Do Not Tease Us With A Sequel And Not Deliver.

Do not tease us with a sequel and not deliver.

Tien torn between Lomfon and his soulmate. Lomfon fighting for his man.

Plus, getting to revisit Tai, Patts, Bow, Pingpong, Dream, and Nara.

Also, I am officially campaigning for Saengnuea to be part of the secondary couple. Can we start a petition???

LA PLUIE FUCKING NAILED IT

Dream and Nara are canon! Go Lesbians!

Lomfon NAILED his confession!! He opened his heart and soul to Tien and clearly communicated his desires and IT. WORKED. THAT KISS MADE ME SEE STARS!! HOLY SHIT!!

Tai said FUCK DESTINY and finally, FINALLY said I LOVE YOU to Patts!

And we are getting a SEQUEL????? With my babies Tien and Lomfon???? GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEE!!

La Pluie, I love you for being so perfect and I hate you because you're one of the first shows I watched live as it aired and now the bar is SO FUCKING HIGH.

Can anyone confirm that episode 12 is over one hour forty minutes???

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.

Step by Step: Doing Slow Burn Narrative Structure Wrong

I love me a good slow burn. Some of my favorite dramas are the slowest slow burns to ever burn, and the leads literally don't get together until the very last episode. Step by Step is not following typical slow burn pacing, and it's suffering because of it.

First, a mini lesson in 4 act narrative structure and typical romance pacing. This is what our brains enjoy. In a 12 episode BL or 16 episode kdrama, each act is evenly split into 3 or 4 episodes, respectively.

ACT 1 - introduce the characters and plot (ends with: the first hint of romantic attraction from one or both of the leads)

ACT 2 - build romantic tension, give them reasons to start falling in love (ends with: a first kiss, or at least one character determined to make a move, they aren't necessarily together at this point)

ACT 3 - navigate actually becoming a couple (ends with: the honeymoon episode of pure fluff, they finally figured their shit out and resolved any internal relationship conflicts)

ACT 4 - test the relationship, usually with external conflicts, often includes a breakup or at least a big fight (ends with: a well-earned happily ever after)

Now, typical slow-burn structure is only slightly different:

ACT 1 - the same. introduce the characters and plot (ends with: the first hint of romantic attraction from one or both of the leads)

ACT 2 - build romantic tension, give them reasons to start falling in love (ends with: a reason for at least one of them to run away from the potential relationship, usually in the form of an internal conflict, often from a second lead or miscommunication)

ACT 3 - continue to build romantic tension while they solve the conflict that's keeping them apart, first real kiss happens within this arc (ends with: them getting together, unless it's the slowest slow burn to ever burn and they wait until the very last episode in which case they only solve the internal conflict and spend the next few episodes resolving external conflicts)

ACT 4 - test the relationship, usually with external conflicts, sometimes includes a big fight but never a breakup (begins with: the honeymoon episode of pure fluff, they finally figured their shit out and resolved any internal relationship conflicts) (ends with: a well-earned happily ever after).

You can totally play around with this (say by switching the internal and external conflicts with each other, or by teasing your audience with an accidental/meaningless kiss earlier in the story, or by having your characters have casual sex early on), but you absolutely must hit these narrative beats for the romance part of the plot at the right time or the story will feel frustrating (too fast in parts or too slow in others).

So how is Step by Step doing slow burn wrong?

They pretty much nailed the first three acts, only flubbing the timing by ending the third act 20 minutes into episode 10 instead of at the end of episode 9. But they are failing our 4th act completely.

First, we were owed a honeymoon episode of pure fluff and didn't get it. We got 1/3 of an episode showing their domestic bliss.

Second, the final relationship testing conflict at the end a slow burn should not feel like it has the potential to destroy that relationship. It's usually supposed to demonstrate that now that they are finally a unit, they are stronger together. It should feel like our characters are standing firmly on solid rock, not ever-changing quicksand. They fought long and hard to finally get together and there is no way in hell they'll let the other go.

But that's not the 4th act we're seeing.

At this point, the way the story is going, I feel like they're trying to tack on an Act 4 from the typical romance pacing rather than the Act 4 from a slow burn. They're giving us huge external conflicts, likely followed by a big fight and breakup next episode, and they'll only be happily together at the end of episode 12.

It's all wrong. You can't just switch out the Slow Burn Act 4 with the Act 4 from a typical romance! It's totally unsatisfying and will make the final act pacing feel too rushed. Your leads only JUST got together, and now you're throwing them into relationship-breaking conflict so soon with only one episode remaining to resolve it all? The only way to salvage that is to have yet another time skip as a cheat (putting character development offscreen instead of onscreen where it belongs), a trope which (again for those in the back) IS TOTALLY ANNOYING AFTER A SLOW BURN.

I adore episodes 1-9, but unless I am reading what they set up in the last third of episode 10 all wrong, I expect I'll have to massively skip a bunch of these last three episodes on any re-watch.

Le sigh.

Calling Thai-speaking La Pluie Watchers

What does Tien actually say here in this scene? To me, "freak" (shown in the preview) just didn't match the situation, so it has been throwing me all week.

And now the subtitles on the actual episode are completely different (but more fitting).

Help, @recentadultburnout!

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 = 💖