Scarlet Heart Ryeo Episodes 4 & 5 Recap – Forbidden Love

Scarlet Heart Ryeo Episode 4 & 5 Recap – Forbidden Love

Scarlet Heart: Ryeo reminds us that romance a thousand years ago was just as difficult to navigate as living with a royal family who all despise you. Bring on the smiles and the tears, because there’s plenty of both.

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Surviving Goryeo

The show picks up with 4^th Prince revealing to his mother, Queen Yoo, that he destroyed any connection between the assassins and her. Yet Queen Yoo shows only disgust for 4^th Prince, ignoring his pained stories of abuse at his adopted (hostage) family’s house.

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Hae-Soo runs into 4^th Prince and shocks him by comforting him despite his blood-soaked appearance. She knows that everyone is just trying to survive in this frightening Goryeo era. Isn’t that what he’s doing – she asks?

Intervention

When Hae-Soo asks her maid to return a necklace that 4^th Prince lost, Princess Yeon-Hwa accuses the maid of stealing it and has her whipped. A furious Hae-Soo demands to take her maid’s place. 4^th Prince stops Yeon-Hwa from whipping Hae-Soo but gets warned off by 8^th Prince. He’ll be the one to take care of his sister and Hae-Soo, not 4^th Prince.

Hae-Soo witnesses royal-hating killers capture 14^th Prince in the market. She attempts a rescue but she and 14^th Prince are vastly outnumbered. Thankfully, 8^th Prince and 4^th Prince save them. While 14^th Prince declares himself indebted to Hae-Soo, 8^th Prince is pretty pissed at her for risking her life. Meanwhile, 4^th Prince finally convinces the king to let him stay in the palace.

Forbidden Love

Hae-Soo gets a poem from 8^th Prince but, unbeknownst to her (she can’t read old Korean), he’s writing love poetry to her. In a hilarious scene, the royal brothers interrupt her response poem – a drawn emoticon of a happy face. In the palace, Princess Yeon-Hwa worries about her upcoming marriage while obviously flirting with 4^th Prince.

Meanwhile, Hae-Soo’s cousin, Lady Hae, comes to terms with 8^th Prince falling for Hae-Soo. She encourages him to love her, despite his stance that he won’t take another wife. On a peaceful walk in the winter snow, Lady Hae passes away.

Thoughts and Feels:

Romantic complications aside, Hae-Soo and 8^th Prince’s romance has been so beautifully created. It’s really hard not to ship the subtle, quiet romance between them – I honestly loved the whole poem confession. That’s something very romantic in an old-fashioned love declaration through poetry. Hae-Soo’s response was seriously hilarious though and I loved that 4^th Prince was the one to interpret the emoticon. And the walking through the snow scene of Hae-Soo and 8^th Prince; so adorable and gorgeous. There’s so much obvious pent up longing between them, it’ll be interesting to see what will happen now that Lady Hae has passed.

I admit I was surprised by how moved I was by Lady Hae’s passing. While her character was too neutral to ever elicit much emotion from me, Hae-Soo and 8^th Prince’s devotion towards her made me like her and even saddened at her death.

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Queen Yoo continues to win the Evilest Mother Award. She literally has no regret in the abuse and neglect of her own son. It was painful to see how 4^th Prince believed she hated him for his scars. And sadly, she admitted just that when she said that he was a constant reminder of her “shame” and basically told him to go back to his abusive adoptive family. Like, have you no heart, woman?

I was surprised (and yes, very excited) by how quickly Hae-Soo resolved the angst between her and 4^th Prince. She could’ve easily kept hating him, but instead, she showed him genuine empathy. Their chemistry feels so much easier and sweeter now that they aren’t at each other’s throats and I can’t wait to see it eventually turn on full force.

I did have to do some research after I realized Princess Yeon-Hwa actually wanted to marry her half-brother, 4^th Prince. Unlike in later periods of historical Korea, incest in Goryeo wasn’t unusual… which clarifies things (but not the grossness, lol). I’m sensing that things are going to get very complicated in the royal palace – sooner rather than later.

Scarlet Heart Ryeo is available to watch on Dramafever! New episodes are available on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Photos: Dramafever and SBS

Let me know your thoughts and feelings on Scarlet Heart Ryeo! What do you think about the latest episodes of this K-Drama?

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