Feardorcha

Honestly, I'm surprised the scene directly after the Wave/Trin flashback wasn't Wave & Trin apologizing to one another & becoming bestest buds again. Immediate conflict resolution is this show's default. Maybe they just couldn't get the scheduling to work with Pod & Guy, & thus had no choice but to leave a conflict...*le gasp*...unresolved.

As with everything else, wish we'd spent more time on the Wave/Trin story throughout the series. That few minutes of story was, like the JengPok story, so much more intriguing than anything JokeZo are doing.

Also—I am so angry at how poorly this series is handling the JengPok relationship. It has made Jeng look like a manipulative sociopath, & Pok a pathetic weakling. I saw what they were trying to do in that car scene (& AouBoom are terrific) but the script simply never set the stage for or supported that type of emotional payoff. Poor AouBoom.

Anywho. Do we care about this debate competition? It's seriously the show's only real conflict but I keep forgetting they're even on a debate team until it comes up. Which is sad because I won my share of forensic competitions back in school & really love the sport, but this series has made even that aspect mindnumbingly dull.

Frankly, I'm more interested in Zo's Father's back issues. It seems he's in hospital next week. Perhaps those "back issues" are far more serious than he's letting on? Is he hiding an illness by lying about his back so he doesn't stress out his family? Will this be the ultimate breaking point of his marriage? Will he be diagnosed with cancer & realize life's too short to stay with that woman, no matter how much he loved her, & he'll abandon the farm, divorce his wife, move to Bangkok, & open a boutique farm-to-table eatery with a handsome semi-retired baker he meets at a dog park after adopting a three-legged stray he finds on a rainy night while strolling the Ratchaprasong Skywalk...

Meh. Not spectacularly good, not particularly bad. It's watchable.

This was a deeply disappointing series but I would absolutely watch a second season featuring Song Hyun Jae and Simeon. Those two had more chemistry, humour, personality, & meaty backstory in their handful of scenes together than Choi Jun and Lee Jun (and the final episode cemented for me that Lee Jun did not, in fact, remember much of anything about his childhood friendship with Choi Jun).

I still cannot fathom why they wasted so many episodes on three men lusting after Lee Jun. He was bland even for the character archetype he was. I could believe it in Choi Jun's case because the series did manage to portray that Choi Jun's childhood friendship was the single most impactful relationship of his entire life, so I bought that he'd be in love with at least his nostalgia-influenced, imagined version of Lee Jun, even if the actual adult Lee Jun was a non-entity. But what the other two, especially Simeon, saw in him eludes me.

I put Hyun Jae down to mistaking brotherly affection for romantic love, which can happen when you have that much responsibility for someone else's life, but Simeon seemed like the type of character who would find a guy like Lee Jun outright boring, especially in comparison to the dryly sarcastic, effortlessly charming, smoothly teasing Hyun Jae, who was able to spar word-for-word with Simeon and match his energy. I really wish we'd spent more time with those two and less time with the Gossipy Bitches in the office. I mean, we really should've spent way more time with Jun and Jun, since this was, in theory, their story, but, if choices had to be made...

Overall, it's just an unnecessary and forgettable series.

This series is immensely frustrating.

I am actively rooting against Shin remembering. I want him to permanently forget Minato, transfer to a University in Tokyo, and find himself an actual boyfriend who isn't emotionally constipated.

When Minato was telling the others to "lie" to Shin and say Minato was just a brotherly figure who loaned Shin a room temporarily, I thought, "That is PRECISELY what your relationship is". They were just roommates.

Soooo...why was he in the trash? Or, rather, under the trash? Just not even going to give that a brief explanation, a flashback, something? Nothing? Ok.

Lee Long Shi is a strong actor and I like him but the poor man just cannot catch a break. I don't understand why. He's got everything the industry wants in their BL stars—handsome, sexy, charismatic, solid kisser. As a bonus, he can actually act!

I guess he must just be stuck in an absolute shite contract.

Nobody asks or cares about much of anything in this series. I'm not convinced First is even awake half the time.

Stop fucking in the onsens!

Aside from that—what a waste of an episode. And I'm not certain how/why we're supposed to care if Doctor goes back to his ex. I have no idea why Mueang is so heartbroken because I have no idea what he even sees in Doctor. Who is Doctor? I still couldn't tell you one single damn thing about his character other than his profession and that he's DTF any time, anywhere.

Honestly, Mueang deserves better anyway. He'll make some lucky person a truly excellent faen someday, he should stop wasting his time on wishy-washy Doctor. The sex doesn't even look THAT great.

Also—it oughta be a crime what the Thai BL industry is doing to Lee Long Shi. Won't someone please rescue him and give him a solid role in a good series?

On the one hand, I like that conflicts aren't drawn out just for the sake of drama. On the other hand: this is a drama; where is the conflict? Did the writers have it in their contract that all issues must be resolved by the end credits?

I am so disappointed in the JengPok story. They both had valid concerns and complex issues, and we can't even get at least two or three episodes to see Jeng wrestle with his hesitancy to come out vs. his love for Pok, and for Pok to enjoy the freedom of being himself and not hiding? I would've even welcomed a slight time jump where Pok got to openly date someone, and Jeng had to do some deep soul-searching to find the strength to come out and make an enormous effort to win Pok back (or stay closeted and let Pok go). That scene at the football pitch felt less like Jeng having had a sincere revelation and more like him panically manipulating Pok into staying with him.

If Jeng isn't ready to be out, that's fine, we all have our own journeys, but he doesn't have the right to keep Pok in the closet with him, and if he truly loved Pok, he would be able to reflect on how worthy his affections can truly be if he insists on keeping his beloved a dirty secret. Jeng deserved that character arc. Pok deserved for Jeng to have that character arc. What we got feels so hollow, so unearned, and actually makes me want them to break-up for good.

Please stop taking Sun Woo for drinks; that boy cannot hold his liquor.

Ah, so we're just going to pack the whole series into the last two episodes. Ok. Why did we waste all that time with eps 1-6??

Please, please, for fuck's sake, someone get Lee Long Shi a new agent.

It was implied he died in a car wreck on his way to the rooftop meeting with Khunkhao.

Well, that was certainly something. I'm not sure what but it was definitely...something.

I appreciate what they attempted to do in this one-act formula, and the concept was clear, but it didn't quite work for me. Perhaps the translations? Or the script itself? Not sure but it wasn't totally unwatchable.

I am convinced Thailand, as a country, is mired in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, re: their wig situation. I have yet to see a single Thai show, of any genre or budget, manage a decent wig. Not even a great wig, just a decent one. A wig that doesn't feel like it should have its own title card in the opening credits.

They even have Ai Yu Fan in this thing! Is she playing the same 'Amy' from "Plus & Minus"? When are Max Lin and Shi Cheng Xuan showing up? Or are we just going to see cameos from actors that played characters in only the Li Pei Yu adaptions? I think the "P&M" leads should get a cameo. Ai Yu Fan was in that and "Be Loved In House", and the "Be Loved In House" leads got a cameo there. Actually, I think every single actor to have appeared on screen so far has had a lead, supporting, or cameo role in two or more of the various series of everyone else in the cast.

Fingers-crossed for a parade of cameos from Taiwan's A+ BLsters.

Bai Zong Yi is 17, a year over Taiwan's age of consent, in his final year of high school, and nearing his 18th birthday. He is also wholly independent and completely self-supporting. By every measure save having reached the age of majority (which was lowered from 20 to 18 only a few years ago), Bai Zong Yi is an Adult capable—culturally, mentally, emotionally, and legally—of making his own free choices about his love life, including if he's ready for a relationship and how far that readiness goes.

I really tried to make that onsen scene work for me by pretending it was LeoFiat but...this show really has destroyed all the fire & chemistry of & between JaFirst.

Still no idea when, why, or how Mueang & Doctor are a "couple" but, honestly, I don't mind. Sex appears to be their dialogue of choice, & it's actually rather refreshing to not be subjected to a fluffy romance simply to "justify" sexual desire. Seems like next week they may actually be forced to use their words; I hope it is immediately followed by them using their bodies, as their NC scenes are the best thing about this series.

Well, second-best now, after all that beautiful snow. We could spend the last few episodes in snow-blanketed Japan and I'd give the show five stars for the scenery alone.

Oh for fuck's sake.