UnaSpenser

I also appreciate the lack of perfunctory smiling.

I wasn't talking about her facial expressions. I was talking about the way the character was written. Right up until the final episode, she isn't joyful or playful. She's persistently anxious. Some people are like, for sure, but it doesn't make for an interesting character.

I was also shocked at not ever fast-forwarding. I tend to skip quite a bit in dramas, these day. But, not once here!

I loved that one, too! Also, "do you own all the protein in Korea?"

I binged it, which I never do, and was thoroughly entertained. its very stylized and, therefore, will appeal to some and not others. there is no male lead or romance in the story. Instead, the suspense about what happened and what is actually going on is very well maintained, right up to the end.

we never get a confirmed answer. its one of the plethora of ambiguities in the story.

please mark this as a spoiler. you've revealed the core suspense of the story. thanks!

I thought they did an amazing job of maintaining that suspense. Even in the end, I was like, "wait. what?" They were masterful at ambiguity. For instance, what, exactly, did Bora see when they were in that field? Its never explicitly stated. We see light and we see her looking at the pattern in the field. Neither of which are proof of anything. So, did she see more? Or did she impose the concept of aliens onto what she saw, because the girls had beens obsessed with them?

I rarely can sit down and binge a drama all the way through. This was an exception. Its hard to pinpoint what made it so captivating. Quirky characters. Insertions of silly humor. Good suspense. (Right up to the end, the writers could have given us a different outcome. So, as a viewer, I really didn't know which way it was going to go.

[TLDR; it's simply entertaining. Never boring and maintains suspense well.]

I rather enjoyed all the ambiguity, which stretched all the way through the final moment. Also, its a story with a lot of heart, though not the smarmy kind.

It was a well executed story of a lot of moving parts; characters coming at the central plot point from so many directions, with so many different motivations. The writers did a good job of keeping them all in their lanes (no moments of "wait, they wouldn't know that!" of "but, they would have known that!") and wending their way to the final intersection.

I appreciated how no character was just thoroughly evil or a perfect hero. While it gives us the cult story arc and you get thoroughly creeped out by the leader dude, he's not as evil as he could have been made out to be. He's despicable, without being de-humanized. The potential leading man/hero was just a an average due, competent, but not a superstar, at his job, doesn't really play much of a role in the leads solving the mystery, and doesn't turn out to be a romantic interest.

In fact, the lack of romance is a huge bonus for this story. It stays focused on the core mystery and leaves all the characters to be seen for who they are and immersed in their own interests.

The entire cast did a great job with their respective roles. I don't think I had a single moment of feeling pulled out that magic space of storytelling, because a character who was spoiled by poor acting. That's rare.

the FL is never happy. The entire drama is her pouting and fretting - over internet comments. wtf? its the 2020s. Everyone has had enough experience with the toxic absurdity of the internet to know that there is nothing you can do about it and you shouldn't take it seriously. Like, why even read them? She's so depressing and her character is so monochromatic.

The ML isn't a whole lot better. Because it's XK, we get a bit of "glimmer in the eye" humor. But, he's just the "teacher" throughout.

The characters have no development. And no one really cares about a faux e-sports tournament. Plots are either supposed to be unraveling some kind of surprise or leading us through character development.

This is like some classroom lecture trying to teach us all about...something..... with simplistic, unchanging characters. Maybe the big mystery here is "will she ever actually laugh and have fun?!"

Perhaps. The beauty of a lot of the dialogue was that it was so ambiguous. For me, given the homophobic comments she made, it felt like that disgust was always simmering and she had that one moment of being genuine about it. It felt as if, even way back, she sensed the relationship potential between In and Siam and she was determined to prevent it from happening. She targeted Siam and used In's lack of confidence and his fear to force Siam to do the "normal" thing.

I could be reading into it, of course, but she gives off that vibe. The "I'll smile and pretend that I'm okay with people who are not hetero, but really I find it disgusting." I've known so many like that.

The characters seem like representatives of different factions/demographics. Mol is the dominant homophobic culture. In is all the victims. Wang is the current progressive movement.

They couldn't really formulate that with a man in her role, since the crux of the story was a spouse killing himself because he couldn't be accepted for who he was; leaving the other spouse - which then had to be the wife - behind. So, I don't feel that its a typical misogynist turn at a horrible female character. It was a construction which didn't leave an option there.

I think that depends on where you're from. Many places across the globe still have very blatant and violently homophobic cultures. Even those where things have progressed still have strong homophobic streaks. In Thailand, this is a big political topic, as I understand it. Still a monarchy. Still no rights for anyone who is not heterosexual. Still a heavily homophobic culture.

Yeah. Everyone has their different styles they prefer. Though, I did feel a lot here. Mol made me sick to my stomach. In was exquisitely frustrating and Wang was so fruitlessly ardent. I might not have enjoyed those feelings, but I definitely had feelings happening while watching them.

I think its important to recognize that each character was representative of a faction of society. Not to see them as individuals, per se. Mol represents the traditional homo-antagonistic culture. In represents all the victims of that - the social messaging which imprints self-loathing and terror. Want represents the movement for social transformation.

When I see them this way, I can see why it ends up being a supremely frustrating story. Not enough people who both believe in the right to self-determination and have the courage to speak truth to power, which leaves the overarching dynamic just as it always has been. The privileged just get keep on being their narcissistic, self-serving personalities with no one calling them out, for fear of angering the power demographic. A common dynamic in any society where oppression is happening. Or in an entrenched family dynamic. How many abusive parents are able to just get away with all their shit while no one says anything? How many misogynist men are able to get handsy with women or make sexualized commentary, while everyone in the room stays silent? How many racists are allowed to spew dog whistles while the people around them just smile? Mol is all of those people.

I think the hard part for the viewer, especially if we're not from Thailand and don't know what it would have been like to be gay 25 years ago, is that we don't get any information about exactly why he was so terrified. We have to assume that it was such a hostile, homo-antagonistic environment that it's not unusual for non-hetero people to end up feeling so scared and full of self-loathing. We get a bit of it from Mol's absolute comfort in telling him that he disgusts her and him feeling that he had to apologize to her.

It is my understanding that things have pretty horribly homophobic there, right up until very recently. I grew up with grandparents who were born in the early 1900s, in the US. I met friends of the family who had lived their lives knowing they were gay/lesbian, but never being able to actuate that. I was heartbroken, in my teens, when I was perusing through old photo albums in close family's house. I could see my "uncle" in his youth. So vibrant and beautiful and in some of them, it was clear that he was close to another man. I had always known his as a single man. And I suddenly knew why. He remained single until his death. He probably never once said out loud that he was gay. Social stigma can do that to you. (It was a little easier for women to end up living together and being seen as "friends" who just didn't happen to get married and helped each other financially by sharing a house. People around them knew they were couples, but no one ever said anything out loud. Such different times.

So, In isn't as loathesome to me, as to some who may not have lived through times when it was deadly to come out. When you would have been humiliated and every message from everyone and everywhere was that you were an abomination. In is the product of his society. The play format and the simplicity of having just the three actors meant that they were each being placeholder for a larger demographic. Mol was the traditional homo-antagonistic society, Wang was the up and coming rebellious, transformational movement, and In was all the gay men who have come before and have been repressed and tortured, driven insane and to suicide.

The ending had to be what it was, because they each were representative and those factions of society still exist.

"I would do anything for you to be happy" Um. No you won't. She was masterful at gaslighting herself.

he's still in college, too. its pretty common for children to hold the idea that they just have to get through college and then they'll start building their own life.

the key to the story was how he was refusing to accept the internalized homophobia. he wanted to know what happened to his dad, because he suspected. he needed to meet In, so that he could have a first hand experience of what the life of someone with such deeply ingrained self-loathing looks like. he can survive the three more years of college, because he has the awareness, now, of exactly what it is he's fighting and what he needs to filter out from his mother's input.

We don't know how many years in the future he is narrating from, though. I appreciated the vagueness of that. It allows the viewer to grapple with their own sense of what could or could not happen. What kind of beliefs to we hold about the possibilities for In? Do we think he'll just live out a lonely life, or will he hit some point where he can't stand it any longer and he determines he needs to allow himself to be activated? Would that take 5 years? 10 more years?

Its an interesting question for me, as I have grappled with personal repression due to a parental/family dynamic. I'm so many things that my parents couldn't grasp. (Both in respect to gender and sexuality.) But, the thing I had the hardest time allowing myself to be has nothing to do with anything like sexuality or gender identity. It had to do with my artistry as a musician. I won't go into the story. I bring it up, because In is about 40? Or in his 40s? I was in my mid 50s before I could shed the chains that had been locked onto me. I'm 59, now and just this year feeling free and comfortable. So, I can imagine In finally breaking out 15 years or so down the line. But, that's really just a self-reflection. Each viewer will have their own reflection. If they are younger, they may not have a sense of it. If they are older, it may depend on what they have managed to overcome or to witness other overcome.

I loved the sort of vagueposting of that bit of the narration; leaving each viewer with themselves and their own world views.

This is exactly what I got from it. A look at how homophobia - with its repression and forcing people to be "normal" - wreaks permanent and multi-generational damage.

Its a political statement and the intention is to, hopefully, give some people a jolt of compassion such that they might reconsider how they've been holding things and what needs to happen in the socio-political sphere to spare people this kind of trauma and grief.

tldr; exquisitely heartbreaking