John Master

Worth noting: while the godawful behavior of the two dads in Match Point was not homophobic, their kids did both rebel. Tomthe point of walking out. And the writers did give those dads an arc where they had to confront "reform myself or lose my family." Perhaps when I slammed that series for the usual GMMTv fade (strong start declines into formulaic banality), I failed to appreciate how seldom any Thai series shows kids forcing a reckoning onto parents. Hmmm, nah. That is just one point...not enough for gmmtv to win the match.

Westerners in the audience can fathom it! For all that it (theoretically) portrays a semi-outlaw sexual identity, I think a lot of character behavior in BL is written to adhere to normative social values. In other words, the genre is less inclined to depict transgressive behavior (here, children diobeying elders, especially parents) than we in the west might be used to.

Test

The SingChimon "love story" was implied more than it was actual. Everyone happy to see Sing and Chimon in an actual BL story should look again. There is less even less to that story than you thought--though I suppose the actors and director should get some credit for the way all those long lingering glances (no dialog) SUGGESTED a love affair that was mostly in the viewer's imagination.

As for Ping....I like Ping. So I will just keep my cynical comments to myself. :)

That may be my favorite NC scene of all time.

Surely, you Theared up.

Incidentally, when watching the last few minutes unfold, I kept flashing back to Bobby Ewing in the shower. You and I are close in age, so I trust that reference to '80s pop culture will land with you. 😁

I didnt even use the word uke in my review because I did not feel like the performance given relied in any way on embodying the uke convention. He was just a regular guy who suddenly found himself caughtnup in a same-sex relationship. As usual, I have no idea how the source novel may (or may not) have imagined the character differently. By contrast, Do Hyeon occasionally came across as a walking automaton without any clue about human behavior. So...no mistaking that portrayal for anything but a seme.

"But an episode or two before the hot window scene, it was made clear that they did the deed then." See! That's what I had thought, too! I did not follow why this episode made an issue of the legal age change.

I do hate comparing series, but in this case the timing of having viewed both episodes within hours has the two scenes taking up the same space in my cranium. So....assuming you are watching Summertime (and if you're not, you can quit reading!), on the scale of how "gay [teen aged] boys in love act," did you find the "sex in the window scene" in e 8 of Summertime to be more realistic than what you cite here? Or did the blocking of that scene seem either beyond the ken of teenagers inexperienced at the physical mechanics entailed or too carnal to be consistent with the deep affection those two boys supposedly feel? In other words, did Summertime possibly wander too far in the opposite direction?

I've been wondering the whole time why Wardrobe Department outfitted the actors in suits (school uniforms) that looked too large for their frames. But then again, nothing says "growing boy" like school clothes bought one size too big. And that little detail may have been meant to sell the viewer on the idea that actual adolescents played the roles. (Of course, by the end of the series, those suits should have fit perfectly!)

What country gave us the manwha? Jay's workplace sexual harassment and need to "break" Sun and "possess" Sun felt more like the recent spate of psycho-criminal main characters China has passed off in the past year than typical Thai BLs. It was also, by the by, out of step with that one scene where he claims to Sun he loathes the "casting for favors" culture.

The finale was poorly handled. Ep 11 concluded on a dramatic cliffhanger with mortal peril at stake. Having Sun awaken in hospital, out of danger, then "showing" how the crisis resolved via flashback leeched the tension that ought o have culminated in...something more action oriented. The boardroom coup executed by Jay ought to have been cleverer by half. Too much was resolved too neatly for a series where Jay was supposedly masterminding some complex revenge scheme. The finale needed more of the "orchestration," less flashback.

I noticed this as well. I also think maybe the final few episodes ran a few minutes shorter (on average) than earlier ones. My theory: They were stuck with Justin in the scenes where the group is altogether, but I suspect they trimmed most of his character's "solo" scenes after the scandal broke. Keaton's screentime would have suffered as a consequence. Keaton's scenes becme collateral damage rather than the focus of any last-minute editing.

I endorse the general thrust of this review. It's more murder mystery than love story. The finale was a letdown. The mental breakdown, in particular, did not befit a story where everything else seemed to have been done in a cool, calculating manner. More awl, less rooftop, is what the finale needed. "It's not a masterpiece," you wrote, but let's keep in mind: usually when I write that sentence in a review it means the series was pretty damned good--and had the potential to have been better. If only the flaws we pointed out had not let us down.

We had a great time at the match. The atmosphere was incredible. Didnt leave ourselves much time to see Houston. However, we did eat well. Lol.

I will look into Me ad the Boy.

I agree that Mix had the one role that offered any actor much chance to show range. Having said that, I thought Mark invested this older version of Nick with a ton of emotional resonace. For one brief cameo appearance, you could see how encountering Boston caused Nick to flashback to the emotional trauma Boston left him with but then their as their chat progressed you could tell, despite the brevity of the scene, that time had healed Nick's wounds and we was in a good space today. Compared to the other "fan service" cameos the other four vets of S1 delivered, Mark actually uad some acting to do.

"I thought he would be gone after he took the money." For the amount they cited, it defies belief that a criminal case did not result. At minimum, an embezzler would be separated from his position with the production. Instead, they continue to invite the thief on fun group outings. Either do not write such a stunted story line in the first place or play it out to its logical conclusion.

I actually thought the way the later episodes portrayed "gangster boss has to struggle to accept his own feelings" contradicted the way the character was portrayed in the early part of the series. A post-credits flashback implied Gangster fell at first sight, and then going out of his way to recruit the "pride of the neighborhood" to work on the film makes no sense, except as a means for Gangster to get close with the boy. So, for me, not just a cliche story line--worse!--the character seemed to go backwards.

Oh, yes. You probably need to watch this one just out of professional curiosity.

They definitely laced some genuine trauma into the story. That, too, differentiates it from most BL crisis fodder. But with three couples and only 8 episodes, I'm unsure they gave themselves enough runway to deal with genuninely serious issues in a substantive way. The stunted story line about the pilot is a good example of that.