We pick up right where we left in the last episode, with Yuri challenging Noh’s sexual preference by putting his hand on her chest. She directly asks him if he is straight. Noh gets visibly upset and tells Yuri he is disappointed in her. When Noh asks her, what kind of man she thinks he is, she replies “a pervert!”. So gay people are perverts?
Yuri tries to hide her disappointment at Noh’s reaction by saying she was just testing him. She tries to hide her tears, while Noh tries to cheer her up. A sad song plays in the background. Later, at the pool, Yuri asks Noh why he does not deny in front of others that they are not boyfriends. Noh explains that he doesn’t want to contradict what she is telling everyone.
Back to Phun and Aim. Aim is so needy. Ugh… I want to break her other ankle. Phun takes good care of her. At the pool, Yuri tells Noh, “Let me know when you find someone that you like, I will help you.”. She also tells him that he should not go on dates with a girl if he doesn’t like the girl. Of course, later in the same scene she says, “Noh, will you kiss me? Will you give me a hug?” OK. Didn’t you say you won’t force him anymore? Noh relents and they hug. Phun walks by the pool and sees them. I love White but his acting here…. ugh…. No emotions! You just walked on to your man hugging a girl! Where are your emotions? Captain on the other hand, does well. And we hear the song Captain sings! This is a good scene.
[One of my notes: We should remember they are suppossed to be in school. They are truants!]
At the restaurant, Phun wants to order a salad. Noh wants to order meat. Phun wants to order what Aim may want but Noh wants to order what HE wants. They are ordering everything on the menu. Note that the girls do not get to order anything. Yuri is concerned about eating all the food. Noh tells her not to worry, she will poop it anyway LOL. Yuri looks up the calories of what they are eating and finds out that the three salads have more calories than the one steak. Aim looks at Phun “Phun!”, he smiles (adorable). Noh says “Love is three plates of salads” LMAO The boys “feed” the girls. Is this love?
After they are done eating, Aim heads up to the room but forgets she is not supposed to be able to walk well, then she remembers and fakes it again. Meanwhile, Ngern calls Noh. He tries to convince Noh that he should sleep in the same room as Yuri and not sleep with Phun, “Guys are scarier than girls”. He also lets it slip that he is concerned about him sleeping with Phun, hahaha. Noh tells Ngern that he thinks it is better to “split between girls and boys”. Noh is either wanting to sleep with Phun, too scared of Yuri, or both.
Yuri’s gets a call. She needs to come up with a way to ensure her dad doesn’t find out she is there with two guys. Her solution? She tells her dad Phun and Noh are gay. The following scene with Noh and Phun trying to act effeminate is cringey. Note: I don’t think this was in the book.
The boys and the girls head to their hotel rooms. Noh stays with Phun and Aim stays with Yuri. In the girl’s room, Aim confesses to Yuri that she “thinks” she “might” be cheating on Phun. WHAT? How can you not know? In the boy’s room, Phun comes out of the shower, still a bit wet, and tells Noh that something had been bothering him all day. Noh replies, “What? That your junk stinks?”. Phun answers, “Want to find out and smell it?”. [Note: I don’t need to tell you how I feel about this, do I?]
Apparently, Mr. Punpottingam is upset that Noh and Yuri hugged. How dare you, Phun? You are with Aim! Noh asks if Phun loves Aim. He answers that he doesn’t know what love is. “I know I care about her and would like to take care of her”. Noh says that is love, then Phun adds “but I feel the same way about you.” He apologizes to Noh and kisses him… on the forehead.
The Stories We Care Less About
At a restaurant somewhere in Bangkok, Neung and Jeed have dinner. Guess who is the server? Khom! And is he looking good… He really cleans up nice.
Jeed and Neung order food. While they eat, Neung tell her they can go to the restaurant every day if they want to. I guess Neung’s parents are rich. He sounds like a brat. After they are done eating, Neung gives gets the check from Khorn. He gives Khorn a big tip. Jeed looks uncomfortable. [Note: Khorn looks hotter with that hair cut.]
Jeed gets home. Khorn follows her. He wants to talk. He invites her for a “late night dessert”. At the restaurant, Khorn orders a lot of food. The waitress tells him he has to pay up front because they are closing, its 400 baht. Khorn reaches out into his wallet to get the money but seems to fall short until he remembers were he put the tip that Neung gave him. He uses it to complete the 400 baht. Jeed tells him she doesn’t want anything and will talk to him outside instead.
At Golf’s apartment, Mo gets a call from “bastard” (Moan). Golf tells her she shouldn’t answer him. Mo says she already feels bad because she loves him. Golf grabs her, she falls into his face and she kisses him (I guess this is not just a BL trope). Mo slaps Golf and leaves the apartment.
Outside the restuarant, Jeed and Khorn have a heart to heart. She tells him to stop trying to be someone he isn’t. He says, back at you! OK. He doesn’t exactly say that, but you get the picture. Khorn asks THE QUESTION, “What does LOVE mean to YOU?”. He tells Jeed that he can give her whatever Neung is offering her. Yeah, right. Maybe if he sells his kidneys, or his right testicle, he could afford half of what Neung has… Jeed cries. I have no idea why. Is she feeling sorry for herself?
Jeed calls Mo and asks her what she would do if her dad let her choose between buying a fancy car or a motorcycle. Which one would she choose, car or motorcycle? (Golf leaves in his car and Moan gets there in a motorcycle with a big bear). Mo chooses the motorcycle, but I think we all know Jeed will choose the car…
Ending Quote: #LoveHasNoLimits
Analysis
This episode is one of the first times we see Noh openly struggling with his sexuality. When Yuri puts his hand on her chest, he hesitates. However, he seems to come out clean and pretty much tells Yuri that he doesn’t see her that way. At the pool, they have a heart to heart and Noh tells her that the reason he doesn’t tell anyone they are not dating is because he doesn’t want to contradict her. This confirms two of my suspicions: 1) Yuri knows that Noh is her “fake” boyfriend, 2) Noh at this point knows that he is not her boyfriend. I believe that the series up-played Noh’s ambiguity about his relationship with Yuri. In the book, Noh is presented as possibly bisexual, but he is not conflicted about how he feels about Yuri. Noh loves Phun and does not feel the same about Yuri. His hesitation about Phun is centered around the fact that he feels that Phun should be with Aim. In the series, Yuri seems to come between Phun and Noh. In fact, in this episode Phun gets jealous because he sees them hugging.
Of course, we as viewers are left with an important question for Phun, why is he jealous of Noh when Phun himself is with Aim? He has no right to be jealous of Yuri when he is still with Aim and is sleeping with her, yet he gets all sad because Yuri and Noh hugged.
I should note that the kiss between Noh and Phun in this episode was very mild, though it could have been a Thai sniff kiss. A sniff kiss is a bit more intimate than a regular kiss and it is considered to be a very romantic kiss in Thailand. However, I believe that they were supposed to have kissed in the lips, but alas the MCOT censors got P’Andy to cut any kiss scenes this time around, as this season of Love Sick aired in a terrestrial channel. So, no kiss scenes. However, the shy forehead kiss fits the moment the characters are in, as Noh does not really want to pry Phun away from Aim (like she has a chance against Noh, right?), and Phun does not want to disrespect Aim. It makes Phun way more respectable than the Phun in the novel, who just kept having sex with Noh while he was still with Aim. Well, maybe respectable for only one more episode because in the next episode they will wake up together in the bed, and spoiler alert, they had sex.
This episode is clearly about finding the answer to the question, what is love? Phun tells Noh that he wants to take care of Aim and wonders out loud if that is what love means. This is why Phun tries to order a lot of food for Aim. This is why he is so concerned about Aim’s “twisted ankle”. In the parallel convent storylines, Jeed wonders how Korn could love her when he can’t take care of her. Mo wonders if Moan cares for her at all. Many of the characters in this episode (Jeed, Korn, Neung, Moan, and Phun) seem to embrace a materialistic point of view: love can be shown by buying things, by “taking care” of the person you love. For the rest of the characters, love remains elusive, but I would guess that if they had to define love, they would say something different. For Noh, love is about freedom (we will see that at the very end of the series, but we see hints here). Yuri wonders if love without physical affection can exist, while Mo wonders why the person she loves is so inconsiderate. I am not sure why the production team choose the quote “Love has no limits”, but perhaps it is the answer to the question. What is love? It is something that has no limits. It is caring for each other, but it is also the physical affection, and it is also being free. Love encompasses all that and more, and one can’t easily define it. Or perhaps, the production team wanted to emphasize once more that love knows no boundaries, and thus love has no gender.
Next episode: Phun and Noh have sex, Earn pins Pete against the wall, and Aim is revealed to be even more callous and villainous than we thought.
The looking glass 