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 (lol) to Kuda’s site and watch for yourself? (Note: I will activate the link when Kuda’s site comes back up)

Episode 7

Summary

In a continuation from episode 6, Yuri asks Noh if he is straight, grabs his hand and draws it to her breast. Noh gets angry and leaves, but Yuri catches up to him and jumps on his back. They talk about how dangerous it would have been to do that with another guy. Noh swims out to retrieve the dolphin floatation device and Yuri, realizing that he doesn’t love her, begins to cry. Noh tries to cheer her up by performing amusing tricks. Later by the pool, Yuri tells Noh that she knows he will never love him and offers to help him with a new girlfriend once he has one. She warns him against leading other girls on only to hurt their feelings. She asks for a kiss, but settles for a hug after Noh says that a kiss would make things worse.

Phun dresses Aim’s “injured” foot. When he leaves to return a first aid kit to the hotel, he passes the pool where he witnesses Noh and Yuri embracing. When Yuri and Noh join the other couple, Phun gets overly romantic and carries Aim off, even returning with her to pick up her handbag rather than allowing Noh to help. At dinner that night, Phun and Noh are overly attentive to their girlfriends. Phun orders three salads for Aim while Noh orders many seafood dishes and other kinds of meat. Yuri calculates the calories, Noh tells her not to worry about calories as she will just poop out the food.

Back at the hotel, the girls and boys play the bed game one more time. Earn calls Noh to find out where he is sleeping. Phun wants to break his arrangement with Aim to massage her feet and sleep in her room. Yuri’s father calls and wants to do a video chat with them. Yuri turns on the chat and tells him that she is with Aim and her two gay friends. Since he says he’ll call again later, Yuri convinces Aim to stay in her room.

In their rooms, Aim confesses to Yuri that she might be cheating on Phun, in the same way I might enjoy eating cookies. Phun tells Noh that he cares for Aim but is also jealous when he saw Noh with Yuri. He lets Noh know that he feels the same way about Aim that he dos about Noh. Phun kisses Noh on the forehead. Noh moves and looks like he might have done something in return, but they might have run out of time with the episode.

Neung takes Jeed to the expensive restaurant where Khom works. Neung introduces Jeed to Khom, who she pretends to be meeting for the first time. Jeed seems uncomfortable when ordering and she admits to Neung that there are lots of people who could never afford to eat at that restaurant. Neung says he can take her there every night. When it comes time to pay, Neung leaves Khom a large tip and leaves arm in arm with Jeed making sure Khom witnesses the exit. Neung drops Jeed off, but Khom has followed them on his motor scooter. He tries to take Jeed for dessert, but does not have enough money to pay without using Neung’s tip. Jeed leaves. Khom confronts her again and asks her if she would just wait for him.  Distraught, Jeed calls Mo…

…who is on the curb herself crying because Golf kissed her. Earlier, Moan had tried to call her, but Golf told her not to pick up the phone. Mo says she knows Moan is a bastard, but things are complicated because she is already in love with him. Golf wants to know if he were a bastard if she would fall for him and kisses her. She slaps him and leaves. And the end of the episode, Golf is seen entering his car while Moan arrives on the back of a hired motorbike with a very large teddy bear.

Rambles

I have to admit, I am starting to get bored with Hua Hin. It was an important episode on the road, but four episodes is too long. I’ve had that experience, too. You think a three-day weekend is a good way to get to know someone better – the first time one may be actually spending intense time in someone else’s company. Seventy-two hours to hopefully discover shared bliss, only to find out after twelve hours that the person you were with is o.k. for dinner and a movie, but not much more. I can’t wait for it to be over and neither can the foursome, especially Yuri. Let’s leave them for a bit. The other couples are up to things too.

The theme of this episode was jealousy and more specifically a jealousy that leads to a rivalry. We had visions of it with Earn, who needed to call Noh again to make sure he wasn’t sleeping with Phun; Noh and Phun, fighting against each other’s girlfriends, who aren’t yet aware who the competition is; Khom chasing down Jeed now that he knows that Neung is involved with her; and of course Golf vs. Moan trying to out bastard the other. The class issue came up again this episode with Moan and Khom representing the bikers brigade and Golf and Neung representing the auto-cads. Obviously we need to judge a person by their character rather than their mode of transport, but none of the boys certainly came of that well in that regard this episode.

On the Golf/Mo/Moan triad, I don’t have much to say. I know that Mo will go back to Moan as it is early in the season. Golf’s question about being a bastard was a challenging one, but the kiss was too desperate to do him much good. Now instead of having a friend she can turn to, Mo, when she decides to leave Moan will need to deal with the knowledge that running to Golf may mean deciding to love him right away. She’s not going to get a break from the relationships that she’ll probably need. We’ll see how it goes. I hope she isn’t too impressed about Moan’s overly stuffed bear – she doesn’t seem the type.

Khom really is starting to worry me. He’s quickly becoming the male version of Yuri when it comes to Jeed. I know she lingers in his mind. When he last appeared, he couldn’t even apply for a job at a café where he once shared a snack with her. But great new haircut aside, Khom needs to drop her. He does like her, but he has the same issue that Yuri has when it comes to pretending that there should be a connection and commitment from someone just because of a few dates. No, Jeed should not have to wait for him at age 17, as much as we think that is the good story. He shouldn’t ask her to. Neung is a danger boy, sure, but if he wanted to talk to her about something, he could have passed a warning on. She doesn’t yet see that her options aren’t simply between rich and poor, since both boys are actually nice from her perspective. Instead of a warning, he returns to courting her himself and once again is spending more than he has. I respect Jeed tremendously for not letting him do that this time, the first time I’ve liked her this year. Khom needs to realize that the girl who ignored him in the restaurant and told him to mind his place is also Jeed. I still don’t know how he wades through that kind of bullcrap from her and maintains his dignity.

Speaking of bullcrap – I think I’m probably the only one who simply can’t bring myself to feel sorry for Yuri. I couldn’t in the novel. I can’t in the series, although I am loving how Pinere is playing her. Their conversation on the beach and in the pool did nothing to change that. I know she’s upset, but her scolding advice to Noh on how to date in the future just grated on me. “Don’t play with a girl’s heart if she loves you and you don’t love her. Don’t take her to movies or out to dinner or go on dates…” I should probably feel sorry that Noh did those things, but how is Noh supposed to find out if he likes someone if he doesn’t spend time with them? It’s like advising him to only go out with someone if he falls in love at first sight or has some kind of unlikely soul mate experience. Her romantic vision of the world involves that kind of leaping; from the very beginning of her courtship she jumped into lifetime commitment and marriage dreams. Noh feels bad about everything because he probably hasn’t experienced someone like that before. Sure, he needs to be more careful, but she needs to toughen up a little as well. If we follow the series timeline (not the novel’s timeline), Noh has been leading Yuri on for about five weeks. (BFD, pardon my acronym). Yuri is human, however, so I’m not going to fault her for doing things that humans have been doing in courtship battles for hundreds of years. Yuri is only fragile because she thinks that’s what girls are, but a lot of people feel that they have to be that fragile for love dreams to work.

I know, I know, the boys are being judged by how well they treat Yuri and Aim, and if Noh had just dismissed her concerns we wouldn’t have liked him so much. Not everyone who is in touch with a little of their inner Don Juan is a player, and sometimes its ok to enjoy a first date without worrying that it might lead to the altar. Yuri needs to change, too. Just like in the novel (which I don’t yet know how it end for Noh), I hope he learns that while he is responsible for what he does to others, he isn’t completely beholden to their feelings. More to come on this, I’m sure.

As for the kissing controversy. I don’t have much to say. (Which means I will write three paragraphs). I wrote specifically about that scene in my post on Episode 3. The missing kiss was in what I thought was one of the best bits of writing p’Hed produced about the workings of Noh’s heart.

The two of us listen to the faint sounds of waves crashing into the shore. It’s like how I feel on the inside right now. It’s as if there’s a fist that keeps smashing against my heart over and over…

And no matter what kind of a relationship we end up having, I feel so at ease every time that we hold one another like this…

I just want him to stay by my side as long as possible. This is all I ever wanted.

I was worried at the time that the production team couldn’t handle that without referencing some kind of cheesy Korean soap. I thought they erred to begin with by shooting it in a well-lit bedroom rather than a dark moonlight one. . I didn’t feel the pounding of any hearts, or Phun losing his tension, or much of anything in that scene. Whatever happened between episodes 6’s previews and the release of episode 7 is beyond me.

It was very clear to me that Phun and Noh shared a kiss in that chapter, even if it wasn’t perhaps passionate or erotic. If the issue is that Noh broke character by kissing Phun rather than vice versa, or looked like he wanted Phun physically (rather than just being in love with his “personality”), I’m not certain what the heck was gained by leading the fans on a confusing route. They shared a kiss in a moonlit room that somehow became another forehead kiss in a well-lit one. If there wasn’t a kiss meant in the novel, then perhaps one should have made that clear. Any goodwill that the production team earned back from the disaster of episode 4 is gone again.

I just hope that the team remembers that the boys are actually a little sexual and aren’t just in love with each other’s “Personalities” throughout their story. I know that the novel purposely avoids discussions of the boys’ sexual identities (besides allowing them to declare that they are straight), but they do in fact have sexual interests and sexualities that become very apparent as time goes by. Eventually the boys do clearly kiss and actually do a lot more than that and Noh’s desire for Phun expands to cover not just his eyes, but his broad shoulders, heartbeat and strong arms, especially being held tightly in those arms. It is very much a physical attraction between the two and Noh definitely feels pleasure and comfort from Phun’s touch, even in Hua Hin. If the team isn’t prepared to follow through on that part of the novel, we may be doomed to be repeatedly disappointed this year.

Up Next

Could we just get back to Friday College, already? Also where the hell are the adults?

Fearless predictions

• Golf punches out Moan before Khom punches out Neung (probability: 50%)
• “Noh Kissed First” replaces “Han Shot First” as the most frequently cited example of editing perfidy in history (probaility: .01%)
• Om/Mick and Per/Mahwin will have their first lip to lip kisses onscreen two episodes before Phun/Noh have theirs. (probaility: 83.5%)

I’m travelling wildly over the next few days and will be busy chopping food for Nephew Peale’s graduation party. If I don’t remove my fingers, I hope to be able to post something after episode 8 is released.