darkmanifest

The story really needed Chet and Pheem to team up like this, overcoming the animosity sewed between them by their parents, it was a real letdown it never happened.

No, those things didn't happen. I was waiting for the showdown scene up until the very end, no dice. Lots of stuff on the cutting room floor, apparently.

The other person mentioned that she didn't tell her father to kill anyone, which was the main thing, but I also think she never cared about Krailert having affairs, but that Krailert wouldn't play at being a good husband while he was doing it. She first told him she wanted to have a child while she must have already known he had a lover long before the ending, so she was prepared to start a whole family with this man having a side piece.

What pushed her over the edge into crazy was Krailert trying to run off and leave her childless and disgraced. Makes sense since she knew he was gay from the start. She wanted to play house with a good-looking, successful husband who would give her good-looking, successful children. Anything else he wanted to do in secret was whatever so long as he kept it on the down-low. Lot of marriages out there like that, especially among powerful people. Nasty.

Yoooo, I peeped that moment, too, but I thought it was a coincidence that she made eye contact with him, just the show thumbing its nose at us. But that little smile...she was gloating at Naran. Holy crap.

That's probably why she forces Krailert to give her a child, not just for the appearance of a happy family, but because she's given up on getting love in any other way. A child will be helpless to do anything else but love her, at least at first. She's going to have a bad time of it when that child grows up enough to realize how cold their home actually is, and why. But if Dhevi was a person who thought ahead, she would have thought twice about marrying a gay man.

"He chose to marry her because he wanted to gain power. He was not forced to it. "

Homeslice, what show were you watching. Her father killed his lover and told him he was going to marry his daughter, he didn't ask him, he didn't give him a choice. Somebody commits actual murder to remove the competition, they're not gonna be like "Oh, cool, have fun" if you decide, nah, you're still not gonna play ball with them. Her father murdered one dude to satisfy his daughter, killing Krailert as well because he rejected her would have been nothing to him. And he passed that energy on to all four of his psycho children. Krailert never had a chance.

You're a very talented writer and I would read an entire episode-by-episode breakdown by you in an heartbeat.

She forced Krailert to sleep with her. She coerced him with threats to his life and Naran's life if he didn't start playing the proper husband and give her a baby. Marital rape wasn't considered a real thing anywhere in the world until really recently, definitely not back then, so yeah, that's what she did.

"Me, realising that Dhevi is ruthless yet was able to endure 9yrs of marital Neglect- 😮😮 Ruthless to Krailert and even more Ruthless to herself."

Facts. She knew she'd made a really bad choice when she decided she could somehow make this man love her and she regretted it during the whole decade he showed it would never, ever happen, but instead of trying to fix it, save herself and save her husband from misery, she doubled down hard. Moira, woman who went through how many husbands to live her best life? Realized what Dhevi was going to do and tried to talk her out of it, but couldn't. I can't imagine Dhevi is happy with a husband who hates her and a child born of coercion, but like you said, she made her choice. Sad that it was the worst one, but that goes for a lot of choices in this show.

I was emotionally prepared for him to die finally doing the right thing, and Naran to realize the man he loved had true strength in him after all, even in death. It would have shattered my heart but that would have been so much better than the colonel finally finding strength and having it crushed all so he wouldn't be the cause of another lover's death. If he had decided to drown in the river just to spite her, I would have cheered. Go get your brothers to fix that one for ya, lady.

This show was SO CLOSE to being perfect. It was a work of art, including the next-to-last episode, and then the last episode did literally everything I hoped it would do, for every single character, even the minor ones. Even the elements that were difficult and heartbreaking were still powerful and satisfying, still showed how much every character had learned and grown, that not everything that happened was for nothing. There was victory even in the tragedies.

Except for the secondary couple. Wow. Way to build a perfect tower and then pull out the exact wrong jenga block to send it all crashing down. What even was the purpose of that double character arc? Ruined the whole show for me, and not because I was expecting happiness. I was hoping for meaningfulness, even if it was tragic and painful, not just things being inescapably awful for no real reason. But hey, that's the signifier of a serious gay drama, pointless misery. Sigh.

I read that comment, it doesn't illuminate anything. Of course the whole story is about how unfair life in 1969 was. It was also about people fighting back against that unfairness and succeeding, even if they had to lose things to do it. It was the entire initial conflict of Krailert's character arc, that he was trapped by the military and his marriage and so he resigned himself to lifelong misery, it needed resolution. That his arc ends exactly the way it begins, he tries to escape with his lover and is blackmailed into remaining in a relationship he hates, rendered it useless.

It didn't even have to be a happy ending, he could have died fighting for his right to happiness, trying to leave, which would have also been heartbreaking, but consistent with his character growth and how much loving Naran changed him for the better, even though he couldn't be with him in the end.

Instead, there's no narrative payoff to him standing up for himself for the first time, in doing the right thing in opposing the military, in refusing to be a coward who just obeys. He ends up exactly how he started, a helpless pawn. It served no purpose.

I'm SAYING. Only time I would have cheered for death, because at least the bad guy wouldn't get everything they wanted.

They did have something, but I think after losing Veera, she decided, if she can't have a chance at true love, then Krailert wasn't going to get one, either. They were going to suffer together in a loveless marriage, and she was at least going to get children out of it. Truly awful.

I absolutely enjoyed Dhevi turning out to be a villain who was in control of much more in her life than it seemed, that she wasn't just a victim of infidelity and loneliness, she had power and she used it. I just didn't enjoy her turning out to be a villain who got everything she wanted. That's on the same level as the commander guy swanning off into the sunset after what he did to Victor and Veera. There's no satisfaction in that. She needed to lose her husband but find a new one who actually loved her, not ruin his life just because she decided he was going to give her want she wanted whether he liked it or not.

I think it's more childish to conflate "complexity" with "pointless misery". There were many complicated elements to this show that were very sad but also made sense for the characters and the arcs they were set on, that were established from the beginning. What happened to the secondary couple was not one of them. There was no lesson or insight there, no bittersweet growth or development. Complexity means something has a narrative purpose beyond "wow, that sucks, oh well". Like everything else in the show did.

Don't forget that Yiwa didn't tell her girlfriend about the man she planned to marry until she was already dating her. I was like, girl, what? Wait for someone to fall in love with you so they're easier to convince to go along with your sham marriage? Holy crap. But it's okay, they had a fight and got over all that lying and manipulation and shit, so Lom should be just fine doing that exact same thing to Nuea! I guess, anyway, I won't be watching more.

It's my own fault, my best friend tried to warn me, but I was able to enjoy Love In The Air so I thought I'd try this. Nah, pass.

Very true and evident throughout the show. Many of the shots were just gorgeous.

Oh, this is an excellent perspective. They really did change so much over the years apart, seeing them have to renegotiate their relationship as the bitter, dangerous people they'd become would have been a much better treat than the "twist" of Lue's identity.