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Best Pursuit of Jade Episodes, Ranked

All 40 episodes of Pursuit of Jade scored and sorted — from the 8.8/10 high of S1E28 to the 8.1/10 of S1E9.

By Mira Vance · Editor & Lead Reviewer

Our rating: 8.53/10 average across 40 episode reviews (best 8.8, lowest 8.1).

Pursuit of Jade is one of those shows that almost never has a bad night. Across all 40 episodes the ratings live in a narrow band, 8.1 to 8.8, with a mean of 8.53 — no dud stretches, no filler valley, just a long confident climb. The early going is the gentlest part of the run: the courtroom-and-contract setup of S1E3 “The Marriage Contract That Trades a House for a Roof, and a Tablet Carved Twice” and S1E4 “Ask My Broom If It’ll Allow It” are charming but still finding their footing, and S1E9 “A Spirit Tablet, a Sweet on the Tongue, and the Marquis Steps Halfway Into Frame” is the low point at 8.1 — a holding pattern while the Marquis plot only half-arrives.

Then the show climbs and stays up. The summit is the late-middle run: S1E28 “A Courtesy Name for the Woman Who Refuses Every Throne,” S1E29 “Sui Yuanhuai Names Himself the Most Exalted Son Under Heaven,” and S1E30 “Changyu Kills a Prince and Reads Her Father’s Last Letter” all hit 8.8, where Changyu’s grief and her refusal of power finally fuse. The one disappointment is the finale, S1E40 “A Throne Survives by Forgetting What It Just Heard,” which slips back to 8.1 — an ending that resolves the politics but lets the emotional charge cool. The peak comes three episodes early, not at the close.

678910S1E1: 8.4/10S1E2: 8.3/10S1E3: 8.4/10S1E4: 8.4/10S1E5: 8.6/10S1E6: 8.4/10S1E7: 8.4/10S1E8: 8.4/10S1E9: 8.1/10S1E10: 8.4/10S1E11: 8.6/10S1E12: 8.5/10S1E13: 8.6/10S1E14: 8.5/10S1E15: 8.6/10S1E16: 8.7/10S1E17: 8.6/10S1E18: 8.7/10S1E19: 8.7/10S1E20: 8.7/10S1E21: 8.5/10S1E22: 8.7/10S1E23: 8.3/10S1E24: 8.4/10S1E25: 8.6/10S1E26: 8.6/10S1E27: 8.7/10S1E28: 8.8/10S1E29: 8.8/10S1E30: 8.8/10S1E31: 8.3/10S1E32: 8.6/10S1E33: 8.5/10S1E34: 8.5/10S1E35: 8.4/10S1E36: 8.6/10S1E37: 8.6/10S1E38: 8.6/10S1E39: 8.7/10S1E40: 8.1/10
Every episode scored on tension, payoff, and rewatch value. Hover a point for the episode.
RankEpEpisodeScore
T-1S1E28A Courtesy Name for the Woman Who Refuses Every Throne8.8
T-1S1E29Sui Yuanhuai Names Himself the Most Exalted Son Under Heaven8.8
T-1S1E30Changyu Kills a Prince and Reads Her Father's Last Letter8.8
T-4S1E16A Butcher's Daughter Walks Soup Into a Prince's Room8.7
T-4S1E18Two Women Buy Lin'an Time With Their Own Throats8.7
T-4S1E19If You Stay Silent, I'll Take It as a Yes8.7
T-4S1E20Aren't There Three Right in Front of Me8.7
T-4S1E22An Old Tutor Trades His Lot for Hers, and She Refuses to Spend It8.7
T-4S1E27Changyu Names Every Lie, and the Marquis Borrows a Teacher to Adopt Her8.7
T-4S1E39The Real Traitor Is Named in Act One, and Unnamed Again by Act Three8.7
T-11S1E5A Hairpin, an Itemized Ledger, and a Letter From the Mountains8.6
T-11S1E11A Minister Does Not Bend With Shifting Winds8.6
T-11S1E13The Day a Borrowed Husband Becomes a Price Tag8.6
T-11S1E15Money Can Turn Even Ghosts Into Laborers8.6
T-11S1E17The Hour That Itemizes Love as Logistics8.6
T-11S1E25Changyu Strings Up the Heir and Her Husband Takes the Strokes8.6
T-11S1E26Counting Stones in the Tent While the Vanguard Bleeds8.6
T-11S1E32The Hour That Sends a Eunuch Home Carrying His Own Ear8.6
T-11S1E36One Hundred and Eight Lashes Buy the Right to Speak a Wife's Name8.6
T-11S1E37A Sword Forged to Slay Foolish Rulers and Treacherous Ministers8.6
T-11S1E38A Drum Loud Enough to Pull an Emperor Off His Knees8.6
T-22S1E12Qian Locks Yixiang and Borrows Changyu's Husband8.5
T-22S1E14If You Want the Cub, You Must First Feed the Wolf8.5
T-22S1E21Changyu Reads Lin'an's Dead Aloud and Tells the Living to Keep Walking8.5
T-22S1E33Ten Thousand Volumes as a Bride Price8.5
T-22S1E34The Purple-and-Gold Fish Pouch That Was Always a Leash8.5
T-27S1E1A Butcher's Daughter Drags a Stranger Out of the Snow and Into the Next Forty Hours8.4
T-27S1E3The Marriage Contract That Trades a House for a Roof, and a Tablet Carved Twice8.4
T-27S1E4Ask My Broom If It'll Allow It8.4
T-27S1E6A Slaughtering Mantra, an Heirloom Knife, and a Plaintiff Who Will Not Arrive8.4
T-27S1E7The Yamen Tries to Bury a Butcher's Daughter, and a Hidden Marquis Pulls His First String8.4
T-27S1E8A Friend Walks In, A Cover-Up Lands, And A Bedroll Gets Washed8.4
T-27S1E10Three Steles, One Falcon, and the Question Nobody in Xigu Alley Can Answer8.4
T-27S1E24A Grand Princess Picks Up a Fan and Drops Her Cover8.4
T-27S1E35The Tang Couplet Two Men Trade Across a Threshold8.4
T-36S1E2A Butcher's Saber, a Property Dispute, and the Marriage No One Believes Is Real8.3
T-36S1E23A Siege Is Decided by Salt, Not Swords8.3
T-36S1E31The Effigy of Her Own Father8.3
T-39S1E9A Spirit Tablet, a Sweet on the Tongue, and the Marquis Steps Halfway Into Frame8.1
T-39S1E40A Throne Survives by Forgetting What It Just Heard8.1

Scores reflect our episode reviews. Tap any episode to read the full review, or browse the whole Pursuit of Jade season recap from the top.