Summaries (Spoilers, Obviously) and Comments

Note: I group summaries by story line, not in presentation order. If you want to know how the scenes actually played out in their official sequence, why not follow this link to Kuda’s site and watch for yourself?

Episode 6

Summary

Phun and Noh wake up on the beach after falling asleep in their chairs. Phun holds Noh’s hand and they watch the sunrise together. Noh returns to his room. Yuri attempts to clean up the rose petals and candle wax from her planned romantic evening. Noh discovers the evidence and leaves. Uncertain what to do about the sleeping arrangements for the next night, he tries to think about who to call for advice. After discounting Ohm and Ngoi, he calls Earn. Earn initially advises him to do the right thing and sleep in the same room as a guy, but when he finds out that guy is Phun, he changes his mind, confusing Noh.

Yuri, Aim, Phun and Noh have a tense breakfast. Aim asks Phun where he was the night before, but Noh sends him to get toast, delaying the conversation. Aim plants the idea with Yuri that Noh is purposefully acting attentive around her and warns her to be suspicious. Aim gets a message from someone and excuses herself, pretending it is her mother. She goes to her room and starts an argument with a boy named “Bomb” who is threatening to release a video of her having sex with him.  Phun comes to the hotel room to find her and sees that she is upset. She asks if he would forgive her if she ever made a mistake. Phun says he would and embraces her.

Later on the beach, the foursome prepare for some bathing. Noh complains about the Sun, so Phun applies sunblock for him. Noh receives a text from Golf with a link to the online video of Aim which is now circulating. He plays the video but because his phone’s speaker is on, Aim hears her voice and knows that the video is hers. After Yuri, Noh and Phun head to the water, Aim tries to break into Noh’s phone. Noh returns to his chair and catches her and they start feeling each other out to determine how much each knows. She wants to know if she can block porn from Phun’s phone, but Noh lets her know that popular videos get circulated and that he’s probably already seen this one.

Phun returns and picks up Aim and takes her into the water. The boys eventually return to their chairs. Aim pretends to be injured to interrupt their discussion and keep Phun and Noh separated. Noh recommends that the girls sleep in the same room because they would care for each other better, but it looks like Phun and Noh won’t be sharing the same room again. After Phun and Aim leave, Yuri asks Noh directly if he is straight.

Pang, Whanjieb and Munmee eat breakfast in the mall and find out that Pop and Shay have checked in. They go to a toy store to spy on them while they shop for stuffed animals. Shay has to leave and Pop meets a girl. The Rotten Girls confront the girl in the bathroom about what she is doing with Pop. She says they are so close that he calls her his “sister” – “for now.” The girls hire a cute bike messenger to pose as the mystery girl’s boyfriend and throw a tantrum so that Pop will believe she is a “skank.” As they wait for the messenger, they overhear Pop referring to her as his cousin. The girls go to find the bike messenger to stop him, but he has left, taking their money with him.

Rambles

I wonder if the fujoshi interpret Romeo and Juliette as a comedy in which that bitch Juliette gets her just desserts for coming between Romeo and Tybalt, whom they imagine are happily spending an pleasurable eternity together. My goodness, the Rotten Girls in episode 6 seem to have lost the purpose of the plot, to the point where they can’t even imagine the outcome of own devious plans without turning them into an opportunity for more yaoi indulgence. If you didn’t think Pang and the Gang were frightening after my write up in episode 3, do you believe me now?

Episode 6 finds us back at the beach for another go round of the sleeping quarters game and offers another escapade from the crazy fandom.  This is the point in the rambles section where I usually touch on the theme of the episode, but I have to admit that I am at a loss for how the two stories are connected this week. Something, something, “the folly of jumping to conclusions?” I guess that will work in a pinch since I need a concept to hang the next paragraphs around. If you crane your neck, it’s clearly that. Although, at this point if Yuri and Aim don’t jump to the conclusion that something is going on between Phun and Noh, and Phun isn’t suspicious that Aim has done something wrong (she told him he did something. Perhaps he should pry a little), I don’t know what I can do to help them. What’s the opposite of ”jumping to conclusions?”

Anyway, the Rotten Girls need to take it down a notch in their reign of terror, or I am going to have to start hiding under my desk whenever they appear. I am not certain where the writers are going with the crazed fandom satire, but I think they’ve established now that collectively the girls can be as vicious as Livia Soprano when another young girl looks like she may burst their fantasies. I like that the main instigator of plots seems to be Whanjieb, so if the writers do decide to introduce PangPop as a couple, Pang will need to be on her toes. Nice touch having Munmee be more concerned that she lost her money than expressing relief that they didn’t ruin the reputation of an innocent girl.

Commenter bamburn04 in his weekly episode posting at kudalakorn.com noted that the Rotten Girls share a lot in common with religious fanatics in their quest to impose their vision on other people. I am starting to agree. I had forgotten that unlike the novel, the series had Phun come clean to Pang about the ruse he was running with Noh last season. So the episode 3 torment Pang put the boys through came despite being told that the boys weren’t an actual couple. Episode 6 has the trio enforcing “fidelity to fan concept” on Pop. Of course they won’t take out their frustration on Pop – that is reserved for the other woman. It can never be Pop who disappoints. I guess that’s what fandom does, but the girls are getting close to restraining order territory.

Which brings up the developments at Hua Hin. I liked the episode a lot, although fans of the novel are noting that the writers have strayed from the orthodoxy of the events of the novel and may be altering the characters in the adaptation. Noh is being more forceful now that he has possession of Aim’s video and knows that she knows he knows about it, and looks like he is planning on turning over some evidence soon. This isn’t the same Noh we grew used to, but we’ll see. I liked that they hinted that he is a little vain (which he is), although I hope the writers don’t go in for too many “vanity in men = homosexuality” jokes. However, Noh is cute when he notices himself. He is assertive and may have a plan – neither of which Noh is known for in the novel. Fans also seem to be disappointed that the boys aren’t sharing a room together, but we’ll see how it goes next episode. Its still Saturday afternoon on the beach and we won’t know what happens in the bed game until the Sun goes down.

There was also a scene inserted for Team Earn fans that wasn’t in the novel but was particularly cute. The first ringtone parry from Earn was a disaster last year as it made Noh think of Phun. This year’s attack was adorable, so I don’t mind at all that the scene was inserted in the episode to give Ngern extra face time. I thought the whole process of Noh trying to figure out who to call and then getting such confusing answers from Earn was the comic highlight of the episode (sorry, Rotten Girls, you weren’t that funny). Earn is trying so hard, but in the end, his interest in keeping Noh away from Phun makes him no better than Ngoi would have been as an adviser.

The other highlight of the episode was a scene involving Aim and Phun alone in their room in which Aim asks Phun point blank if he can forgive her for a vague “mistake”, although she won’t reveal what she’s done. He does and we finally see the couple do something together this season that looks like Phun at least cares for her and maybe cared for her a lot some time ago. I think establishing that kind of relationship was important and as screen time for Aim is probably going to diminish greatly after the return to the beach, it was important to show it now so that Phun’s future behavior is more understandable. Plus, the production team has managed to make Aim somewhat more sympathetic than she was in the novel. She may have just made a mistake recently, although it was a doozy involving a boy named “Bomb” and too much booze. We’ll see if that’s all an act and she’s really sorry or if she’s just manipulating Phun into forgiving her without her having to give up the image he has of her. I felt that Phun shouldn’t have offered a blanket forgiveness so quickly, even though he is clearly feeling guilty about cheating on her at that moment and probably knows that it would be hypocritical for him not to extend something that he knows he may need to ask for some day. I’m going to hold off on my judgment until I get more information. First impressions of character changes can often be wrong.

Overall, I’m glad that the team is focusing as much on Noh/Yuri and Phun/Aim at Hua Hin as the boys’ time together. Noh is all over the place trying to manage Phun’s desires, Yuri’s demands and Aim’s presence. In the novel it always seemed that Aim was going to be developed into something other than a stock “cheating slut” whose reputation the boys unnaturally worried about, and whom we could dismiss as a girlfriend rather unemotionally as readers. At Hua Hin I thought p’Hed in the Novel had created something a little more than that – a more formidable foe for Noh. Something like an enchantress who could put a spell on Phun. A siren. But after Hua Hin, that Aim never arrived. I’m intrigued to see if Aim (and Primrose) can ever capture that feeling so that we can understand why Phun tries so desperately to hold onto her.

Up Next

Moar beach, please. But let’s go back to Friday College. Hopefully the “good” boys who’ve been left behind are up to some monkey business. And maybe I’ll get around to checking to see how wrong I’ve been in my predictions so far. Next week, I’ll be visiting the historic Peale Manor in the far away countryside, where the Peale Parents somehow get by without cable or high speed internet like their pioneer ancestors of two centuries ago, so next week’s update may be a bit slow in coming.

Fearless predictions:

• The new, more assertive Noh, will last about 10 seconds once he returns to school (probability: 78%)
• Ngoi will be the next president of the music club at season’s end (probability: 47.3%)
• If he keeps it up, by season’s end Ngoi fanfic will overwhelm all other series related offerings. The number one pairing will be Ngoi/Whanjieb (probability: 2%)