The school gets ready for the soccer game, as we see the convent girls and the Friday College boys arriving. Jeed is dressed like she is going clubbing. She wants to go to the hot dog stand (surprised?) and asks Grace if she wants something. Oh, Jeed trying to to suck up to Grace, funny. Grace notices Jeed is wearing the shoes she brought her. Sammy wants to eat (‘cause fat girls only think of food). Jeed walks to the hot dog stand and guess who is there? Korn (Sharp).
Inside, Om worries about Nong Mick. Thai Lesson #1: Nong is a title you use to refer to people younger than you, while Pee, sometimes transliterated as P, is used to refer to people who are older than you.
The Angel Gang thank Earn by giving him a pair of sneakers. Earn wears the sneakers. On the side of them, the Angel Gang has scribbled something: Susu, which means “Fighting”. Thai Lesson #2: Susu or Susuna (the na at the end makes it softer and friendlier) is what you tell to someone as words of encouragement, kind of like saying “Good luck” or “Go get them!”.
Nong Mick almost faints while practicing with the marching band. Om carries him on his back. Film suggest Mick may need CPR, and OM goes for it. Noh tells him to stop. Noh uses an ammonia capsule to wake Mick up, then Noh and Film use it on themselves.
Earn calls Noh on the radio. He reminds Noh of their “plans”. If you remember, in season 1, Earn had agreed to help Noh under the condition that Noh would bring him water during the game. Phun tells them not to dick around with the talkies. Ok, he didn’t say dick around, but that’s the gist of what he said.
The soccer game begins.
Phun and Noh run into each other at the control booth. Phun takes over some other unnamed guy’s post at the booth, so he can be close to Noh. Noh tells Phun that he had to go help Earn and he tells him about their plans. Phun reveals that he already paid Earn and returned the dog tags. He then asks Noh if he wants to wear the jumpsuit that he is wearing. “Come with me”. Phun forces him to follow him to the locker room where he starts to undress. He pins Noh against the lockers. Noh fears the “worst”. He asks Phun, “Are you going force yourself on me right here?”. Without missing a beat, Phun replies, “Is the floor too hard?”. Noh complains at first, “Yeah! [short pause] No!”. I nearly died laughing the first time I watched this.
Phun hands his uniform to Noh. Noh asks Phun to “turn around”. Phun replies, “What are you being so shy about when we…”. He smiles wryly and then says, “We are both guys”. Exactly! You are both guys… who had sex. LOL
Fi hides from the visiting alumni, who are coming to see the match. He is afraid of their reactions to the planned Angels Gang cheerleader routine.
At the bleachers, Neung and Jeed connect while an incredulous Grace watches in disbelief. Also, apparently Neung is the kind of guy who carries band-aids on him and who can spot blisters on a woman’s feet from 20 feet away.
The Angel Gang decides to act “butch” so that they can remain “invisible”. Earn gives them a little pep talk. He sends them on to fight, “Susu!”.
Om finds out that Phun and Noh traded clothing. He sniffs Noh’s jumpsuit and decides it belongs to Phun. I love Om.
Phun goes out to the field and hands down water to Earn. He even puts a little straw for him. The fujoshis go crazy. Actually, I secretly ship Phun and Earn.
The fujoshis explain the way that ships are named in BL. (Should it be EarnPhun or PhunEarn?)
The FC boys finally score! It is 1-0 with only seconds remaining, and BTW no one knows who the other school is. The game ends and Friday College wins!
One of the very fat Kathoey runs excitedly across the field (we hear an elephant noise so that we know she is fat, and it is funny she is fat). The Angel Gang celebrate the win. They take their uniforms off and do a very gay dance. Up on the bleachers, Fi starts to sweat. However, the alumni are pleased with the performance and tell him that this is the true spirit of the soccer tournament, “There is no point in separating ourselves”.
We end with a shot of all the extras (who look like real HS students) holding signs that together show the Friday College seal. What a waste of good production money. P’Andy, take that money and pay a sound engineer to work on your location shots, please!
Quote at end of episode: “Be brave by being yourself and let the world be jealous of you”
Analysis
In this episode, we see the Phun-Earn rivalry come into bloom. At the same time, the Jeed-Grace rivalry heats up. We also get the first hints of one of the ships of the season, the OmMick ship, while the EarnPete ship gets a name drop when the fujoshi character’s nearly break the fourth wall to explain to the audience how you correctly name a ship (Top or Seme first, Uke or bottom second).
However, what I remember the most about this episode is that scene with Phun and Noh in the locker room. When Noh pleads to Phun not to do him there and Phun replies, “is the floor too hard?”, Noh’s response is priceless: “Yes… [wait], no!”. It is hilarious and it is one of my favorite lines in the entire series. Noh’s preoccupation with sex shows us that he still wants Phun, at least at a subconscious level. The scene also illustrates what I think is one of the biggest issues I have with Thai BLs: Uke’s reactions to sex are very unnatural. Remember that Ukes are associated with the passive sexual role (aka bottom). In real life, gay men who choose to be bottoms are as sexual and as horny as gay men who choose to be top or versatile. But in Yaoi and BL, Semes are predatory, constantly harassing the Ukes. While we know that Phun’s intentions are not sexual, Noh’s reaction makes the whole thing look like he is being sexually assaulted. This is a two-prong issue: on one hand you have the passivity of the Uke in the face of such problematic behavior, and on the other hand you have an Uke that acts like sex is disgusting to him. Is this because the writer feels the need to show the Uke as a character with no desire in homosexual behavior or is the writer trying to show us that the Uke has no sexual desire? As I have previously explained here, my theory is that an Uke acts like the stand in for the woman in a lakorn, while the Seme stands in for the man in a regular lakorn. In the early days of TV, Thai woman who showed any desire were seen as impure. A woman would not initiate sex, or solicit sexual favors from her partner. Thus, writers created female characters who rebuked any sexual advances from the protagonist. The only way for a woman to have sex under those conditions is against her will. The slap/kiss lakorn was born. Thai BL inherited this problematic trope from the lakorns. In a Thai BL, the Uke is pure and reproaches the sexual advances of the Seme.
Be brave by being yourself and let the world be jealous of you
I think the quote at the end of the episode perfectly summarizes the theme of this episode: Be yourself. Noh is avoiding being himself. When Phun offered him his jumpsuit, Noh tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal, but in the book we learn that wearing the jumpsuit is a big deal for Noh. He really wants to do it! It is also clear that Noh wants Phun, but he acts like he just really wants Phun and Aim to be together. Om clearly has feelings for Mick, but he tries to avoid showing them. Jeed also struggles with not wanting to be herself. In the beginning, the Kathoey do not want to be true to who they are. However, by the end of the episode, the Kathoey celebrate the victory of the Friday College soccer team by doing their own cheerleading routine.
Central message: You should always be true to who you are. That ladyboys all over Thailand should learn that it is OK to be a little bit effeminate. That it is OK to be gay like Noh. That it is OK to be OK with your boyfriend wanting to do you on a hard floor.
We should note that Aim and Yuri are completely absent here. In the book, I don’t think they were at the soccer match, so maybe that’s why they didn’t have them show up here.
Best line in this episode: “Is the floor to hard?” White, honey, the floor will never be hard if you are behind me. Too gay? 😛
Overall rating for this episode:
The looking glass 