BadPenny

Short answer, probably not unless they devote a lot of real estate to them over the next three episodes.

This is on my watch list. I may need to move it to tomorrow. Thank you for reminding me!

And not even fan-service that was good. This was basically blah blah blah sex blah blah more sex blah blah puppy blah blah blah.

RIP plot, indeed. It died young and unfulfilled.

With episode 9 we have solved an ages old mystery of the human condition. Spontaneous Human Combustion. Because my hair caught the fuck on fire at least 4 times this episode.

I think I'm passing the torch after this to let other, younger minds shred this disaster. Honestly, I'm tired of writing reviews about it so I'm saving my salt for the final official MDL review. 10 weeks of watching this show find new ways to flush itself each week is just... exhausting. I've skipped doing semi-formal reviews some weeks they were so bad. So while I will definitely still be on the MDL page for this mess, I think this will be my last actual long form review/feedback post before the final official flamer. I have never been so glad to see the end of a drama nearing.

This episode opens with just a whole mess of Lian treating Kuea's inability to cook like it's a failing of his personality, and then clocking his error and wasting time having to backtrack. Nice one, asshole. It makes me actually wonder if Lian has moments of the day when he ISN'T feasting on his own foot?

And then at some point we get Lian's history. I was astonished Kuea doesn't at least know part of it. Kuea, babe, if you don't know anything about him, how the fuck are you in love with him? Ugh! Short answer is that he's not in love with Lian, he's in love with who he imagines Lian is. Which is somehow even sadder.

And in all the "let's talk about Lian", somehow the man of the hour never stops being dull as mud. I meant it when I referred to this being about as interesting/appealing as dried toothpaste. Lian doesn't have any non-boring deliveries. Zee, did they drug you for this? Seriously, if you need help, blink three times at the camera.

And the level of child-like behaviors and general incompetency Kuea shows, the longer he's in Lian's company (control?), is nauseating. I get not knowing how to cook but who the fuck can't tell their vegetables apart?! Kuea, that's who. This is the guy who is supposedly getting a degree in automotive engineering?! This is the guy who supposedly can write heartbreaking songs and compose engaging music and manage to run a secret house all on his own? Fucking give me a break. This Kuea barely manages to dress himself, let alone function in the real world. Kuea vacillates dramatically between technical skill, capability and cleverness and this absolute childish level of ignorance and incompetency. All depending on whether he's in the presence of Lian.

So much for Lian not liking "Doll" Kuea. Because that's who he trapped in his house, fucked, declared his love to, and is now panting over like he's been storing up orgasms for 15 years. Was no one else creeped out by the forced Koala routine? Or the admission that Lian has been waiting such a long time to have sex with Kuea? I mean, exactly how long, Lian? Because Kuea is not that far into adulthood.

When Lian told Kuea he wanted him to feel lucky in being engaged to Lian, I immediately yelled at my TV "Then why were you such a consistent dick to him?!" Unfortunately, my TV is as clueless as Kuea is and had no answers for me.

And then the real dialog inconsistencies started arriving. Lian claimed in one breath he didn't care what others thought about him/them and then literally in the next sentence Lian explains how he has to prove to other people that he can take care of Kuea. Sounds like he does in fact care what others think. More likely, they could not keep his character consistent for two whole sentences.

Yet, It was SO achingly boring. So boring that I was about to expire from second hand embarrassment on behalf of the actors involved.

Then came the whole lame sex joke, Kuea acting like a blushing virgin, and Lian ignoring that he could have been dicking Kuea all along if he were less of an asshole. Because let's be honest, it's not like Lian held out for Kuea's admission of who he "really is". You know, that whole thing the contention in their relationship was supposedly based upon but which suddenly doesn't seem to actually matter at all. Oh, and the "we might have to hide our relationship" conversation like literally everyone isn't already aware of their engagement.

I skipped some shit, then. I just had to. Thankfully my watch partners were also ready to skip Lian pretending he didn't just get his dick wet last night.

And man, I thought the "sexy" sax music in Gen Y 2 was bad. Nope. That bad homage to sensual jazz was high fucking art by comparison.

I will stop at this point and admit that I am still impressed with this drama's creators in one respect. They STILL manage to somehow flawlessly blend boring and creepy into a single mood. It needs its own portmanteau. Borpy? Creering? Nothing fits. You wanna know why? Because it shouldn't be possible to do. And yet... (points at Cutie Pie).

Then Kuea says that he's known his whole life he was Lian's. And that whole argument one user made of "This show doesn't have grooming themes" just goes right out the window. That's not the last time in which this episode drops hints that Kuea grew up under the idea that he was meant for Lian. But that one popped right out there at everyone and said "Hey! Grooming!".

We suddenly got a break, just when I was worried the show was actually a soul sucking vortex and I'd fallen into a trap from which I would never escape... Only to meet 12 year old Diao. A different shade of creepy, I'll give them that. But I have to say, when the show creators find a theme they like they lean into it. I mean, the rampant infantilization of the "bottoms" is gross, but they keep hitting on it like that's the whole sum of Kuea and Diao's personalities. Oh wait...

Then when we roll back around to Lian and Kuea (fuck, their relationship is so very uncomfortable) it's more moments that make me wonder how Kuea has survived without a minder. He needs a fucking occupational therapist to teach him how to adult.

And at this point I need goddamn pot brownies or booze or something. Because the kitchen scene with the rice paddle and the whole "treating Kuea like he was a child that Lian just happens to be boning", was torturous. The plot turned so surreal I asked my buddies if this section of the show was actually an LSD trip that Kuea was experiencing. Or maybe it was like that weird vampire hallucination. It could not have been more ridiculous if the rice paddle started to sing like it belonged on a Blue's Clues set.

It was painful to watch.

Lian then worried about Kuea possibly worrying about their living arrangement and how it might look. As though Lian didn't cause the element of concern when he forced Kuea to live there with him in the first place. Okay, sir. Whatever. Your token concern afterwards is just absurd. But of course subtleties like that escape a person when they're busy imagining their love interest wearing a nappy. And it's working. Kuea has been getting gradually more childlike since he was forced to move in with Lian, and this episode it was on parade. Just call it done and buy him an adult sized pacifier and a baby blanket, Lian.

The dialog on LGBT topics was lost in the pile of crap, just like the nod to marriage inequality a few episodes back. Not the least of which is because Lian can't decide one scene to the next if other peoples' opinions matter or not.

Diao spent most of episode 9 looking like he needed to poop really badly. Yi was a waste of air up to and including the moment when he left a puppy lying around for Diao to find, in lieu of using his actual words. Max acted like he was asleep the whole episode. Oh, and I guess we find out Diao's weird on again/off again backbone apparently is the result of a switch his family installed some time ago. And none of it matters. At all. Because it's not going anywhere. 3 episodes from the end and this plot is DoA. This bitch is calling it. It's dead.

*Ahem*

For the brief moments when the Engineering squad gave us a respite from the ridiculous, soft-core age-play porn that is Lian and Kuea's train wreck, I was left confused. Nuea is back to wanting Kuea? Why? You apparently are the brains of the entire engineering team, Nuea. How they functioned before you came along is a complete mystery. (Maybe Syn snarked his repressed way through doing all their work for them.) But just trust me, You don't want Kuea. His mind was sucked out by Lian and replaced with overripe watermelon. A couple hours in the sun playing football and he was already starting to ferment.

I mean, throw me a bone here, script writers. Nuea blew in like he had a PLAN. This episode he just hovered around making faces, waiting for scraps like he's a weirdly attractive buzzard. And no, Nuea's man-titties were not enough to save those scenes.

And don't get me started on Syn. (Me during Syn's cow wisdom speech scrambling to wake the fuck up.) He finds new ways to be pretentious almost every time he's on screen and it was cute at first. It was. But he's yet to outgrow it or come into himself on an emotional level and I'm bored.

Regardless, Tutor needs to renegotiate his contract because this shit is beneath him.

And I've said it before but I'll say it again. Yi, you need better friends. And talk to a damn therapist. Lian and you--that is not how friendship works. That relationship is dysfunctional, catty, predatory, fraught with hypocrisy and downright vile at times. The only thing the two of you have in common is that you're both adult males of a certain age that both have money. That's it. Oh, wait. Neither of you know shit about how relationships work, either. And you both seem to like treating your lovers like babies. Uh... Maybe I take that back. Maybe you and Lian deserve each other.

Whatever. I always come out of Lian and Yi scenes feeling uneasy and vaguely sorry for Yi. The double date/ambush idea is a good example. It's also something Kuea should have known better than to pull. More proof that Lian has pulled the plug on his brain and has the puppet strings in hand, for good. The best moment of that mess was Diao marching off for the second time in as many episodes. Diao, you go girl!

But then 'small dog' happened and the whole emotional momentum thing stalled out and I kept thinking to myself "Yi, this is what happens when you envy Lian's relationship with Kuea. You fuck shit up. Go your own path, because Lian is busy researching for a book on how NOT to do it".

Case in point the way Kuea finds out about all the financial goodies. The lamest, dumbest reason for him to find out. "Hello Lian. This is your subconscious talking. haha. So funny story, I just fucked you over, good and hard."

I'm left asking why the ending of this episode had to happen the way it did. I know, I know. That's pointless to contemplate. But sometimes I get introspective on why something doesn't work, or how it failed. Why did Lian and Kuea go downtown to Bone Town before outing their respective secrets? Why did Lian use manipulation and lies as a way to unveil the hidden parts of Kuea's life and then just never follow through? Why did Kuea fold and give in so easily to what has clearly been an unhealthy change in his life? Where is Kuea's music in all this? Tabled. Kuea's reasons, we at least have an inkling of, or we did. But Lian still has no excuse other than "I get off on controlling people and I'm looking for the right time to tell Kuea I'm a manipulative liar who owns his entire existence. But...uh...I'm not so good at putting away MY FUCKING PAPERWORK!"

I actually cheered at that point. I was like "Finally maybe Kuea will wake up and smell the teenspirit!" We all know that's not how this swamp is going to resolve itself. But we can dream. We can dream of Kuea waking up and finding his inner badass, racing bike loving, free wheeling, musically gifted self and going off to live his best life with Diao after kicking Jay in the smalls on his way out. We can dream that he'll brush off this pathetic, anemic, knockoff Vladimir Nabokov "Lolita" lifestyle. We can dream of Kuea dusting off "Kirin" and telling Killian Wang to go fuck himself. We can dream of Kuea diva flouncing his way back to the Dragon Lair and building a bonfire to consume all his photo-manipped Lian/Kuea images. (Ya'll forgot about those little nightmares, didn't you?)

But since none of that is actually going to happen, I have to admit the most exciting parts of this whole episode were the snacks my watch-buddies were eating while they followed along with me from their own homes.

Am I surprised by all of this mess? No. I called it all from episode 2 onward. Is there anything we can hope for out of this plot? No, it's way past the point when this could have taken a direction that was interesting or at all coherent. Do I care anymore? No. I have enough of a grasp of this flaming ball of cowshit to write my final review.

But I did promise my friends to watch until the end. So I'll still be here, still sharing my opinion and still trashing the absolute batshit mess that is Cutie Pie. But I think this is my last longer post on it. These take some energy to write and I always have to wiggle them in around professional and recreational writing. And if I'm going to carve out that slot I can just as easily categorize my ire in short post from this point onward and devote the longer review/feedback posts to my other watches at this point. Thankfully they're all panning out to be good watches.

On that note, if you find yourself dropping this, try out KinnPorsche (with MAJOR content warning for rape and other rough stuff). But consider skipping the MDL page for it. It's a zoo. I also recommend La Cuisine (whose only sin so far is a somewhat slow pacing), The Tuxedo (which I didn't like up until I really loved it a lot. Somewhere between episodes 5 & 6), and Fish Upon the Sky (Which was tropy as fuck, and hilarious in ways I absolutely hated but by the end of which I was a changed person who could suddenly enjoy 4th wall breaks and bathroom humor. If delivered by Neo, at any rate). Don't sit here wallowing in this bullshit drama. Go watch something that makes your heart a little warmer or your smile a little wider.

Peace out.

User "fayth2307" down below reminded me of the utter masterpiece that is The Miracle of Teddy Bear. Run, don't walk, to go watch that on DailyMotion. It has 3 eps left to air which will come down this Weekend. I was wrecked by how good this was.

Mick is darling and he brings a great deal of cute charm to Lukchub.

A very good point. It didn't take me long into the series to write it off as abysmal storytelling, among other things, but at this point they're just stacking up the reasons this is a waste.

Twice in that episode Kuea references that he's been waiting to be with Lian since he was a child. And the suggestion was definitely that they had been prepared for their roles. Especially Kuea. So yes, the whole thing was gross and gave me the creeps. When you have someone at Lian's age macking on someone Kuea's age, it can have powder dynamic problems. But especially when the relationship involves such blatant infantilization of the younger party.

They were on several Twitter accounts, but like I said, I didn't keep the links or anything. I have no idea if I can share them on Twitter in DM, and I'm not posting them publicly in a tweet.

Oh hell no. You made the right call dropping this hot mess.

yeah, turns out the "doll" Lian doesn't love is the real Kuea after all. ROFL. So Lian didn't dislike his temperament, he just was gaming to get that ass.

Yeah, that's where I've been since episode 8 dropped

I'm sorry Mash! I hope that this place can feel better for you all soon.

I don't think it's a matter of them being children and we shouldn't be calling people children just because their viewpoints on intimacy are different from our own. Some people just prefer romantic buildup before the characters in a show kiss. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's the usual norm in BL's, in fact. This show behaves differently than some viewers expect and that's bound to be less than well received by a few.

I personally thought the kiss needed more lead up. Not because I was expecting it to have romantic structure, but because I just feel there's been an insufficient amount of moments showing Kinn thirsting over Porsche and so the kiss kind of came out of nowhere. Not everyone will agree.

A reasonable assumption, but oddly, no. But I'm off to remedy that now.

Trailer? I haven't seen that one yet. I saw the original one but this scene must be in the trailer by Be On Cloud. I shall have to go check this out.

Mimicat, hon can you put this kind of post behind a spoiler tag? People keep forgetting that not all of us have read the book or want to have future events spoiled.

Oh, I howled in laughter. I was like "Dude! Blood isn't pressurized under the skin like that or else we'd start a geyser every time we cut ourselves shaving."

But yes, it was very cinematic.

hahahaha! Beer goggles don't work that way, Porsche my brother.

I love the humor. That being said, it's never too early to complain about a show's quality. If people don't like the humor, that's a very valid viewpoint. Just because we're rocking to the beat doesn't mean everyone will. And that's okay too.