Summary
Mun-do and Se-gye’s rivalry takes centre stage as the two distinct time periods continue to intertwine in interesting ways.
My Royal Nemesis started getting pretty serious as Season 1 approaches its latter stages, and that trend continues in Episode 9, “That’s First Love for You”, with a particular focus on the rivalry between Mun-do and Se-gye rather than the core romance. This is a smart decision, since the two characters work as mirrors of one another in two distinct time periods, and that helps to define Se-gye’s relationship with Dan-sim in both periods too.
As we saw in the previous episode, those time periods are becoming more intertwined. The similarities are rippling through the ages. Se-gye’s increasing, albeit dreamy, recollections of his past life as Prince Cheongheon are starting to affect his present-day relationship with Dan-sim, who is here trying to convince him that there’s no significance to his dreams while also trying to keep him at arm’s length to keep the secret, despite their situationship having become a bit more official.
I’ll grant you that I’m not totally buying Dan-sim needing to speculate with a shaman about whether Se-gye is Cheongheon reincarnated, since she’s surely smart enough to have put that together for herself. They look exactly alike, and she herself is a woman out of time, so the concept isn’t exactly too far-fetched. And then there’s Mun-do, strutting around and looking exactly like the king. This can’t all be a coincidence, Dan-sim!
Mun-do is especially annoyed in this episode. It seems very much like a general air of jealous annoyance is his default state, which has coloured his life and most of his relationships, and he can’t even derive any satisfaction from trying to one-up Se-gye because Se-gye, for the most part, isn’t interested in anything he’s doing. Mun-do’s upset that the Dynaestie event is doing well, and that Dal-su is favouring Se-gye as heir, and can barely pull himself away from his scheming for long enough to visit his sickly kid, Seo-jun. He cuts a pathetic figure, especially as a counterpoint to Se-gye, who has a mood swing in the back garden but is at least fairly comfortable in himself.
He isn’t above micromanaging to keep Dan-sim away from other dudes on the set of her new historical drama, though, which he has a hand in since it has been approved for a Biojei product placement. He’s upset by a sex scene and opposing actors, much to Dan-sim’s amusement, but their relationship is becoming deeper and more authentic on account of Se-gye’s deepening understanding of his past life and the relationship they had in it. He’s able to clarify Cheongheon’s feelings for her after embodying him for a short time, and she’s able to use the lessons learned from his plight to give present-day Se-gye actionable advice about not being alone.
My Royal Nemesis Season 1, Episode 9 continues to build the base of a redemptive arc, with Dan-sim seeing her current relationship with Se-gye as a way to atone for how little she did for Cheongheong following the King’s scheming. If she can make a big point of loving Se-gye, she can assuage some of her guilt for not fighting more for Cheongheong.
She can’t quite paper over the rivalry between Se-gye and Mun-do, though – the latter won’t allow it. He’s seething with jealousy about Se-gye getting ahead of him despite apparently not deserving to, and Mun-do continues to make deeply personal sacrifices which don’t seem to get him anywhere. His every effort to spite Se-gye seems to blow up in his face. All he wants is to hurt Se-gye, an intention obviously rooted in deep-seated self-loathing. And he’s beginning to realise that by poking at Dan-sim, he might be able to accomplish that. However, at this point, it seems like Se-gye and Dan-sim’s relationship is too strong for his meddling to win, and their respective efforts to push the other away, for any reason, always seem to fail. There aren’t too many episodes left, and I think there’s a good chance we’re on our way to an earned happy ending.
