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FirstKhao do a rom-com... and I'm crying just as much as ever

FirstKhaotung were the first BL pair I started following years ago, and they've held a special place in my heart ever since. I'm so glad to see them finally able to do the light rom-com type series they've been talking about wanting to do for a while, and this particular setting is so cozy and comfortable that it feels like getting a warm hug.

I do want to say that the show isn't perfect, in my opinion. It's pretty slow, and it isn't quite as engaging as other light romcom shows. In some episodes and arcs the writing is somewhat weak and some characters can feel a bit one-dimensional. Conflicts are for the most part (with the exception of Leo's introduction arc) overcome very easily and very quickly without a lot of buildup or aftermath, which can make them feel somewhat redundant.

The device of Tiger being given the ability to talk to cats is also pretty under-utilized. There are many episodes where it hardly comes up at all, except for maybe a couple small lines of dialogue. I was expecting that it would play a bigger role, considering that it's a unique element that could add a lot to the story, and would help to develop the personalities of the different cats in the cafe and make them feel more like characters. For a lot of the story, the cats feel like kind of an afterthought. In fact, for a lot of the story, Tiger himself feels like kind of an afterthought.

None of this makes it a bad show, but there are definitely weak points. For this reason, it may not be everybody's cup of tea, and people who are used to seeing FirstKhao in darker, more complex roles like Only Friends or Moonlight Chicken may feel disappointed if they don't know exactly what they're in for with Cat For Cash.

Now, onto the good. This show makes me cry week after week. (Is that good?) Whether it was the emotional gut punch that was the first episode, the episode where we see poor John Wick's trauma from being harassed and chased by a group of children, the episode where Tiger and Lynx go to collect all of Korat's 9 cats, and now Tiger's mom choosing to accept their family, I feel like I cry every week. In fact, some episodes make me cry just because this show is like a warm, safe place to let go of everything for a moment.

I've seen a bit of discourse online about how JeMeow wasn't a great mom to Lynx, that she abandoned him and favored the cats (and later, Leo) over him, which caused him a lot of pain and affected him deeply. I want to say that's actually something I love most about this show. JeMeow wasn't perfect, and she wasn't always the best mom. She made mistakes and failed Lynx in some ways. If she'd had more time, maybe they could have worked through it and healed together, but they didn't get that time.

When we lose someone, especially a parent, we can get caught in the "What ifs" of what we could have done if they hadn't passed, but we still had the new perspective on our limited time to allow us to treasure them while they were still there. I think Cat For Cash explores that feeling really well. We see Lynx make the choice to love his mom after her death in a way that he maybe wouldn't have been able to had she not passed, because they both might not have felt the full weight of how precious and limited their time really was.

Lynx's path of loving his mom is shaky and uncertain, because in some ways he's figuring out how to move past the hurt and abandonment and love her for the first time. He can't contact her, can't talk to her directly to ask all the thousands of questions he was left with. All he can do is imagine his mom with him, imagine her being proud of him and the way he's running the cafe, taking care of Leo, and fulfilling her dreams of being loved and finding Korat's 9 cats. In the scene where we see that JeMeow had been with them in spirit all along, we can see this fantasy that Lynx has: That his mom loves him, that she's happy being with him, that he's loves her, that he's happy being with her. Something they didn't seem to have when she was alive.

Those who we've lost become more precious because we can't have them back, and sometimes there's a kind of rose colored glasses effect where we only want to remember the good parts. But the dead can still hurt and disappoint us, and pain doesn't go away so easily. Cat For Cash lets us see Lynx struggle to overcome his pain and try to cherish his mom in his memory, even when she hurts him despite being gone. It reminds him (and us, as the audience) that it was all real. She wasn't a perfect, idealized memory. She was an imperfect, flawed person.

All in all, it's a deeply moving, deeply human portrayal of the complicated and messy process that is grieving a parent with whom someone had a troubled relationship. It shows the good and the bad, and lets you see that Lynx and JeMeow were two flawed human beings who didn't always give each other their best, and it shows how Lynx finds a way to keep her memory alive while holding space for that.

To summarize, prepare to cry. Maybe more than you think. But you'll be soothed by a show that's like a cozy blanket or a nice cup of tea. It might not have you on the edge of your seat, but it just might heal something in you instead.

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