John Master

A secondary reason to resent that cut scene speaks to the scatterbrained plotting that permeated the series. The scene where Wu Suo Wei asks to top serves no function at all unless it exists to set up a later scene where Chi Cheng concedes to the switch. Without such a later payoff, they may as well have cut the first scene, too. Aside from the homophobic attitude i diagnose, that is just generic poor writing and editing.

Regarding your "elephant in the room": I would venture to describe Wu So Wei as the most homophobic lead character of any BL series. And the cliche that "anal sex hurts" is both unfunny and demeaning. They kept that joke running for several episodes. And the way Cheng Chi casually rejects the idea of flipping for Wu So Wei screams that the filmmakers regard the bottom partner in a same sex relationship as "less than." Put another away: the makers of this series uncritically perpetuate the misguided idea that top = masculine and bottom = feminine. Given the priority Chinese culture accords to sons, the undignified "disrespectful" treatment is perhaps unsurprising. But that attitude was hardly limited to the final two episodes, when nephew tosses around "aunt" and no one speaks up. That attitude had been present since the start of the show.

[Ep 5] 12:50 - 13:15 Wait. I know that tune. What is that?

No way! Of all things! That? Backing music for a BL episode?

Shit. 100% chance that earworm from childhood gets stuck in my head all the livelong week.

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.."

I dont write reviews to defend things. I write them to apprise others what they might get. I trust they read them with the wisdom to comprehend no review purports to define a genre, merely express a take about them. Your rebuttals seem to contain no space for any other possibilities than the ones you allow. BL has great healing potential, for the reasons you state. It is, by and large, a genre that deals happiness. But your dismissal of more realistic material as forcing you to endure misery undervalues the healing power others may find from having their stories, usually rendered invisible by homophobic society, depicted onscreen. Worse, you again seem to insist that only series that portray queerness in the manner you deem acceptable have any validity. I have no beef with you disliking Heesu, disliking my enthusiasm for it, or disliking series that remind you of the time in life when you crawled in misery. I contest your narrow view of which queerness counts. Happy BL counts. Absolutely. Makes the world a better place. But it is not the only way.

If only, before you subjected yourself to Heesu, you'd read some reviews first. Then, you'd have known to avoid it. (The negative ones absolutely raise the issues you have cited.)

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That comment does not define the BL genre, any more than you do. It articulates a point of difference between BL and gay genres. One is grounded in reality, the other not so much. There is a reason BL often gets described as "fluff" or as "idealized romance." Indeed, the escapism that goes along with those qualities defines BL's chief selling points. Precisely because the genre leans away from reality. Heesu leans toward realism in its depiction of adolescents in love. That may, in fact, make it poor BL, as you contend. But the fact you seek escapism and didn't get it doesn't mean Heesu is a "pitiful excuse for a drama." Your individual taste doesn't define the drama or the genre. You can absolutely feel let down by what the series turned out to be, but the only one wailing in despair here is you. "Fiction isn't a documentary"? No, fiction is a mirror held to reality. And mirrors can be made to distort. Arguably, idealized, fluffy BL is the true distortion of "homophobic reality." But there is nothing wrong with a series that leans into reality rather than away from it.

So does Gate 69

The production company credit was a university comm aerts department. Is this a school project turned commercial?

Who is the actor playing Key? (and why is the MDL cast roster so sparse? )

I had already deleted my comments because i realized imhad the title wrong.

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"when the patient is near their death many doctors/hoapitals release them in the care of the family with some management advice. However everyone knows that the patients are going home to die"

This sentence describes the essence of what palliative care medicine practices. Palliative care is for terminal patients who have decided no longer to pursue potential cures. (Usually, after exhausting options or concluding the treatment side effects ruin their quality of life with little chace of working.) Moving to palliative care signifies an acceptance of death's inevitability. The goal of medical treatment shifts from "cure" to "keep comfortable." Releasing them from the hospital now often means hospice care. That can be at home but there are now facilities that accept only hospice patients. (My dad....aww nevermind. But the staff there were great--both for him and for us family members.) The emergence of hospice care may not have reached rural Thailand yet, since the series did not use that terminology.

Still, most of what Dr Kan did was palliative care, including home visits (which is a hospice-like service). The script might have done more to emphasize that only a small fraction of his patients requested help dying. The script made it seem like Kan and Orn were a two-person wrecking crew, but it us far more likely neither of them broached the "final" option until after the patient brought up the topic first.

I get that struggle with wanting to be objective. I set out to be objective myself. I have written two statements on this series so far (the comment above was the earlier one) and upon reading back each one I was startled at how poorly concealed my views were. Then again, I live in one of only 10 U.S. states that has a Death With Dignity Act in place. And ours passed via voter referendum rather than via the legislature. My conscience wrestled with this ethical dilemma already, prior to that vote. Neutral, i cannot claim to be.

Fun fact: when this episode aired in December 2024, only 10 U.S. states allowed terminally-ill patients to ask their physician to help end their life. In the other 40, Dr. Kan's palliative-care colleagues would be at risk of arrest if they soothed their patient's final moments in the same manner. The specific questions about patient rights raised by this series concern not just Thailand's legal system, but are kind of universal.

I wish the subtitles had used the phrase "death with dignity" at least once, since it seems as if the series low-key advocates for reforming Thailand's laws to recognize this expansion to a patient's right to control their own body. Right to the end, if need be. The confrontation(s) between Pharmacist and Doctor in e 7 did an outstanding job distinguishing angel of death mercy killings (no consent = murder) from death with dignity (consent = not murder). Thai law recognizes no such distinction, however; so, their debate has no bearing on criminality.

"police officer is introduced to confront the reality of mercy killings and whether or not they can be justified"

What the pharmacist did was mercy killings (no consent). What Dr Kan performed was death with dignity (consent). In their ep 7 showdown, pharmacist believed their actions were morally the same, a position doctor flat out rejected. Thai law deems all euthanasia illegal, so their debate about the ethics of consent has no bearing on criminality.

The nuance between a mercy killing as euthanasia and death with dignity as euthanasia matters. As Dr Kan points out, death with dignity respects a human being's rights to control their own body and to direct their own medical choices. That is why some jurisdictions have recognized a patient's right to terminate their own life if they meet specific eligibility conditions (such as terminal illness). The subtitle consistently used the word "euthanasia," so I imagine the new-fangled phraseology "death with dignity" has yet to make inroads in Thai culture. [Or the subtitleist is unfamiliar with the variant.] I wish the script had done more (and sooner than e 7-8) to explore the fuzzy line between the two variants of "mercy," especially given the murky legality of Kan's actions.

Your review was quite excellent. But I wish that sentence I quoted captured a bit of that moral distinction. "...police officer drawn into a murder investigation must confront the ethical boundaries between an angel of death killer and a palliative-care physician seeing out his patients' requests to let them slip peacefully away. Can either form of euthanasia be justified?"

It is an 1893 tune called Daisy Bell. Its the "bicycle built for two" song. In ep 8, a Thai title was mentioned that had a whole other phrase, so the Thai lyrics may not be a literal translation of the 19th C English lyrics.

The Thai recording also sounded old (would have already been old when the late professor was a child.) If anyone knows about that specific Thai recording, I'd like to know more about that.

Normally, I have mixed reactions to Eliot's reviews. Agree with parts; disagree with parts. And that's perfectly normal since two people should have different takes on the same material. But no need for me to review this series. This review sums up my thoughts nicely. Spot on.

Can it really be labeled a spin-off if the company uploads the "first" episode to YouTube branded as episode 9 of 12? In other words, does the company just view this addendum as a continuation?

I didnt suggest there was insufficient praise. I suggested that part of the review stood up despite the misdirection of the synopsis. The synopsis itself promotes the hooey (a thousand lives) that your review pontificated on.

Writing reviews before a series concludes is a risky proposition. Especially if you misplace trust in the accuracy of a synopsis. One which, in this case, may have been intended as a red herring. A deliberate misdirect to viewers with all the hooey about destiny across a thousand lives. The portions of the review assessing writing, directing, and acting retain their validity. (I would also praise those artists.) But episodes 6-7 destroy the assessment of the plot offered here. I'd make judicious use of the edit button. After the Finale.