be mad. The emperor and empress dowager seem to have made it clear that 端妃 (Duan Fei) is not to be touched. Otherwise, 华妃 (Hua Fei) most definitely would have killed 端妃 (Duan Fei) long ago. Why is this? That’s odd. But I also can’t imagine that 皇上 (Emperor) doesn’t know that 端妃 (Duan Fei) is suffering but he seems to be fine with it. There’s just a lot of oddities going on here. The acting of the two ladies in the scene here is phenomenal. Especially 蒋欣，the actress for 华妃 (Hua Fei), you see how much she hates 端妃 (Duan Fei) but is also so sad that she lost a child. You end up kind of pitying her because yes, she does scary stuff, but a lot of it originates from her sadness of having lost a child she desperately wants.
—
[Cathy]
To try to fix this situation, 华妃 (Hua Fei) has asked her brother to invite a doctor he knows (so outside of the imperial harem) to see if there’s any way to help her become pregnant.
Well the old doctor comes to the imperial palace and is being escorted by the Empress’s main eunuch. NOW HERE it is quite confusing. On the face of it, nothing seems to really be happening so let’s take a look at how things are progressing.
Before they go to see 华妃 (Hua Fei), the doctor makes a stop at the Department of Imperial Doctors. The director of the doctors meets with this new dude and is really nice and even gives this doctor all of 华妃 (Hua Fei)’s medical notes. That’s pretty nice of him no? The director says that 华妃 (Hua Fei) is of course adored by the Emperor so their department always pays careful attention to her and has had at least 20 top tier doctors take a look at 华妃 (Hua Fei) so she’s in good hands. Well the new guy is like “great!” and goes off to see 华妃 (Hua Fei)。
[karen]
华妃 (Hua Fei), being 华妃 (Hua Fei), of course gives the doctor money and then threatens him with his life if he does a bad job of looking after her. But the doctor says that she is fine. There are so many doctors who have attended to her and they all say she’s fine. She’s not terribly impacted by her previous miscarriage and therefore, as long as she tries not to be over eager, should still be able to bear children. 华妃 (Hua Fei) is ecstatic to hear this and offers the doctor more money.
As the doctor is being escorted out by a eunuch, he is sweating profusely. That’s odd right? The eunuch then asks whether or not the doctor can take a look at the Empress Dowager’s maid since he’s in town. He, of course acquiesces and goes to see this woman.
This interaction is EXTREMELY important. The doctor checks the maid’s pulse and says there is nothing wrong with her. She is completely healthy. But the maid insists that other doctors in the imperial palace said she is very sick and needs to spend quite a bit of time to recover. She then goes on to say that if someone is not sick but everyone else says she is sick and only you, say she’s healthy, what will ppl think of you? On the flip side, what if someone IS sick and everyone keeps on saying she’s healthy but you are the only one to truthfully say she’s sick, what will people think of you? He jokes and says that people will think I’m crazy! The maid then responds, exactly. Your entire reputation will be ruined if you tell the truth. He then asks, what happens if another doctor tells the truth. The maid says that that will never happen. The imperial doctors will all have the same response. This doctor thinks for a bit and says, ok, I will also have the same response.
Ummmm ok so what just happened? This scene and a scene from the previous episode require spoilers to discuss. We’ll talk about it at the end of the episode if it’s confusing. Again on the face of it, it’s like ok fine, but as with all things in the palace, the true motives are much more nefarious.
[cathy]
The rest of the episode is rather simple. The emperor who has been absent for all of this drama, finally returns to the imperial palace and immediately checks in on 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan)。 He’s super worried about her and excited about their first child together. He wants to spend all his time with 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) and is even willing to neglect 皇后 (Empress) on the day that is dedicated to her. I think we’ve mentioned before but every 1st and 15th of the month is when the emperor is supposed to see the empress. This day is the 15th but he decides to blow 皇后 (Empress) off for 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan)。 皇后 (Empress) is really saddened by this and cries alone at night. 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) at least urges 皇上 (Emperor), the emperor, to go see the empress for food the next day if he won’t go spend the night.
The next big event on the docket is the 册封 (Ce Feng) and 晋封 ceremonies. These are the promotion ceremonies for both 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) and 敬嫔 (Jing Pin). 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) is currently a 贵人 or Noble Lady. 敬嫔 (Jing Pin) with the rank of 嫔 is a Concubine. They each are promoted up one level. 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) to 莞嫔 (Wan Pin) and 敬嫔 (Jing Pin) to 敬妃 (Jing Fei). Concubine and Consort respectively.
In preparation for the ceremony, 太后 (Empress Dowager), the Empress Dowager, gifts a familiar hairpin to 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan). It’s the same one she gifted 沈眉庄 (Shen Mei Zhuang) all the way back. It’s the same one that got damaged when the Emperor learned of 沈眉庄 (Shen Mei Zhuang)’s fake pregnancy.
[discuss]
[Karen]
甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) is back at her palace marveling at all of the medicinal ointments and creams that have been gifted to help with her recovery. 安陵容 (An Ling Rong) arrives with another gift. She has her own family cream made with very valuable ingredients to help with the scar from the cat. There’s powdered pearl, peach flowers, honey, fish bone collagen and even white otter marrow? Dang – that’s extremely valuable. We’ll discuss more about this in the spoiler section.
It also doesn’t look as though 淳儿 (Chun’Er), the young bubbly girl, will last too long. 华妃 (Hua Fei) is extremely annoyed at her.
The episode ends with 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) and 敬嫔 (Jing Pin) at the ceremony. I think it’s quite a simple ceremony – they left a lot of things out. There are documents, seals, and rituals that need to be adhered to. We’ll dive deeper into the 册封 (Ce Feng) ceremonies in later episodes.
[Cathy]
Let’s start with our analysis!
The first is the promotion of our ladies 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) and 敬嫔 (Jing Pin)。 This is actually quite an honor for both of these ladies. There are only 4妃 or Consorts designations and 6 嫔 or Concubine designations. There’s a reason why 华妃 (Hua Fei) was so pissed off in the last episode. We now have 4 Consorts – 华妃 (Hua Fei), the sickly 端妃 (Duan Fei), 齐妃 (Qi Fei) who is the 3rd prince’s mother, and now 敬妃 (Jing Fei)。I don’t think we have any other 嫔’s or Concubines now. As a Concubine, you now run your own palace. You can refer to yourself as 本宫 – in third person. It basically means – owner of a palace. Servants will no longer call you a 小主 or little master. They will refer to you with the proper name of 娘娘, basically the equivalent of your ladyship/your highness depending on your rank.
Next I want to talk about our bedridden 端妃 (Duan Fei). She is this mysterious character that keeps popping up at random times. Let’s add some things together. Yes, it was a very sad scene between her and 华妃 (Hua Fei). She is a tragic character BUT we see subtle glimpses of her intelligence in this episode and the previous episode. In this episode – 端妃 (Duan Fei) is able to even threaten 华妃 (Hua Fei) with 富察贵人 (Fu Cha Gui Ren)’s miscarriage and 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan)’s injuries. She points out – you’re scared. You need the emperor’s favor. If he suspects you, you’re done. That’s true. 端妃 (Duan Fei) knows though, that 华妃 (Hua Fei) didn’t do it! She went to 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan)’s quarters just now to relay her suspicions of foul play but NOT from 华妃 (Hua Fei). I don’t 甄嬛 (Zhen Huan) thought to this point just as yet but it looks like 端妃 (Duan Fei) knows. 华妃 (Hua Fei) straight up denies she did anything and we as the audience knows she didn’t do it. The fact that 端妃 (Duan Fei) knows this though, makes a very compelling case for how she’s able to survive in the Imperial Harem despite her illnesses.