I’ll lead with the positive this time.  I thought this episode of Shiguang Dailiren was a marginal upgrade over the last few weeks.  And listen, I’ll take improvement – that’s quite literally never a bad thing.  But I can’t shake the vibe that this season is as if Haoling Li picked a rejected two-episode arc from S1 and stretched it out over a full (presumably) 12 episodes.  I really think it’s knowing how good Link Click can be that makes it so hard for me not to feel negatively towards this season, because it doesn’t approach that level.  On it’s own it’s pretty good (though last week’s ep was a stinker, if I’m honest).

The main reason this episode was an uptick was probably that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang were actually involved to the point of almost seeming like main characters again.  It’s basically a battle of wits between Cheng (and Xiao) and Qian Jin.  Qian has Lu Guang, what he needs is Cheng Xiaoshi (which is exactly why Lu sacrificed himself in his place).  Qian’s next gambit is to offer a switch, with the threat that he’ll kill Lu if Xiao refuses.  Qian Jin makes a tough opponent for a by-the-books cop and his department, because he knows police procedures backwards and forwards.  As such, he knows exactly how to stack the odds in his favor, and can anticipate many of Xiao’s moves.

The nature of the twins’ (I still think Tianchen looked way older when they were little, but whatever) abilities seems to be clear.  Tianchen can control, but he needs physical contact to be able to do it.  Tianxi can’t control, only observe (and feel) – but she can do it remotely, through a photograph.  As such their abilities are quite complementary (as you’d expect from twins).  It also makes it easy to see when Cheng Xiaoshi’s ability is so attractive to Qian Jin, as the potential it offers in tandem with Tianchen’s is obvious.

What seems to have happened was that Tianxi – whose ability basically comes down to empathy – was so horrified by what the pair of them were doing to Chen that she bolted, and managed to lose her brother in pursuit.  Qian needs her back of course, though there’s no sentiment in it for him.  At some point Qian and Tianchen’s interests will diverge and that will be big trouble for the latter.  That’s obvious to us, but Tianchen can’t see it – partly because he’s still a kid, and partly because he seems to have taken some blows with the stupid stick since that night in his apartment when his parents died.

Back to the exchange, Qian rigs it so that Xiao can’t pull a fast one on him, but Cheng has other ideas and manages to use his ability to give Tianchen the slip after he and Lu Guang switch places.  Qian though is a step ahead – as usual – and by appearances things don’t look too good for Lu and Qiao Ling.  Simply killing an escaping Lu and Qiao does nothing materially for Qian Jin, but he’s no fool – he’s made arrangements for Cheng to be recaptured by his trained ape.  I suspect there are still chess moves to be played out here, though.  The fact that I don’t come out of this episode highly irritated (like last week) is progress – let’s just hope it continues over the final two eps.