Synopsis
Phun/Noh Story
Aim is buying shoes. Phun is almost falling asleep sitting there waiting for her to decide which shoes to buy. Noh is following them like a hound. While watching this all I could think is, how many pairs of shoes does she really need? She has like 3 or 4 bags from the other stores they have visited but keeps looking at more shoes. Phun lays in agony in a couch at one of the stores. Noh observes from behind a bush or plant or something green.
Yuri calls Noh who is still stalking Phun. She asks Noh if he is alright. Noh tells her he is good and he hangs up. BTW Guess what Aim is buying? More shoes!
Phun is carrying all of Aim’s 20 or so pairs of shoes. He faints while Noh is stalking him from a corner. Both Aim and Noh help him stand up but it is Noh who takes the lead and puts him in a taxi to take him to his house. Inside the taxi, Noh grabs Phun’s hand. It is a very subtle gesture. This kind of tender, cute, little moments is what makes Lovesick such a classic. To me Lovesick perfected the art of “hand holding porn”. Though here hand holding is a tender act, you will see that Director Andy will use hand holding to elevate the sexual tension between the characters in this show.
At Noh’s house, the servants/maids and Noh’s mom are singing and playing music at the house piano. Note the use of the help as comedic relief and note the colorism implied. Noh arrives with Phun. The maids help Noh get Phun upstairs to Noh’s room. There are additional comedic bits with the more obese and darker servant behaving in a child-like fashion, wanting to touch Phun because “he is cute even when he is sick”.
Phun has a fever. Noh gives Phun some pills for the fever then tells him he is going to give me a towel bath. Phun takes his shirt off (We should count how many times White is bare chested in this show! LOL). Noh applies to towel to his shirt. He then tells Phun, “Take off your pants”. Phun is resistant. Noh insist, telling him “If you are small, I promise I won’t tell anyone aside from the music club, the student council, the guys in the 11th grade, and your girlfriend’s gang at the convent” LOL Noh is such a dick sometimes. He complains in the book about Om but Noh can be worse than Om.
So Phun takes his jeans off and we get to see sexy White in his boxers. Noh tells Phun, “Just don’t get a boner while I am doing this”. These guys talk exactly like teenagers which is why I think this show feels so honest and raw.
It is now night time. Noh comes out of the shower. Credit the producers for being pretty realistic as I can see water on Captain’s skin (you may notice this better in the Netflix version). Speaking of Captain, let’s do a Captain’s trivia: This is one of the very few scenes in 38 episodes of this show that you will see him bare chested. Unlike White, who seems to enjoy being shirtless half the time in season 1 and several times in season 2, Captain is much more modest.
Noh goes to sleep next to Phun. Noh asks him if he is cold, as he can always lower the AC. Phun tells him he doesn’t want Noh to be hot. Noh says he is more concerned about Phun grabbing him while they sleep. “Do you want to be punched?”, he tells Phun. Phun grabs Noh and hugs him tight. Noh fights it but gives up. It is a very cute scene. If Pang was here, she would have a fujoshigasm. The scene ends with a shot of Noh sleeping on Phun’s chest. It is one of the loveliest shots in the entire show.
The next morning the Music Club and the Cheerleaders are preparing for the big soccer match. Everyone is wondering where Noh is. The Student Council is also trying to get a hold of Phun. He can’t be reached on his phone either. “What’s up with those two?”, Om wonders out loud. One of the guys answers, “Are they together or something?” (I think my Netflix sub says “sleeping together” while the youtube sub doesn’t). Earn looks on with a worried face. You will learn why later.
At Noh’s house we get to see the two maids. There is some fat jokes thrown in for good measure. Again, you see that overweight people, people of color and feminine gays always provide comic relief. Noh wants to make Phun breakfast. P’Ann (one of the maids) help him make congee. Congee is a type of rice porridge that can be eaten at any time of day. Apparently this is the first time Noh tries to make breakfast. He is guided by P’Ann. All he does is make instant congee and add some stuff to it.
P’Ann makes some interesting, double-entendre comments about the breakfast Noh just made that makes it sound like she knows something is up between Noh and Phun. She even tells him, there may be obstacles at first but he needs to keep an open mind. Noh is confused until she says “Cooking is about keeping an open mind”. Noh laughs when he realizes she is talking about cooking and not about him being gay.
Film (Toptap from 2Gether) is having lunch with one of the guys from the music club. They talk about how it is not Noh’s fault that they don’t have money for the drum set. The no name character tells Film that he has a plan. He refuses to tell Film what the plan is so we are left not knowing what this plan is.
Noh brings his congee to Phun. Phun is excited to try it. Noh proclaims himself as a Chef. Phun is disappointed to find out is instant congee. Phun ends up sharing the Congee with Noh, spoon feeding him. Noh gets some congee on his mouth and Phun offers to wipe it off. The chorus of Shake plays in the background, “My heart shakes likes this, shakes like this whenever you are near me”. Cuteness overload. Then Phun leans forward and Noh responds by doing the same. At the very last second, before our kokoro implodes from happiness, Noh pulls away. He gets up and announces that he is getting the medicine for Phun. Phun sits by himself. He is shocked.
Convent Story
Khom arrives to his date with Jeed. Jeed is annoyed that she had to wait for him. I guess punctuality is not Khom’s forte. “I will treat you to a movie”, he tells her and she accepts. Is easy to make Jeed happy.
[The scene below is not in the Netflix version]
Khom and Jeed stop at a cosmetic store. Jeed is horrified to find out that Khom doesn’t use cologne. I like that Khom had to verify that he didn’t smell bad. LOL Apparently, Friday College kids, besides mostly being gay, are also known to smell good. So, sorry Jeed, that nice smell is his natural BO LOL. I guess colognes most be expensive in Thailand and so you only wear cologne if you have money. Since Khom is really a poor country kid, he doesn’t wear cologne.
Neung (Means 1… I wonder if he is the first born. He is a bit of a brat. Makes sense LOL) shows up with his girlfriend at the mall. If you don’t remember Neung, he is the “rival” of Khom in the swim team. Also, re-watch episode 1: he was there at the party. Neung is annoyed that his girlfriend is buying too much makeup. Yes, apparently, Thai girls love to buy shoes, perfume and makeup. The guys don’t. Yes, I am being sarcastic.
We get a cameo from Cheewin, the actor who will play Cristina in Make it Right and also direct some of the episodes of the show. He and another guy play the role of a typical Kathoey chorus. We learn from them that Neung is younger than his girlfriend. They also talk about the fact that some of the Friday College kids are not as rich as they may seem and that sometimes they pretend to be rich. This seems to be a direct hit at Khom but I think we are also left wondering if Neung is more like Khom than either of them thinks. In fact, they directly make a joke about Neung’s girlfriend being a Miss. Peru (a play on words meaning that she always PAYs for him). BTW Neung is also getting cologne “samples”. This Friday College kids most smell good. Note the use of the effeminate gay characters to provide comedic relief.
Yuri and her friends run into Khom and Jeed. This scene mostly serves to let us know that Yuri doesn’t know that Noh didn’t go to class today. She is shocked that she didn’t know. Yuri really thinks she is Noh’s girlfriend.
[End of cut scene from Netflix]
Pob and Shay are outside the mall getting a shake. Pang and her gang run into them. Pang observes with delight as the two boys share a shake. Her fujoshi heart can’t take it and she lets a little screech.
Bee, a talent manager who is scouting for boy actors at Siam and a walking stereotype of gay men sees Pob and Shay and asks if they would share their Line ID with him. He guarantees that he will make them stars. The kids all walk out on him but one of the kids remains and gives Bee his LineID. I hope this is meant as a warning story for kids not to talk to strangers but we will see.
Jeed gets late to her house, after spending the afternoon and evening with Khom. Her parents are upset. Jeed fights with them and we learn that it was her dad who wanted her to go to the convent school. Jeed accuses him of only wanting her to go there because of the connections he would gain. He tells her he would cut her allowance. She then goes all drama queen on him telling him he owns her life and her only job is to “endure it”. Jeed is a drama queen. You have thing nothing yet.
Quote at the end of the episode: “Sometimes there might be obstacles but we get a chance to try”. Shake continues to play during the credits.
Analysis
In my opinion, this is one of the top 15 episodes of the entire 39 in the show. There is a lot of sweet scenes here but before we get to those, lets talk about the overall arching theme of the episode: obstacles. Every relationship portrayed in the show is now facing an obstacle. Jeed faces her parents as possible obstacles. Neung faces the obstacle of being with someone who may or may not love him for real. Yuri faces competition by Phun. Aim faces competition by Noh. Earn is facing an obstacle but I will let you figure that one out as I don’t want to spoil too much. Hopefully, you got the hint here in this episode.
Noh faces the biggest obstacle of all: Will he be able to get pass his own homophobia? The end of the episode clearly shows that he is not able to do that. Phun doesn’t care, he was the one who initiated the kiss. Now Phun has an obstacle to overcome, his feelings for Noh are growing too strong. Will he be able to keep his friendship with Noh and the pretend boyfriend charade?
Two scenes stand out in this episode. The first scene is the taxi scene. Noh holding Phun’s hand is so poignant. It is a small gesture but there is so much love behind it, you can almost feel it. This really goes on to show that small details like this can convey a lot of emotion in a scene. The other scene, which is one of my favorite in the whole series, is when Phun hugs Noh and then Noh lays his head on Phun’s chest. Everything in this scene, from the colors of the bedsheets to the angle they used to shoot it, are perfect. The scene is an overload of sweetness. You don’t need a big make out scene. You need a smart director who knows how to get the best of his actors.
This episode also marks the first episode in which Phun feeds Noh. I am not sure if this tradition is a Yaoi tradition but in Thai BLs, the Seme usually feeds the Uke. For Phun and Noh, food is a very important part of their relationship. In the novel, Noh thinks about food almost constantly. He is a grazer. Phun knows this and constantly feeds Noh.
I just finished watching the 5th episode of Sakristan and the 5th episode of Gameboys. It is interesting that I also finished watching the fifth episode of this show as well.
Funny quote: “If you are small, I promise I won’t tell anyone aside from the music club, the student council, the guys in the 11th grade, and your girlfriend’s gang at the convent”
Episode rating: 3.75/5 This is a good episode with only one filler scenes with the annoying Bee and several useless Jeed scenes. Sorry, the Jeed story gets really boring later and so I get annoyed if they spend more than a couple of minutes on her story.
The looking glass 