Ron Does Stuff

Another late post but the past week was hectic and I wasn’t able to watch this on time and I had to slowly catch up with this and other shows. But I’m slowly making progress!

At the end of the last episode, Pepper and the essence of chicken lady had to break up to give Mars a fighting chance, a move that I hope they tie neatly to Thame and Po’s relationship because I wasn’t exactly feeling it when I watched it. I thought Pepper and the lady standing up for their relationship would have been a great base with which Thame and Po could build their argument for the validity of their relationship.

BUT, the breakup does save the group for now, as they manage to accomplish a PAK, which was the deal made with Pemika. But it looks like Pemika has another wrench to throw in their plans. I don’t trust this business plan she’s going to discuss with the Korean company!

Elsewhere in the city, Thame has brought gifts from the rest of the members for Po, because they feel like they wouldn’t even be a band again if it weren’t for Po pushing Thame all the way back in the first episode. Pepper also wants William to tell Po that the group succeeded not because he and essence of chicken lady broke up because of course Po is going to think that he is also a liability if he stays with Thame.

And he just might be a liability because Pemika is asking to meet with him once he comes into the office the next day. PEMIKA THEN SHOWS HIM THE PICS THAT FORCED HER TO EXPOSE PEPPER’S RELATIONSHIP. Damn. Pemika tells him all of this is his fault and if I were him I would have said OH YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS and then played a video of him and Thame having sex. Now that would shock Pemika.

Pemika says that the Korean team doesn’t want scandals and that Po is a liability and is going to stop Mars from succeeding. Which, okay, fine. But it’s already hard for me to believe that Mars is even going to be taken as a whole by a Korean company when the people there already complain about Southeast Asians being part of a group. You expect them to root for a group completely made up of Southeast Asians? The dating scandal is going to be the least of their problems when they head to Korea. But anyways, this is Pemika’s big villainous mother of the male lead moment where she tries to buy off the romantic interest.

After their respective meetings with Pemika, Thame asks to meet with Po on the rooftop and Thame is feeling good about his life right now. The band’s back together and it’s been two days or thereabouts since he’s had a dick appointment with Po so life really is looking good. There’s also been a positive response from the Korean team and everyone’s excited and Thame is looking up the internet speed of the company they’re signing with to see if it’s good enough to make video calls with Po and I just wanna say you should be looking up the acts on the company’s roster because you might just be signing with TS Entertainment for all you know.

Thame is spinning this idealized vision of what their time in Korea is going to be like and if this was the real world you’d only get your heart broken and it’s not going to be by Po. But we’re in the universe of this show and it’s Po breaking his heart in this one and I gotta say Est is edging out William in the acting here.

On a totally shallow note it has got to suck that you only got to have sex with your boyfriend once before the two of you break up. Damn. But at least Po gets something out of it too since Pemika promotes him to a creative director position.

BUT THEN PEMIKA PULLS A FAST ONE AND REVEALS ONLY THAME WILL GO TO KOREA. DID NOBODY IN THIS GROUP READ THEIR CONTRACTS OR GET THOSE AGREEMENTS IN WRITING. JESUS CHRIST MAYBE YOU DESERVE TO BE SCAMMED.

The way it goes down is pretty realistic though. Of course a Korean company won’t sign a group comprised entirely of Southeast Asians. The Korean general public is too racist for that. It just feels so stupid that Thame got fooled again after the whole initial contract mess. You’d think he be more wary about agreeing to anything Pemika says.

After the announcement, Po confront Pemika and tells her that she lied to him and that she’s cold but she argues that she’s just making the dreams of these guys come true. That all of this may feel painful to them now but in the long run they’ll realize that this is all for the best. And wouldn’t you know it suddenly things start getting better for the other members of Mars without Thame in the picture.

The fans — or fan stand-in Baifern — are also pretty cool about it, reasoning that they want the best for the group and if this is it then so be it. But you can’t apply that same reasoning to idols having relationships? And we all know from real world experience that one member leaving can divide the fandom and cause a schism that pretty much drags down the group’s popularity. I don’t know, this episode just felt so unsatisfying.