The Apothecary Diaries

Episode 4

Although I am not usually a proponent of violence, I can't help but feel that Maomao was 100% in the right when she slapped that lady in waiting. (Pouring the arsenic makeup over her head? Maybe a bit too far, although she did tell her how to clean up.) It's not enough that the tainted powder killed the crown prince and nearly the princess as well, or that it sickened Lihua herself; apparently “looking beautiful” is much more important than “living.” Sadly, that's a theory that has appeared time and time again in history with a variety of spurious beauty practices, including tight lacing, lead and arsenic makeup, and the entire radium craze of the early twentieth century. It may not even be fair to call the woman stupid, because she's largely acting in the way she's been taught to. As a lady in waiting to one of the emperor's favored high-ranking consorts, she's far above Maomao in station, and she's been told that beauty is a woman's most important function in life, along with bearing children. To ask her to suddenly take the word of some random freckled (as shorthand for “not pretty”) upstart may be a bit much, especially since all of Lihua's ladies appear to have a healthy dose of snobbery in their attitudes.

None of that makes her, or the other ladies in waiting's, actions any less horrible to us. Lihua was already sick from the arsenic powder, and to that added the horrors of losing her child. At this point it almost doesn't matter that he was the crown prince; the awful truth is that she's a mother who lost her baby. A piece of her may even know that by ignoring Maomao's note she doomed her child; that would only make her depression and self-loathing even stronger. Whether the emperor guessed any of this is hard to say – we don't know much about him at this point. But the mere fact that he asked Maomao to take a look speaks volumes: it not only implies that he trusts Gyokuyo and Jinshi implicitly (they being the most likely people to have told him about her) but also that he does care about Lihua's well-being. Sure, it wouldn't be a good look for her to die in his Inner Palace, but the alacrity with which he returns to her once she's healthy again implies that he cares at least a little.

It says something about Lihua's ladies, however, that they felt they could ignore Maomao with impunity. I can't think that she, or Jinshi, didn't tell them that she was there on the emperor's orders. What made them think that they could throw her out and suffer no consequences? Yes, those consequences were brought by Maomao at first, but once she revealed the truth of the matter, the lady in question was subjected to harsher punishment, as was the eunuch who failed to find the hidden powder. (That one seems unnecessarily harsh, given that we don't know that he was colluding with her.) But really, they're very lucky that Maomao figured out what was going on, because if Lihua had died and then the makeup had come to light…let's just say that I doubt that “confinement” would have been the total of her punishment.

As with the first three episodes, the greatest joy of this one is Maomao herself. It would be easy to think that she just doesn't care about anything or anyone, but her dedication to making sure that Lihua recovers says otherwise (as does the slap), and her putting her knowledge from Verdigris House to good use does, too – not only is she giving Lihua a way back into the emperor's bed, she's also getting Gyokuyo a break from his exhausting attentions. The only person she doesn't seem to like is Jinshi, which sadly for her and Gaoshun only seems to make Jinshi more invested in her. Keep an eye on Gaoshun in the background whenever Jinshi is on-screen; his facial expressions and body language are terrific.

If you haven't figured out that this isn't necessarily a show you watch for the mysteries, this episode should solidify that. There are mystery elements, yes, but mostly it's about Maomao being Maomao and operating outside the bounds of what the Inner Palace considers “common sense.” That's more than enough to keep this engaging, and the preview for next week's episode seems to indicate that her sphere is only going to keep expanding – whether she wants it to or not.

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The Apothecary Diaries is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.