CapitalW

In Chinese society is it possible for a parent to prevent their adult child from marrying the person they love?

There seems to be so much fear in the comments here about Chen Ting being able to stop LX's marriage to JJ, but can't he just tell her to buzz off (especially since his dad is on his side)?

And this is even setting aside the fact that she abandoned the family.

Great analysis. I think the show does a nice job of setting up the contrast between the two mothers. They both abandoned their children but the similarities end there.

Chen Ting did something really terrible, which was to project her own guilt (which you lay out so eloquently, like a prosecutor in court) onto her son. There's none of that kind of abuse from He Mei.

This is a wonderful , thoughtful review.

As you probably know, a lot of people believe the last episode shows Hao Ting utterly incapable of moving on after Xi Gu's death and preparing to commit suicide. It's been a while since I saw it, but I think in the scene with the Xi Gu lookalike he ends up giving the guy all of his climbing equipment? And the trek into the Himalayas is so that Hao Ting will be as close to the stars as possible when he dies. There are additional clues that others have cited that I can't remember right now.

Wayne's performance in the final episode is outstanding. Who would imagine that the jokester in the early episodes would undergo such a transformation? Wayne makes us believe it.

LMAO .. I wish you could hear me actually laughing right now at how stupid I am.

It's a clip from "Find Yourself" ... no wonder I didn't recognize the woman!

I'm an idiot. Sorry!

It was on youtube without subtitles ... i will see if i can find it in my history

I wouldn't be surprised if the ratio is 80:20, women to men.

You've expressed my own thoughts very well. I think the feelings were there, she just hadn't made sense of them until he started his pursuit. From there it wasn't a matter of developing feelings but of finally making sense of them.

Oh no! The nosy dentist is one of the most annoying characters.

There's a preview out there showing LX in formal attire at night, watching from a distance as a woman is comforted by a man. I think he has chased after her, but after watching them for a moment he turns around and walks in the other direction.

Along the way he passes a woman in a gown. I honestly couldn't tell who she is. Now I'm wondering if that's the nosy dentist!

GagaOOLala

Without fail, even when rewatching certain scenes

Then you are in good company here. :)

I think she might have gone into hiding because of ZQ's father, and cut all ties to ensure he couldn't find her. She left ZQ with HC so that he wouldn't have to suffer any consequences if the worst happened.

It might be 20/20 hindsight, but when I rewatch the early scenes I think I can see where ZQ's mom is subtly observing HC as he interacts with the young ZQ, almost like she's evaluating his suitability to become ZQ's surrogate dad. HC was auditioning but didn't know it.

What I've read elsewhere on here is that the reason ZQ's dad doesn't care about ZQ anymore is that the infertile second wife was finally able to get pregnant. Being no longer necessary as an heir, ZQ got tossed aside ... again.

ZQ has such deep abandonment issues that I think his only security would come from on being on HC and JJ's family registry. I'm the least expert but I think he can definitely do that if his mom marries HC, but could he also be legally adopted by HC (even though he's an adult)?

I think it's a spectrum. At one end are the people you describe and at the other there are the people who don't blame others for anything and only blame themselves -- and that includes taking responsibility for other people. It's a bit like ACOA (Adult Child of an Alcoholic) syndrome. Children of alcoholics often grow up to be very focused on making other people happy, and will feel responsible for things they shouldn't. Like, if their lover cheats on them, the first thing they'll wonder about is what they did to make them cheat. All the bad things that happen to them are somehow due to their own personal failure.

For me, empathy for Chen Ting is a hard sell. I'm afraid I do criticize her for becoming a mother and then leaving, and making her son feel guilty over something that was so beyond his brain development that he was literally incapable of grasping it. She traumatized him for life. Then she doubled down by never reaching out to him again, even after she had recovered and become sane enough to remarry and have another kid.

(And she tripled down by letting LX be the one to care for her as she recovered, when she was wealthy enough to hire a live-in caretaker.)

Hei Mei is another matter. I agree that she is a good mother. I suspect that what she did in giving up ZQ and disappearing has something to do with ZQ's father. We might learn that she was basically in hiding and wanted to keep ZQ safe, and once the pressure was finally off her she didn't know how to make things right.

The fact that she moved back to the same city as ZQ is, I believe, indicative of an instinct to reconcile. She just hasn't figured out how, and until she does she'll get defensive with anyone who sticks their nose in her business or, god forbid, judges her. She wants to do it on her own terms.

Translation question: in the latest episode I saw, JJ keeps reassuring LX that she "pities" him or "will pity" him.

Is that a mistranslation? Should the word be something like "empathize"?

I kept waiting for LX to react negatively to the idea of being pitied (like ZQ does), but he seemed rather pleased by it.

I'd like to watch this because of Ji Soo but the comments are making me hesitate lol

It’s funny because we all know the near-miss or interrupted kiss is a common thing in Asian dramas, and most of the time we just chuckle because we know that eventually the kiss will happen for real. But in Still 2gether? I’m not so sure. :)

I totally get your point, but if they take 'straight-acting' to the extent that they avoid touching in private too, that just seems weird to me. I'm sure "some" relationships go on that way (especially couples who've been together for many years) but not when it's two fit and handsome college-aged guys who in real life would be horned up 24x7.

I think they wanted to give Win another opportunity for a big emotional scene. That along with the Pocky kiss in Ep 2 make Still 2gether feel a bit like a Greatest Hits collection for fans.

More and more I'm thinking it is primarily intended for fan service.

It's like the first episode was used to do away with the complaints about the first season, which served the dual purpose of appeasing the nay-sayers while also reassuring fans that all was well and it was okay to still love the boys. After that the series could get around to its main goal which was to give the believers a weekly soft serving of Bright and Win.

These guys are really, really popular. Behind the scenes the Still 2gether crew might not give a rat's ass about any of its flaws. Bright and Win will come out of this with their fan base solidified, and that will clear the way for them to do other projects in the future.