Ron Does Stuff

Back at it again with this Thai drama. Got to be honest, the past three episodes haven’t really been doing it for me, but I am nothing if not a completist. So we forge ahead!

The previous episode had me thinking one thing: There’s got to be a simpler way to get a documentary director and his subject to start boning each other. But alas, we have to go the circuitous route so we’re back at Mars’ dorm where another member has arrived to join Thame and Jun. Apologies to any Lykn fans but I don’t know who this person is! Either way, they need this other member whose name I can’t recall to help bring Dylan back to the fold. There’s ominous background music and shots of Dylan drinking beer to underscore that bad boy thing but all I’m dreading is what complicated story the show is going to come up with to move the episode along.

Dylan, as the show takes pains to show us, is the member of Mars that feels the “Thame and Friends” situation most keenly. He’s sleeveless! He’s wearing eyeliner! He’s burning paper! Oh, he’s a bad boy!

The next day, Po and Jun are on a reconnaissance mission in the company office, looking to find information as to where Dylan is and finding a specific song in the company storage room. Do they not have cloud servers in Thailand? Do they not save multiple copies? Anyways, they haven’t found Dylan yet but they did get into the storage room and didn’t have a hard time finding what it is they’re looking for because they’re a box inside labeled rejected.

They have boxes and boxes of literal printed out lyrics with Xs on them and I’m like…did nobody write in their notebooks first? Again, just like the previous episode, this all seems so unnecessarily complicated! But then they show a shot of Dylan writing song lyrics in a notebook so what is the truth Ellen?

Anyways, Dylan and Thame develop a friendship because despite the company not wanting to use Dylan’s lyrics — a second gen K-pop definitely wrote this — Thame stood by him and helped him out. There’s a whole thing about them saving the song on a hard disk rather on the cloud because then it become property of the company but does copyright work that way? Because if you’ve already signed away the rights to your song from the contract signing it won’t matter where you store it. At least from what I understand. Also, apologies again to Lykn fans but whoever’s playing Dylan is…not the best actor among the bunch, let’s just say that.

After not a lot of searching, honestly, they begin to suspect that the rejected Dylan song is in the refuse, shredded and everything, and what I don’t understand is that why did no one else make copies? You haven’t even recorded it yet so surely there were notes in some notebook somewhere before you typed it up on the computer. Or even in the hard drive! I would be more convinced if they were looking for a hard drive but they’re looking for a literal sheet of paper and I just don’t understand why we’re doing all of this?

Meanwhile, Dylan is back in the dorm sleeveless and wearing a puffer jacket and all I can think about is how homosexual that outfit is. Combined with the bass-heavy background music it just looks like this is going to be a scene in some gay pay-per-view site. He’s putting up his socked feet on the dorm room table because he’s a bad boy and he’s the rapper of the group and my good my back hurts.

Dylan’s telling Thame that he’s going back to the group and they can produce songs together again since he forsook Korea and obviously Thame is going to be suspicious because Dylan was pretty intense when he got angry at him and to just dispel that notion Dylan asks if Thame is suspicious of him and my back hurts even more. It’s almost midnight as I’m writing this and I kinda want to order some fastfood now. Dylan asks Thame to meet up and asks him to come alone because of course that’s not suspicous.

But before Thame can leave the storage room, Mick arrives so Jun asks him and Po to hide since they’re not supposed to be in there in the first place. And of course Thame and Po squeeze into a corner where they’re all up in each other’s space.

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but Thame and Po just don’t have chemistry with each other. Or maybe I’m just frustrated with the confusing things that surround them that I can’t feel the chemistry between the two of them. The closed proximity isn’t working in their favor.

Once Thame gets out of the storage room he gets another call from Dylan who tells him to meet him at the rap battle he’s headed to and show them what they’re made off, since they’re looked down upon as idol rappers. I know someone who rapped about idol rappers!

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Back in the storage room, Jun tells Po not to get carried away with Thame because he’s figured out that Po has a crush on Thame, even before Po’s figured it out for himself. Or maybe it’s the show making sure that the audience know’s Po has a crush on Thame because the chemistry is just not there for these two. Besides, Jun says that Thame likes tiny girls and not big guys like Po, and that now that the group is slowly coming back together Po won’t be of any use to Thame and will soon be forgotten. Damn Jun, what did Po ever do to you?

Meanwhile, the rap battle Dylan has lured Thame to is against underground rappers who have made fun of their music before, especially Thame since he’s the face of the group. Logical storyline to pursue but the visual is just so hilarious because Dylan’s got all the expected “rapper” accoutrements on him. And then the continued ~ominuous~ music as if a gang war is about to erupt. Stop the insanity!

The rap battle starts and while I can’t judge the lyrics because I don’t speak Thai, I haven’t heard a lot of Thai rap, and I don’t know if the translations are fully conveying the complexities of their verses, I do think that it sounds good! That said, Dylan does not look like he’d fit in this at all. I’m really sorry but whichever Lykn member this is, acting is not in the cards at the moment.

Thame loses the rap battle and then we find out through a flashback that the fucking song didn’t even matter because what Dylan was mad about was Thame pushing him out of his life. SO THAT WHOLE SENSELESS SONG BROUHAHA WAS JUST TO SQUEEZE THAME AND PO IN THAT CORNER OF THE STORAGE ROOM.

I am also not liking the broad strokes of the rapper-idol rapper conflict being presented here. True, I don’t know the intricacies of that relationship in Thailand but since this show is obviously taking its cues from K-Pop — why would the use the term golden maknae when there’s probably a Thai version of it? — they could have made this relationship more nuanced since the relationship between rapper and idol rapper is less combative. Collaborations happen between the two now!

Anyways, Dylan steps up and outraps the underground rapper and I don’t know if this has really made it any better for idol rappers in Thailand. While Thame, Jun, Dylan, and Pepper — finally found out his name — head back to their dorm, there’s an ominous shot of their maknae watching them go.

Where is Po in all of this? He arrives at the club with the taped-up song THAT DIDN’T NEED TO BE TAPED UP and when he sees that the guys are all sorta getting along he remembers Jun’s words and thinks that this is it for him. He heads back home, fully expecting to not here from Thame anymore, but wouldn’t you know it Thame is asking he’s in bed yet. Thame calls to say that he’s going to be better at making Po feel important because he doesn’t want what almost happened with him and the rest of the members to happen between the two of them.

Po shares that he was actually at the club with the song but that he didn’t approach them because he felt like an outsider. Thame insists that he’s not an outsider and asks Po what he can do to make the two of them close. I mean, you’re both using smartphones, I think a ~special videocall~ is in order. But alas, it doesn’t happen, but we do have a montage of them having a long conversation on the phone as they get to know each other better. But not all the way better.