Ah yes, the messiness of teenagers just trying to navigate life, this is the good stuff I wanted to see. The theme this week is 'love' and we see Neung, Palm, Ben, Chopper and Maggie all taking tentative-to-bold steps toward the objects of their respective affections, with varying levels of success. Not an adult to be seen this week, it's all emotions and flirting and yearning and longing and kissing and jealousy, a delicious feelings stew. We're moving out of act 1 into act 2 of the story now. All the characters and the conflicts are established, and all the unknowns are obvious.
Neung and Ben are kissing and flirting, but Palm is still the one Neung's thinking of sitting in the bath. I can see that Neung is trying to 'love the one you're with', because as much as he can't stop thinking about Palm, he's pretty sure he can't have him. Ben is someone he can have, someone who will treat him like a living, breathing human with needs and desires and foibles and not a doll to be kept in a glass case on a shelf for fear it breaks. Ben is possible. Ben is simple. And yet...Palm's glances and touches linger a bit too long, Palm leans in to talk a bit too close, Palm goes cold with him after he kisses Ben. But Palm won't say it, won't ask for it, and Neung doesn't know how to get past that wall...
...because how does he compete with this? Maggie is bright and pretty and nice and determined and most importantly she's a girl, and if that's what Palm likes there's no point letting his heart get entangled.
Palm however...
Well let's just say this isn't the face of a man who is interested in what's on offer. 'Maggie's nice to me so I'm nice to her' he tells Neung, thinking that he's politely and clearly saying he's not interested in her. But to Neung that's as clear as mud. Because Maggie gets Palm's smiles and attention and all he gets is Khun Neung khrap. Palm both wants and doesn't want Neung to see how he feels about him. Sometimes he can't help himself, so a lingering touch of his hand, a stolen glance at his lips...he'll allow himself that much and no more. He doesn't even allow himself jealousy, as much as he is burning with it when he sees Ben kiss Neung. 'I don't have a right to be mad at you' he tells him, and there are so many LAYERS to that statement.
But Neung is sure as shit mad with Palm, and fuelled with enough liquid courage, he decides it's time to let him know it. Neung's little drunken tirade was UGLY, it was cruel, it was demeaning, and it was designed to hit every single sore spot Palm possesses. Neung wanted to make Palm lose it, to make him show that Neung affects him like he affects Neung. The more Palm tried to calm things, the more he refused to fight back, the meaner and crueler the things coming out of Neung's mouth. Because he might have Ben, but Palm is who he truly wants, and he doesn't know how to bridge the divide between them, so he chooses violence.
On an opposite corner of the pentagon, I wish I could make GIF's because watching Chopper's heart break in real time was a masterstroke of subtle acting by Perth. You can pinpoint the exact moment it sinks in that Ben likes his cousin, and what that means for his own feelings for Ben. You get the sense that Chopper is painfully aware of having missed his own chance to confess. His entreaty to Ben to express himself before it's too late is tinged with regret, with an understanding of what it means to let someone you love slip away because you're scared to say it. And there is a moment where it's pretty clear that Ben understands exactly what Chopper is saying and why he's saying it to him.
In the end, Ben takes Chopper's advice, and that's why he's the only one who gets what he wants. Closed mouths don't get fed, and Ben was the only person in this mess of a love pentagon to open his and say what he felt. I still don't know what to make of Ben, he still feels very much like he's hiding things, but from the preview that may be because he has an overbearing and homophobic dad, and no more nefarious reason. All in all, I'm loving the way this triangle (pentagon) is being written and acted by all involved, and I'm ready to see what the hell happens next.
Stray Bullets
I feel like Palm's 2 week suspension was completely brushed past, I might have liked a montage or something there to underline the passage of time.
Phum is not going to take what happened lying down, and the fact that he didn't show up once after the beginning of the ep has me anxious.
Chanon not going to the school wasn't surprising, but the lack of adults in this ep means we don't even know if he's aware of what happened. I assume he noticed that Palm isn't with Neung on the school run, but it feels like Chanon would be the type to berate Palm about embarrassing him and being ungrateful to Thanya. It feels like something is missing.
Neung's little loom over Ben at the dance party was kinda hot, NGL.
This doesn't feel like an act break so much as an act shift, but the story feels like it's about to move into a different gear somehow.
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