Reviewed by Alicia Glass

After the daughter of county magistrate is betrayed by those she trusted the most, she takes on a new identity and returns to the capital to mete out her own brand of justice!  

Quite a bit is said about Jiang Li, the daughter of the Minister of the Central Secretariat, and how she suffered at the Temple her father sent her to after a blowout at home, with not a single person coming to visit her, or send any kind of letter, in more than ten years. But I think the banked rage of Xue Fang Fei, our heroine who takes Jiang Li’s place, is also entirely worth exploring. And so, prepare your best drugged tea for the Spoilers about to follow!

We begin more or less, on a stormy night with a hole dug in the ground, a garbled confession that mentions a woman in power who could crush them both like ants apparently and a knockout shot via shovel, all at the hands of her own beloved husband Shen Yurong, that culminates in the death of Xue Fang Fei (Jinyan Wu). Except, she didn’t die. Betrayed by the one person she gave up like everything for, Xue Fang Fei escapes and washes up on the shore, to be found by Jiang Li and her faithful friend and servant Tong’er (Ai Mi).

Jiang Li (also Jinyan Wu), despite being the neglected daughter of the Minister of the Central Secretariat Chancellor Jiang (Su Ke), or perhaps because her stepmother is one jealous horrific hag but we’ll get to that later, is not well treated at all at the Temple. And when that mistreatment finally manages to culminate in her actual death, it provides an opportunity for the newly-resurrected Xue Fang Fei. The new Jiang Li wins the loyalty of her lifelong friend Tong’er, the silence of the Abbess of the Temple, and the attention of a very powerful man, Duke Su, all in the space of like a few days. She even gets the silent approval of the ghost of the real Jiang Li, and willingly takes on the mission of her spirit – to avenge the real Jiang Li, to set right the things in her life that were wrong, that lead to her accidental death far from home, alone with none of her blood family to save her. Since this is a Chinese show, we know that is a mountainous burden to take on.

First, we have to get out of the Temple. And the arrival of Duke Su (Wang Xing Yue) and his men, investigating a salt smuggling scandal along with other sordid things the Temple is accused of, is the perfect vehicle to do it, even if Jiang Li has to get arrested for it. Then we have to get back to the household of her father, the Minister of the Central Secretariat or Chancellor Jiang, and the hell of stepmother Ji Shu Ran and stepsister Jiang Ruo Yao’s bickering, backbiting both hidden and blatant, with only the impotent Grandma as a friend. Oh, and also, to get embroiled in palace drama, royal guard investigations, a pretty forbidden romance with a certain very stoic-seeming commander, and mete out plans, and justice, of her very own.

The show does an excellent job at showcasing strong women in various forms of power, exercising it in very different ways, and more often than not, the pain and suffering they deliberately cause to those around them. That’s not to say that they each don’t have their reasons, justifiable or not, but the power they wield is often only tolerated if not outright ignored by the men around them. The new Jiang Li defies these conventions, with a mind like a steel trap and the sheer fortitude to power through whatever the current test is – a qin performance that leaves her fingers bleeding and her audience weeping; whether or not she allergy-poisoned her stepsister, come on; allegations from the Emperor himself – Jiang Li makes careful, detailed plans, and carries them out with the patience and cunning of a spider, calm and deadly.

The shows villains are mostly women, come to think of it, with Elder Princess Wanning being at the foremost of the pack, she likes torturing her playtoys, and some time ago she decided Shen Yurong was going to be one of them. Which actually kicked off this whole mess, of conspiracies and deaths and cover-ups, all because Xue Fang Fei’s ex husband has no balls whatsoever. Or perhaps he’s the Empires biggest hidden masochist, who knows. Even Shen Yurong’s actual attempts at true villainy towards the end were poorly planned, badly executed, and almost lackluster, despite his purported desperation to win for once.

Whereas, the smiling tyranny of Ji Shu Ran back at the Prime Ministers household, using her children as weapons against Jiang Li, the love and hey guilt of her father to gently nudge him the “right” way towards getting Jiang Li out of the house by means fair or foul, is all to be expected. Her stepmother had been doing very bad things since Jiang Li was a very little girl, and the hidden knowledge of one of those atrocities in particular, is what led to tiny Jiang Li being maligned, punished, and sent away to the Temple. So of course taking care of the wicked stepmother, or rather, allowing her to fall into the self-same trap of her own making from so long ago, is high on the list of stuff in Jiang Li’s life that needs addressing.

The best male performance inevitably come from the lead love interest, Duke Su Xiao Heng, though his two main men, Lu Ji and Wen Ji, come as a close and often comedic second, and the emotions invoked from Jiang Li’s fathers acceptance  of her return run the whole gamut of spectrum – especially when her father finally reveals that yes, he knew that the Jiang Li that returned wasn’t the one he originally left, that Xue Fang Fei managed to take vengeance for his beloved daughter and in doing so, finally actually become her, once and for all.

It’s long and complicated and fraught with excitement and danger, featuring an absolutely ruthless female lead who lets nothing not even family ghosts stand in her way, and a perfect story to enjoy the 2024 spooky season to! Cheer on The Double on Netflix now!