WTH?! People Are Posting Episode 12 Content. No Place Is Safe.

WTH?! People are posting Episode 12 content. No place is safe.

My favorite part of this is that Lomfon tries to do the big romantic moment with making the movie about Tien and all Tien wants is the words. Tien just wants a confession, something straightforward, and Lomfon struggles with that.

But once Tien is clear about what he needs... Lomfon provides. The real confession, the clear one, the making of a real choice and not hiding from it. No hiding behind videos, no hiding behind unclear choices, just the real truth.

Because he doesn't just confess, he explains. He tells Tien what happened and he's clear and nothing is left up to chance, nothing left in silence (Tien knows silence too well, he will not have silence in his relationship).

I love Tien's slow realization that this is real and that he's being chosen and how he slowly, slowly comes to believe what's happening and it's beautiful.

But this just reminds me of how Tien was left outside after the fight in the rain so of course the true confession has to happen outside. Tien wants everything out in the open! He wants to be honest and for people around him to be honest and for relationships to be about open, honest communication. And that's what he finally gets.

And he finally says everything he needed to say, to explain his feelings and to finally unfuck it.

The final call to a choice. A call of being chosen. Because that is what Tien has always wanted. To be chosen.

But also Lomfon promised a practical confession but it's Tien who grabbed him and kissed him senseless once he was sure he was chosen.

Bonus: Height difference = 💖

Ready to see Tai and Lomfon unfuck it!

La Pluie and the Aftermath 

There’s something so satisfying about a story that pays off every beat it has set up, isn’t there? I am going to have comparably less to say about this episode than the last one, and it’s not because it’s any less masterful. It’s because I already said it last week, because this show’s writing is so damn consistent that after watching that episode I knew exactly what needed to happen to continue the characters’ emotional arcs. 

Shoutout to @wen-kexing-apologist, @neuroticbookworm, @bengiyo, and @fadelikeclouds, all of whom wrote relevant essays I’ve linked to here. 

So in this episode, we continue the arcs for our core four as expected:

Tien is sad, delivering truths Tai needs, and generally continuing to be an emotional rock even as he nurses his own broken heart

Lomfon has realized that he kissed the wrong brother, and is beginning to clean up his mess with a much needed apology to Tai

Patts is going through it (and lord does Pee continue to kill it in this final arc) and still upset with Tai, but because he’s Patts he still tries to compromise and reach out one more time (which the show smartly blocks with a well-timed misunderstanding) before he decides to pack up and try a change of scenery to nurse his broken heart

Tai stubbornly continues to passively wait for Patts to be the one to make amends, forgives Lomfon easily (because that boy never mattered to him enough to bother holding a grudge), and then goes and pitches a fit at his mother’s wedding because he continues to be entirely self-absorbed 

The grace Tai received from his family is perhaps more than he deserved given his extremely childish behavior in the context of those scenes, but we know how much he needed to finally understand what happened with his parents so that he could begin to heal and get his shit together about Patts. I really loved the direction the show took with this. As it usually does (episode 10's big explosion excepted), the show steered away from high drama and revealed that their breakup was entirely mundane - they realized their romantic relationship wasn’t working, and decided to split up even though they still love each other.

@sliceduplife and @neuroticbookworm pointed out to me that this episode is the first time we actually learn Tai’s parents names - Yadfah and Warun - and I think it’s because this is the first time we are seeing them as actual people instead of stand-ins for Tai’s hang-ups. And as we learned, contra to Tai's long held belief, it was Tai’s dad who ultimately decided to release them from this obligatory soulmate marriage, giving them the freedom they needed to live happier lives while keeping their platonic connection intact and sticking together through the rain. 

That’s fucking beautiful, and you could see how moved and shaken Tai was as he realized he’d gotten it all wrong. And his dad did us one better by making the point explicit: Tai done fucked up by dumping Patts, and needed a reminder that when you find a good love, you have to take care of it.

Tai needed to hear that so desperately. He did so much damage to his relationships, and for no damn good reason. Tien already made sure he knew that it was his lying that caused all the drama, and now he can see from the way his parents treat each other that his approach to his relationship with Patts has been wrong-headed from the start. And so we head into the finale where we’ll get to see him finally be the one to reach out to Patts, to use his words, and to make amends for the things he got wrong.

I want to end by just mentioning how incredible it is that this show managed to wind up to such a high drama emotional climax and then pivot immediately to such a quiet, calm release of tension while keeping everything emotionally consistent. This is only possible when the writing, acting, directing, and editing all come together perfectly. I have every confidence that La Pluie will stick the landing.

Give this man his flowers.

Pee Peerawich Can FUCKING ACT

Alright, I have not been seeing enough praise on my dash for the sheer acting prowess that came out of episode 10. Everyone was great- Copter had the most expressive face I have seen from him the entire show, Suar broke my motherfucking heart, Title was a BEAST with his microexpressions this episode (and could, frankly, use a post all on his own), but it is time to talk about Pee Peerawich Ploynumpol and his acting in this episode. 

The micro and macro-expressions that man was pulling? Exquisite and worthy of praise. 

Car Ride

Tai asks to stay at Patts place that evening, with an immediate implication of #gaysex

Despite the fact that Pee has not moved that much (considering he is literally buckled in to a chair) you can see and feel the excitement radiating off him in this moment. Patts is pumped. Patts is locked and loaded. Patts is ready to commit traffic violations if it gets him to that dick faster. Pee makes that excitement legible to the audience by making his eyes wide, turns that eye shine up, the way he moves his lips, the way he holds his body, the tone he places in his voice. 

gif by @liyazaki

Tai Ride

There are not enough gif-makers watching La Pluie, I need more people to watch La Pluie and know how to make gifs to watch La Pluie so that I can have immediate and easy access to an entire episode’s worth of gifs, because this screenshot does not give enough information here. 

What I want to highlight in particular in this scene is that Patts *swallows hornily* when Tai steps towards him. It’s fun for me to see a bit more of a role-reversal here with Patts and Tai. Title is portraying an aura of utter surety in the way that he carries Tai in this moment, and Pee is carrying the excited, yet nervous and cautious energy that Tai usually brings to their emotional connection. 

Then of course, we get the easy chemistry between Patts and Tai in the bed scene. I’m probably gonna have to do a separate post about the hands in this episode, so I won’t talk about them here. But we always have to appreciate the way that Pee is able to portray desire. 

For the sake of time, I am going to link to my Episode 6 and Episode 7 posts about hands, so you can see how good Pee is at making his hands relaxed and natural in these scenes. (What do I mean by that? I mean, if you compare Pee’s hands here to say, James in Bed Friend, you will notice that oftentimes James’ hands are very stiff, like he’s trying to remember how he’s supposed to hold them). 

If you asked me to pick one moment from this scene that I thought was the best part of Pee’s performance, it’s a quick, easy, no contest answer for me, because Pee absolutely crushed the line delivery of “May I?” He makes his voice so soft and kind, and strained/broken. There’s a gravel to it that he doesn’t usually have. Because of it you can tell how important this moment is for Patts. 

The Calzone Betrayed Me? 

Tai and Lomfon are spotted and a picture of them is sent to Patts, Patts who has been told by Tai that they can’t hang out on Sunday because Tai has work he needs to do. Patts calls Tai to check on him, and it is at this point that I honestly believe that if Tai had told Patts the truth, Patts would have been okay with it. Patts is giving Tai an opportunity not to lie, and Tai chooses to double down. 

And it feels like a slap in the face, and Pee nails this moment, this flash of anger and heartbreak that Patts feels when he hears Tai lie to him. And he’s able to switch it so suddenly to Patts’ acting, not Pee’s, when Patts makes his voice cheerful and says that he misses Tai.

He hangs up the phone, and there is not even a second of time between when that phone call ends to when Patts starts spiraling. Again, there are not enough gifs of this show at all, which makes it hard to show everyone the very impressive acting beats, but Pee has a whollllleeeee internal monologue happening throughout this entire scene. Pee makes it so easy for the audience to read Patts’ mind here just in his physicality, in the way his face drops, in how quickly his eyes move. 

The anger and frustration is starting to build. 

Patts trusts Tai, Patts does not want it to be true that Tai is lying to him, so Patts goes to Tai’s place to check on him. He knocks on the bedroom door, and for a split second there is a smile on his face before he processes that  it’s actually Tien at the door. 

Lomfon Gets a Shiner (aka Fight Scene One): 

This is the point in the story where the explosion start, and it is in these moments that Pee really shines in his performance. Lomfon needs to have consequences forcibly beaten into his skull, Patts needs to grapple with all the frustrations he has had with Tai over the last two years of silence, Patts has been patient, graceful, and nothing but kind, and he deserves to McFreakin’ lose it. We know from Patts final conversation with Nara that Patts can have a temper, we know that he is not abusive (Nara’s interactions with Patts and Patts feelings for Nara would be very different if that were the case), but his temper is a flaw Patts himself is aware of. 

Pee has a very difficult job here, because he has to make sure that Patts is allowed to get violent, get loud, and remain sympathetic. Because Patts is a good person, a kind person, who is reconciling with years of unresolved frustrations around Tai and Tai’s silence on top of waiting for Tai to feel comfortable and secure in his connection with Patts, and Lomfon is coming in here to tell Tai something that has the potential to undo all of the months of progress Patts and Tai have been cultivating.

Anyway, Patts wailing into Lomfon is uncomfortable to witness, I am not satisfied by watching this boy who kept disregarding the feelings of every single person around him for the sake of figuring out his own, finally get a face full of consequence because of how blinded Patts is by his rage. Anway, let’s get into the fight itself. Pee handles this scene expertly, the size and severity of Patts unbridled rage oozes through the screen. He makes this fight scene uncomfortable to watch. Now, I’m a simple bastard, right? Normally, I love when a rude character (like Lomfon) talks shit and gets hit. And as much as I have been saying for weeks Lomfon needs to be beaten up, Patts wailing into Lomfon (still holding back because that man did not have bruises and we know there is enough budget for a makeup department to give him bruises if they wanted to, cause they did so for Patts and Tai on the mountain). Anyway, Patts wailing into Lomfon is uncomfortable to witness, I am not satisfied by watching this boy who kept disregarding the feelings of every single person around him for the sake of figuring out his own, finally get a face full of consequence because of how blinded Patts is by his rage. 

Pee lets himself be ugly, he lets himself be intense, and over the top, and aggressive, he lets Patts feel all of those things. I have seen multiple posts circulating over the last week defending Patts and his anger, and I think part of the need people feel to explain Patts stems from a fear that people will hate this character after this street fight. Because Pee did his fucking job and did it so well that the violence feels real. His anger leaves shrapnel everywhere and you truly truly get the blind rage that Patts is experiencing in the way that Pee does not allow Patts to be detained, in the way that Pee does not let Patts process a single thing around him. 

AITA? (aka Fight Scene Two)

(sorry, this is kind of a self indulgent picture, y'all know I'm a slut for hands)

Now, the verbal sparring match between Patts and Tai immediately following this fight with Lomfon and Tai’s rejection of destiny, is something that has to be handled very precisely by these actors. Too intense and there may not be a clear path to reconciliation, too reserved and Patts’ justifiable anger at everything is undermined, and we don’t want that. Patts’ motivations for beating Lomfon up and our need to still feel sympathy for Patts, us wanting him and Tai to be together at the end does not work if you undermine the logic behind Patts’ behavior. So Pee is toeing a very precarious line here. He has to balance expressing a lot of anger and not making his character irredeemably violent. 

And GOD, I mean, a gif or a video clip is one thing, you can watch the scene play over and over and over again, and you can analyze it that way, but I actually want to just put a couple of screen caps in here because well…

Pee embodies that rage. These screen captures are a split second of time, a brief moment, when I take them I take hundreds of them because I am never certain what I am going to get in a singular moment. But every single frame I have of Pee’s face during this confrontation is just the most open and obvious manifestation and portrayal of anger that I have seen in quite some time. 

EVERY

SINGLE

FRAME

From a body language perspective (surprise, surprise WKA is talking about body language in a TV show again, how original..) Pee has set his jaw. Pee has set his shoulders. This man is tense, he is stiff, he is using so much goddamn energy. He slouches forward when he’s confronting Tai, leaning in, getting closer to him but still maintaining a distance. They are within arms reach of each other, but Patts is not fully up in Tai’s face. Which I think is important for the audience in maintaining the idea that Tai is safe, and that Tai feels safe with Patts, despite his anger. Which I think continues to hold because Tai is pretty even-keeled in his responses and it is obvious that Tai is not in distress or actually scared of Patts when confronted by this side of Patts. 

BUT when Tai responds with “Patts, I can’t understand what you are asking” ohhhhhhh ohhhhhh the way Pee leans back, the way Pee’s shoulders go straight. Like, seriously, look at the second and third image in this set of four (“who do you choose” \\ “Patts, I can’t understand what you are asking”) can you spot the differences in the way Pee holds his body in those two screenshots? Let me know what you see! 

[Oh and hey! Would you look at that! A barrier between them…]

Thai walks away, leaving Patts in the rain and this is the critical moment, because Patts breaks down. Patts screams “FUCK!” and just swings his body around like he is trying to forcibly expel all the anger from his body. 

gif by @liyazaki

And this is where Pee really starts to crush his performance, because he shifts Patts’ rage to fear and heartbreak in an instant. He is balancing Patts’ anger and Patts’ insecurities on a knife’s edge, and he is wielding it with expert precision. 

Fundamentally, (and if anyone as an audience member has not picked up on this theme yet, Patts will state this explicitly at the end of the episode so I am confident in talking about it now) Patts’ biggest hurdle to being with Tai is Tai’s silence. Patts waited for years for Tai to talk. He was patient for years. He has been navigating this relationship with Tai very smoothly. He is understanding of Tai’s hesitations and respectful of Tai’s boundaries. But he knows how easy it is for Tai to slip away, and Patts is OVER waiting for Tai to break the silence. He wants to talk, he may be angry here but he wants to resolve the issue. He is confronting Tai’s behavior, Tai’s lies head on, and he needs to hear assurances from Tai that Tai does not have feelings for Lomfon. Or rather Patts just needs to know what Tai decides, and Tai won’t talk to him about it. 

Patts is terrified of being left alone in all of this. Patts is terrified of losing Tai to another “soulmate” because he knows, or knew, that there was still some part of Tai that believes or wants to believe that that is real, and he knows how easy it may be for Tai to get confused, or Tai to overthink, or Tai to retreat and leave him because Lomfon says they are soulmates. What Patts is grappling with here is two years of reaching out over and over and over again only to be met with silence. Patts lost his relationship with Nara because of his connection to Tai. And Pee needs to be able to show the audience the part of Patts soul that this anger is coming from. 

Because it starts as him being infuriated by Lomfon not respecting Patts. It starts at him being lied to repeatedly by Tai. The anger starts there and the longer and longer the conversation goes and Tai refuses to just FUCKING SAY that he chooses Patts, Patts spirals further and further in to the part of himself that has been breaking from the moment his soul mate decided not to reply. And Pee 

NAILS

THAT

SHIT

gif by @liyazaki

I know I have already used this screenshot but I am placing it here as a visual comparison for where Pee ended with Patts and where he started with Patts in these scenes from the fight with Lomfon until Tai walks away. 

(I am curious what similarities and differences people see between the gif above and the screenshot in terms of Patts' body language)

Correct me if I am wrong @bengiyo but I believe you had mentioned in one of our sidebars that they only had enough money to really run this truck once, so every scene was done in one take. It’s not a single shot, there is time to set up and take things down, cool yourself down or amp yourself up, but if is is indeed true they only had the money to run this once per angle, then we really really need to be appreciating Pee’s performance here, because Patts has been a happy, smiley, calm, and patient person for the entire show. Pee and Patts both deserve the emotional catharsis they are getting from a scene this big and complicated.

An Intervention for the Hopeless Romantic (aka Fight Scene Three): 

Patts gets drunk and goes to continue the conversation he started with Tai in the rain and Tai does not want to entertain that conversation, knowing that Patts is drunk. Suggesting they hold off on that convo is the smartest thing that Tai could have done imo, because he knows there is a high possibility of a bad outcome from the kind of conversation he would have to have with Patts (though I also do think Tai would have had extremely similar responses to Patts’ questions either way but I digress)

Patts has had some time to process what happened in that earlier fight so he is capable of calming down, but he is also drunk which means that Pee has to navigate behaviors and physicality of someone who has calmed down about a sore point, but who has also #releasedhisinhibitions by getting drunk and therefore making it harder for himself to moderate his physical responses to his fluctuating emotional state. 

While I personally do believe that Patts would still be angered by the conversation he is having with Tai even if he was sober, I also think having some time and space to process would have enabled him to manage his responses more and allowed him to make more rational versus reactionary decisions if he was sober. But that isn’t what happens. So Tai is his typical, conflict avoidant, fed off of romance novels-self and is therefore infuriating to have a real conversation with to work through everything that happened that day.  

gif by @liyazaki

(Fun Fact: I am pretty certain that pointing is considered to be extremely rude in Thai culture)

This conflict scene is interesting to me because Title is giving a master’s level of microexpressions to his performance as Tai, and Pee is giving a master’s level of macroexpressions to his performance as Patts. I like the dichotomy of the character’s reactions in this scene. I like how Title and Pee are able to root their character’s personalities so heavily in to how they react to and engage in conflict. Tai runs from it, sure, but similarly to Tien he is able to temper his temper, he is pretty good at remaining, or appearing to remain, calm, cool, and collected, in the face of explosive, loud, and large emotions because Tai has always been a shy, introverted person, who intentionally created silence for himself. Patts is the first one to talk in that soulmate link, Patts was frequently the one who reached out, Patts is older, he’s been in relationships before, he knows how they work, and he understands the realities. So naturally, Pee’s going to play Patts with more obvious, easily readable, and intense emotion. 

A (not-so) fun parallel in this scene is actually the way that Patts swallows in the following gif:

gif by @liyazaki

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that Patts and Tai seemed to almost change personalities, where Tai was confident and certain and Patts was nervous? Yeah, Patts swallowed hard there (more out of nervousness and horniness) in a similar way to how he swallows hard here before he loses his grip and has that little burst of anger. Patts here, is trying to swallow his anger, but he’s drunk and tired of the bullshit so it doesn’t work. (Pee has some great microexpressions in the moment above too, I want to know what people think is running through Patts' mind based on the small face movements you can see)

gif by @liyazaki

Tai puts up a test. “let’s break up” thinking this might give Patts an opportunity to pause and re-evaluate his behavior right now. Tai is offering a test of Patts’ love for Tai. If Patts really loves Tai he would just inherently know what Tai is thinking and feeling all the time without ever needing to ask. If Patts really loves Tai, he would never break up with him even if he was mad. But, in a drunken, heat of the moment bout of anger at Tai’s sheer inability to navigate conflict rather and refusal to answer what Patts thinks (and I think too honestly) is a pretty simple, straightforward question about who Tai chooses and agrees: 

“Alright you said it! Let’s break up” 

(not the best screenshot I've ever taken, but I just needed everyone to see the second time Patts points to Tai.)

Pee does an absolutely phenomenal job of letting Patts process his own words a second too late to stop them. Like????????

Pee lets Patts be angry, loudly angry, physically angry but not dangerously so in these scenes. Tai again is not scared of Patts being here. 

(it is so interesting to me because I feel like ^this photo makes Pee look younger)

The legibility of feelings in Pee’s performance from this episode is truly incredible. You can see the moment Patts realizes what he just said, you can see how quickly Patts cycles through his own stages of grief and regret at what he just said. 

Patts knows he just fucked up. Patts knows exactly how badly he just fucked up. And just as quickly as he is able to fall from the anger to the regret, Pee is able to fall from the regret to the fear. Patts is trying so hard to apologize to Tai, Patts wants to take it back so badly. And my heart is breaking for him. 

gif by @liyazaki

He is begging, he is pleading, he knows what happens if Tai closes that door and he is desperate to stop that from happening. 

And I think it happens a little bit earlier in the scene than what the gif shows but there is this millisecond in that movement of Tai pushing Patts out the door where Pee switches from panic to heartbreak. 

(when I say this change happens in a millisecond, i mean that I literally had to slow the video down as slow as it could go and then just rapidly pressing the spacebar to pause and play and pause and play to creep to it frame by frame for this shot, he switches so fast).

Pee demolished this episode, he left no survivors. 

Wet and Pathetic 

I have said it already but I think it does bear repeating, due to the themes that were explored in Episode 10 Pee, hands down, no contest, has the hardest job in this episode. Because Patts gets violent, because Patts’ anger is explosive, because Patts’ anger this episode leans more toward unrestrained which can make him come off as aggressive. The way the audience engages in the rest of Patts and Tai’s story falls almost entirely on Pee’s performance this episode.

Once again, because his anger, his violence, his rudeness, and lack of restraint have to be legible as stemming from a deep wound that Tai caused. We have to be able to see Patts as someone with an angry streak but not someone who will turn to domestic violence. We have to be able to see Patts as someone worthy of compassion. If Pee had failed to deliver a performance that was not only legible but heartbreaking, then why would anyone hope they will find a way to work through this. If Pee does not manage to make us feel bad for Patts after having us bear witness to a decently brutal beating (decently brutal here defined as I thought Patts would probably deck Lomfon once, Lomfon would stay down and the rest of the angst would unfold as a result. I truly did not expect a full smackdown with Patts in so blind of a rage that he didn’t even register Tai trying to stop him) the story ends here. But he didn’t fail…he flourished I mean, look at him: 

gif by @liyazaki

For the second time today he starts breaking down, first because he so desperately wants Tai to choose him. He desperately wants to be chosen. Second, because he wants to keep Tai in his life, he doesn’t want to lose Tai, and he knows that by agreeing to break-up, with the way Tai approaches conflict and romance, that Patts very well may never see Tai again. I think everyone’s reaction to a heat of the moment agreement to break up will be different, I think there is a world where Patts could have a partner who would recognize Patts didn’t mean it, and would open the door to continue the conversation. But Tai isn’t one of those people. Tai locks Patts out like he locked Patts out in his head for two years. 

Sure Patts decked Lomfon (but #lomfondeservedit), sure he grabbed Tai a little too hard, sure he yelled, sure he wasn’t able to manage his emotions better, but Pee was able to deliver a performance that made the rougher parts of Patts’ character go over easier, and goddamn it if my heart wasn’t absolutely shattered seeing Patts sobbing, clawing desperately at the door to be let in.

gif by @liyazaki

Trying to get this out before Episode 11 airs, I just want to state for the record that I agree with @bengiyo, and @ginnymoonbeam, and @lurkingshan that in the grand scheme of the entire situation Tai is in the wrong here. He lied and then he lied again, and then he refused to communicate, and then he pulled some Nora Roberts logic on a real life relationship, and Tai needs to be the one that apologizes to Patts and the one who tries to re-initiate the relationship. I love Tai to death, Title too did a KILLER performance (but is harder to write about because there are not enough gifs in this fandom for any and all of his microexpressions) I get why Tai conflict style is the way it is, I get where he is coming from, I get where Patts anger is coming from, I get where his pain is. But by lying and then refusing to communicate about it, Tai is in the wrong and Patts deserves an apology for the way Tai treated him, and he deserved to be intentionally, enthusiastically pursued. 

Anyway, Pee Peerawich acted his little heart out in Episode 10 and he deserves more praise than I have seen him get.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk!

Step By Step - Overall Thoughts

Bear with me as I try to tackle this messy show. There's only 2 other shows I have done full length reviews for on here, so I don't know well this will come out. But I do have thoughts and this show took up 12 weeks of my life so I have to share them.

What I Liked

- Man Trisanu is such a great actor, I loved him in every single episode. In one of my earlier post I said, if I were to rank BL actors, he'd be near the top of the list, it still holds true.

He was a clear standout from this show. Despite his towering physical stature, he does such a good job at making Jeng feel small and vulnerable in his weakest moments and he's got the best whipped look on his face when he's looking at Pat, also, his micro expressions are so on point. If nothing else, introducing me to Man, will always be a point in the show's favor.

- The first half of this show is amazing. Like the first 5-6 episodes I was so on board. It had such an interesting setup, the workplace romance was working really well, despite its slow buildup, the chemistry was hitting all the right notes. I also loved how realistic the show when it comes to office politics. Not just that, it was so fascinating that instead of solely focusing on the romance aspect, the show seemed invested in Patt and Jeng's career growth, both of them were learning how to be better at their jobs, while working with each other.

- Man and Ben's chemistry works for most of this show, until it doesn't. But I think the parts where the chemistry doesn't work are also the parts with the weakest writing, so it's not really the actors fault. Overall I enjoyed watching them together, in both the cutesy and the high heat moments.

- I really enjoyed Chot. He hits all the right notes when it comes to being a good supporting character, and I love Bruce, so there's some personal bias involved here, but still overall, he got a nice arc and a cute side story. I also enjoyed Ae. When the show knew what to do with her, she had some of the funniest lines in the show.

- I enjoyed the sibling dynamic between Jaab and Jeng. Jaab's presence in the story as the openly queer second child, who has no stakes or interest in the family business, also adds more context to the pressure Jeng feels to keep up with his dad's expectations. So despite how badly the show messes up the execution of Jaab and Jen's "second couple" storyline, I enjoyed Jaab's presence in the narrative. (Yes, this makes Jaab sound less like a character and more like a plot device but I can't help it that the story doesn't know how to use this character very well, despite his potential.)

What I didn't like

- Oh boy, I am gonna try to keep it short, because I wrote quite a bit in my weekly breakdowns, for the last 3 episodes. Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12.

- The second half is clunky. And so many people have pointed out the problems.

I will tag some of my favorite contributors in the Step by Step tag. They've made several posts over the past few weeks breaking down the good and bad parts of this show.

@lurkingshan @bengiyo @heretherebedork @respectthepetty @waitmyturtles

I think for me, these were the 3 main issues with this show -

- The choppy editing. Most episodes of this show are longer than 70 minutes, so it really really shouldn't be difficult to make sense of the show's timeline, but by episode 9, almost no one who was watching could keep up with the timeframe of any of the events. Also, did we really need the finale to be almost 100 minutes? Nope. Most episodes of this are longer than necessary but it wouldn't be an issue if the writing supported the length a little better, it doesn't.

- The show has so many interesting ideas it wants to tackle such as Pat's and Jeng's professional growth, homophobia in the workplace, Jeng's familial struggles, Pat's struggle to feel like his professional growth is not completely dependent on or tied to Jeng, Put and Pat's relationship and eventual breakup - round 1 and 2, the influence of BL actors and BL industry as a whole. The show collapses under the weight of trying to tackle all of this, while also trying to somewhat stick to the traditional beats of a BL and tell a compelling love story. The love story here isn't bad but it's just muddled with so many other things that by the end it's difficult to really care about any of it. The show fluctuates between being a workplace drama and a BL, for most of its runtime, then finally commits to the BL aspects, then fumbles the bag on the execution, only to go back to being a workplace drama with BL elements. It's just all over the place!

- The Jaab and Jen problem. The show establishes an interesting side couple, gives them an explosive kiss in episode 5 and then just does nothing with it? Why? What? Every week for the past 4-5 weeks I have been asking the question - what's up with those two?? I am calling it out with respect to Jaab and Jen but it's present for most of its supporting characters. Look, it is rare for side characters to be given clear, full, well-written arcs in BLs but this show spends so much time in establishing these characters and their conflicts in the first half, only to then just either forget about them and write them off the narrative completely. This problem is most prominent with Jaab and Jen, but it does with almost all side characters, except for Chot.

Final Rating

3.5/5

I am so sad about this because if you asked me around episode 6, this was potentially going to end up at 4.5 for me (for reference, there's only 3 BLs I rates a full 5/5, so a 4.5 is pretty close to perfect for me.)

Current Ranking

25/40 (This is based on my ranking list of all BLs I have watched till now, interesting that this ranks just couple spots above ABAAB. It doesn't mean anything, just something I do for fun.)

Rewatch Potential

Almost none.

Favorite Moment

The office chair shopping sequence

Recommendation to a friend

Yes - but probably not as a beginner BL and with a suggestion to space this out and watch 1-2 episodes per week instead of a binge watch.

We're a couple of hours out from episode 11 of La Pluie, and it has me spinning my wheels as usual.

Lots of thoughts and questions churning away, but the one that is uppermost in my mind is Lomfon's question to Tien about choosing between the person one likes and one's soulmate.

I think most of us read this as Lomfon recognizing that he has some feelings for Tien but now believing Tai is his soulmate and wanting advice about what he (Lomfon) should do.

However, later on, this person (YES, I wanted to say something explicit here, but I think Patts and the Fandom have given him his licks already, so I won't pile on) ... so this person has the nerve to act like he has no idea why Tien would be upset or how this free-for-all Lomfon instigated was any of Tien's business ... and it keeps bothering me. It bothers me for many, many, many reasons, but mainly because it seems so disconnected from the earlier scene.

And so now I'm wondering, "Who is Lomfon in that scenario?" The person choosing between a soulmate and the person he likes? Or is he just one of the options? Is Lomfon actually referring to Tai choosing between the person he likes (Patts) and his impending soulmate (Lomfon)? And is Lomfon turning to the one person he knows who is close to Tai for advice to get a sense of what Tai might do?

Anyway, as miserable as it all played out in the end, the idea that Tien may never have even been a part of the equation for Lomfon has me in my feelings.