The Princess' Gambit (2025) First Impressions: Episodes 1-12
In the currently airing Princess’ Gambit, Liu Xueyi is Shen Zaiye, a high ranking official doing a Nirvana in Fire lite. By day he’s the monarch’s top investigator and fix-it guy navigating political snares in the royal court as the nation’s princes do battle for the country’s top job. By night, he is the husband of three wives plus one when the titular Jiang Taohua (Meng Ziyi) intrudes into his relatively peaceful domestic situation. As the princess of a vassal, Taohua is the quintessential wildcard — the outsider, her country’s representative for a marriage alliance.
The set-up is clumsy. Even after 12 episodes I’m not sure why the hostage princess from Beiyan ends up marrying one of the country’s pre-eminent ministers as a concubine. It makes no sense why she who was intended for the fourth prince doesn’t end up marrying him even after being cleared of adultery charges. And if the fourth prince is purportedly the nice guy we’re led to believe he is, why did he let her linger outside the gate to fall prey to an ambush involving wolves?
On the surface Shen Zaiye seems to be a scoundrel of a sort. He certainly doesn’t make things easy for Taohua. And why should he? She’s rather dubious herself and it’s obvious to Blind Betty that she’s in the habit of telling porkies. It’s incomprehensible to me why she continually lies to him when she knows that he knows that she’s not being forthcoming. Lying hardly inspires trust which is used by the writer to go down the misunderstanding track. The show expects the viewers to believe that she’s highly intelligent because she’s able to scheme with the best of them. What I see however is a young woman in survival mode taking all kinds of risks and creating needless obstacles not only for the man she married under false pretences but herself as well. This is where the romance is handled with the mediocrity of a first draft because someone insists that certain tropes have to be in play. In my version of this story the leads don’t need to be enemies at all. I don’t expect love at first sight but after a while it feels vaguely insulting when Taohua keeps lying to Shen Zaiye despite calling her out for doing so. Tropes are like fast food. Everyone knows (more or less) what to expect. But discretion in using them is required. Exploiting a trope will cause problems for the script’s integrity. Undoubtedly the showrunners intend to prolong the push and pull for as long as possible although Episodes 11 and 12 offer a glimmer of hope that it won’t be painfully protracted.
Despite its shortcomings, The Princess’ Gambit is surprisingly engaging. The story hums along confidently with a myriad of characters in tow. One of the most refreshing aspects of the show is its depiction of polygamy beyond the palace walls. As the show demonstrates, polygamy is an abomination especially when it’s a discounted version of what transpires in the political domain. Though already 30 with three wives from three different noble families, Shen Zaiye treats his helpmates with the greatest courtesy a man in his position can afford — by largely ignoring them. There’s no pitter patter of little feet in Minister Shen’s household. Rather than doing his bit for his heirless harem and his ancestors, he would rather be gardening, carving a wooden mural or reading in his study. It’s not love that binds them but political expediency so Shen Zaiye defaults to an indifferent mistrustful posture.
Of all the women presented thus far, it’s wife No. 1, Meng Zhenzhen that is the most fascinating. She’s a relative of the Crown Prince (or Heir Apparent) and her brother Huaijin, is the prince’s aide. They both have the thankless task of supporting the appointed candidate for the throne and cleaning up after him. Everyone knows that he’s the last person in the world who should be king but tribal instincts run deep. Moreover, their father, the ambitious Minister Meng Zhongyan is gunning to be the uncle of the future monarch. Meng Zhenzhen has feelings for Shen Zaiye, so she says but because of her connection to the inept and morally bankrupt crown prince, she is just another adversary he has to manoeuvre. It’s implied in the narrative that in another time or place, it is likely that these two intelligent people might have a chance of building a life together.
The other wives don’t matter as much because they’re just there to make life more difficult for the newcomer. Their personalities are stereotypical of women in harem shows. Cattiness is their weapon especially when they’re concerned that some interloper will snatch what’s rightfully theirs. Shen Zaiye is content to let them fight amongst themselves as he busies himself with taking down
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