This drama had everything going for it; the premise, the acting, the music, the visuals, they were all really good, except for the most essential part of any drama; the writing.
The drama starts really strong; the story is quickly set up for our main characters to meet; a tale of a cursed crown prince and a disgraced noblewoman; sounds promising, right? Well, it turns out it isn't. The show sets the entire thing up at the very beginning, throws even more plot points in an overcrowded story in the middle, and resolves everything only at the very end. Which makes for a story that is very quick in it's set up, very packed and unsatisfying in it's final and a middle where the story does not move forward. I compare the middle of the story to a clogged sink or toilet, I'm sorry if that is a crude comparison, but it's the only appropriate one; there is just too much stuff thrown in there and it won't move. You can skip from about episode 10 up to episode 19 and I'm pretty sure you would not miss anything of importance.
And that's quite frustrating because I think with the intriguing premise the drama had potential, everything was shot beautifully, the historical costumes, setup and the music made it very atmospheric. I wasn't familiar with FL, but I think she did very well, not really a big fan of ML (hot take, I know), because I have PTSD from Do Bong Soon, which I deeply dislike (another hot take), but he was okey.
I would have liked to know more about Byeokcheon and the Queen, that was very rushed, despite being very important plot points. In summary, the ideas were good, the execution was bad.