7th Time Loop – 06 – The Princes Who Wanted to Disappear

I figured Theo using Elsie and Kamil to kidnap Rishe wasn’t going to go well for him. What I didn’t necessarily see coming was Rishe facilitating cathartic reconciliation between the two brothers, estranged on purpose by Arnold.

But I’m getting ahead of myself! I can’t tell you how cool it is to see a smiling Rishe barge in on Theo, just when he thinks he has Arnold on the ropes, not five minutes into the episode.

We actually began back at Rishe’s villa. She was only pretending to feel the effects of the sleeping drug, and confronts Elsie and Kamil. She realizes they’re not doing this because Theo threatened them, but because Theo is the slums’ top benefactor.

Then the episode uses Rishe’s detailed 3-point lesson in how to properly imprison someone to Theo as a framing device for showing her totally badass escape, which was inevitable considering her past lives’ experience and Theo’s failure to check any of the necessary boxes for a successful capture (including breaking the captive’s limbs and keeping at least two sets of eyes on them at all times).

Theo may have though he had this grand plan, but seeing it all turned to dust so quickly should be a hint to quit putting on the Unhinged Evil Younger Prince act. Rishe has already seen through it, just as his brother has: Theo doesn’t hate his brother, nor does he want him to suffer.

Rather, this whole overblown act was to create such a commotion and disgrace himself, giving him cover to abdicate his place in the line of succession. She’s done a little research, and can tell while his public acts of charity in the slums have cease, he continues to funnel his own money there. The Theo we’ve seen isn’t the real Theo: a kind an generous prince who also has a major brother complex (okay, that part we saw).

Ise Mariya does phenomenal work voicing the young prince as he insists that his brother hating him, despising, him, casting him out, even killing him is preferable to not being accepted. To this, Arnold only coldly repeats what he’s already said: he doesn’t care about Theo one way or another.

After Theo runs off, it’s time for Rishe to call out Arnold’s BS: he does care about his brother, otherwise he wouldn’t have ordered her to stay away from him. She also finally understands what he meant by her not needing resolve to be his wife—he intends to abdicate and disappear.

Arnold finds it “adorable” that Rishe can’t read his intentions, and that he’s better off not understanding, but whether he likes it or not, Rishe is someone who will never seeking understanding. She asks him to consider a possible future in his brother disappears, and to live a life where he has no regrets.

As for her, she fully intends to live her life (even if it’s her last) as his wife, with no regrets. And while her body is starting to give out after all that running and fighting, she still feels she has one more thing to do before going to bed, and climbs to the top of the tower where she finds Theo.

Theo was thinking about the one time Arnold praised him, after he used his own body to protect his vassals in a field hospital. Arnold is proud of him, but warned him never to put his life at risk like that again. Rishe confirms her suspicions to the one who has watched Arnold more closely than anyone: he’s trying to leave the throne to Theo.

Ever since that time he was praised, Theo watched his brother for the express purpose of determining the best way to be useful to him. He believes Arnold disappearing rather than ruling is a mistake. Even if it means disappearing before Arnold can, he’ll do it.

Rishe doesn’t believe that, and says she’ll need his strength as Arnold’s only little brother to keep Arnold from disappearing. But Theo’s mind is already set, and he falls backwards over the tower. Rishe lunges out to catch him, but her muscles finally gives out. It appears that Theo will fall to his death, but his brother catches him.

Once Theo is safe, Arnold slaps him, then repeats what he said in that field hospital: Don’t put your life at risk again. That his big brother remembered that moment brings tears to Theo’s eyes, and he reverts to a sobbing mess.

When Rishe sees that all is now well with the brothers, she finally lets herself pass out. Theo is concerned, but Arnold simply smiles as she rests in his lap, the scar from the wound he sustained saving Theo’s life fully exposed.

Moments after Theo sees his brother looking happier than he’s ever seen him look, he also gets to hear his brother say “I leave it to you,” referring to arranging the carriages. Becoming his big brother’s strength starts with making sure his fiancée gets home safe.

When Rishe wakes up the next morning, Arnold is writing at her desk, having stayed with her the whole time. He delivers a letter from Theo apologizing for how he treated her and telling her he’s in her debt. He’s also agreed to join forces with her (with the power of the slums at his back) her in ensuring Arnold doesn’t fuck off somewhere, but ascends to the throne, because he’s the best man for the job.

The episode ends on a cute romantic note, with Arnold asking her to think of something else he can do for her since he couldn’t resist kissing her in the chapel. This makes a flustered Rishe retreat within her sheets, and Arnold thanks her for looking after “his little brother.” Rishe smiles and tells him not to worry about it, since he’ll be her little brother too.

This was another fantastic midpoint episode that gave Theo a lot more dimension and further deepened Arnold and Rishe’s bond. We also got to see Rishe not only be a badass fighter, but use the interpersonal skills she’s learned to mediate the conflict between the brothers. All of this bodes well for a future where she’ll live beyond the limit of her past lives.

7th Time Loop – 05 – Chipped Nail

Theodore invited Rishe to the chapel to tell her that her brother is a murderous monster who even killed his own mother, and his killings aren’t limited to war time. Rishe responds that she’s “fully aware of the facts” and has still chosen to be Prince Arnold’s bride. Before Theo can protest, Arnold arrives, no doubt tipped off to the meeting by Rishe.

Arnold shoos Theodore away, then tells Rishe he warned her to stay away from him. When Rishe asks why everyone says he’s so cruel when she’s only seen him as a kind and considerate man, Arnold hisses that he’s looked after her too well. Putting his hand around her throat, he orders her to disabuse herself of that false notion. But she won’t. She trusts what she’s seen, and can’t see him as a cruel person.

Arnold sees in Rishe’s eyes the resolve of someone on the battlefield, prepared to stay true to their convictions even if it leads to her death. He’s killed others with that resolve in the eyes of others, and they’re the ones he feared most. Rishe decides to frame her situation as having dreams that she’s been killed, and the lingering fear she’s already dead and just living in a long dream after her death.

She tells him that whether this life is a dream or not, she’s not running away. If there’s resolve in her eyes, its the resolve to live as his wife. Stunned by her words, Arnold moves his hand off her throat to her chin, pushes her close, and kisses her, saying “there’s no need” for that kind of resolve.

The meaning of those words eludes Rishe, who is working herself down to the bone developing the product she’ll use to win over Chief Tully and Aria Trading Company. That product is nail polish that protects and strengthens nails. Her maid Elsie is enchanted by the look of Rishe’s sparkly, smooth nails, and Rishe applies some on her hand as well.

While doing so, Rishe learns that Elsie can’t afford to live her life for herself; it’s all she can do to put food on the table for her poor family. Poverty seems to be a deep-seated problem in the empire; Rishe wants to do something about that, and being the crown princess-to-be, she actually can.

In the meantime, she offers Elsie a bottle of the polish in whatever color she likes. Rishe’s kindness brings tears to her eyes. They’re tears she insists are of happiness, but we learn later it’s more than that.

Rishe knows going into her meeting with Tully that simply presenting the product of nail polish won’t be enough to persuade him. She’s not a fellow merchant but a customer, and Tully says the finest merchants choose their own customers.

Rishe proposes building upon the prince’s establishment of a minimum wage and hiring labor from the slums. Tully dismisses this as needless charity, but Rishe uses his own words from one of her previous loops to ask him why simply choose customers when they can produce them.

Giving the poor jobs will give them money to spend, thus making their employees their customers as well. Inspired by Elsie’s story, Rishe is determined to turn the slums from a place of despair to a place of hope and opportunity, where the common folk don’t have to give up their dreams, big or small.

When Tully sees how badly Rishe wants to work with him, he tells her he could use that fixation to wring her dry, but that’s when she whips out her trump card: she knows that Kaine’s little sister Aria, namesake of his trading empire, has an illness, just as she did in her previous loop.

In loops since then she’d become a skilled herbalist and scholar, and discovered a medicine that can cure Aria within a year. When Tully bends to one knee and basically surrenders, Rishe tells him she’ll give him the ingredients and formula for the medicine without conditions.

Rishe would only ask that Tully consider that the families in the slums care about their families as he cares about his, and humbly asks if he’ll help her. Tully again bows and tells Rishe that her words have moved him to think about the people of the slums for the first time. If he can help their families as Rishe is helping his, then they can do business together.

Rishe should be proud for finally defeating Tully in a business negotiation, but she’s not one to rest on her laurels. A lot of logistics and planning will be needed, both for the nail polish concern and her wedding. But as was previously established, Rishe had barely slept for days. When she collapses out of apparent exhaustion, it comes as no surprise.

What very much does come as a surprise is the fact that once she collapsed, her trusted maid Elsie and her guard Kamil, two of the people she’s come to trust most, betrayed her by kidnapping her and handing her to Theodore in those very slums. Perhaps Elsie’s tears were more about guilt than happiness.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Theo threatened her and Kamil’s families in order to make them work for him. If he didn’t, then even someone as shrewd as Rishe wasn’t able to see the traitors among her. Regardless, their betrayal is a brutal gut punch after such a well-fought victory.