Multilicus
Poland
This review may contain spoilers
Awesome show – for about 90% of the time
===This section is spoiler-free===
I liked “Vice Versa” and I liked JimmySea even more. Now I adore them. Their performances in “Last Twilight” are great and a must-see for all BL fans. The show itself is wonderful, with a well-crafted script, which gives a lot of time for the development of characters and their relationships. This does not mean it’s a “slow burn”: the series has a very strong start with a well done introduction of the cast and characters; it stays smart up until the last minutes of ep. 11. What follows – the ep. 11 finale as well as ep. 12 – is a big letdown; I was baffled by how bad, in comparison to the rest of the series, is was. More on that in the spoilers section below.
The script and JimmySea’s chemistry resulted in several great, deeply emotional scenes, which used Day’s blindness in a clever way; this was particularly well done in the final scenes of ep. 4 and ep. 9 (probably the best episode of the show).
“Last Twilight” has a great soundtrack – all 5 songs performed by GMMTV artists are very good, “ภาพสุดท้าย” by Jakrapatr Kaewpanpong is by far the strongest of them (btw: although the title of this song in English was given as “Last Twilight”, Google Translate and similar apps say it’s actually ‘last picture’ or ‘final image’ – which makes more sense than ‘last twilight’). Sadly the same cannot be said about the music used in the show, which is very uneven. The aforementioned final scene of ep. 4 has a great score, but there is a lot of scenes with needlessly loud and “dramatic” music used to underline their importance and/or generate an emotional response from the audience (as if the producers were not sure whether the audience will be intelligent enough to recognize what to feel while watching these scenes). Fortunately there is plenty of quiet moments and scenes to balance those loud and noisy ones.
Rating “Last Twilight” is tough as for almost 11 episodes it’s great, a 8.5 or more, but gets to 7.0 or less in the last minutes of ep. 11 and afterwards. As a JimmySea fan I’m giving it a 8.5 and regret this is not fully deserved (however a 8.0 would be unfair).
===Warning: spoilers below===
No idea what happened there, but minutes before ep. 11 ended the show stopped making sense to me. Maybe P’Aof and other showrunners decided that the “curse” of the penultimate episode must show itself and spoil the fun, maybe they wanted to generate drama, maybe something else pushed them to it – they made the main couple break up. Storywise it made no sense and basically it came out of nothing: up until that point Mhok’s and Day’s relationship was getting stronger and better, with virtually no sign of weakening – not to mention a break up. Day adjusted to being blind, Mhok got a new job and they seemed to be on their best way to be a stable, happy couple, developing their relationship with time. Where did the break up come from? I know that a “reason” for it is given in ep. 11: Day feels that Mhok “pities” him (which, for whatever reason, Mhok confirms in ep. 12), but it makes even less sense. How come it’s “pity” and definitely not love nor fear of losing Day (as he lost his sister) that made Mhok want to stay with Day instead of becoming a chef in Hawaii? Is there a difference between love, fear and pity or is the script deliberately confusing in this regard – because a pretext for the break up was needed? Note that Day broke up with Mhok within minutes of finding out about Mhok not taking the job in Hawaii – there was no discussion, no talking it over, no build up; Day made a 180 on Mhok and told him to go away. They both still loved each other (as we are told later), but had no contact with each other for 3 years, with Day blocking Mhok on social media. Once they meet after that time, however, they … become a couple again. What changed during those 3 years? How did the main characters change? What happened that Day agreed to be with Mhok again? Is Mhok living and working on Hawaii, visiting Day from time to time – is that the arrangement by the end of ep. 12? If so, why wasn’t it possible 3 years earlier? And why did he still fear Mhok would “pity” him? It may seems odd to dwell on the “pity” issue, but since this is the only reason for Day breaking up with Mhok (and the show having a time jump) – it should be explained. No explanation is given, however, and the issue is not resolved. 11 episodes of building a relationship and a few minutes to ruin it, because drama was needed; that’s some really sloppy and lazy writing. I’m not saying that Day and Mhok could not break up – I’m saying that a development like this needs to be justified, make sense in the show as well as fit the characters. Note that Day matured a lot from a spoiled, somewhat angry brat in ep. 1 to a self-aware adult who accepted his blindness in ep. 11 – and then he turned back into that brat to dump Mhok; this radical regression was necessary, as the mature Day from ep. 11 wouldn’t break up with Mhok.
There are similarities between ep. 12 of “Last Twilight” and ep. 10 of “A Tale of 1000 Stars”: the main couple breaks up/separates for a longer time, but later reunites; the separation/break up happen for no good reason and serve no purpose – the characters don’t develop, change nor become more mature. Even if they wanted – they couldn’t, as the years of separation happen entirely off screen. Tian from ATOTS “had” to obey his parents and go to study in the US; this is the same Tian who ditched his parents in ep. 1 and showed no sign of obedience or respect for them for the entire series – he became “respectful” only when the script needed it, probably because someone decided that splitting the main couple will increase drama (who could forget the tear-jerking airport scene?). Not only was it useless storywise, but also seemed disrespectful towards the audience: the love story was slowly developed over 9 episodes only to be interrupted with a pointless time jump of 2 years after which … we got the same characters as before the split. The same happened in “Last Twilight” and I’m beginning to suspect that P’Aof loves those pointless time jumps (remember last episode of “Bad Buddy”?). What a disappointing way to end a great show.
I liked “Vice Versa” and I liked JimmySea even more. Now I adore them. Their performances in “Last Twilight” are great and a must-see for all BL fans. The show itself is wonderful, with a well-crafted script, which gives a lot of time for the development of characters and their relationships. This does not mean it’s a “slow burn”: the series has a very strong start with a well done introduction of the cast and characters; it stays smart up until the last minutes of ep. 11. What follows – the ep. 11 finale as well as ep. 12 – is a big letdown; I was baffled by how bad, in comparison to the rest of the series, is was. More on that in the spoilers section below.
The script and JimmySea’s chemistry resulted in several great, deeply emotional scenes, which used Day’s blindness in a clever way; this was particularly well done in the final scenes of ep. 4 and ep. 9 (probably the best episode of the show).
“Last Twilight” has a great soundtrack – all 5 songs performed by GMMTV artists are very good, “ภาพสุดท้าย” by Jakrapatr Kaewpanpong is by far the strongest of them (btw: although the title of this song in English was given as “Last Twilight”, Google Translate and similar apps say it’s actually ‘last picture’ or ‘final image’ – which makes more sense than ‘last twilight’). Sadly the same cannot be said about the music used in the show, which is very uneven. The aforementioned final scene of ep. 4 has a great score, but there is a lot of scenes with needlessly loud and “dramatic” music used to underline their importance and/or generate an emotional response from the audience (as if the producers were not sure whether the audience will be intelligent enough to recognize what to feel while watching these scenes). Fortunately there is plenty of quiet moments and scenes to balance those loud and noisy ones.
Rating “Last Twilight” is tough as for almost 11 episodes it’s great, a 8.5 or more, but gets to 7.0 or less in the last minutes of ep. 11 and afterwards. As a JimmySea fan I’m giving it a 8.5 and regret this is not fully deserved (however a 8.0 would be unfair).
===Warning: spoilers below===
No idea what happened there, but minutes before ep. 11 ended the show stopped making sense to me. Maybe P’Aof and other showrunners decided that the “curse” of the penultimate episode must show itself and spoil the fun, maybe they wanted to generate drama, maybe something else pushed them to it – they made the main couple break up. Storywise it made no sense and basically it came out of nothing: up until that point Mhok’s and Day’s relationship was getting stronger and better, with virtually no sign of weakening – not to mention a break up. Day adjusted to being blind, Mhok got a new job and they seemed to be on their best way to be a stable, happy couple, developing their relationship with time. Where did the break up come from? I know that a “reason” for it is given in ep. 11: Day feels that Mhok “pities” him (which, for whatever reason, Mhok confirms in ep. 12), but it makes even less sense. How come it’s “pity” and definitely not love nor fear of losing Day (as he lost his sister) that made Mhok want to stay with Day instead of becoming a chef in Hawaii? Is there a difference between love, fear and pity or is the script deliberately confusing in this regard – because a pretext for the break up was needed? Note that Day broke up with Mhok within minutes of finding out about Mhok not taking the job in Hawaii – there was no discussion, no talking it over, no build up; Day made a 180 on Mhok and told him to go away. They both still loved each other (as we are told later), but had no contact with each other for 3 years, with Day blocking Mhok on social media. Once they meet after that time, however, they … become a couple again. What changed during those 3 years? How did the main characters change? What happened that Day agreed to be with Mhok again? Is Mhok living and working on Hawaii, visiting Day from time to time – is that the arrangement by the end of ep. 12? If so, why wasn’t it possible 3 years earlier? And why did he still fear Mhok would “pity” him? It may seems odd to dwell on the “pity” issue, but since this is the only reason for Day breaking up with Mhok (and the show having a time jump) – it should be explained. No explanation is given, however, and the issue is not resolved. 11 episodes of building a relationship and a few minutes to ruin it, because drama was needed; that’s some really sloppy and lazy writing. I’m not saying that Day and Mhok could not break up – I’m saying that a development like this needs to be justified, make sense in the show as well as fit the characters. Note that Day matured a lot from a spoiled, somewhat angry brat in ep. 1 to a self-aware adult who accepted his blindness in ep. 11 – and then he turned back into that brat to dump Mhok; this radical regression was necessary, as the mature Day from ep. 11 wouldn’t break up with Mhok.
There are similarities between ep. 12 of “Last Twilight” and ep. 10 of “A Tale of 1000 Stars”: the main couple breaks up/separates for a longer time, but later reunites; the separation/break up happen for no good reason and serve no purpose – the characters don’t develop, change nor become more mature. Even if they wanted – they couldn’t, as the years of separation happen entirely off screen. Tian from ATOTS “had” to obey his parents and go to study in the US; this is the same Tian who ditched his parents in ep. 1 and showed no sign of obedience or respect for them for the entire series – he became “respectful” only when the script needed it, probably because someone decided that splitting the main couple will increase drama (who could forget the tear-jerking airport scene?). Not only was it useless storywise, but also seemed disrespectful towards the audience: the love story was slowly developed over 9 episodes only to be interrupted with a pointless time jump of 2 years after which … we got the same characters as before the split. The same happened in “Last Twilight” and I’m beginning to suspect that P’Aof loves those pointless time jumps (remember last episode of “Bad Buddy”?). What a disappointing way to end a great show.
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