In the middle of the fourth episode of this season of The Apothecary Diaries (my favorite show of 2024), I was super excited because I thought I figured out one of season 2’s big mysteries.
“They’re totally doing a Padmé and handmaiden switcheroo,” I confidently said to my husband.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the first four episodes of season 2 of The Apothecary Diaries.]
My evidence? The opening sequence depicted four of the emperor’s concubines in separate frames, each with a mirror image of herself. But there was a fifth pair, showcasing a blond woman we haven’t seen yet. However, instead of being juxtaposed with a copy of herself like the other characters, there were two very similar-looking blond women on screen. One has a longer fringe and wears a red necklace, smirking at the camera. The other has shorter face-framing bangs and a blue necklace and looks serious.
Clearly, these women were important — I figured that they were the much-hinted-at mysterious foreign envoy visiting the emperor. And because the title sequence portrayed them in the same pose as the concubines, I figured they’d be posing as one person, while secretly being two people. The drama! The intrigue! The sublime soap opera twist so perfect for this take on Chinese court dramas!
But then, near the end of the episode, rear palace administrator Jinshi and his attendant Gaoshun point-blank tell Maomao that there are two foreign envoys and they’re cousins who look similar.
My big theory was busted. Instead of being disappointed, though, I immediately started spinning new ideas, fueled by some hints and reveals in this episode. Why did Gaoshun ask Maomao for help about a seemingly separate incident involving nearly identical sisters? Was he really asking about the envoy? What’s up with these big mirrors that the envoy sent to all the high-ranking concubines? Why do they want to see a famed courtesan from nearly 50 years ago?
In a different show, this sort of endless guess and reveal might be exhausting. But in Apothecary Diaries it’s part of the allure. Every time I think I know what’s going on with The Apothecary Diaries, I’m presented with new information. Sometimes it validates my budding theories; other times, like right now, it veers me completely off track. Either way, I happily get back to my metaphorical evidence board, adding another clue and tacking it together with red yarn. Even if an episode doesn’t have a big reveal, it will typically solve a smaller mystery or uncover another juicy detail — just enough to keep me on the hook for more. Maybe next time there will be a bigger reveal! Or next time. Or next time—
The show does such a great job of satisfying the current mysteries just enough while continuing to thread other overarching themes. Maomao solves one smaller mystery in most of the episodes, but it seems every lower-stakes problem leads to something bigger. It also helps that we as the audience get to see just a smidge more than Maomao, so we’re both learning things at the same time as her and also getting a few extra clues. We get to see a brief scene of the two blond women watching a parade of courtesans before Jinshi and Gaoshun tell Maomao about the envoy. So while Maomao was surprised to hear that the envoy looking for a specific beautiful woman was actually two women themselves, the audience could already deduce that. Now, Maomao has brilliant deduction skills, has a more intimate knowledge of the world she exists in, and is also the main character, so she’s definitely going to be ahead of me in figuring out what’s going on, but damn it if I don’t want to play along!
I’m particularly compelled by the mysteries as a unique blend of medical drama (something like House, but period-appropriate) with the added political and socioeconomic intrigue of a court drama. It’s intriguing to see how the specific setting affects not only the stakes at hand, but how Maomao goes about solving them. She is, after all, a commoner working in the imperial palace, and there’s only so much she can do. So getting to see how she navigates around that — and how she brings her knack for medicine, poisons, and human anatomy into play — adds even more to the mysteries. I don’t just want to know what’s going on in the greater scheme; I want to know how Maomao will eventually find out herself. There is, after all, one big thing that the audience knows about Jinshi that Maomao has yet to figure out. But it’s not just the answer I’m looking for confirmation on; it’s Maomao’s own journey to it.
It’s also hilarious, because Maomao doesn’t actually want to disturb the status quo too much. So even if she finds herself intrigued by something, if it involves a huge disruption, she decides to stay out of it until she can’t ignore it. However, nothing’s stopping me from interrogating nobles’ motives and poking my nose into court drama — nothing except the fact that episodes drop weekly and I’m gnashing my teeth waiting for the next one.
The Apothecary Diaries is available to stream on Crunchyroll. The first four episodes of season 2 are out now, with new episodes premiering on Fridays.
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