The Next Prince 1×09 Review: Episode 9

The golden fairytale is starting to unravel. Protests against the mines are spreading across Emmaly. Someone is after Ramil. And Khanin is learning that he may not be able to trust anyone.

Two major things happen in this week’s episode. The first is Khanin’s determination to uncover the truth about the mines. And the second is the attempt on Ramil’s life, during which Paytai is injured. Oh, also, Thatdanai is alive, but we knew that already.

We’ll start with Khanin and the mines. I mentioned last week that I thought what happened at the protest would be the inciting incident for Khanin to suddenly start caring about the competition. I was half right. He does become very interested in learning about the mines and whether there is any truth to the accusations he is seeing on social media. But instead of lighting a fire under him about the competition, he is more concerned that he shouldn’t be caring about fencing and archery practice when people may be dying. Which, fair.

I think this episode reveals Khanin is still painfully naïve, not only about the culture and history of Emmaly, but also the state of society in general. The fact that he directly confronted the king about the mines, expecting him to tell the truth, not long after being told by Charan not to trust anyone… Girl, please. Plus, when the king counters that the accusations are made up, Khanin questions why anyone would do that.

Listen, obviously the mines are killing people, because that’s a well-documented thing that has happened everywhere that mines exist (signed: daughter of a coal miner). But, seriously, Khanin, do you really not understand that people fabricate stories and accuse people of stuff they didn’t actually do all the time? Was he never following the politics in England? Alexander Hamilton started his own newspaper just to talk trash about Thomas Jefferson. This is a thing that happens in every country throughout history.

But of course, the accusations are true. (See: health complications of working in mines being well-documented everywhere.) And as we see repeatedly, the king is making no effort to remedy the situation. Tharin has tried multiple times, basically since the show started, to talk to his father about the problem with the mines. But the king has shot down even the possibility of negotiations.

I thought the king was supposed to be some master strategist; this is a phenomenally stupid move. Sitting down to talk to the miners would be much better PR than whatever hands-off method they’re currently employing. This is a man who has either become too accustomed to his throne (which then begs the question, why is he stepping down?) or he’s trying to destroy the country (or the monarchy).

I want to expand upon my thoughts from last week, where I talked about how the information was being kept from Khanin (but not really). I read an excellent meta earlier about how Khanin’s interest in the mines has come across as performative activism. In it, the OP talks about how all of this information was available to Khanin, but he hasn’t tried to seek anything out. He’s had the opportunity to travel around the country, and whenever he does, he does things like go to the beach and to clubs. He’s now met Jay, who organized the protest, and he has connections to Jay through both Charan and Calvin, yet he makes no attempt to ask Jay anything.

This pairs nicely with my points from last week about how Khanin has not been taking this seriously. He only decided to enter the competition to find out what happened to Thatdanai (and he hasn’t seemed to have cared about his adoptive father for some time). He has an entire library at his disposal yet he always seems to be on Twitter. And yeah, I’m sure those books are carefully curated, but still. He’s not been paying attention in his lessons. He only seems to watch the news if it’s about him specifically.

I like that they highlighted his lack of knowledge when Tharin mentioned the lantern festival and Khanin had no idea what he was talking about, even though Charan allegedly told him about it. It just emphasizes what we’ve seen; Charan is trying to teach him about the country, to give him wisdom about being a royal, and Khanin keeps dismissing it.

If he wins the competition, he will have some serious responsibilities. Even if he doesn’t win, he is still the Assavadevathin heir. He will be in charge of the region – and therefore the mines – either in the event his father becomes king or once his father dies. He needs to be learning this information. And I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for him to want to visit his own region; he’s been staying in the main palace the entire time and has made little to no effort to get to know his father or learn anything about his mother.

(I’m going to need a map at some point. I am so confused by this country. Also, I suspect everyone is in possession of the time-traveling jetpacks that were so popular in Game of Thrones, the way they are all able to so easily and quickly travel to different places. Unless this country is the size of, like, Rhode Island or something.)

In my review for last week’s episode, I brought up the slightly out-there theory that Khanin is actually Prince Wasin’s son. I’m not entirely abandoning that, because I do feel that there is something going on there that is not on the level. (It’s hard to ignore the potentially faked blood test, or the literally everything else to do with Khanin.) Mostly I see people suspecting that Wasin is the one behind the attempts on Khanin’s life; people have been speculating that he’s not as accepting of having no heir as he seems to be.

To be honest, I didn’t put much stock in that theory, for the simple reason that I don’t think we’ve seen enough of Wasin to verify his intentions. However, this is the first episode where I thought he was acting a bit shady. It’s difficult to explain, but there was a moment during the opening scene, when he was very thoroughly watching Khanin eat the treats that he’d prepared for him, that I went, “Oh, that’s suspicious.” I thought maybe he had poisoned the food.

I feel like that interaction can still be read one of two ways. Either he was trying to do something sinister (maybe Khanin is allergic to something he was serving?), or he was trying too hard to share part of their culture with Khanin (because Khanin is his son). We still have frustratingly very little in the way of information about Wasin.

No, I still think the main antagonist in The Next Prince is the king. Which, of course, brings us to the attempt on Ramil’s life.

While Ramil and Paytai are out on a bike ride through the forest, someone starts shooting at them. They ditch their bikes and make a run on foot, which I think doesn’t make any sense, but I’ve never been shot at before. Maybe that’s what you’re supposed to do. Anyway, Paytai does his best to protect Ramil from the gunman and is shot in the process. Luckily, he’s just grazed by the bullet.

For a moment, things look dire, as Ramil and Paytai are trapped at gunpoint. But the Bhuchongphisut guards finally arrive and shoot one of the gunmen (because apparently there were two). When Ramil discovers that Paytai has been injured, he orders the guards to find the other man. Someone on Tumblr said something pretty profound that ties into last week’s episode, which is that all Ramil wants to do is keep Paytai safe, and that seems to be the only thing he can’t do.

(Side note: If we can revisit the NC scene from last week just briefly, a couple of posts I saw since that episode has aired have me reconsidering the implications. The first is that it wasn’t so much about Ramil realizing he’s punishing Paytai, but more about Ramil realizing that he doesn’t want to do that. Because as the other post pointed out, it looks like all of the BDSM stuff was kept in Paytai’s bedroom. Which could be because it could be discovered in Ramil’s room, but it could also be because Paytai is the driving force behind that.)

OK, back to the attempt on Ramil’s life. They capture a guard who says that he was watching Ramil on the king’s orders. I didn’t think it was the same man who shot at them; when they bring him in, he’s in a normal guard’s uniform, but the man in the woods was all in black. But this convinces Ramil that it was the king who tried to kill him. When he shares this information with his father, Rachata decides to visit the palace.

Rachata and Ramil are obviously sure that the king was behind this shooting, and that looks very likely to be the case considering that under torture, a man confesses to having been hired by the king. So the question becomes, why would the king suddenly want to kill Ramil? But also, is it actually the king?

On the second question, I’ve definitely seen the theory floated that Rachata was actually behind the attempt on his own son’s life, and that he intends to frame the Assavadevathin for it. I can see this being true; Rachata is cruel and doesn’t seem to care for his son that much at all. It is suspicious that Ramil had no bodyguards with him on his bike ride, especially when you consider that someone has tried to kill Khanin like three times already. And torture has been proven to be an ineffective way of gathering intel, because people will confess to anything just to get the torture to stop. In this case, the man knew they wanted him to say the king hired him, so he tells them what they want to hear.

My only issue with this theory is that Rachata clearly wants to be the next king of Emmaly, and he can’t do that if his son is dead. (Not that this seems to be an issue with my theory that the king is trying to kill Khanin.) But then, this attempt was very clumsy. Yes, Ramil was in the woods all alone, but surely there would be easier opportunities to dispatch him. If you wanted it to look like someone was trying to kill him but ensure that he wouldn’t be seriously hurt, shooting at him from far away when there are a lot of trees in the area is a good move.

As for the first question, why would the king suddenly want Ramil dead? Well, there’s the issue of Khanin. You see, Khanin is becoming less malleable. I’ve mentioned before that the king is treating everyone as a tool for his own use. He specifically brought Khanin back now for a purpose; he’s attempting to control who he interacts with for a reason. He even asks Charan to investigate what is affecting the flavor of his Earl Grey, as in, who is distracting Khanin from the path that the king wants him on.

This may be the greatest example that Khanin is actually the king’s grandson. If he weren’t, he’d probably be dead by now.

Speaking of dead, but not really, Thatdanai! He has finally made an appearance and is almost immediately swept up by the royal guards. This indicates that the king is fully aware that Thatdanai survived, was actively looking for him, and does not want him to resurface. I feel that this leads further credence to the theory that either a) the king is behind the attempts on Khanin’s life or b) Khanin is not actually the king’s grandson. Thatdanai is a loose end.

We are now nine episodes into this show, and I feel like it’s all over the place. There are too many characters to do all of their storylines justice. I understand that the characters themselves probably couldn’t be cut without altering the plot, but there had to be a better way to balance everything than what they’ve chosen. Why should I care about Calvin and Jay’s relationship when they’ve had four scenes total across 9+ hours of screen time? (Also, I can’t help but notice that Calvin went to Jay’s house to tell him that he’s a prince and neglected to tell him that he’s a prince.) Where the hell is Ava?

This seems insane to say when there is so much going on, but the plot is starting to drag. I care about quite a few of these characters, but at this point I’m just sitting here going, “OK, get to the point already.” The shadowy figure we saw back in episode 2 who was clearly behind Khanin’s attack, with the bracelet? I haven’t seen anyone wearing a bracelet like that since. Was that meant to be a clue or not?

I want us to start getting answers. It seems like every week we just get more questions.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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