Now, things escalate pretty quickly. In a Thunderbolt Fantasy fashion, the moment Lang Wu Xiao gets a hand of the dragon’s horn and the formula, he double-crosses Gui Niao. But I can’t hate this guy, given his motive is purely because he cares for his partner Shang Bu Huan. The allied from the other side of the war is also bound to be broken very soon, as it’s clearly the Catching Fox is manipulating the Princess of Cruelty now. It’s one of the rare moments where we see Shang Bu Huan is vulnerable. It’s also one of the rare moments where we see the Princess of Cruelty having a conscience. The Monk’s words last episode clearly affects her and I would love to see her go through some sort of character arc. Now all that is just the beginning now that Shang Bu Huan has an antidote and is now “a hundred times more alive”.
But the absolute peak of this episode (and the whole season so far) is the battle of wits between our Gui Niao, Lang Wu Xiao and the one-wing dragon. It has everything that I want from Thunderbolt DNA, and then some: it has absurd dragon’s design, it has the sheer ridiculousness of the whole situation, it has campy quality, it has the grand visual spectacular and most of all, it has one of Gui Niao’s wittiest lines. Just imagine the ridiculousness of a giant fire-breathing dragon raises from below the ground (how on earth does he hide underground in the first place? To sleep? I think not), or that he’s powerful enough to speak human language (consider how there’s no human in the Wasteland of Spirits). This quality proves to be his fall from grace, as Gui Niao is an expert of deceiving everything by his words. It’s certainly charming as heck to see him politely asks the dragon for his horn (more than mocking based on his tone of speech), before runs like a maniac in a very quirky manner that only puppetry can produce, and finishes with a line: “doesn’t matter how nice you ask, anyone would be angry for that request”. Damn you, Gui Niao
Also only in a puppetry show that you can see a dragon throwing up flames that absurd. It mixes nicely between Thunderbolt’s trolly tone with how it takes itself seriously enough. If that isn’t eye-popping and ridiculous enough, we have the climax where Lang Wu Xiao has to sing (the fact the he admits his singing beyond hopeless make it way funnier, too) to attract the Dragon’s attention so that Gui Niao can set his favorite illusion trap. How the show transform for the usual two swordsmen fighting the monster into singing and talking while dodging wall of flame is nothing short of a stroke of genius. And don’t forget how Gui Niao isn’t in the least surprised when Lang Wu Xiao double-crosses him. Ridicule everyone has been his lifelong passion, so it’s only natural that he just gets used to people turning against him. I don’t care how Thunderbolt will go from here, as long as it maintains its quirky, campy nature like this dragon battle I’m more than happy to follow it everywhere.
