9/10 is my rating. This is a 2019 Josean era based historical romantic comedy with 32, 30 minute, episodes.

After assassins attempt to murder his family, Jeon Nok-du/Lady Kim Nok-soon/Yeon soo (Jang Dong-toon), sets out to find out who sent the assassins and why. He traces them back to a widows only village and disguises himself as widow Lady Kim, so he can remain undercover and investigate. He is provided a room to share with Dong Dong-joo/Yoo Eun-seo (Kim So-hyun) who is pretending to be in training as a courtesan but has her own mysterious reason to disguise herself in the widow town. Dong-joo’s goal is to secure a place in the palace were she will have access to the king. Nok-du’s investigation leads him to the palace as well. With a king, King Gwanghwamun (Jung Joon-ho) who is insane with the need to guard the throne at all costs, getting close to him is no small endeavor. Can the two succeed in their separate yet intertwined quests and manage their growing feelings for each other? Will what they each discover draw them closer or tear them apart?

spoiler alert**. The first part of this series had some laugh out loud moments where he is struggling with all the pitfalls of trying to be a woman. The mystery around both of their pasts is highly intriguing. I loved so many of the supporting characters. I really liked the character Nok-du and wanted to see good things happen for him. When he discovered the king was his father who attempted to kill him as an infant due to some prophesy, I hoped he would come around and be happy his son was alive and had grown to an exemplary person but he never did. Even after getting to know him as a close confident when he did not know he was his son, he wanted to kill him the moment he found out. There were moments when the king was almost a sympathetic character but then he would do something awful again. The ending was happy in terms of the romance but there were disappointing elements. Nok-du winds up back in exile and I would have liked to see him be Prince after all the struggle. He would have made a fine future king as he was kind, brave and loyal. Instead the evil cousin basically got his way and deposed the mad king. I wanted to see the king and perhaps the cousin come around. But both remained evil at their cores. The opening music did not fit with a historical drama and I would laugh at how silly it is. It was very good and extremely entertaining but those few elements kept it from being exceptional.