Did Yuletide bring you anything good? Mine brought me fic for We Are and Time of Fever, so I came out of it pretty good. It also brought me the finale of Spare Me Your Mercy, which I will get into later because woo boy. What a show.
Currently Watching (on air)
Fourever You: The slight uptick in Arthit and Tonfah has been great for me—Arthit in particular is so funny and loves annoying his friends, which thrills me. We finally, finally got the backstory for when Hill first fell for Ter, and it was predictably both so omg Hill you pathetic homosexual and omg Hill you were so sad before Ter. Truly Pond was the perfect pick for the part, because the flashback sequence required an actor who can convey an entire emotional journey using only his eyes, and no one is better at that than Pond Ponlawit.
Perfect 10 Liners: I knew that Yotha and Gun would have me by the throat, but boy, they really, really got me. Perth and Santa have great chemistry imo, and Santa is so sweet and cute as Gun that you totally understand why Yotha is head over heels and also completely unable to recognize or deal with it. It remains absolutely hysterical to me that Junior is playing Perth’s younger brother when he is a full, like, seven years older and is the oldest member of the main cast, but Junior is very charming as Faifa, so I let it slide.
Caged Again: This show remains far better than it ought to be, I think in at least some part because Ben and Jai are insanely good for rookie performers. I keep thinking about this show and its approach to its very over-the-top and absurdist material and why it works for me, but I need more time to stew on it.
Your Sky: Hey, so, Thomas and Kong, huh? The behind the scenes from last week’s episode where they just fully made out despite it not being in the script? What is going on at Domundi??
Anyway, this is still such a good comfort watch for me. Almost comically low stakes, everyone is beautiful, they’re cute…the scene where Hia is taking a shower while making Real stand outside by the window into it was comedy gold for me. Not deep, but such fun.
The Heart Killers: This past week was the chance for Khaotung to really flex. For the most part until now, First has been the standout in terms of acting, largely because he has the most complex role on the show. His microexpression work has been such a pleasure to watch. But Khaotung got to break out the anger and the heartbreak and it was so, so good. I’m terrified of what next episode will bring, aside from (hopefully) a return of Ruerat aka Karan’s hot dad in Cherry Magic. Who is this man! He doesn’t even have a MDL listing!
ThamePo: Every week, I’ve watched the episode and then immediately wanted to rewatch because of the way they seed information to come back to. This show loves the trick of showing you a scene and then revisiting it from another POV, and it makes rewatching so rewarding and enjoyable. I like that we’re getting the other MARS members one by one even if I’m desperate to see Lego; it gives them each a chance to shine and highlight their individual relationship with Thame, which is smart and also devastating. God, Jun! I could write pages and pages about Jun, who they very smartly included almost none of in the trailer for the show. In many ways, the trailer actually concealed quite a lot about what happens, and that is both terrifying and thrilling. Can’t wait for Friday!
Currently Watching (completed)
Manner of Death: We’re closing in on the end of this show, and I don’t want to spoil this much for people since it is a thriller, so I’ll just say it’s deeply funny to see some of these scenes back again. I love this show, it’s very danmei camp thriller, which isn’t for everyone, but it makes me happy. And I truly forgot how much I adore the kids in this show—Sorn and That are perfect, my precious babies.
Battle of the Writers: This has been my “before bed” show for the last week or so, which was maybe unwise because it’s…nuts. I was saying that it really feels like they somehow beamed the original danmei directly into audio/visual form—it feels like very little got adapted or changed. The plot is mostly inconsequential in many ways, the novel they’re writing is incomprehensible, and I am enthralled. I love all three couples, including the toxic age gap one. Tutor constantly looks like he wants to be eating Yim’s face. It has an absolutely insane sex scene. I’m obsessed.
4 Minutes: Immediately after finishing SMYM, we were like, well, we still need our weekly Dr. Sam high prestige fix, so while we finish up MOD, I am now also showing them this. I haven’t rewatched it much aside from when it was airing, so seeing it back now knowing the full scope of the show is really interesting. Fuaiz remains such a standout performance to me, even with everyone else—he’s just so sad and angry and lonely and it makes Tonkla such a compelling character to me.
Finished
Spare Me Your Mercy: It’s hard to talk about this show in total without giving information away; what I’ll say is that it’s almost perfect, and the things that I would point out as imperfections are style nitpicks. It’s beautifully made and acted, and proposes a lot of difficult questions for its protagonists in a way that makes for great television. Much like 4 Minutes, the ending left me achy and sad, but in the kind of way where I was like, yes. That was good. And I’ll be thinking about it a lot, I just know it.
Other BL News
Barcode Tinnasit signed with GMMTV, which led to a deeply predictable round of hand-wringing and complaining from GMMTV antis. I always say, ACAB (all corporations are bastards), but it’s deeply infantalizing to the people who have been signing with them to act as though they aren’t aware of the disadvantages of signing with GMMTV. I’m sure they have noticed that there is a glut of talent signed there, among other things! My guess is that Barcode signed with them for access to Riser Music and that his contract allows for outside work (which we know other people at GMMTV do). It’s already been confirmed that he’s still going to be in Happy Ending! Please!
There’s going to be a Japanese adaptation of MDZS, which is really interesting to me. MDZS falls more toward the wuxia side of things, and Japan does have some kind of equivalent genre even if as far as I can tell it isn’t to quite the same extent, so I’m wondering if they’re going to be adapting it to Japanese culture and genre norms or sticking with the original. Either way is bound to be, uh, discourse-inducing.
They announced the cast of an upcoming Chinese omegaverse show and then Pit Babe announced that season 2 would not be omegaverse, just a fantasy racing show??? So, like, keeping the superpowers aspect for some reason but focusing on racing. The funniest part to me is that the author said this was for ethical and moral reasons, which raises so many questions for me that I’d love her to answer. At this point, the fact that Nut is coming back as a new character and not a miraculously alive Way is just the cherry on top.
I’m traveling on the new year, but I’m going to try to squeeze in my Superlatives of 2024 before then! Stay tuned.
urs,
hk