BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“He is a baby learning to love.” – Quotation from Love In The Air
I could not help but use that line above to sum up what this series is all about. Simply it is a story of two players falling deeply and intensely in love with two rather naïve and vulnerable young men and in a twist of irony, these two guys, when they learn to love, then turn around and get the upper hand. This series is a chronicle of two relationships interwoven by friendship.
The first story is centered around the relationship between upperclassman Payu (Boss Sermsongwittaya), a well-known mechanic and heavily involved in clandestine motorcycle races. He is also a top-notch designer. Payu of course is drop-dead gorgeous and is charming and pleasant to everyone, which makes him even more endearing. He becomes infatuated and focuses on a college student, Rain (Noeul Tangwai), who is an impulsive, undisciplined, and a zealous young man.
Initially, both pretend very hard to play hard-to-get, but it is for show. This portion is full of tropes and contrived setups that it becomes a bit predictable. Does that necessarily take away from its entertainment? Well just a little bit. While the story is contrived, how they get to an actual relationship is entertaining and frankly one of the steamiest and sensual Thai BL series I have seen in a while. Their screen chemistry is quite good and their love making was also believably intense. In addition to the fact that they make an awesome screen couple even if it seems a bit unorthodox. Noeul as Rain has a charm and seductive quality about him that is irresistible. His boy-next-door look and act not only seduces Payu but made the story of watching him grow and mature so much more entertaining. I could watch him all day even if the story is not necessarily deep.
The kidnapping scene was a bit too much and frankly unnecessary. Sometimes, it would be nice to have a series where there does not have to be a bad guy needing to take revenge. That is an old trope, overused and boring. However, their love scenes were quite intense and some of the best I have seen. So, kudos for bringing back a sincere intensity to showing a veracity to a gay relationship. We see it in all its glory (all G-rated of course).
But the second story was oh so much more than how it presented itself to be. This story, unfortunately, missed becoming an advocate for seeing rape and abuse for what it is. Let me explain. It is a story about a rich playboy motorcycle driver and successful businessman named Prepai (Fort Sengngai), who is Payu’s best friend. To say that Fort’s handsomeness would launch a thousand ships would be an understatement. He becomes completely infatuated with Rain’s best friend, Sky (Peat Chaijinda), who is also drop-dead gorgeous.
Their first encounter is the key that opens up their relationship. Prepai, ever the player, takes advantage of Sky as both he and Rain crash into one of the clandestine motorcycle races and he saves Sky from an even worse situation by forcing him to spend the night with him. Their encounter is full of lust, and intense sexual feelings, with something happening to Prepai where he cannot stop thinking about Sky and their encounter. Something else, however, reawakens in Sky. He resists and tries to fight off all the advances from Prepai in wooing him. The deeper the feelings that Prepai has for Sky, the more pensive Sky becomes. While there are subtle hints and clues of what may have happened to Sky to cause such a visceral intensity to fighting off anyone trying to get close to him, we do not find the details completely until the end of the series.
Tragically and painfully, Sky has had to live with the pain, guilt, and stigma of being raped, bullied, and abused by his former lover and his friends. They not only physically assaulted and abused Sky, but they also successfully used psychological torture and emotional abuse to lay waste to what was once Sky. They made him feel, as so typical of victims, that it was the victim’s fault for their own abuse and torture. Sky had to live with, seeing himself as less than everyone else – damaged goods as he called himself.
Throughout this slow-moving series, we see him revert, almost imperceptibly, into a child-like persona of wanting Prepai to love only him, to never leave him, and always hoping he was enough for Prepai. Seeking and longing for something in his life that has been missing. And the only way to protect himself is to never allow anyone else in. And even if you do, you cannot trust them.
I cannot begin to tell you how I wept during this last episode. I wept because of the pain he had to endure, live with, and try to overcome – alone. Now I understood why he refused to want to be seduced into thinking that someone would actually like him simply for being who he is. He is simply not worthy. The psychological torture and physical abuse and rape that he endured would be almost incomprehensible for those who have never had to deal with such trauma.
I must applaud this series for showing this is all too real and yes it does happen even in the gay world, perhaps more than we care to realize or want to see. What I think distracted from the impact of this story was that this series should have shown this in the beginning so we can feel the pain from Sky hidden in his reactions to Prepai. We would have understood his irrational fears of thinking that Prepai was cheating because that is all he knows. We would have understood his retreating into himself, his utter feeling of loneliness and isolation and how he could sex turn on and off. Sex was a tool. We would have also understood his almost child-like behavior to prove that a relationship is real. There is so much to unpack in this series that was left undone.
Sky is damaged and Prepai has got to be prepared to stand by him and encourage him to seek professional help in dealing with his feeling of isolation, unworthiness and the psychological pain he endured. I wish this series had dealt with this with greater force and more attention. There is no way Sky is ‘ok’ by simply being with the person he loves now. Love is not magic. It is so much more than that and requires a lot more understanding. I know this is a series done for entertainment and I deeply applaud their efforts to bring to light the despicable abuse to some relationships, but I want viewers of this series to see that a person who has suffered such trauma does not see himself (or herself) only as entertainment.
For the victim, it is real and will always, always a part of them. I would recommend that the series takes this message minimally one step further and post in its credits the numbers of hotlines for ANYONE who might have been or are a victim of sexual abuse or rape. I know this is available in Thailand. We have, I believe, a moral and ethical standard to be leaders here and actively advocate for help.
This series, however, is not without its drawbacks. There are some questionable personal behaviors by Payu and Prepai that need to be addressed. Payu’s use of corporal punishment to teach Rain a lesson is cringeworthy and completely unnecessary. All kinds of behaviors can be justified for ‘good reasons’ to use physical punishment; that simply does not make them right. And for him to do that to Rain for crashing the race is not justifiable. Equally inappropriate was Prepai’s use of undue influence to get Sky in bed in order to meet his needs and justifying that action by telling him that would be more pleasurable than facing the consequences if the organizers had caught him and punished him. None of that works for me and I find, especially in series that are trying to make a point, the use of questionable methods bordering on immoral or unethical reasons simply not acceptable. These types of behaviors detract from the story and diminish the impact of its overall message.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? There is such a natural rhythm to this series, and I have to admit that all the performers were top notch. I applaud their level of comfort in showing us the love scenes with naturalness and intensity. They were not afraid to show us that they were in love, and I felt like they meant it. While each brought uniqueness to his character, who won the day for me is Peat Chaijinda as Sky. He hid the pain of what happened to him with humor and a distance that seemed merely a part of who he was. We did not see the depth of his pain until the end. We had snippets of it from his dream sequences but nothing to indicate the depth of his anguish until the end. He held it in. But looking back, I realized it was in his eyes. It was in his moments when he broke down. I realized the pain was so real when he cried. It was remarkable acting because I saw it, but did not realize why (or perhaps did not want to know), and hid his vulnerabilities with child-like innocence that of course was a façade. Peat fooled me. I felt his child-like behavior was due to some type of abuse and he did not want to get ‘hurt’ again. But it was so much deeper than that. He knew his character’s suffering and only intermittently gave us hints as to its extent. I only wish it was more obvious from the beginning. I think we all would have benefitted from his journey to openness if we had known. Letting go of some of his pain would have been more consequential. We could have felt it with him.
When I realized his horror, I cried. I wept. I sobbed.
This is a remarkably impactful series that just missed being profoundly memorable. We needed to see, feel, and know the pain that Sky had on a deeper level. Do not be afraid to take it one step further. There was a deeper message here. Show it all. But I applaud this series for the progress that has been made.
I was deeply and painfully moved.
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