Team Dramabeans: What we’re watching (June 21, 2025)

Mr. Queen: I have watched it several times and still, I forgot exactly how fun it is!.I just love these episodes, and it’s so nice to know there will be Beanies to talk to about each two episodes. I have already watched 3 and 4, which are due to discussion Wednesday, and I hope I’ll manage to watch them one time more before then. Because this is the good stuff, if you ask me.
This time, I watch it on Viki, and it’s also great to see all the comments trying to guess where the story is going and more specifically, what the agenda and hero/villain status is with each character. Like many of those, I am not very much into the way the servants are being made to work at one point, but I am taking it easier this time. I feel more silly about it, as you’re meant to. And I enjoy the way the older Dowager Queen, (Bae Jong-ok) articulates, avoiding lipstick on her teeth by like, making a kind of beak with her lips … it just looks insane, and I love it. Like some animal demonstratively showing her teeth, more ritual than actual hunt.
And the über villain, (Kim Tae-woo) who looks calculating but bored and a little bit nauseous all the time. I hate him so much it gives me the creeps, and that’s a compliment to that actor!
And again, Kim Jung-hyun, he can look so dumb and then switch to a butterfly-inducing cheeky little smile – I enjoy being manipulated like that, [giggle!].
With the great Shin Hae-sun, this was the first thing I saw with her, and it took me several episodes before I remembered that Choi, the actor from ep. 1, wasn’t actually inside her body. I mean, I knew it, of course, if you had asked me, but she made me forget! (Helped along, of course, by Choi Jin-hyuk voicing the Queen/Chef’s thoughts.)
Since alerts seem to be only arbitrarily working, check in Wednesday in the comments to those episodes, the Community Watch is meeting there. I intend to update with parts of my fan fic modifications along the way, not as a script but more as a sketch of how I’d have liked the plot to go, because I love it so much.
Apropos Fan Fic and Time travelling souls; I am watchingThe First Night With the Duke, A bit like Lost in Austen, a fan is suddenly inside her favourite novel )in this case, a graphic web novel. I am only just starting, but I like it.
Not-a-K-drama :
Coverage of demos and parades: My own participation in “A Red Line For Gaza” (links in Open Thread) , the military parade with the almost demonstratively relaxed soldiers, and the brave (considering the sad news on that same day) and enormous turn-out for the No King demonstrations. It eases my heart to see that all hope is not lost, for the Americans as well as for all of us whose lives and safety is strongly affected by their light and shadow.
The Tiny Chef: If those little clips haven’t turned up in your feed, allow yourself to enjoy a…