the writing is so good up until episode 8. episode 4 is so amazing it was so unexpected, i felt it defied every saeguk trope and for that I was hooked (killing the queen father). I also feel like the romance/romantic tensions made the stupid writing less obvious in the beginning because her revenge plot was dumb from the begining. But after he finds out her real gender the writing goes to hell so fast it made me laugh. There where so many weird homophobic comment about how the heterosexual romance needed to start but jokes on them once he found her out the romantic/sexual tension completely left the drama as well. after that all he wanted was to protect her and she wanted to hurt him. no chemistry at all between them.

episode 8 is so disappointing why did he have to find out so quick and like this too. I needed a kiss or a true/explicit confession of love before he found out. It always feel a little cowardy from the writer to put all this romantic attraction and tension but only make them act on it when its 100% sure its heterosexual ! oh the King's Affection you will always be superior for that !!! they even put that little scene with his soldier to make sure we know that he is NOT gay he just like the femboy because he is a girl hihi ????
I guess I'm going to have to be satisfied with the kings confession under the rain that was really nice.
the acting at the end of ep 8 by JJS is insane tho !!! all his micro expression with his eyes blew me away.

the worst thing about the drama is by far Shin Sae Kyeong/Kang Hee Soo both respectively. All SSK knew how to do was have watery eyes and bite her lip, avoiding eye contact and acting scared. Her acting was so stiff so bad and absolutely not believable as a man. Also why did she have lipgloss on ? Now Hee Soo was horribly written, I don't think she made one good decision the whole drama. Annoying from the start and then annoying things about her just start pilling on. And then at the end she ask to go to pekin was the last straw. after all the king did for her she's like I kinda want to see my father and idc about you. just pissed me off. would've been happy with an ending where she dies ???.

I may have watched a different ending because at no point do they explicitly say that mongwoo will stay in Joseon with the king. its a very weird open ending and I don't like that. Horrible ending where nothing happens and the creators dont know what to do. the uncle acting was great tho, made me feel bad for him. JJS the only saving grace of this mess.

So basically there was no romance, no cool fights only intellectual mind game like baduk, the whole drama rest on them but they weren't even that crazy complicated or cool which made the drama boring. To put simply the writers we're not good enough. waste of time and super disappointing.