Summary
Bon Appetit, Your Majesty works well in Episodes 3 & 4, despite overlong episodes sometimes belabouring the point.
How long is too long? I ask because Bon Appetit, Your Majesty runs for nearly 90 minutes every episode, and it feels like the story is moving slowly to accommodate that in Episodes 3 & 4. If you love the story and characters, that’s fine, since it does seem to be developing in a fairly interesting way, with Ji-young finding her footing in the royal court while the web of character dynamics and politics continues to expand. But that’s still a hefty runtime, and the risk is people switching off or just doing that thing where they keep meaning to make the time to catch up and never quite manage.
But maybe it’s just me. And the stuff we’re seeing is pretty good, to be fair, showing us different sides to the characters, delivering big on the cooking sequences, and just generally being quite charming and engaging, which is easier said than done. We’re definitely moving in the direction of a romance between Ji-young and Yi Heon, which has enough layers to it to be interesting – and maybe slightly creepy given some of the Oedipal connotations? – and will give the show new ground to grow into as it progresses beyond these initial setup episodes. I just think it could stand to be a bit nippier.
In Episode 3 of Bon Appetit, Your Majesty, Ji-young takes up “special residence” in what is essentially a prison but quickly finds herself led on a merry excursion by a court jester and instructed to cook the king a meal, all of which occurs mostly for his own amusement. There’s a fine line being toed here in the king’s depiction, since while he threatens to brand Gil-geum for Ji-young’s insolence and is unambiguously keeping them prisoner, he’s also a bit needy and pathetic, which undermines the tyrannical angle a bit.
Ji-young being made to cook puts her in the ambit of Chef Eom and Chef Maeng, who are both competing for the position of chief royal cook after the death of the last one. All the male cooks are predictably appalled by her presence, but Yi Heon – perhaps because he learns through the doctor that Ji-young technically saved his life from the arrow wound – is extremely taken with Ji-young and her fusion food, to the extent of giving Consort Kang – who, by the way, sneakily sends the arrowhead plucked from Yi Heon’s body to Prince Jesan – the cold shoulder. It is a bit weird that all of Ji-young’s food makes Yi Heon think of his mother, especially in this romantic context, but whatever.
Ji-young’s the talk of the town in general. Song-jae wants to manipulate her to his own ends, approaching her to ask her to share information gleaned from the king in exchange for protection from Consort Kang, while Kang wants to drive Ji-young out of the kitchen using Maeng. It was also Consort Kang who spread the idea that Ji-young was responsible for Governor Hong’s exile and hasn’t been adequately punished as a result, which prompts Yi Heon’s ministers to resign. In response, he makes Ji-young the chief royal cook, although he is still adamant that he’ll put her to death if he doesn’t like the food. No pressure!
Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Key Art | Image via Netflix
It isn’t just the king’s moods that threaten Ji-young’s safety in Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episodes 3 & 4. The dowager queen puts her to the task of proving her culinary skills in a competition at the risk of losing an arm (this is another of Consort Kang’s ploys), and the competition gives a nice structure to the fourth episode.
Pitted against Eom and Maeng, Ji-young has to deal with constant attempts at sabotage from all fronts, which is a good way of getting the audience onside with her plight, if they weren’t already. She does get some help from Eunuch Yoon, though, both in terms of ingredients and ideas for dishes that might impress Queen In-ju. The show presents these cooking and serving sequences extremely lavishly, and you can tell a tremendous amount of effort has been put into them. The storytelling around them is fairly predictable – it’s obvious that Ji-young will get her ingredients, and that her soup will remind In-ju of her mother, etc. – but the underlying quality helps to get the audience invested in them.
When Ji-young is predictably declared the winner, she also campaigns to save the other chefs from having their arms cut off, which is pretty nice and earns her some favour in the kitchen. But it’s far from being off the hook, since there are still many games afoot in the royal court. The King is experiencing frequent dizzy spells, is still on the hunt for the people responsible for his mother’s death – she was poisoned after being deposed, we learn – and is now trying to protect Ji-young. And all this after someone, whom Jesan learns was Director Kim Yang-son, ordered his assassination by an agile footpad who might have been Gong-gil.
Even the King’s own future is a problem. I do like how Ji-young just keeps repeatedly telling everyone she’s from the future, even though nobody seems to believe it, but she has to be cautious around Yi Heon, especially when he’s having one of his “fits”, since there’s very little positive to come for him – he’s responsible for a purge of those responsible for his mother’s death and then deposed in a subsequent revolt. Ji-young is best off keeping that information to herself, but it means keeping herself in the line of fire from court scheming and Yi Heon’s own romantic advances, the latter of which is where Bon Appetit, Your Majesty caps off its double-bill in Episode 4.
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