The Double is a dark and melodramatic soap opera about revenge and regret. It is a soap opera to end all soap operas in terms of high theatrics, spinning hussies, piercing death glares, shocking twists and the sweet, savage satisfaction of retribution. To best enjoy this, don't look too hard at it as the narrative is littered with logic and plot holes and absurdly dramatic, historically impossible scenes. The male lead Duke Su flirts with breaking the fourth wall repeatedly to urge us to just watch the play, a reminder that all the world's a stage and we should just suspend disbelief.

Xue Fangfei, the most elegant and cultured lady in the capital, is cruelly betrayed and dumped in a shallow grave. She is rescued by Jiang Li, the Chancellor's daughter who is wrongly condemned and banished by her family to a convent. Fangfei assumes Jiang Li's identity and returns to the capital; vowing to clear both their names and make their enemies pay. She is aided by the enigmatic and powerful Duke Su who helps her because she intrigues him and could prove useful to him down the road. The romance that develops between them unfolds at a leisurely pace as they each have high stakes agendas that predictably converge.

Duke Su must be be every scorned woman's ultimate fantasy "consolation" prize. This magnificent specimen of manhood is highly born, tall, dark, handsome, powerful, and with a diabolical mind to match Xue Fangfei's. The icing on the cake is this sexy beast that wields a fan more effectively than a sword does not come saddled with nasty in-laws. Wang Xingyue's potent portrayal of Duke Su is spot on from the tinge of humor that belies his stern expression, his double entendre laced dialogues to how in unguarded moments his eyes devour Xue Fangfei with almost indecent longing. Despite the seductive build up and combustive chemistry between the main leads, the ultimate pay-off to their slow burn courtship falls far short of wild and wicked and only delivers a chaste candle-gate moment.

Even though I shipped Duke Su and Xue Fangfei immediately, I appreciate how Fangfei takes the time to rage, to mourn her loss and to get closure so that she can properly move on. To me, Wu Jinyan obviously looks older than Wang Xingyue, butI think this casting makes sense. Xue Fangfei is a woman who lost everything; her reputation, her lover, her entire family. That kind of shocking devastation would age anyone tremendously and Wu Jinyan's ravaged, strained and wild wide-eyed expression in the early episodes is brilliantly in character. The narrative does not shy away from presenting her marriage as one that had depth and substance. Thus they are still in perfect unison when they play their haunting duet; a song of profound loss, resentment and regret. Wu Jinyan plays the avenging angel so perfectly I got unholy enjoyment out of watching Shen Yurong squirm knowing that Xue Fangfei, who knows him better than he knows himself, is coming for him.

Shen Yurong is a character that I find hard to be that angry with because as it turns out, his perfidy results in such a massive upgrade for Xue Fangfei. Liang Yongqi really slays in this complex role of a promising, rising young official who catches the eye of the wrong woman and ends up betraying his ideals. He is quite a pitiful creature who trades in domestic bliss for living dangerously at the beck and call of an abusive, insecure and bat-shit crazy spinning shrew that his own dear mother pimps him out to. I can't decide if I pity him or despise him more. Because in truth, he already lost the moment he chose to betray his muse and the love of his life. The moment of peak retribution is when it dawns upon him what a prize he lost and is forced to face the limits of his own character. I thoroughly enjoyed how the narrative peels away the many layers of hypocrisy, ambition, sophistry and duplicity to reveal a weak, impotent coward who lacked the courage of his convictions. To me, this is the most complex and best acted role in this drama.

Even though I have high praise for Li Meng's portrayal of the deranged Wanning, I have little sympathy for this character or her shocking villain origin story. Victimhood does not entitle her to help herself to someone else's husband or kill with such impunity. When she had power and free will, she chose to be King Cheng's pawn, no one forced her. Likewise, I have no sympathy for Ji Shuran or her choices. In general, I dislike these attempts to whitewash villains or somehow rationalize their wicked ways. Bad stuff happened to Xue Fangfei and Jiang Li as well. But they looked for justice without turning into monsters as a result. While Xue Fangfei's revenge, if you can even call it that is very satisfying, Jiang Li's left me feeling bereft. Ultimately Xue Fangfei is a character that lost nothing and gained everything. It is Jiang Li who is truly the injured party and even though she is vindicated, all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put her together again.

Despite the addictive start, this drama loses momentum by episode 30. The storytelling lingers too long on weakest Jiang family plots arcs. They are boring and unoriginal, borrowing heavily from what were also weak arcs in Princess Weiyoung. Jiang Li's cousins are archetypal characters that were not complicit in Jiang Shuran's treachery. I find it unfathomable the drama chose to focus on their tawdry squabble over a callow rogue instead of uncovering the many layers of the far more fascinating Duke Su. As a result, this character with so much early promise ends up not as well developed as Shen Yurong and Wanning. To add insult to the injury, almost as an after thought, he is featured front and center in a baffling truncated half episode final arc that serves up gratuitous angst and some unearned and unjustified pin-cushioning of good characters. It is nothing short of a grift to squeeze money from viewers for a mundane glimpse of domestic bliss. As far as I am concerned this drama ends where it should a bit past the halfway point of the final episode. All the rest is dross.

This is a super addictive soap opera that doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. Where it excels is in serving up high drama and angst with super cool and satisfying but absurd vignettes that don't necessarily advance the plot. Nonetheless I was happy to rate this better than 8.5 until it started to sag and waffled into a lame and wishy washy ending that leaves me no choice but to call it an 8.0/10.0.