The end of Episode 5 surprised me. Having seen the Cdrama, I'd been waiting to see how the Kdrama would depict the moment when Heon rebukes Sol Yi after she has ruined the stage show with her clumsiness.
What surprised me is how harsh Heon is by calling Sol Yi a loser. Up until now we've had this 'soft' version of the character, so I'd expected a softer version of the rebuke as well. (In the Cdrama, Jiang Chen only tells Xiao Xi that she's an embarrassment.)
Now, it could be argued that it is precisely because Heon has been such a mild character in the Kdrama that what he says to Sol Yi has to be meaner than a simple 'you're an embarrassment', but I also think the Kdrama gives Seon a rather flimsy reason for saying it.
In the Cdrama, Jiang Chen gets jealous when he sees the matching 'Tom and Jerry' couple shirts that Xiao Xi and Bo Song are wearing. Up until that moment he has known that they've become close friends, with Bo Song always protecting her, but with the couple shirts it hits home that Bo Song might be a true rival for Xiao Xi and that Xiao Xi might actually be returning Bo Song's feelings.
In the Kdrama, Seon has gone to find Sol Yi to comfort her and put a jacket around her because she has gotten her shirt wet. When he gets backstage he sees that Dae Sung has beat him to it, by removing his own jacket and giving it to her, and this makes Seon fume to the point that he calls her a loser.
Borrowing someone's jacket in a time of need seems a lot less intimate than voluntarily wearing a matching pair of couple shirts, especially since Seon has already seen Dae Sung treating Sol Yi as someone special for quite a while.
I hope in Episode 6 that Sol Yi will show the same amount of backbone as Xiao Xi does when giving Heon the cold shoulder. Based on the preview it looks like there will be the same plot development where Sol Yi decides to transfer to another school and Heon stops her by telling her not to go -- which is exactly what Jiang Chen says to Xiao Xi -- but since Heon's put-down was so much harsher I hope he'll do a little more by way of apologizing.
As I've thought about this series after finishing, one moment that stands out as particularly hilarious is toward the end when Asahi has put the comatose girlfriend of Tsuneo in a wheelchair and surprises him by grandly wheeling her into the classroom for a final confrontation.
She's still unconscious, of course, and wearing a frilly bonnet like a baby doll. Her head just lolls back and forth as he pushes her forward in the chair.
By this point so many absurdities have piled up, but this one truly made me laugh out loud, and it seemed to confirm once and for all that this series is simply a dark comedy where the goal is to keep surprising us by always stretching things just a little farther.
This drama is more and more unsettling for me. For Episode 4, I was tense the whole time and got choked up at some points. I'm not sure why.
The only other time I've had this kind of reaction to a series or film was with the movie 'Call Me By Your Name'. I was so obsessed that while it was still in theaters I went to see it multiple times. I'm glad this series is already on video to start with or I'd be off the deep end again lol.
I liked the most recent two episodes more than I did the earlier ones.
I've adjusted to the softer ML, and given the quicker pace of this version compared to the Cdrama I think it was probably necessary to place the character at a starting point that is closer to 'nice' than in the Cdrama.
In the new episodes the FL has become easier to take, too. The character has calmed down a bit.
After the masturbation and intense sexual come-ons of the first two episodes of 'Win Jaime's Heart' I was a little let down by Episode 3. It forced the series to start telling an actual story using actors who portray believable characters, and unfortunately with all the trashy hijinks stripped away that notion just teeters on the brink of oblivion.
There were some fun moments though.
My favorite was in the kitchen when Jaime dropped the ladle then simply picked it up again to continue cooking. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere. :)
Second most favorite was Jaime's friend texting him to say he doesn't want Jaime to get hurt again. Since I'm guessing that Jaime's EQ is in the low single digits, I think his friend was just reminding him to make sure he's the top next time. (On that count I don't think he has much to worry about with Win.)
Third most favorite was Heart saying that her open-mouthed food-binge video 'went viral'.
I know this will seem random as hell, but I'm shipping Tae Woong (Dan Ah's 'idol' brother) with Woo Shik.
I can imagine them both turning out to be gay, and although they haven't yet met in the series I've been wondering why Tae Woong's character was introduced in the first place. The chemistry between them could prove to be very entertaining.
Since this is a Kdrama I'm probably wrong, but a guy can dream. :)
Ok, yes, Bart was dumb to show up in Manila unexpectedly. In the scenes before he left home I was hoping that Bryce would be the one to get back in touch with him first, but in retrospect I can see how that's a cliche and in terms of drama it's much more interesting to have Bart just appear on the scene to disrupt the status quo between Bryce and Josh.
Still, it must be said that Bryce is not a nice guy. (And we did get fair warning of this early on when he first encountered Bart.)
It would be understandable if Bryce was thrown off or even miffed that Bart had simply showed up in Manila, but his failure to get past that and welcome a person who had been very kind to him was just awful. It shows how someone can have a lot of money and still have no class.
I also wish Bart had been less accepting of how Bryce and Josh were treating him. Did he really not pick up on their condescending attitudes? The scenes toward the end of the episode were especially hard to watch. That conversation between Bryce and Josh about going to dinner, and the way they reluctantly decided they should invite Bart, was heartbreaking. (And would Bart be expected to pay for his own meal? With those two, who knows.)
Will the series now become a tale of how Bart becomes just like Bryce and Josh? Is that the 'dream' at the core of the story? I hope not. I would like to see Bart turn out to be the one who impacts Bryce's life, and brings him around to being a more caring and likeable person and less of a snob.
It says something for the impact of the show that I'm still eager to see what happens next despite the fact that two of the lead characters are dickheads. (They're very handsome too, but for me, once I know that a good-looking person has a terrible personality the magic is gone.)
I'm getting tired of Kit's mind games. This "three-month probation" horsehockey is typical of him -- a slap from out of nowhere so he can reassert control over the relationship. God forbid that Mark become comfortable with his status.
Then later Kit uses the three-month probation to threaten Mark. Any guy I'm dating would get away with that BS only once.
So, clearly for me their scenes were a drag this week. Based on the preview for next week I hope Kit isn't drunk when he asks Mark to stay over, because Mark will be the one who ends up paying for it the next morning.
I wish the confrontation between Wayo and Padbok had played out a little more. The assertive Wayu was refreshing.
Just below the main poster for the series there will be a 'Watch Trailer' button and below that should be a 'Dropped' button (because right now MDL thinks you've dropped the series.)
Click on the 'Dropped' button.
On the window that comes up, click at the top where it says 'Dropped' and change it to 'Currently watching'. Then save.
(Then later on when the drama's finished, go back and click there to say you completed it.)
In the upper-right corner where it says how many episodes you've watched so far, just beneath that in red letters is the word 'DROPPED'. You can change that to indicate that you're still watching.
It's a cute series and miles better than 'Win Jaime's Heart', which also has a social-media pickup theme and is, in a word, terrible. But I'm not sure I'll remember much about 'Meet Me Outside' a couple of weeks from now.
There's so many of these web drama BLs now that good production values and cute boys aren't going to be enough anymore.
5 
6 
2 
And no suspense given to Golf's reappearance. Within the first couple of minutes Bank knows he's still alive!
What surprised me is how harsh Heon is by calling Sol Yi a loser. Up until now we've had this 'soft' version of the character, so I'd expected a softer version of the rebuke as well. (In the Cdrama, Jiang Chen only tells Xiao Xi that she's an embarrassment.)
Now, it could be argued that it is precisely because Heon has been such a mild character in the Kdrama that what he says to Sol Yi has to be meaner than a simple 'you're an embarrassment', but I also think the Kdrama gives Seon a rather flimsy reason for saying it.
In the Cdrama, Jiang Chen gets jealous when he sees the matching 'Tom and Jerry' couple shirts that Xiao Xi and Bo Song are wearing. Up until that moment he has known that they've become close friends, with Bo Song always protecting her, but with the couple shirts it hits home that Bo Song might be a true rival for Xiao Xi and that Xiao Xi might actually be returning Bo Song's feelings.
In the Kdrama, Seon has gone to find Sol Yi to comfort her and put a jacket around her because she has gotten her shirt wet. When he gets backstage he sees that Dae Sung has beat him to it, by removing his own jacket and giving it to her, and this makes Seon fume to the point that he calls her a loser.
Borrowing someone's jacket in a time of need seems a lot less intimate than voluntarily wearing a matching pair of couple shirts, especially since Seon has already seen Dae Sung treating Sol Yi as someone special for quite a while.
I hope in Episode 6 that Sol Yi will show the same amount of backbone as Xiao Xi does when giving Heon the cold shoulder. Based on the preview it looks like there will be the same plot development where Sol Yi decides to transfer to another school and Heon stops her by telling her not to go -- which is exactly what Jiang Chen says to Xiao Xi -- but since Heon's put-down was so much harsher I hope he'll do a little more by way of apologizing.
She's still unconscious, of course, and wearing a frilly bonnet like a baby doll. Her head just lolls back and forth as he pushes her forward in the chair.
By this point so many absurdities have piled up, but this one truly made me laugh out loud, and it seemed to confirm once and for all that this series is simply a dark comedy where the goal is to keep surprising us by always stretching things just a little farther.
The only other time I've had this kind of reaction to a series or film was with the movie 'Call Me By Your Name'. I was so obsessed that while it was still in theaters I went to see it multiple times. I'm glad this series is already on video to start with or I'd be off the deep end again lol.
I've adjusted to the softer ML, and given the quicker pace of this version compared to the Cdrama I think it was probably necessary to place the character at a starting point that is closer to 'nice' than in the Cdrama.
In the new episodes the FL has become easier to take, too. The character has calmed down a bit.
There were some fun moments though.
My favorite was in the kitchen when Jaime dropped the ladle then simply picked it up again to continue cooking. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere. :)
Second most favorite was Jaime's friend texting him to say he doesn't want Jaime to get hurt again. Since I'm guessing that Jaime's EQ is in the low single digits, I think his friend was just reminding him to make sure he's the top next time. (On that count I don't think he has much to worry about with Win.)
Third most favorite was Heart saying that her open-mouthed food-binge video 'went viral'.
I hope they get back on track in Episode 4.
I know this will seem random as hell, but I'm shipping Tae Woong (Dan Ah's 'idol' brother) with Woo Shik.
I can imagine them both turning out to be gay, and although they haven't yet met in the series I've been wondering why Tae Woong's character was introduced in the first place. The chemistry between them could prove to be very entertaining.
Since this is a Kdrama I'm probably wrong, but a guy can dream. :)
Still, it must be said that Bryce is not a nice guy. (And we did get fair warning of this early on when he first encountered Bart.)
It would be understandable if Bryce was thrown off or even miffed that Bart had simply showed up in Manila, but his failure to get past that and welcome a person who had been very kind to him was just awful. It shows how someone can have a lot of money and still have no class.
I also wish Bart had been less accepting of how Bryce and Josh were treating him. Did he really not pick up on their condescending attitudes? The scenes toward the end of the episode were especially hard to watch. That conversation between Bryce and Josh about going to dinner, and the way they reluctantly decided they should invite Bart, was heartbreaking. (And would Bart be expected to pay for his own meal? With those two, who knows.)
Will the series now become a tale of how Bart becomes just like Bryce and Josh? Is that the 'dream' at the core of the story? I hope not. I would like to see Bart turn out to be the one who impacts Bryce's life, and brings him around to being a more caring and likeable person and less of a snob.
It says something for the impact of the show that I'm still eager to see what happens next despite the fact that two of the lead characters are dickheads. (They're very handsome too, but for me, once I know that a good-looking person has a terrible personality the magic is gone.)
Then later Kit uses the three-month probation to threaten Mark. Any guy I'm dating would get away with that BS only once.
So, clearly for me their scenes were a drag this week. Based on the preview for next week I hope Kit isn't drunk when he asks Mark to stay over, because Mark will be the one who ends up paying for it the next morning.
I wish the confrontation between Wayo and Padbok had played out a little more. The assertive Wayu was refreshing.
Just below the main poster for the series there will be a 'Watch Trailer' button and below that should be a 'Dropped' button (because right now MDL thinks you've dropped the series.)
Click on the 'Dropped' button.
On the window that comes up, click at the top where it says 'Dropped' and change it to 'Currently watching'. Then save.
(Then later on when the drama's finished, go back and click there to say you completed it.)
There's so many of these web drama BLs now that good production values and cute boys aren't going to be enough anymore.