The Haunted Palace: Episodes 3-4 » Dramabeans

KDramaHQ AdminApril 28, 2025

The Haunted Palace: Episodes 3-4

by mistyisles

Our almost-shaman and her imoogi nemesis have their work cut out for them if they’re going to drive out the evil spirits haunting the palace. Nevertheless, they’re not about to back down from the challenge — even if their reasons for doing so aren’t always exactly aligned.

EPISODES 3-4

The gigantic evil spirit possessing the young prince has many names — including but probably not limited to “Colossal Shadow” and (to a certain blind shaman) “Celestial General” — but whatever you call it, Yeo-ri is determined to save Gab’s soul from its clutches and return him to his body. Her hopes rise when she sees Gab’s ghost fleeing through the palace grounds but fall when the Colossal Shadow grabs him by the throat and drags him back into… well, the shadows.

Kang-cheol has to hold Yeo-ri back from following, and only then does she realize he knew about the Colossal Shadow all along. That’s why he tried to dissuade her from coming to the palace in the first place. She’s less willing to believe Gab also knew and lied about his reason for bringing her here, but even that is getting harder for her to deny.

Speaking of things being hard to believe, Kang-cheol makes absolutely zero effort to convincingly act as Gab, even before the king. Showing deference to human rulers? That’s beneath him. Having any sort of manners at all? Unnecessary. The king’s plan to abolish the slave system? A pipe dream he openly scoffs at (Gab, in contrast, had wept with gratitude and pledged his undying support).

Though the king can’t deny the insightfulness buried in Kang-cheol’s cynicism, he rightly struggles to believe that amnesia could cause the kind of personality transplant “Gab” appears to have undergone. For now, though, he focuses on observing Kang-cheol and investigating the attack on Gab. He correctly identifies the culprit — MINISTER OF WAR KWAK SANG-CHOONG (Yoon Seung) — but lacks the evidence to outright accuse him, and Kang-cheol pretends he doesn’t remember what happened that day.

While Kang-cheol is thus occupied, Yeo-ri prepares a ritual to trap the Colossal Shadow with herself as bait. Upon successfully luring the spirit (still inhabiting the young prince’s body) out of the palace, she offers exactly what she’s denied Kang-cheol: to serve the Colossal Shadow as her guardian spirit. The spirit accepts, and while they perform the ritual dance to seal their bond, she secretly closes a rope circle around them. Unfortunately, the spirit catches on before she can finish. Kang-cheol leaps to her defense in the nick of time, only to be interrupted again by the king and his guards, here to rescue the prince.

In the standoff that ensues, Yeo-ri succeeds in expelling the spirit from the prince’s body, and Kang-cheol jumps in front of an arrow that was aimed at her (he barely even reacts, and leaves it sticking out of his chest for the rest of what follows). The Colossal Shadow isn’t beaten so easily, however, and burns through Yeo-ri’s binding ropes to take a new host — the king. Thus far, he’d been protected by the ward stone in his glasses, but Yeo-ri borrowed it for her ritual and now he’s defenseless. The spirit possesses the king and fights Kang-cheol, but eventually Kang-cheol’s lightning powers and Yeo-ri’s knives win out. It’s a temporary victory, but for now everyone returns to the palace safely.

Yeo-ri patches Kang-cheol up while they await the king’s judgment for their actions. When the king demands answers first, Kang-cheol freely confirms that Gab is dead (at Minister Kwak’s hand) and that he’s simply using Gab’s body. Still, thanks to the prince’s testimony, the king pardons both Kang-cheol and Yeo-ri. At the end of the day, he’s a desperate father who almost lost his son, did lose a loyal subject, and temporarily lost himself to something he doesn’t want to believe is even real.

The king isn’t the only one who softens toward Kang-cheol. Now that it’s clear he didn’t kill Gab, Yeo-ri offers Kang-cheol a deal: if he’ll help her save Gab, she’ll accept him as her guardian spirit. Kang-cheol does still want that, but his initial response is to scoff (Really? NOW you’ll do it? After I begged you for thirteen years??) and storm off down the road.

The next day, they’re busy haggling over what rituals she must perform and exactly how much pumpkin taffy she owes him when the king’s guards arrest them. Yes, they’ve been pardoned for yesterday, but shamanism is still technically illegal and more of Yeo-ri’s ritual objects have been found in the woods — AFTER the guards cleaned up the site. That’s a banishable offense, and banished they are, with only a small bag of money to help them relocate. Kang-cheol complains about the small sum, but doesn’t tell Yeo-ri he intentionally put the ritual objects back out last night so they’d be forced to leave the palace.

To be fair, that is an effective way to get her out before the Colossal Shadow can return. And Kang-cheol earns more favor in Yeo-ri’s sight when he scares a tiger away and admits it’s far from the first time he’s protected her from tiger attacks. He insists he only looks out for her because he needs her to ascend as a dragon, but it sounds less convincing now than it used to. Especially if you factor in the way he blushes every time she gets too close.

In any case, Yeo-ri decides to visit a monk who has her grandmother’s old ritual objects. The meeting starts out a little rocky (another elderly monk steals Kang-cheol’s precious pumpkin taffy stash and Kang-cheol gets knocked clean out before Yeo-ri can step in and make introductions), but ultimately the monk welcomes them both and promises to help dig up the ritual objects.

That’s as far as Yeo-ri and Kang-cheol get this week, but remember that blind shaman who refers to the Colossal Shadow as a Celestial General? He’s been plotting alongside the Queen Dowager to keep the spirit confined to the young prince’s body so that her son, GRAND PRINCE YOUNG-IN (Kim Sun-bin), can claim the throne instead.

When Yeo-ri and Kang-cheol drive the spirit out, however, the Queen Dowager decides to leave off meddling with spirits — she carries trauma from some earlier incident, and anyway the grand prince is horrible and constantly causes problems she has to clean up. Like, for example, sexually assaulting that poor maid who went on to drown herself and become Yeo-ri’s new ghost friend in the well. After Yeo-ri helps the well ghost release some of her grudge by almost drowning the grand prince, he retaliates by attacking her surviving family members. Then, before the well ghost can take proper revenge and become a full-fledged evil spirit herself, the Colossal Shadow returns to the palace and chooses the grand prince as its new host. But judging from Yeo-ri’s vision, he’s not going to be a *living* host much longer.

At this point in the story, I’m not sure if I hope Yeo-ri will be able to save Gab or if she’ll spend the rest of the show falling romantically for Kang-cheol. Gab seemed like such a sweet person and solid support for her, even if he did lie to her, but Yeo-ri and Kang-cheol do make a fantastic ghostbusting team. But I do hope they’ll be back in the palace before too long, because I’d love to see them convince the king to join them in their fight against evil.