BadPenny

This show gets me laughing and pisses me off in turns. But I love Tee and In.

I found myself relating to the rocking chair. So fuck this drama for messing my head up so much that I like anthro house furnishings. Also, the 4th wall breaks suck. And Phri is a tropish nightmare.

But the rest is kind of low key brilliant because I did not sign onto this circus expecting a murder mystery and I absolutely love that I got one anyway. Plus, the performances are all brilliant.

Tofu and Song are precious and worth even the weird anthro furnishings, and while some elements of the story do NOT make sense, I am enjoying it overall.

Okay, I thought the kid in the coma was recently put in a coma. The police are investigating it like it's recent. How is Tofu Tharn when Tofu's consciousness has been around in the bear for 10 years according to the TV show?

Yeah, no.

Michael has a right to his opinion. He's made observations, none of which were over-analysis, and whether anyone else agrees he's entitled to post them here.

I actually disagree with Mike on this occasion (with everything he said except for the part about Porsche being unsubtle with the drink. Because anyone could have seen through that) but that doesn't make his opinion invalid nor does it effect his right to share that opinion.

This comments section is for opinions about the show. Period. Full stop. No caveats. No qualification. No need to have an opinion of a particular type.

Hahahaha! I missed that! OMG! That's amazing!

I had heard that the previous production house was removed from the project because they weren't dealing with the darker elements with enough gravity. So it's hard to really tell at this point.

All we can do is judge it when it happens.

Then we're all on the same page. :D And I hope we get a good treatment of what will doubtless be a chilling and heartbreaking event in the story.

Mine too.

Thank you. I tried to be clear because the subject matter is so important to handle well and people who are fans of KP will have so many different directions that they come at the idea of Vegas and Pete and all that Pete suffers.

Honestly, I don't want to see them together. I really don't. I do NOT like the idea of Pete getting with Vegas after everything he's going to be subjected to. But, if they can skip trying to humanize Vegas with a sad backstory and instead humanize him with actual psychological/emotional growth, I will be a lot less upset when the inevitable happens.

Oh shit. I forget many users don't do IG on their desktop like I do. Okay, just tell us the name of your IG page for your BL content. We should be able to find you that way.

I think it was very realistic to have him struggle and resist. Honestly, he's a very free spirit, used to not only defending his livelihood and family on his own terms and with the power of his charisma as much as his fists, he's also used to not answering to higher authority. Porsche has also never come upon a force he couldn't fight or talk or fuck his way out of. So he's not got a lot of tools right now to help him navigate this situation he surrendered himself to.

He's given up his home, his family and his life in order to protect Porchay. But it's going to take him time to come to terms with losing all of that.

It's no different than hot headed or lively kids entering the military. Learning to bend to a greater purpose than their own will takes time.

And I get why the big boss would instantly cut Porsche slack and give him control over Ken and Big. To quote a long time friend of mine who is career Army, "When we get one of the smart ones with a dangerous amount of charisma, and potential out the Wazoo but who just won't conform easily--we either boot them out or promote them fast. It's the only thing to do."

But I also think it's realistic for him to begin to try to mold himself to the job. Porsche doesn't have a choice but to eventually bend, and he knows this. The best hope he has is to bend into a position of greatest freedom. And this is helped by the fact that he tends to be affected strongly by humanizing influences. He's an ideals person. So once he begins to care just a bit, see the human side of the mafia life, he will eventually give himself to it. And we see just the bare beginnings of it in episode 2.

You're fine. LOL

Because of length, I put this under a spoiler tag.

I would have to agree with you on principle, a victim forgiving an abuser does not automatically equal the plot being mishandled by the creators via romanticizing the rape. BUT! The rape happening before the characters fall in love does NOT at all exempt it either.

What legitimately would exempt the rape from being classified as romanticized lies exclusively in how they handle the tone during rape scene and the substance of the plot in the aftermath.

Tone, as we've discussed on the Cutie Pie page, lies in environmental cues like music, setting, lighting, and other forms of context. So that's easy. And they'll either fail and make the rape into masturbation material for fangirls who fetishize non-con, or they will succeed and contextualize the rape as an attack, as violence.

What I expect the show to struggle with is the aftermath. If in the aftermath Vegas' growth is sudden or abbreviated and there is no sense of deep, anguished guilt, reflection and passage of time where Vegas grows to understand the horror of the act he committed, then yes, there could be an argument made for romanticizing of the rape via limiting it's psychological consequences before jumping into the romance. Same thing if Pete jumps to forgiveness and then right into romantic feelings without the plot exploring the horrible consequences for him and the levels of reflection it requires to forgive that kind of act. Then yes, the argument could be made that the rape was romanticized as well. Because a rape isn't just that one moment pf violence. It's in every moment after with regards to how the characters face and deal with it. And how they deal with it plays an enormous part in whether the rape scene was crafted to sell the romance that will later bloom between perpetrator and victim/survivor.

The right way to handle it would be for Vegas to avoid his victim and give Pete time to heal while Vegas learns not to be such an abusive, sadistic shitbag. He needs to get right in his own head before he ever approaches Pete, even if he has fallen in love. And the right way to handle it is for the drama's creators not to have Pete treat the rape like it was okay, or less than it was, just because he's fallen in love with the person who brutalized him. I better not see Pete gulping down a glass of "It wasn't so bad because I love him" juice. I will fucking riot.

Additionally, Vegas' redemption has to occur because he realizes he's done something unspeakably evil and wants to change. But that change has to happen because he knows it was wrong and not because it was Pete and he's in love, or else yes, the rape has been inextricably bound into the romance and is by extension also romanticized. Because part of romanticizing rape in Media isn't just putting sexy music behind it. It's in erasing the reality that it was a horrible act of theft that leaves its victim irrevocably changed forever and sometimes leaves wounds behind that never fully heal.

There is a way for a person to fall in love with their rapist in a piece of fiction. I actually have a lot of thoughts on this as an author and am approaching that subject very carefully in something I am writing right now. So it can be done. But it can't be treated lightly.

And perhaps this narrative will get a better treatment in the drama. Ultimately all we can do is watch and hope.

I didn't read all the way down to the bigger drama going on here on the comments section. I am only responding to OP. So I feel like we're agreeing on the topic maybe?

I disagree completely. I found the comedy to be well timed, effective and not overabundant.

However, I will say that I hope no one discourages you from posting because of your view point. Your opinion on the humor is exactly as important as anyone else's.

I agree completely. There is no justification for torture or sexual assault.

If the plot of the KinnPorsche drama goes hand in hand with the way the book dealt with it, (or didn't), I'll be right there with you.

I am watching and enjoying the show for now. But I am wary. Because too often I see villainous acts forgiven by a plot built to give the perpetrator a relatable, tragic past. But nothing in Vegas' past excuses or diminishes the impact of crimes he might be committing in coming episodes. The only way forward for Vegas would be acknowledging that his past does not excuse what he did and then working on changing himself outside of any forgiveness Pete might one day grant him.

We'll see. I can certainly hope the show handles that well.

I mentioned that Pete was adorable. LOL! I suppose I could go pad that out.

Okay, I really enjoyed the episode. Not as much as episode 1, but only because this ep was basically a tableau of character introductions. So it was meant to functional as much as entertaining.

Overall the visuals were still very dramatic and sumptuous. And the humor was still spot on. I enjoyed the storytelling and I'm starting to like Kinn, which surprised me because I was expecting would take a few more episodes. I still adore Porsche, whose "no fucks to give" approach reminds me of myself when I was his age. I can't tell you how much I love that Porsche pantsed Big during their confrontation. I am in love with this character. He's my kind of asshole.

Also, Big is sexy as fuck. I don't like him, but I like to not like him because I root for Porsche. He's very well written and the actor just is so good with the scowls.

Pete was adorable. And suspecting what is coming I was like "someone axe Vegas before he gets to Pete". I liked him. And as I mentioned in another post, I liked that he provided insight into the family. In the episode his character bridges the gap between Kinn's world and Porsche's so that Porsche can start to care about what he's doing. Plus dat ass got jiggle.

Speaking of the second family, I do not like any of them, which means the creators did their job selling them as seedy and nasty. Also, the patriarch's ascot was like right out of fucking Scooby Doo. So I couldn't take him seriously.

Tong was hilarious. I honestly thought I was going to lose my shit because I had been waiting for him to arrive on screen. So when he leapt out like an Elton John LSD trip, my little black heart fluttered. I have questions, tho. Like where Tankul got a mermaid outfit that fit Porsche on short notice. There's a story there.

The one person I reliably do not care about is Perth's character, Ken. And that's okay. I hate Aussie accents so he's not built for me to love. No shame in that.

The almost military environment was unexpected and I'll be curious to see in what manner Porsche acclimates, considering he has no choice. All in all, though, I felt the setting and the characterizations all draw me in and resonate in some way. Which means the creators know how to set an emotional tone.

I rolled my eyes in three places in which I felt the show failed. But it was honestly just nitpicks of mine, not grave problems with the show:

1) the screen-less interface for choosing guns was stupid. We didn't need it. It was a waste of post production budget and the whole "internal bunker of war" theme sold the high tech angle just as well without the extra icing on that cake. It actually added a level of absurdity to what could have been a great, if cliche, "OMG I have a gun boner!" scene. And as a result, it threw me right out of the world.

2) The koi would not have died from Porsche pissing in that pond. the body of water was large enough to disperse 10 men pissing in there. And also, Koi, a variation of carp, are the dirtiest fish in the world. It takes consistent, determined intervention to keep them from fouling any body of water they're in and when the do foul it, they are perfectly fine until the water contamination levels are many, Many times the toxicity levels that other fish can survive in. Porsche pissing in that water wouldn't have even been of note to the Koi, let alone killed them. So yeah, it was stupid to me. I do get that many people may not realize how dirty carp are, or how resistant to filthy water they are.

3) I am something of an obsessive follower of fashion conventions. So the white tux Kinn wore stood out to me like a sore thumb. First, he was wearing his tie wrong. It was sloppy AF. Second, the white tux is part of a formal wear category called White Warm Formal. It's black tie rules only without the black tux jacket. It was created in the early 20th century as formal wear for "cruise" and yacht use in tropical climates. It's great for year round OUTDOOR events of any kind in the tropics and can be worn in the southern US and other locations except in the winter or fall. And while Thailand is the perfect climate for White Warm Formal, a nightclub is not the setting. That was a black tie venue.

Now, it's *possible* to wear a white tux to a Black Tie venue under one circumstance. If you want everyone arguing over how tacky you are or aren't, AND if your tux is off white with black lapels. However Kinn's was virgin white with white lapels. Under no circumstances was that tux choice anything but a disaster.

I saw some less formal and very sexy Black Tie variations like the Black Tie Fancy the one dude was wearing which is black jacket, black shirt, no tie. Acceptable and in a nightclub, very on fleek. But that white tux was a NO. That being said, this choice was obviously done for the purpose of making Kinn stand out in the room. So I get it on a visual level. But my inner fashion police was screaming "Halt!". Again, just a nitpick of mine that most people will not even notice.

So my complaints were not critical to the show's success. All in all, the episode was an enjoyable ride and I hope the show keeps it up because it's given me characters I can care about. And that's a gift in and of itself.

Pete was cute. I liked him. And I liked that he had a cool insight into the family. In the episode his character bridges the gap between the establishment of Kinn's world and the freedom and informality of Porsche's.

Yep. I am actually wishing for the impossible, which is that Kuea wakes up and moves on. We all know it's not going to happen. But... a girl can hope.