Kingdom - Season 4

Kingdom - Season 4 (2022) (série) Kingdom is a guarantee of great fun for me, although I wasn't as excited about Season 4 at first as I was about the previous one. I was expecting Qin Kingdom to finally go on the counter-offensive and begin the real journey to unify all of China. Instead, the season just dealt with internal conflicts. It does make sense, though. After the epic battles of the previous season that had brought Qin Kingdom to the brink of destruction, it was clear that someone would want to take advantage of this internal weakening. With a calculating and ambitious chancellor just waiting for his opportunity, there’s trouble ahead. And Lü Buwei is indeed a skilled schemer. His inner strength and cunning are impressive, and he quickly sets his plans in motion. This gradually leads to two dangerous attempts at revolution, each time using other powerful players from the emperor’s entourage. What I ended up enjoying more than all the revolutions and battles was the way the series portrayed most of the key characters in them. Both the brother and mother of the future emperor had a very interesting story arc, and their complicated relationships and past were explored in great depth. Especially the queen dowager had an incredibly strong and dramatic story that made me see her as a broken and tragic woman who believed that she had found happiness again, at least for a while. While she's definitely not supposed to be a positive character, I could definitely empathize with her. The confrontation between the emperor and his chancellor was also excellent and revealed their plans and visions, both of which were logical and powerful. Lü Buwei’s plan to unite the empire using money seemed just as acceptable as the emperor's plan to use force. Both visions are properly discussed and, given the context of the times and the situation, it eventually becomes clear which one is the right one. In the end, I wasn’t disappointed, even though the whole season was about the final resolution of internal strife and hopefully the final unification of the entire Qin kingdom into a stable entity that should be ready now to begin its own warfare. While it wasn't the strongest or most thrilling part of the entire story, it was clearly necessary, and so well-crafted that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kingdom never fails to entertain me, the author has everything well thought out, manages to sell me on all the drama and individual characters, and keeps on coming up with interesting battles between huge armies. The chessboard is set up now, the pieces are finally in place and the big game can begin... 8.5/10 (10/02/2022)