The episode begins with some a bit of backtracking on the previous episode, with Elise reacting to seeing her family again. They then engage in a conversation, where we learn that Elise is still waiting for her betrothal. When she attempts to speak up about it, her father comments that he’s already made the proper discussions to have the betrothal announced when Elise celebrates her birthday. When Elise tries to speak up again, Ren interrupts her and points out how he opposes the betrothal. While Elise usually disliked how blunt Ren is, but this time, she completely agrees with him. She even decides that she wants to call off her betrothal, all to try to make the future better.
Elise is then in her room, writing down the events that she knows will occur and how many lives are lost during them, that way she can figure out how she can change the events to have less lives be lost, even taking note of the condition of the current emperor. The maid, Mary, brings a strawberry tart and tea for Elise, which Elise gives a positive reaction to the former and thanks Mary. Mary is surprised, and Elise reflects on how she didn’t do that before. During Elise’s reflections, however, Mary drops the teapot and cuts her finger on a shard. Elise checks on it, relieved to see that no shards fell into the cut. She then asks Mary to wash the wound and wrap a cloth around it, with Mary going off to do that.
Later, Elise and her father go to meet with the emperor and Sir Vent. Elise tries to speak about an important matter but the crown prince arrives. After remembering how he treated her, Elise provided advice to the emperor to not proceed with the Kusef campaign, due to a necessary passageway for supplies potentially getting blocked. The emperor thanks Elise for her counsel, but begins to look tired. After asking him some questions, Elise comes to the conclusion that the emperor has diabetes. After providing a little tip by claiming that she read it in a medical document, Elise then finally decides to bring up dropping the betrothal. After getting yelled at by her father, Elise brings up the fact that she wants to be a doctor, thus causing a gamble to be struck. Elise has 6 months to prove that her being a doctor is more important than her becoming empress, and for the rest of the time, Elise and the crown prince go on a walk.
During that walk, the crown prince asks Elise why she would accept the gamble, and Elise says that she wants to save lives. After a bit more talking involving Elise apologizing for getting the crown prince involved in an engagement he didn’t want. After a reveal that he never said he hated her, though, the crown prince walks off, with Elise staying behind. There’s also a scene where the emperor, Elise’s father, and Sir Vent talk about what to do with Elise due to this gamble.
In all honesty, this episode did NOT feel like it was 20-23 minutes long. And I mean that as positively as possible. Despite being the length of one episode, I felt like I sat through two. I love when shows pull me so much into their world that I feel like more time passed than it actually did. While this series does not have previews in the episode itself, it seems that the next episode will start the journey of Elise becoming a doctor in this world, which I can’t wait to see.
Additional posts about Doctor Elise: The Royal Lady with the Lamp:
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