Score: A

This show just keeps delivering great episodes! I almost owe this show an apology in not expecting the second season to be quite this good. The Leon story has worked so far, but what especially landed for me was the interactions between Pride, Tiara, Arthur, and Stale. So much played out in S1 for Pride to gain these bonds. And now you have those people reaching out for Pride and hoping that she’ll lean on them a bit more.

Stale’s heart is breaking

I definitely agreed with Stale at the start of this one. The Queen’s explanation for the engagement simply didn’t add up. What about Leon made the Queen think he was more fitting for Pride? From what Pride already stated it made sense why other country was in favour of it. That guy was losing standing in his homeland and the King honestly wanted to get rid of an embarrassing first prince so he could pass the kingdom onto a more fitting heir. But Pride’s side? Not so much. Pride is a very well respected and loved princess of her kingdom. She’s shown few to zero questionable qualities and is an heir that will be beneficial to the kingdom. Shackling her to Leon seems odd.

The only thing I can imagine is that the Queen is fearful of Pride’s future. She has the ability of precognition after all. If her visions tap into Pride’s horrific game version then it would make sense why she’d not want to have her marry anyone competent. It would give Pride too much power. Maybe she can see to the truth of all this and thinks Pride can help him. But I don’t know.

Give this girl some peace!

Man you can feel the relief with Pride once Leon was sent off. She’d been in work mode for that whole time and had to keep on-guard. But once things were put into motion she had a chance to just rest. And of course the first things she did was seek out Tiara, Stale, and Arthur for some comfort. She really does love all of them and honestly just wanted to be coddled a bit. Tiara read it more of her sensing how lonely Tiara had been and maybe that was there to some degree. But it truly was Pride who had been lonely. She had to cut herself off to focus on dealing with Leon first.

Loved seeing Tiara corner Pride

But I think this whole situation has kind of clued Arthur into how Pride is tackling everything herself. She’s carrying the weight of the game scenario and the actions of evil Pride. She hasn’t been willing to confide in anyone about her past life or what she’s truly afraid of. But it leaks out every now and then. We saw it often in S1 with her begging others to kill her if she ever became a threat or just visibly breaking down over the guilt of what the other Pride had done. Pride is a good and sweet girl. But this specific case has really hit home how alone she’s forcing herself to be. Everyone is just begging for her to confide in them and share her worries. They care so much about Pride and hate seeing her carry the weight of the world alone.

The overall character growth is something I’m really enjoying. Glad that one episode after I wondered about it…that we did get to see more from Tiara. She isn’t just a kid anymore. Pride can’t pat her on the head and have her ignore any worries. This is a girl who was the heroine of the original scenario. She has the strength of will in her to have faced down the evil Pride. Pride’s attempts to sweep the situation under the rug just made Tiara dig in harder. They didn’t get to the deepest truths. I expect Pride wants to take that to her grave. But they did drag more out of her.

Utter slimeballs

At least the Leon situation does make sense when viewed in this light. Which was more or less expected. It does make Leon all the more tragic to be sure. Clearly his brothers were trying to sabotage him this whole while. Makes sense. He’s the first prince. If nothing was done he’d become King and they’d be the ones married off to other kingdoms. Their scheming was clear from the first flashback. You had one brother call out his love for his people as toxic and defective. To be fair he might’ve had a bit too much “love me” attitude, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But then the second brother encouraged him to mingle. All that lead to “somehow” rumours of him being a womanizer spreading. Rumours that tanked his reputation and lead to him being offered to another country. What a pair of scumbags.

That does set up the conflict of this arc nicely. The brothers have clearly set Leon up. Setting up the story that Leon left the castle to drink himself stupid. He’ll be “found” and this will completely destroy his public image. Part of me thinks that the King wouldn’t want to send him to an ally and embarrass his country, especially with this version of Pride having a pristine reputation. But who knows what the man is thinking. In the game I get it though. Rather than sending one of his “good” sons he could sacrifice one he cared less about to a tyrant.

Pride doesn’t realize the effect she has on people!

This was such a good episode. S2 is just getting everything right. I love having a scene like we got with everyone confronting Pride. It’s understandable why she feels the responsibility to act. But she has to take in that she has made these bonds and that people care about her. She isn’t the evil Pride and doesn’t have to punish herself as if she is. And now the cast is off to save Leon from his life being thrown in the gutter. I kind of expect the end result being that Leon will rise back as the proper prince he always wanted to be and his engagement will be dropped. Might leave a hook that he has fallen for Pride, but leave the engagement so the shipping with Stale and Arthur is on better footing.