Seung Nyang’s Royal Goryeo Baby is Passed off by Tanasiri as the Crown Prince of Yuan in Empress Ki

I think the phrase jumping the shark doesn’t apply here to what just happened in Empress Ki. Since this is a sageuk and we need a bigger creature to leap over, let’s just say Empress Ki jumped the Megalodon in today’s episode 23. It was a whole new level of absurdity that I couldn’t stop watching. That episode was fast and furious and so much stuff happened let’s all get off our meds and try to suss it out. Seung Nyang gave birth shortly after the convoy massacre, despite the fact that she couldn’t have been more than 7 months pregnant (even by the bad math going on in this drama) whereas Lady Park gets cut down with a belly the size of a small country carrying a Ta Hwan baby that apparently refuses to drop. Maybe Ta Hwan Jr. knows the hell he’ll be enduring hence that sucker won’t be born. Who knows. So Seung Nyang has her beloved Wang Yoo baby and immediately Yeom Byung Soo leads the evil soldiers to capture her. They drive her to the cliff and in the tussle one soldier falls over the cliff and pulls Seung Nyang’s baby off her back and Wang Yoo Jr. goes falling to his sure death. But of course he doesn’t die and is saved by a nun from the nearby nunnery, said nunnery being the very place faking her pregnancy Empress Tanasiri goes to pray. For what I can’t fathom since she just ordered the death of an entire convoy of innocent women and baby.

Her Evil Highness’ prayer is answered in the form of a baby crying and she gets her blood-stained paws on lil’ Wang Yoo Jr. (Seung Nyang nicknamed him Star because of the three dot birthmark on his foot which will obviously be useful in reuniting mother-son down the road). Blood thirsty Tanasiri then has the nuns killed to keep her baby snatching secret and hies on back to the Yuan Palace to act her heart out in a fake birth sequence and then voila produces Star at the end to pass off as her nonexistent baby with Ta Hwan. With that, little Star (aka Wang Yoo Jr.) becomes the Crown Prince of the Yuan dynasty. This is me LOLing forever off to the side, whatever male lead ship you are on this is a plot development guarantee to screw both ships over big time. Seung Nyang is emotionally battered losing her son (she believes he’s still alive) and then she buries all the dead Goryeo maids left on the side of the road. She is then captured and soon to be sent back to the Yuan Palace, but in a stroke of luck she finds the very Blood Letter left by Ta Hwan’s dad that everyone has been looking for. Ta Hwan hears about Lady Park’s death and then Seung Nyang’s death and its too much and pushes him over the edge and he collapses and develops a condition where he can’t talk anymore. Wang Yoo hears of Seung Nyang’s death and vows vengeance on those who have harmed her, and then cries big honking man tears and painful sobs to have lost his beloved.

The best part of this episode was the Wang Yoo flashback sequence showing his sweet moments with Seung Nyang.

Seung Nyang gives birth and then loses her baby:

h=445

Wang Yoo grieves over Seung Nyang’s “death”:

h=445

Tanasiri the baby-stealer:

h=445

Ta Hwan’s life sucks so much he collapses:

h=445