Feardorcha

Do not get me started on trans representation in Thai works. I will rage so long and so hard and so vociferously in every language I speak, and it will all be heavily laced with cussing and disappointment. Thailand has Jennie Panhan RIGHT THERE: she's talented, smart, gorgeous, authentic; why are there still so many Thai productions fucking it up? "Only Friends" did a decent job of telling a trans character's story but it felt, and still feels, like that series was well ahead of the country itself in depictions of transpeople.

Please, do try MoD again. Grit your teeth through the parts you hate, as I do think you'll enjoy the rest of it.

I shall be frank: it's dumb. It is. But it's sexy toxic fun dumb. I have spent my entire watch rooting for all the worst aspects: the sociopathic Top, the spineless Bottom, the I-Swear-to-God-Tong-Murdered-Someone-Once.

It's a good deal of fun, and you do mostly want these characters to be happy. It's just that your definition of what "happy" means may vary.

Anyway, scroll long and deep to find my episodic comments. I think you and I may absolutely sync on this one.

Out of curiosity, are you watching "My Stand-In"? I haven't seen you on the boards but I feel like, surely, you'd have views on that one. I'd like to hear your opinion.

Fair, and I get what you mean. For myself, though, I give a lot of leeway to Thai acting. They, like everyone else, have a performance style that is connected to and informed by their sociocultural artistic history. While I preference the more naturalistic modern styles of Korean and Indonesian cinema, and I don't enjoy the Thai broad style as much as I do, say, Kabuki-influenced Japanese or Kathakali-derived Indian forms, I do understand the Thai model and can orientate myself within it. So, I give kudos to Thai productions that bravely tackle engaging/complex/exploratory plots and themes, even if those productions have other shortcomings. None of the works I mentioned are perfect but I appreciate the presence of actual plot and plot-significant stakes that expand beyond "pretty boys in lust/love".

I hope you consider giving MoD another chance. Yes, there are aspects of silliness throughout, but it is, overall, a good story with an engaging mystery and compelling characters, even if the collective production itself wasn't quite up to snuff. Afterall, if we don't support the better content, can we really expect to be given the best content?

No sex in this episode. Shame.

I think the formula is for every twelve abysmal series, we'll get one solid good one. I don't think we've hit the quota yet.

Thailand doesn't have to concern itself with producing quality work. Their BL industry churns out complete shlock because they know their primary audience will squeal in delight so long as there are pretty boys and it's "cute" or "fluffy". It's so frustrating. There is real talent in front of and behind the cameras, as well as engaging stories to be told, which we've seen in works like AToTS, MoD, Not Me, and DDICfS, but brainless, low-quality glitter is what fills the coffers.

Well, I suppose everyone's got to make a living, especially if those quality works requiring quality budgets are going to get made.

This series is just boring. Reading comments here that the source material is sexually explicit just makes it even more dull. Why take that type of work and reduce it to this type of plodding, prudish series? It's not like BL novels are great literary works in the first place but if sex is all one has to offer, keep it in and add "plot" around it. And what is wrong with the leads? Salin acts like he hasn't even started puberty, and I have no idea why Sun finds that appealing. Salin isn't "cute" or "innocent", he's just frustratingly immature, and all his mincing about makes me want to throttle him.

And why are we spending so much time with the Board of Directors? Do they live in that conference room or what? This company manufactures jewellery not weapons, why do they even need to meet so often?

Well, maybe something of interest will happen next episode, as it appears the series has remembered its premise. The opening scene of episode one with the naga is still the most engaging thing that has happened so I'm looking forward to more sexy water monster shenanigans.

I'm here for the sex. I freely admit it. The plot isn't even in the top five reasons I'm watching.

....this thing's kind of falling apart in the third act, isn't it? And for there to suddenly be so much story, it really feels like the series resents having to tell us about any of it.

I need a Dr. Plakao special or spin-off or something. I have just so many questions about how this man is living his life.

The soundscape in this series is reaching "Dinosaur Love" levels of obnoxious. Just a ceaseless, pointless wall of noise. It makes an already youthful story seem downright childish. Can we please have sixty uninterrupted seconds of the actors being allowed to talk, gesture, emote, and enter or exit a room without all the ruckus?

Well, at least nobody sang this episode.

A definite decline from the first season, particularly as regards certain production aspects. Elements that annoyed me the most: the main characters feel shoehorned into their own series, the murder mystery reveal is weirdly convoluted, and the makeup is frequently appalling.

There are three primary stories at play in S2:

Story #1:
delves into questions of reintegration, following Fang’s Daughter as she attempts to establish a life on the other side of her crime and punishment from S1. Her story is a melancholy yet persistently affirming journey through forgiveness of one’s self despite eternal condemnation from the world. Her arc interrogates questions about what “rehabilitation” means in a society that neither forgets nor forgives, and whether/how reformed offenders find new footing. Fang’s Daughter’s story is a beautifully compelling meditation on the overlapping essence of criminalization and victimization, and whether absolution is an inherently external gift or an intrinsically personal choice. This is all a compelling character-study drama, but it is not what I signed up to watch. I signed up to watch a gory murder mystery. That brings us to:

Story #2:
is the actual murder mystery. The murders are beautifully gruesome but the obviousness of the perpetrator is frustrating. It’s so obvious who the murderer is that you keep hoping their identity isn’t the point. It ultimately both is and isn’t, but the plot point about identity is…perplexing. I won’t elaborate here but I will say it was rather stupid. What sticks the most is how, once the main mystery is resolved, you don’t really care what happens to the lead character(s) while the series, meanwhile, is still carrying on about them. Hence, the third story:

Story #3:
is about Fang handling the conceits of others; essentially, his arc this season is about the ways in which we may compromise our ethics to rescue the ones we love. Which was the entire point of last season with his Daughter, so…? Seriously, it’s boringly ridiculous. And the loveline between Fang and Reporter Chick is just tedious. S1 barely sold the idea that Fang is capable of having a romantic relationship that leads to marriage and children, but S2 is convinced there was ever any chemistry or attraction between Fang and Reporter Chick. As a result, we’re also following Reporter Chick’s side-story about purpose and ethics, which feels lifted wholesale from an entirely different script and only present here to justify Reporter Chick’s presence. Seriously, why is she here? They’re supposed to be a couple this season but it’s laughable on many levels. Honestly, you can skip any scenes in which our three ostensibly main characters are alone together in whatever configuration and miss nothing important. The series has to go so far out of its way to include them in the main narrative that you can practically smell the script rewrites from whatever original property this season was squeezed.

In summary:
Story #1 should’ve been a spin-off.
Story #3 is extraneous to proceedings and demonstrates how our main characters are surplus to requirements.
Story #2 is serviceable but continuously undermined by trying to make Stories #1 and #3 matter.

I get the sense that the first season was meant to be a self-contained narrative, a complete story with no intentions of subsequent seasons. In fact, supporting characters in S2 have to keep making excuses for/articulating shock at the main characters’ involvement in the story to the point it becomes comical. I am so disappointed that after years of waiting for the sequel, this is the best we get.

EP09 is already making me mad. We've watched Wandee be repeatedly charmed and seduced by all Yak's overt, cheesy romantic gestures. Yet, not only are we supposed to believe that they're not "official", despite all evidence to the contrary and how we've seen them communicate, we're also supposed to buy that Wandee would get upset about being aggressively wooed by tasteful bouquets and table-side music dinners?

Just stop, series. Just stop it.

It's long been clear that the series doesn't know how to utilize its supporting characters but these last two episodes have reinforced that the series doesn't even understand its supporting characters.

Taem has been a level-headed, practical, and aware character from the start. During the first 2/3rds of the series, she never indicated that she had a romantic interest in anyone, or was focused on anything other than her own educational and professional goals. We even saw her suss out the attraction between Yak and Wandee and smile softly to herself about it. While the series never sold me on Yak crushing hard on Taem, it did convince me that Taem wasn't interested anyway. I legitimately thought the whole storyline would end with Yak confessing out of desperately sad despair and Taem reading him an empathetic but firm riot act on coming to terms with his true feelings for Wandee. THAT would have made sense given what we've seen. Same with the Ohm nonsense; neither of these characters, as we've seen them, are the type of people for whom that car scene makes any sense. What little we saw of Ohm hinted he had an interest in Taem but in no way suggested he was a predatory creep who would press the matter; what we've seen of Taem tells us she wouldn't have reacted or behaved the way she did in that situation. The whole scene was an insult to Taem's character, bizarre for Ohm's character, tedious for Yak's character, and an insult to the viewing audience.

Ter is having the same issue. He is whatever manufactured drama needs him to be. He's not a character, he's an overstretched plot point.

There is an increasingly growing gap between what the series is SHOWING us versus what it's TELLING us, and it's disappointing in what is an otherwise engaging story.

I know we're only two episodes in but this series just isn't grabbing me. It's rather dull. A few of the characters are kind of interesting and it's quite lovingly shot (kudos to you, Khun Ratchanon) but it just isn't capturing my attention, for whatever reason.

The last episode was replete with stupid, this episode was filled with pointless. Ohm is even less of a character than Taem (completely forgot AJ was even here) but you drag him back out just to have him be a gropey asshole for...what? And turned Taem into a sudden damsel-in-distress because...why? What purpose did that scene serve? Why are Taem and Ohm even having any scene? Yak didn't even miss the ball so...what was the point of all that?

And is Wandee suffering from a head injury we didn't see or something? What is this indecisive wishy-washy mixed signals nonsense with Ter? Is he over him or not? Because literally every other aspect of the series says "yes" but then Wandee keeps barely resisting Ter in private. Again, why? We are eight episodes in; Ter stopped being a thing like four episodes back but he keeps going round and round in a cycle of nothingness because the series won't just let Wandee give it to him straight. I'm actually starting to feel kind of bad for the guy.

The premise of this series obviously couldn't sustain itself for 12 episodes but this third act is a real downgrade. Yet, it doesn't have to be. Yei has an actual problem, one that threatens the stability and likely safety of the whole family—why aren't we focusing on that? We could spend these last episodes watching the boys fight to save Yei, the gym, and their financial future, while watching Yak battle back from the exhibition match loss, but for whatever reason we're still dicking around with this "fake boyfriend" thing that definitively wrapped last episode. The preview for next episode is aggravating.

Did a new writer take over? What are we doing?

[Oh as an aside: congratulations, Thailand!]

If GMMTV wanted to do "MSP" again, they should've just done a sequel to that series. The references, the musical numbers—it's annoying and schlocky, and a poor substitute for the chemistry that isn't happening between the leads. Both Gemini and Fourth are playing their individual parts well but this hesitant, imbalanced energy storyline just may not be the best material for them as a pair. The friendship between Atom and Mudmee is the only aspect that's somewhat working.

I think I see how the soundscape was intended to be the Thai equivalent of the broad mugging common in Japanese acting but, holy hell, it is irritating beyond belief, especially when it's part of a scene that is already exaggerated or overly explanatory. It's like the series either doesn't trust the audience to comprehend what characters are feeling/thinking, or doesn't trust the actors to properly convey it. Which is unfortunate because the cast is doing their jobs well enough, only to be undermined by poor production choices and unnecessary emphasis. Just let the scenes breathe for a moment, give the characters some room.

Every time Ming shows up while Joe is working, Joe ends up getting some kind of finger-wagging lecture from an industry bigwig. I hope Sol punches him again.

I think this episode was supposed to make me feel sad or angry or perhaps just pity but it was the first episode where I felt nothing. It was an episode of people being subjected to the consequences of their own dumb decisions. And any potential emotional weight is just undermined by the fact we know these two are endgame. It was all unkeepable promises—Ming will definitely hurt Joe again because Ming is a narcissistic asshat by nature, and Joe will go back to Ming in like two seconds because Joe's spine has the structural integrity of a jellyfish.

The one thing I absolutely loved in this episode is that Ming didn't say sorry. Joe is over there rightfully losing his shit about how Ming ruined his first life and Ming's whole response is basically, "Get over it. You were mine in that life, and you belong to me in this one, too." And doubling-down on it by reminding Joe he's still under contract and therefore doesn't even have the autonomy to leave? Oh, Ming, you magnificently selfish bastard, please don't ever change.

I'm excited that next episode will focus on Tong's brazen machinations. What a delightfully shameless villain he is. That's how he got away with the murder I'll forever remain convinced he has definitely committed.

LOL, that part.

Using AI and using it poorly. The prompts must be an absolute mess.