I’m doing it, friends; I’m diving in.

After seeing so much said about this drama, with opinions so wildly divided, I decided that I had to see it for myself – if only out of FOMO. 😁

I’m approaching this one with a deeply investigative lens, to figure out exactly what the show is and is not, based on the text, context and subtext that it serves up.

I’ll be examining evidence, testing hypotheses and drawing conclusions – as well as digging into multiple language nuggets that are lost in translation.

And I wanted to let you guys know, in case you’d like to join me. 🤗

This deep-dive will be a Patreon-exclusive experience, with only selected highlights featured in the eventual public review here on the blog.

As you might have already noticed, my new approach to reviews is to have the review be a separate, condensed retrospective. The immersive, expansive episode-by-episode breakdown lives on Patreon as a separate experience.

To give you a proper flavor for what I’m doing with this show over on Patreon, here’s a partial preview of my episode notes for episodes 1-4.

PARTIAL PREVIEW: EPISODE 1-4 [PART 1]

E1-4. For a tiny little show with barely any promotion, this drama’s become quite a bit of an Event Drama, hasn’t it?

From gushing fans to scathing critics, it seems like everyone (and quite possibly their mothers too 🤭) has an opinion on this drama – which is why I’m here.

I mean, I couldn’t miss out, y’know?

Thanks to all of you who’ve been sharing your love for this show. Just four episodes in, I think I understand the love – and I’m looking forward to delving into this (and examining every nut, bolt and screw in this narrative world, along with you guys 😁).

Almost right away, one of the things that strikes me, as I situate myself in these first four episodes, is that Show has a way of moving things along at a pretty brisk pace.

Sometimes the catalysts might feel a little heavy-handed at first glance (hello, mountain rescue scene, so soon into our story – and within Tao Tao’s very early days at work too), but they are effective and work to efficiently get us to the real meat of our story: helping us understand our key characters, and the developing connection between them.

And because these catalysts work so well, I feel like I can’t quibble at their existence too much, y’know? 😁

Another thing that strikes me, is that Show is also very efficient at establishing a very broad-strokes, generalized understanding of our leads, and then debunking that characterization almost as fast – so that we arrive at a more nuanced understanding of these characters quite quickly.

Let’s talk about Tao Tao first.

When we first see her walking into Lime for her interview, she looks wide-eyed and impressionable, and then she’s soon cut off during her interview by Luke, for not having what it takes; it’s easy to dismiss her as meek and easily brushed aside.

However, we quickly see that she doesn’t just sit and do nothing.

Even though she tells her friend over the phone that she’d failed the interview, she gets straight to work in her new bedroom, typing out an email to Tracy at HR, to follow-up on her interview and share the details of that internship project that she’d been unable to talk about during the interview itself.

It’s because of this, that Tracy eventually decides to offer her a job.

Layering on top of that, Show also quickly gets Tao Tao to have lunch with her friend, Yao Bei, who assures her that the very fact that she has the courage to come to Beijing, already makes her more impressive than most of her peers.

I like that despite Tao Tao’s tentative air, she’s more resilient than she looks. I’ll come back to this.

Let’s talk about Luke for a while.

An aside:

For the time being, I’ll be referring our male lead as Luke, since that’s his office persona. As we get to know him better, I’m sure I’ll be evolving my term of address to Luan Nian.

However, since we seem to be experiencing this story from Tao Tao’s point of view, I already feel like I’m getting to know her as a person – so it feels more appropriate to address her as Tao Tao, since I see Flora as her office persona. Does that make sense? 😅

Ok, let’s get to talking about Luke.

As far as first impressions go, I’d say that Show’s intention is to introduce him as rather curt and cocky, with the way he strides past Tao Tao so confidently – and then cuts her off during the interview, saying that she’s not qualified.

However, Show is similarly quick to introduce new layers, so that we (well, I, at least) come away feeling like he’s not as “red flag” as he might first appear.

The first thing that catches my attention, is that when Tracy reminds him over the phone to at least let the candidates finish talking before dismissing them, he doesn’t argue. He simply agrees.

The other thing that catches my attention is that I don’t detect malice in his tone. He might be quick to make his decision and dismiss a candidate, but to my ears, he sounds more matter-of-fact than anything else.

That leads me to the early conclusion that he might step on people’s toes and rub them the wrong way, but most of the time, it seems to me that he’s just being matter-of-fact rather than purposely rude.

Also, there’s this thing where he often looks a little amused, even, like when Tracy nags at him to behave differently.

It makes me think that maybe his sense of humor is just on the sardonic side of things, and he’s just being naughty because he’s high enough the company ladder to get away with it.

Additionally, there’s the way Lumi is shown not just having implicit trust in his decision-making and vision, but consistently vouching for him as a boss to Tao Tao.

Because Lumi’s presented as such a fabulous character (so fashionable, friendly yet fierce, and frank at the same time! 🤩), I can’t help but trust her.

She clearly has a strong opinion of Luke, while being keenly aware of his flaws, and if she says that he’s a good boss and decent person at heart, while painting Luke as having a bark that’s much worse than his bite, I can’t help but believe her.

On that note, can I just say that the fact that Luke is portrayed as valuing Lumi as an employee, makes me see him in a positive light too.

Clearly, he recognizes talent when he sees it, yes?

At the same time, it’s obvious that he’s got his eyes on the bottom line, and therefore a staff member’s ability to perform is of utmost importance to him.

And so, when Tao Tao reports for duty and he is curt and uncooperative, I don’t see him so much as being nasty; rather, I see him as testing her.

Could he be a nicer boss right from the get-go? Certainly. I’m absolutely NOT saying that Luke’s perfectly fine as he is. I’m just.. trying to see beneath the obvious characteristics on the surface, is all.

And what I see is that as he tests Tao Tao, and as she continues to surprise him by not reacting quite in the manner in which he’d expected, his attitude towards her starts to evolve.

He doesn’t do a 180; definitely not.

But we can see the look in his eyes evolve from simple annoyance at being parked with such a green fresh graduate employee, to one of growing intrigue and even amusement, as she continues to surprise him in ways big and small.

Like how she refuses to be dragged down by his refusal to play nice.

At the elevator, she simply changes tack and redirects her gratitude towards the company at large, when he states that he hadn’t been the one to recruit her.

And then when he gives her all those inappropriate answers to the interview, and says things like he chose to work at Lime only because the pay is good, she just runs with it – and details his every irreverent answer verbatim, in her report.

Then, when he questions her about it in the car at the end of episode 1, she tells him in her straightforward, guileless sort of way, that HR had given clear instructions to report on the interview truthfully.

HA. I love how she manages to basically wriggle out of a tough spot, by taking the difficult answers that he’d provided, and turning it back onto him.

I do think that this is a pivotal moment, because this is the first time we hear Luke muse out loud, that she’s a little crafty – but not much.

I read this as a bit of intrigue on his part, because she’s turning out to be different – and therefore more interesting – than what he’d first pegged her for: a fresh graduate who’d be easy to intimidate.

When Tao Tao gets out of the car and thanks him for the ride, Luke still tells her that he believes she doesn’t fit Lime and should quit – and I love how Tao Tao responds.

To my eyes, Tao Tao’s a bit of rock star in this moment, because it would be too easy to waver in the face of Luke’s words, especially since this is not the first time he’s telling her that he thinks she’d be better off if she quit Lime.

Instead, in spite of the tears burgeoning in her eyes, Tao Tao stands her ground in her own gentle but firm way, bows, tells him that she won’t quit, and then leaves in the most dignified manner possible.

I love that.

And I can totally see why this moment in particular would intrigue Luke. As he watches her walk away, he muses in voiceover that she might look meek like anyone could bully her, but when she’s mad, she’ll fight back.

He’s basically realizing properly, that Tao Tao might appear to be a worm, but she’s not a worm who’d be easy to step on; rather she’s a worm with a spine – and I do think that arouses a sense of curiosity and fascination on his part.

JOIN ME FOR THE EPISODE-BY-EPISODE EXPERIENCE

This show is being covered on the 💎 Ultra Access (US$24) tier on Patreon.

If you’d like to sample further before making a commitment, the 🎟️ Backstage Pass (US$3) tier would give you access to the first 2 sets of notes as a deeper sample.

That is, I am still discussing 4 episodes per note set, but the notes will come out as Part 1 and Part 2. This is slightly different from covering 2 episodes per note set, as my thinking and analysis does cover the full range of 4 episodes – it’s just that I will publish the notes in 2 parts.

To view the rest of this particular set of notes (this was roughly one-third, there’s two-thirds more where that came from 😁), you can go here.

By the end, it’ll feel like we watched the show together. 🥰

If memberships aren’t your thing, individual episode note sets are available for purchase too. ❤️

Every membership or purchase also helps support The Fangirl Verdict and keeps this little corner of the internet going – something I’m deeply grateful for. ❤️

🎬 What I’m Covering on Patreon Right Now

If you’d like to join me on the journey, you can find my Patreon page here.

You can also read more about the what, why, and how of supporting the blog here.

KFG ❤️