So, I’m almost at the end of the series and something major has come to light. In my last review, I was questioning Lian’s motivations about what he was doing with buying up the Keerati’s properties as well as trying to get a business partnership with Gemini. I eventually started catching on as to what was happening with Kuea’s family until finally the bomb dropped in episode 10 which is where I’ve stopped watching for now.
The Keerati family is going bankrupt and none of Kuea’s family told him what is going on.
I feel so bad for him. I really do. And I’m really annoyed with how Kuea’s family refuses to tell him anything, especially the major things! Like, in the first episode, when he was studying abroad, his family never told him that his grandfather died. He just so happened to come home from finishing his schooling abroad and walked in to see a shrine of his dead grandfather. Like, what kind of effed up foolishness is that?? I would be absolutely livid with my family for keeping something like that from me and it would absolutely take me a long time to forgive them. Kuea even admitted that he was the closest to his grandfather out of all his family, so it was literally like coming back home and seeing that no one told you that your best friend died. Effed up for sure.
And now, here we are again, with his family still keeping major things from him. His family is going bankrupt and didn’t tell him about it. Kuea just so happened to see all the deeds and land titles to his family’s homes and properties now in Lian’s name as the sole owner of it all. And I truly don’t buy the excuse of “we didn’t want you to worry”, or “we didn’t want to upset you” and blah blah blah. Eff that. Kuea is still in school and needs money to pay for it. How can he pay for college if his family is bankrupt and didn’t tell him? I really don’t care that Lian is there and can financially provide. He is not a part of the Keerati family, nor is he and Kuea married.
Right about now, Kuea is feeling really hurt and betrayed by everyone he loves except his friends, and I don’t blame him. Episode 10 did not explain why or how his family has gone bankrupt, but I’m sure we’ll get that answer in the next episode. I only have 2 more episodes left and they are really long, so I’ve been delaying watching them lol. Especially since all the episodes have actually been feeling really long already.
Over the course of development between Kuea and Lian, there was a scene in one of the episodes that really, REALLY made me uncomfortable and that was the scene where Lian finally invited Kuea to his night club, Pentagon, to meet his friends. Kuea was super excited because Lian had pretty much banned Kuea from ever going to his club under the excuse of Kuea “being too young”, but now that he’s 21 (or 20?) he is allowing him to go. And since he plans on giving Pentagon to Kuea after they get married, Lian felt it was only right that he gets to see the club.
Anyway, once they arrive and start chatting with Lian’s friends, all of a sudden, they want to play the game Never Have I Ever, with Hia Yi being the ringleader of the game. This quickly turns into trying to get Lian and Kuea to admit things that neither of them are ready to admit to each other just yet, and the whole thing felt very predatory and manipulative. Even when Kuea was obviously uncomfortable with the game, Lian didn’t end the game. He basically continued to pressure Kuea to answer the questions as well, despite already knowing his secrets. Lian then tells his whole table of friends that Kuea is trying to break off the engagement with him and the whole thing turns into Lian’s friends defending him and Kuea whining about wanting Lian to love him and not marry him out of duty and blah blah blah, and next thing I know they are making out right there in front of everyone in their little club section.
I was sooooo uncomfortable watching it that I skipped ahead. I ended the episode early and just moved on to the next one because that was so freakin WEIRD and AWKWARD. Like, who does that?? Who hashes out all their romantic drama and business in front of friends (Lian’s) and strangers (to Kuea since he’s never met them before) and then starts slurping each other’s faces off in front of them?? I’m not into voyeurism, so this was super cringey and uncomfortable to me, and I just couldn’t watch.
I also felt like this scene really showed both Lian’s and Yi’s immaturity, despite them both having a significant age gap with Kuea and Diao. If I’m not mistaken, based on the flashbacks throughout the season, Lian is at least a decade older than Kuea, and 12 years older at most, making his character between the ages of 30 and 32. Yet, in this series, if he’s not being a controlling dictator, then he’s being petty and immature. Not to mention, his secrets carry much more weight than Kuea’s do. Kuea’s secrets (even though they are not secrets anymore) is that he likes creating music and performing, and he likes race cars. There is NOTHING bad or harmful about these things. Lian’s secrets can literally hurt Kuea and damage their relationship. They are not the same and there is a clear imbalance of power in their relationship.
And Yi on the other hand, if he’s not being mean, cold, and strict with Diao, then he’s running away from his feelings. But speaking of Yi and Diao, they finally had a breakthrough in their relationship, despite still not really talking out anything. They just decided to start over with a clean slate. However, Yi did finally admit that he loved Diao and that he’d keep saying it until Diao believed him. So, that was nice, and I am happy that they were finally able to have their moment.
They had an intimate scene that I feel was tastefully done, and I found that I enjoyed their scene much more than Kuea’s and Lian’s. I don’t know if I can explain it well, but I just felt like Yi and Diao’s scene was much sweeter and contained more emotion, with much of those emotions being ones that were suppressed for so long. It was nice seeing how they looked at each other with so much love, how gentle they handled each other, and how they would even look each other in the eyes and smile.
Whereas with Kuea and Lian, I didn’t care much because Lian has been trying to jump Kuea’s bones ever since Kuea first said he wanted to end the engagement. So, I felt nothing with them and didn’t really care about them being intimate. I guess what I’m trying to say is, the intimate scene with Yi and Diao felt earned. The big intimate scene with Kuea and Lian was expected and didn’t feel earned at all. Especially after the weird awkwardness that was making out in front of Lian’s friends.
In my last review, I mentioned that Yi was taking care of Diao out of guilt. Well, we as the viewer find out that there is a bit more to it than that. It seems that Diao’s father has a hand in Yi taking care of Diao. He is pressuring Yi and holding his past over his head in a way that is basically blackmail. During a phone conversation once, he even said to Yi, “don’t think I’ve forgotten what you’ve done to my son” which sounded like a threat to me.
However, based off of flashbacks, the situation of what happened seems rather minor, in my opinion. One time when both Yi and Diao were kids, Yi had a dog. He went to go meet Diao and Diao was excited to see the dog. The dog also got excited, started barking, and ran and pounced on him. Since it was a big dog, Yi was not able to stop the dog from hurting Diao. The flashback was brief, but we are led to believe that Diao fell down, hitting his head, during the “attack” and was hurt enough to lose some of his memories and develop a fear of dogs. However, now that Diao is older, he no longer has a fear of dogs and does not even remember having a fear of dogs or the attack in the first place.
What annoyed me about all of this was that the whole secret of Yi’s guilt was literally soooo anticlimactic. Not to mention, it happened sooooo long ago, and I find it really hard to believe that a parent would blame such a young child for not being able to hold onto a large dog and stop it from jumping on another person; and to then carry this grudge into Yi’s adulthood and coerce and extort him for money because of it. It’s all just baffling to me. Like, there must be more to this “secret”. Yi was literally a child when this happened. In the flashback he looked like he couldn’t have been older than 10 or 11. Why would an adult blame a child this young for the behavior of a dog?
Anyway. I am happy that Yi and Diao have admitted that they love each other, although I do wish Yi could have told him why he was behaving the way he was in the first place. And I hope that Diao can be exposed to what his father is doing to Yi. With two episodes remaining, I am not sure how much more relationship development we can get or what other information can be revealed because overall, Yi and Diao really don’t get a lot of screentime.
Lastly, the final couple of Syn and the new guy whose name I still don’t remember seems to be developing more romantically now. They constantly stare at each other, and it is obvious that they are starting to like each other as more than friends (even though they were never really friends). Like I’ve said before, I really don’t care about them and still believe that their minor storyline is unnecessary.
Two more episodes are left, and I am curious as to how things will pan out for all our couples. I’ll be back soon with my final, overall review of this series. I don’t have any expectations, but I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
If you’re new to my Cutie Pie reviews, start from the beginning: Episode 1 Review | Mid Season Review 1
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