Lovesick Season 1 Episode 3

Phun-Noh

Noh is spending the night with Phun, so he will need a clean shirt to wear the next day to school. Phun is coming back to the bedroom. He has the shirt he is giving Noh to wear. These shirts have the student number embraided in it, so that can be an issue because Phun and Noh don’t have the same student number. Phun turns off the light. Noh builds a pillow fort to prevent Phun from forcing himself onto him while they sleep. Noh is so cute. We hear a noise, the door opens, it is Pang! Phun jumps over the pillow fort and gets on TOP of Noh, oh the subtle cues they try to give us! 😊 Pang wanted to bring Noh a comforter in case he was cold.  Sassy Phun says not to worry, Noh won’t get cold. Oh my God! Stop it Phun! He is so bad. I love him.

And here goes that word. Did you hear it? Chia (เชี่ย)!!! This will be one of the first words you learn in Thai. It is a swear word, like the f bomb in English. It apparently comes from hia (เหี้ย) which is also a milder swear word. Hia means monitor lizard, a sign of bad luck. So people say hia when they encounter something they don’t expect, I guess this is the same as saying, “damn it!”. It can also be used to mean “terrible” or “horrible”.

Cultural note: The next scene shows us a typical school scene in Thai shows. Students are coming into the school in the morning and we see a teacher do a uniform check. If the students don’t pass, they get punished by having to do sit-ups or pushups.

So apparently there is a morning student-run show called “Club Friday”, led in this episode by Film and Per. This is a joke on the famous Thai show, “Club Friday”, which was a radio show turned into an anthology series featuring stories about infidelity, unrequited love, etc. They read a letter from a fellow student who asks about what to do about a crush he has on a friend. Per notes that this is an all-male school so the guy most have a crush on another guy. “It is ok. It is love”, Film says. There is a funny bit here I won’t go into, but suffice it to say that for a moment Noh thought this letter was written by Phun. Alas, it was not.

Cultural note: Also note the use of the elephant noise anytime the kathoey no-name character who is overweight does anything funny. I think this tells us a lot about how kathoey are seen as the butt of jokes but also note that this is the only overweight male character in the show.

Noh gets to his homeroom looking a bit sleepy. I guess even with the pillow fort, he had to pull an all-nighter guarding his rear end. We see the guys just being guys and try to get into Noh’s business. I love this group. I wish my high school friends were half as insane and fun as these guys. Best even smells Noh and tells him that’s not his shirt because it doesn’t smell like him. LOL The guys ask Noh who he spend the night with. He says Phun from Class One. Most of them don’t know who Phun is, but Best starts fake crying. It is really funny. Then he says that their beloved Noh has lost his virginity. Oh, Best, as we say in Spanish, “Que comes que adivinas?”/”What do you eat that you can guess?” 😊 He is not too far off.

After this funny scene, we have our first kathoey interlude. Word travels fast in this school. The kathoey chorus tell us that Noh and Phun were not close friends, which makes the kathoey suspicious that perhaps Noh is gay, why else did he spend the night with Phun? Some of them are surprised while others seem to have known for a while. Interestingly, they don’t seem to be surprised about Phun.

Yuri calls Noh. Actually, she tried calling him and he didn’t answer so she calls Om, his best friend. Noh begs Om to tell her that he is not there. Eventually, he relents, after Om throws in some obvious lies that Yuri won’t swallow. Yuri tells Noh, “let’s have dinner tonight”. Watch Noh’s face. Does it look like he wants to have dinner with Yuri? She pleads, “Eating without you is like eating fries without Ketchup”. Smooth Yuri. Smooth.

Noh once more relents. Can we say, push over? Yuri is so excited that after she hangs up, she hugs a concrete column and screams to the top of her lungs that Noh is going out with her. You can’t deny that Yuri is cute.

Back at the music club, the boys talk about what happened to the budget. It is Ngoi’s fault. “You are dumber than stupid buffaloes”, admonishes Noh. I guess buffaloes are the dumbest animals in Thailand, kind of like asses here in the US? Now everyone is mad at Ngoi. “What should we do with him?”, asks one of the guys. Per’s suggestion: “We should write on his dick and let him dance in front of the flagpole?” (naked?). Everyone thinks Per is a little weird. No one wants to see that! I agree. Sounds like a very repressed gay thing to me but we won’t talk about Per’s gay tendencies YET. The guys then agree to let Ngoi be their servant for the rest of the term as punishment for being dumber than a buffalo. Om announces that Noh sold his body out in order to get the drums. Once more, the boys are not too far off from the truth.  How can they possibly know?

Om asks Noh about Yuri and Noh tells Om that he has to go with Yuri to the restaurant because she already told everyone they are together. Do you see a pattern?

Noh goes to the restaurant to meet up with Yuri but to his surprise he finds Phun and Aim and a bunch of other convent girls all sitting together.  Noh sits besides Phun and Yuri motions for him to sit by her. Phun ask why he doesn’t sit with her and Noh replies that “She is scary”.  Phun tells Noh that he was scared too at first but now that he is here, he is fine. These guys are so gay and they don’t even know it LOL. I love their cute interaction here. It seems very realistic. When Noh realizes that Aim is next to Phun, he offers to get up and move somewhere else but Phun doesn’t let him go.

I don’t blame Noh, Aim is so annoying. I once read someone say that Primrose, the actress who plays Aim, could suck the energy out of an entire scene and is so true. I feel bad because Primrose is a nice person, but she is not a great actress.

Trivia: Primrose is Captain’s cousin. I believe the original actress was changed last minute and they got Primrose to play the part but I can’t recall for sure. It was either her or Pineare (Yuri) who came on board last minute due to a recast.

Phun is so proud that Noh slept at his place and they both have the same student ID embroiled in their shirts. He does not realize how gay that looks. This is one of the reason I love Lovesick, it is innocent and pure love.

Yuri makes a big ruckus about not sitting Noh sitting far from her. She tells Noh, “Why do you huddle up with Phun? It is uncomfortable”. I don’t know if she meant that Noh should be uncomfortable or if she meant to say it makes her uncomfortable (I am pretty sure is the latter). Phun replies that it does not make him uncomfortable. Here we go again, sassy Phun. Phun then suggest that Noh chooses. Noh doesn’t want to choose so he sits by himself. Subtle foreshadowing, ah?

Yuri’s and Phun’s rivalry then shifts from who he is sitting next to, to who gets to feed Noh. Eventually, Grace interjects and reminds everyone that some woman like to imagine that they are dating a guy or that they are feeding a guy. There is 0 subtlety here from the writers room. “I feel bad for the guys”, she says. What about the girls?

Yuri and No are browsing a store after dinner. Yuri asks Noh if they can take a picture together. Noh is not very enthusiastic. I really think someone should send Yuri a copy of the movie “He is not that into you”, because, you know, he is not that into her. Yuri finds a stuffed animal with Yuri loves Noh inscribed. Noh gets a phone call and then leaves in a hurry.

Phun is dropping Aim at her house. She asks him if he forgot something, “I love you” he replies after some hesitation. Aim reminds him that he should not be cheating around with other girls. No problem Aim, he will just cheat with a guy. LOL. It is implied here that Aim and Phun are sexually active and Aim wants Phun to spend the night.  Phun gets a call from Noh. Phun tells Aim that he needs to go. Aim is upset, I guess she wanted to get laid and Noh just ruin the plan. He will ruin a lot more of those plans later.

Noh forgot that he left his motorcycle at Phun’s house. I bet you forgot about that too. They meet at front of Phun’s house and find that the servants are washing the bike. Noh insists that they don’t have to do that, he can wash his bike. Phun sends the servant away and to Noh’s surprise and to our delight, he starts stripping to help wash the bike. Where is my popcorn?

If you ask anyone that has ever watched Lovesick about this scene, they will all remember it. It is the most iconic scene of season 1. Noh and Phun, washing a bike, fooling around, playing with water. It is cute and I have to admit, sexy. White was either 18 or 19 when this scene was shot and he exudes a certain playful sexiness that is hard to explain. The montage of them washing the bike ends with Captain on top of White. To me, they both had fun filming this and you can tell that towards the end of the scene, they are laughing for real.

Once they dry out, Phun walks Noh back home (I guess they live close?). Phun asks Noh for more time to get the money for his club. Noh tells him that he hopes he is really telling the truth about helping him and if not, he hopes Phun looses his balls. Phun replies, “How can I lose them? They’re here!” while thrusting forward in a very sexually suggestive way. It is a quick, split second gesture but it is the little things like this that make you think White is just a natural hottie. I remember replying this scene trying to understand the dialogue because the subtitles flashed so quickly and because I thought White looked sexy doing it. I still think he looks sexy in a sort of geeky sexy way.

I love that at the end of this scene, we get to see a montage of them reflecting on the last 48 hours with Shake playing in the background. Phun walks away from Noh’s house and smiles. He is happy about everything that has happened.

Convent Girls

Jeed is texting with “Sharp” (Khom) at lunch. Grace admits she is jealous. Mo comes in crying. We don’t know why. Aim asks Yuri what she is doing in the evening and she replies she is having dinner with Noh. “Did you ask him?”, Aim asks Yuri. Her answer is no but she assures her she will call him and he will say yes. If this doesn’t scream one-sided relationship, then I don’t know what does. I insist, Yuri would have benefited from reading the book “He is not that into you”.

We get a useless scene that shows us how bad Moan is. Message received.

Quote at the end of the episode: “A DEEP BOND IS STRONGER THAN LOVE”

Analysis

This episode is dedicated almost entirely to the Phun-Noh storyline, which is always a good thing. This is a solid episode, with two wonderful scenes: the restaurant scene and the bike washing scene. It also ends with a pretty emotional montage that shows you that the boys are starting to develop strong feelings for each other.

The episode also shows us the toxic side of both Noh and Yuri’s’ relationship and Phun and Aim’s relationship. Yuri is really pushy and is constantly trying to make Noh do things that he clearly doesn’t want to do. Aim and Phun have a relationship that is sexual in nature and this is strongly hinted here. I was left with the impression that Aim wanted Phun to have sex with her but Phun didn’t seem as interested. Both relationships are one-sided.

It is important to note that in Thai culture, once a guy has sex with a girl, he is expected to take care of her, or so I have read. Thus, later on, we will see that Phun feels obligated to stay with Aim because of this. It is a central issue in the story. I can’t remember if it’s also in the show or only in the book, but it is a difficult conversation that Phun and Noh eventually have.

The restaurant scene is probably one of my favorite scenes of the season. Besides being funny, in this scene we see Phun and Noh act in public together for the first time. Aim and Yuri get the first glimpse of Phun and Noh together. We also get to see the classic trope of the Seme feeding the Uke. Food plays a very important role in Love sick. Here, the food is an analogy for what is going on in their hearts: Phun feeds Noh but Yuri wants to feed Noh. Noh gets annoyed that no one is asking him what he wants, so he leaves.

When I first watched this scene, I had flash backs of what it is like to have a girlfriend but wanting to be with a male friend you have a crush on. I remembered how annoying woman seem to be when you feel like this. Many people are appalled at the way woman are represented in Thai BL show. I won’t disagree that the stereotypical Thai BL girlfriend is annoying and pushy but we have to also understand that from the point of view of these young gay characters who are coming out, woman can seem to be THAT annoying. There is a difference between saying woman are annoying and saying woman SEEM annoying. I hope you understand this. I remember having a similar issue with my sitting situation when I was in college. I liked a guy who sat way in the front of the classroom and so I had to convince my girlfriend to sit there with me but so many times she would get there earlier and so she will pick a chair way far from him and I would be left internally fuming for no reason. My girlfriend was a saint, don’t get me wrong. She will always have a special place in my heart. It is just that closeted gay man are very complicated.

The bike wash scene is a classic. I don’t think anyone who has watched this show can forget about this scene. This is not only because it gave us a glimpse of what wet White looks like (Thank the BL Gods!), but because it is just a great scene. It is sensual without being vulgar. It is erotic but also romantic. The director was careful not to sexualize Captain, who was barely 15 or 16 when this was shot, and was smart to focus instead on White, who was older (and sexy). The scene is done in good taste. It is innocent and pure and reflects the budding friendship of Phun and Noh.

I am going to say the overall arching theme in this episode is pursuing love. Jeed pursues Khom. Yuri pursues Noh. Phun pursues Noh. Aim pursues Phun. Mo is trying to pursue Moan, who is a lost cause. There is also something in this episode about your duty as a friend and as a lover: At the restaurant, Noh refuses to sit with Yuri. Phun rejects Aim’s advances at Aim’s house. Phun realizes Noh needs him and leaves Aim alone at her house, just like Noh left Yuri alone at Siam. The episode ends with Phun reminding Noh that he will keep his promise about the money. Both boys are starting to be more loyal to each other than to their girlfriends, a good thing in my book.

Episode quote: “[they are gay?] It is ok. It is love”

Most useless scene: Moan fighting some random people that we never see again. We never learn what they were fighting about.

Cutest moment: When a very proud (and gay) Phun explains to his girlfriend that Noh has the same student number as him because he gave him his shirt

Sexy moment: Anytime White takes his shirt off.

Gayest thing said: Per explaining how they should all write something on Ngoi’s dick as punishment for what Ngoi did.

Episode rating: 4/5 This is a great episode and is the first episode where I felt like I understood the characters. I also got a feeling of déjà vu watching this episode, both because I went to an all-male school and because this episode brought back memories of being, well, lovesick.