Nolan Peale

Secret Fujoshi or Jealous Rival? Tune in next week.

I think you're supposed to cringe when he calls her honey. That is all sorts of wrong. But all sorts of interesting at the same time. Especially when Wang uses it to make his mother's young lover uncomfortable. While its cute, I don't necessarily assume that they are joking. All I can say is that if that makes you uncomfortable, all your internalized social and psychological systems are functioning properly.

Like a lot of Thai dramas recently, this series is attempting to tackle the impact of social change and make sense of it. Thai society is very hierarchical, to say the least. Contemporary society, especially western society, is very much about breaking down those hierarchies and doesn't have a lot of time to waste on deference and the rituals around supporting that. For instance, I can consider my mom one of my best friends. And I can call my boss by her first name, and everyone these days is supposed to have an "open door policy" and be frank and direct. That's not how it worked in the past.

The issue here is this category of "friend" and what it means. Inn compliments Sasi on being the epitome of a modern parent, where children are treated more like friends. She also brags that she's so young looking that others can't tell if they are mother and son or brother and sister. And she also calls Elsa, who is her assistant, her gay friend. All of those relationships would have been managed through mores and customs of deference to a hierarchy that have been equalized into this category of "friend". Unfortunately, if everyone is a friend, everyone is also potentially a lover, so now all the characters are confused. No, I don't think the writers are in favor of this. But are enjoying presenting the struggle that occur when the boundaries appear to be turned off, but are still there. Or the problem of trying to overcome boundaries (yay! freedom) while constructing them and keeping them in place at the same time (yay! order!).

They missed an opportunity a few episodes back to find out more, since they met a man who had returned and was upset about it. They are assuming that its finding a soulmate, and should be romantic. But what got them into this mess was very traumatic - all four of them nearly died and I assume all 4 woke up in the hospital. You're not allowed to kill yourself to get back, but it could involve a similar type of trauma to return.

Romantically, I’d say this is less likely to have a happy ending than a Friday GMM BL series. That said, it’s also unlikely that this will have the old fashioned melodramatic ending where one or both of the gay lovers dies. Most likely is the kind of “it didn’t work out as planned” ending of a Club Friday episode. But I don’t have a crystal ball

For Wang's next birthday, I'm going to buy everyone hawaiian shirts and plaid trousers, though. The men need some color in their lives.

O.K. where to start with Ep 3.

Regarding the debate as to whether this is a gay series or a BL series. Its actually a mainstream drama aimed at adults. In the US, this would be for the Masterpiece Theater/TCM audience, who might go downtown to see the latest play and hire a babysitter so they don't have their choices limited to something that their kids might sit through. It really is nice to watch an adult series that isn't just the same ol’ BL but with bare butts so it'll get an NC-17. There's really more to adulthood than that.

Regardless, my god, this is more erotic than any NC-17 BL. I need to sit down and fan myself whenever Wang stares and Inn. Jeebus, Lord, have mercy on me. If Shin in Minato's Laundromat had looked at Akira like that in episode 1, we wouldn't be walking in circles 10 episodes later. Love in the Air would have ended on the highway in the rain without the need to install a free battery.

Seriously, its nice to have Wang brush his hands across Inn's sweaty dirty chest without an elephant trumpet or whiz-bing-buzz inserted, like we need to be reminded that this is hot as hell and that No, he isn't just doing that because he likes the people around him to be clean.

I did a spit take though when Sasi announced that Elizabeth Taylor was her idol. I was going to mention last episode that Mam's performance reminded me a lot of Elizabeth Taylor. And it should. The character I think desires to be Cleopatra but is really living in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf or Golden Eye.

On the downside, I think Wang is starting to talk too much. I don't think they need to rely on him narrating events going forward. His actions and interactions with others are enough to convey what he's thinking at any time.

I’m guessing they patched things up via FaceTime long before X came back. X was just going to Japan, not some off the grid monastery in the Himalayas.

I'm going to guess that the cost of shooting at the airport was out of the range of their budget. Considering Q and X didn't reconcile there, it would have been a big expense just to have Q run through the terminal and not meet anyone.

I can't explain why we didn't get a kiss at the end of the series.

I'm going to guess that the fans who went to the theater got to see a version of this series that ended with an actual kiss. So I guess if I really wanted to see these two actors kiss, it would have cost me $800 for a ticket to Bangkok plus $5 for a movie ticket. I'll have to settle for what we got.

We probably could have had that revelation about Frank's motivation earlier, but then there would have been no story.

I still like this series, but the quick resolution made the last 1/2 of episode 4 feel rushed. They probably could string the episodes together and will a few more scenes make a decent 90 minute movie out of it. But I'd skip right to the end and make sure there would be a better payoff at the end.

Thanks. I'd forgotten that the "curse" is related to the eclipse. How I forgot that, is beyond me, since its in the title of the series! Although I stand my my criticism that it would be helpful if there was a bit more heft behind what's causing such fear of the curse. It just isn't a very menacing curse.

Thank you for reminding me of that. LOL. If there's a sad ending, at least the team behind it would be brave enough to hear some very negative feedback very directly from a mob of angry fans of the series.

Ugh. I think there must be a 2 kiss per series quota at GMM and they used one in episode 2 so they are saving the second for the final episode. Because there's no way that episode 7 should end with a forehead kiss. If it did in the novel, JittiRain might be the most timid BL writer in the market. 7 episodes to build up and release all the sexual tension and emotional passion of two jellyfish.

Yeah. The curse reminds me of the supernatural element in Not Me. The twins were connected spiritually and what one felt the other felt. Something which mattered for all of 30 seconds in a later episode.

It would be helpful if the kids sit around a campfire when they go off tree planting somewhere (it is a BL, so there is going to be an environmental camp trip sometime) and tell stories and lore about the curse. "Do you know how one-eyed Win got his name? Well one day in 1988, he was smoking in the boys room and a cinder blew into his eye. Damn this curse." It would also be helpful if the curse did more than just mildly inconvenience people in an ever non-escalatory manner. One day its a car barrelling out of control at 5 miles per hour, the next its a small planter falling over. The next its fake blood. if these keeps up, in 5 years, someone might get seriously hurt.

I’m hoping that this is just some status quo that they’re launching from., where Eiw grows in stature. Or that in some future episode it will be Cake who can’t physically perform a task that Eiw can. But right now, it’s rather irksome uke frailty. Cake also skipped lunch but managed just fine. Cake also got wet in the rain just fine. Most people do. If it’s going to be 20 episodes of Eiw getting sick and falling down to be cared for by his Seme, I’m going to throw up. That goes beyond “uke is a frail flower”. That starts getting to “gay people aren’t competent humans” territory.

Sorry, but why do gay people stop having relationships with their mothers? We often have more than one important person in our lives who we have complicated emotional relationships with. Wang needs to continue to navigate both. I like that she's here, just like I liked that Nut still had a mother in Miracle of Teddy Bear. Too many BLs decide to kill off parents, send them abroad, and otherwise just trot them out in a late episode for a coming out scene. Heck, even here, we've got a dead dad to deal with. Although, unlike most BLs, the fact that he's dead is very important as its a gathering of his mourners.

Likes this week
Probably the best episode so far and I hope that means that they are settling in to tell the story. Its a long series, so don't expect lots of movement week to week. But the characters should start interacting and not introducing themselves so much.

O.K. Santa's demeanor in this role now reminds me a lot of Bilikin. Not ITSAY Bilikin, but my Ambulance Bilkin, where I first fell in love with him. He's too young for me to feel a lot of sexual charisma emanating from his every move, but I could totally see a person spending the afternoon with this character and wanting him to be a boyfriend. In my case, I'm too old to be chasing after young people (they're too fast!), but I'd be thinking "why is my niece dating that dolt of a kid when this boy is available" and giving him her number and reserving movie tickets for their first date. If I had a nephew, I definitely give him that number.

There's something interesting about the way this series turns a standard gay YA novel story on its head. In the gay YA novel, its the gay character who dreams of getting away from where he is and get out into the world. Needs to get out of his town or neighborhood that's full of judgy jerks and off to New York or San Francisco where he'll be who he wants to be. That's not the case here. He's going to have to be pulled out kicking and screaming as he's scared of everything.

Dislikes
I'd be more willing to give them a pass for once again making Eiew both gay and sickly since they at least explained why he fainted. But once again, they just want to make this big contrast between masculine Cake and effeminate Eeiw. Cake also didn't eat his lunch before gym because he was off to see Lin. But he didn't faint. Just like last week, when they both were rained on, but only Eeiw got sick, they've decided that Eeiw just isn't physically competent. Its going to start pissing me off if they keep this up for the whole series. He's gay, but that doesn't mean he should be shown to be not-fully-functional week after week. (Thank god its New directing this and not Cheewin, who'd be playing this up for laughs when its just a writer being very cruel.)

I think the friend who stayed over this week likes Eiw. He's mentioned wanting to get to know him better since episode 1.

Peak is actually handsome when he isn't in a role where he doesn't need to be cute and hammy. Post-puberty is doing him fine. I'll say the same for Oat, now that he's finally lost his braces. Hopefully now that he's out of college, he'll have more time to take roles. I love it when I see the old Love Sick cast still getting roles.

Amagi's friend with the glasses is very, very, adorkable hot. In the Tay Tawan adorkable hot category. If this were set in the real world, no one would be paying attention to Takara. They'd all be following him.

The joke, as it were, is that Amagi is so tenuously tethered to reality that things that happen in dreams carry as much weight as those that happen in meatspace. Its supposed to be funny. Although, like you, I was a little dissapointed in his reaction. I was like "Finally, and UKE with a Libido!" Nope. Can't have that. His libido scares him. Phooey.