Let’s be real: The Apothecary Diaries rarely drops the ball. Every single episode usually hits hard with clever mysteries, palace politics, and Maomao just being the smartest person in any room. But if there’s one episode that feels kind of skippable? It is Season 2, Episode 10, ‘A Ghost Story.’
Now, it’s not that it’s terrible or anything. It’s just the closest thing this series gets to filler. No huge plot twists. No epic Jinshi moments. Just a bunch of court ladies exchanging ghost stories like they’re having some ghost camp in imperial China. Let’s get into it.
The Apothecary Diaries: So what even happens in this episode?
The episode of The Apothecary Diaries kicks off with Yinghua inviting Maomao to a horror story circle. It’s basically a girls’ night out, but make it horror. They sit in a circle. They light some incense. And then they start sharing ghost stories. Thirteen of them, to be exact.
You’d expect a few cheap jump scares, right? Nope. The Apothecary Diaries goes all in. The animation shifts constantly based on what story being told. One moment it’s dreamlike horror, the next it’s soft and tragic. Major props to the animators for flexing hard.
But while everyone else is getting freaked out, Maomao begins to notice something’s off. Her mystery-solver radar never sleeps. The room’s filled with incense smoke, and people are dizzy. Of course, she solves the mystery during the party, opens the windows wide, and puts an end to the night. Typical Maomao stunt.
Moreover, here’s where things get weird. The woman who organized the event? Yeah, turns out she died a year ago. So, who exactly hosted the evening? Ghost? Hallucination? Unfinished trauma? It’s never explained, and that’s the point.
More than a creepy twist, this episode of The Apothecary Diaries is a reminder of how the former emperor left a trail of discarded women and broken lives. The real ‘ghost’ is the empire’s ugly past still lingering in the palace shadows.
But even when it’s ‘filler,’ it’s not just fluff: So should you skip it?
Okay, let’s talk about the characters. There isn’t much of Jinshi (we know, complete bummer), but this episode of The Apothecary Diaries does center around Maomao’s other friendships, which are equally quirky and lovely in their own ways.
Yinghua being all “Ugh, Maomao is so weird,” while also inviting her to horror night? That’s some old-school tsundere bestie behavior right there. So, then you have Shisui, who’s basically the chaotic twin of Maomao. Bugs? Poisons? Insane curiosity? They completely bond over that.
But whereas Maomao sort of hides her weirdness behind some social norms, Shisui’s just out there. Loudly. In public. With no shame whatsoever. And honestly? Iconic. One scene between them hits especially hard: Maomao breaks down the true story behind one of the ‘ghosts’, a mother and son who died after eating glowing mushrooms in a cursed forest.
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inKusuriyaNoHitorigoto
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inKusuriyaNoHitorigoto
The mushrooms were poisonous. They were starving. It wasn’t a haunting. It was a tragedy. But from a distance, their glowing bodies probably looked like spirits. That’s the kind of heartbreak this show delivers, even in its most whimsical episodes.
So, now the big question that may come to your mind is whether you should skip this episode of The Apothecary Diaries. Honestly? Yeah, if you’re only here for the juicy court drama and slow-burning tension between Maomao and Jinshi, you can definitely skip this one.
You won’t be missing anything super crucial. It’s really more of a stylish detour, a moody palate cleanser before the next big arc kicks off. But skipping it means missing one of the most artistically experimental episodes of the series. The horror elements? Chilling. The commentary? Brutal. The visuals? Gorgeous.
And underneath it all, there’s still that thread of sadness, of history, of pain buried under all the palace glam. Because The Apothecary Diaries doesn’t do meaningless filler. Even its ghost stories come with receipts.
The Apothecary Diaries is currently available to watch on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
