*The original version of this post was published on Patreon on December 30, 2022.
The obvious danger of a cheatpost—recommending a book or a TV series before I've completely finished—is that the story might lose steam, or even turn terrible in a way that ruins everything that came before (thank you Game of Thrones). But there's another possible risk involved, which is that IT GETS EVEN BETTER AHHHHH1
Since we left off with our heroes in Nirvana in Fire, we have had 1) a prison break 2) a siege/enormous fuckoff battle 3) the Most Mysterious Poison in the World. The poison plotline is actually a bit Much in my opinion, but the prison break was a thriller, and the siege episode might be one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. The battle is genuinely stressful, showcasing the wastefulness of war on the level of the individual soldiers (and their horses!), who are forced to fight and die for the high-handed schemes of aristocrats. But the framing is subtle rather than sententious: this is no auteur's display of hyperviolence meant to act as a lecture about how violence is actually not exciting and we shouldn't be enjoying this (now watch as the protagonist disembowels another faceless goon). Violence is exciting, and the battle takes some obvious visual cues from fantasy fights like Helm's Deep and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (up to and including a beautiful woman secretly donning male armor, however she does NOT take off her makeup, because this show is above all other things, committed to glam.)
The ending of the battle—I screamed. I cried. I completely ignored decorum. I simply cannot recommend Nirvana in Fire enough. Have another Tumblr-esque mood board of men in beautiful robes being bitchy to each other.
and last—"You look like this world's equivalent of an FBI/CIA director"—may be the sickest burn of all time.
The final episode of Nirvana in Fire actually takes a weird, weak, and nationalist turn—but C-dramas often have weird endings, I’m not really sure why, and in the case since everything that preceeded it was so great, I’m willing to simply pretend the ending never happened.