tvN's '100 Days My Prince' continues airing in its regular time slot even during the Chuseok holidays!

In the beginning of episode 5 this week, our former-crown-prince and now-dirt-poor-peasant-husband Won Deuk (played by EXO's D.O.) continues to be completely useless to the Yeon family, causing nothing but trouble and worries. 

SEE ALSO: Who is Moon Ga Bi?

Signs that your wife hates you and wants a divorce #1: She feeds you worms.

Won Deuk's constant failure at trying to earn money to pay off the huge debt he owns gets to a point so frustrating, that his wife Yeon Hong Shim (played by Nam Ji Hyun) even goes to the grave of her former aristocrat father to complain about him not sending a "suitable" husband to her from heaven! Now, it is funny and enjoyable when we get to watch D.O. be super clumsy and useless for us viewers, but for Hong Shim, it is serious understandable how much she might want to rip every last one of her hairs out and push this good-for-nothing guy off a mountain cliff (see episodes 2 or 4 for samples). I mean, we've all had our share of dealing with difficult people who just can't admit their mistakes, or become even close to fixing them.

There's nothing like watching D.O. fall on his face to blow off some steam after talking smack about his character, again. 

Yes girl, you deserve to watch this sucker make a fool of himself!

AWWWW BUT JUST WOOK AT HOW SQUISHY HE IS.

Anyways, after days and days of being just absolutely no good at any type of manual labor, Hong Shim makes a much needed discovery! Won Deuk is terrible at physical labor, but he can READ and WRITE!

Title: 'The Ink-colored Man's 50 Shadows'

Even if our poor Hong Shim had to suffer cleaning up after her useless husband Won Deuk for days, this arduous process of Hong Shim and Won Deuk working together to discover something that Won Deuk is useful at, did manage to paint a really good moral theme early on in the drama. And you know, I thought moral themes were like obsolete from Korean dramas at this point. 

All in all, as Won Deuk discovers talents he can actually put to good use for the sake of his family, he gradually earns acceptance as a member of the little village. And this, I found both meaningful and touching, because it held a message about all people in general. '100 Days My Prince' is trying to say that just because someone isn't good or skilled at things others expect them to be good at, it doesn't mean that they deserve to be treated like they are "slow" or "deficient". They are most likely good at things in their own ways, in unexpected circumstances, because everyone is good at something. And it's important for people to not abandon one another for failing to live up to expectations. Hong Shim and Won Deuk were able to work together, talk through so many frustrating situations, before arriving at what seemed like the start of a great partnership. 

Oh we can't forget Won Deuk's other talent - containing messy fights with the power of his tushy behind.

And now, moving on, episode 5 also threw at us a really big chunk of budding romance between the drama's main female lead and the secondary male lead! Some of you may already be feeling the fatal effects of the "secondary male lead syndrome" kicking in, because man, our police chief Jung Jae Yoon (played by Kim Sun Ho) offers up such an attractive package of handsome, gentlemanly, funny, charming, smart... he's basically perfect. 

Although, I just don't get what the deal is with his random facial recognition disorder..?

I'm not entirely sure about this theory, but I think '100 Days My Prince' is trying to illustrate a potential picture of what Hong Shim's love life could have been like if she hadn't met Won Deuk, or if she had never had any ties to the crown prince even in their youth in the first place. Just imagine it: if Hong Shim were the woman she is right now but without her fated strings to Lee Yool/Won Deuk tying her down, then she would be free to seriously consider accepting Jae Yoon's confession. I mean, that guy held nothing back and confessed to her on their second ever encounter, like a real macho man. And if this were a universe where Hong Shim weren't tied to her fate with Yool/Won Deuk, then she may have had an easier, happily ever after with Jae Yoon.

You wrote my wish on this paper lantern?

Nah, I wrote MY wish.

But sadly, just as fast as Jae Yoon confessed to Hong Shim, she has to turn him down with a letter. The fact that they can't even consider each other, given their circumstances, is tragic in its own right. If this playful, mini-date encounter on the bridge is any indication of how many lighthearted scenes with underlying tragedies we'll have in this series, than... we'd better get some tissue boxes ready. 

WHAT?! YOU WERE MARRIED THIS WHOLE TIME?!?!

It's true that Hong Shim and Jae Yoon's banter on the bridge was very cute and romantic to watch, but I couldn't help but feel like it was long and carried out? There are so many aspects to this mysterious, drama/romance series with complex planning and plots; but yet, we barely got a few minutes at a time of some of the more critical, political aspects like Kim Cha Un finding the body of the crown prince's guard, the King and those in the royal palace being "informed" that the prince is dead, etc. 

And what about our princess consort? Despite my ongoing affection for Hong Shim, I still just feel really bad for the princess consort's character. Literally, nobody seems to care about her, and this is including the editors of the drama who gave her like 2 minutes of screen time. But I'm deathly curious about how she's going to get out of this situation with her pregnancy and the hidden identity of the father. 

OOOOooooohhhh. She got to have screen time by sneaking up BEHIND someone's arm.