Ron Does Stuff

We’re still in Paris in this episode and at the end of the previous episode, we saw Charlie wake up with a hickey after being manhandled by Nick the night before. Let’s see how this affects him moving forward!

Nick isn’t thinking about Charlie’s hickey at the moment since he’s currently more hung up on the fact that his father hasn’t made contact with him yet about possibly meeting up while he’s still in France. He starts worrying about Charlie’s hickey soon enough when he gets called to the bathroom to look at what he’s done. I mean, what’s the big deal! Like Charlie said, nobody’s going to know Nick did it.

And now with Tao opening the bathroom door, Charlie’s hickey is his problem as well, which…why should it be his problem? And since the hickey is so visible, the rest of the class notice it as well and I’m like…you’ve got female friends? Use concealer or something? I’m not even a makeup homo and I know that.

I don’t know, maybe because I’m from the ~Global South~ and I grew up with Western media that always show colonizers being all ~open-minded~ I’m a little surprised that a hickey is such a big deal. But then again, the books did have that ~homo’s first experiences~ vibe to it at certain points so I guess it would also get translated to the small screen.

Also since I already said ~open-minded~ of course I need to do this it’s like the rules of the internet now.

Anyways, the kids are taken to the Eiffel Tower where they’re tasked to translate some words and phrases to French because that’s actually the reason why they traveled to another country — to learn the language. On to be a colonizer who can afford to travel to another country to learn its language! We learn English here so colonizers can hire us for cheap labor! To facilitate this learning, the students are paired up and wouldn’t you know it, Nick and Ben are paired with each other.

We don’t immediately get to see what trouble they get into because what we do see is Tara and Darcy trying to resolve their “I love you” problem. Darcy continues to ignore that it happened and I do like that they’re stretching this out because it’s giving them more to do than they did in the books.

We then get to see Nick and Ben, and Ben is definitely avoiding any accountability because he thinks Nick is the one that’s stolen Charlie and Imogen from him. He does manage to hit Nick where it hurts by telling him he at least didn’t give Charlie a hickey where everyone could see. So…where did you give him a hickey?

After their questionnaires, the students then start the trek up the Eiffel Tower and I didn’t know you could do that? I thought everyone lined up at an elevator to go up? The closest I’ve ever been to Paris was when I was in Bonn so I don’t know these things!

At the…viewing deck? I don’t think that’s the top of the Eiffel Tower. Wherever they are, Charlie and Nick get a little ribbing from Harry’s friend group and not only does Nick answer back, Harry also stands up for the two of them. Okay. Nick also reminds Charlie that he did give him that hickey and the way Kit Connor looks at Joe Locke in this scene? The way their heads move closer together? Give them a real show up there on the Eiffel Tower, is what I say. Show them an incident.

Back on the ground, we still get the Tao thing where he accidentally outed Charlie the year before. Huh. I thought they’d discarded this but okay, whatever. They then head to the Louvre where they see the Mona Lisa.

Did someone say Mona Lisa

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Aside from seeing the Mona Lisa, the kids finally get to confront each other and their feelings inside the Louvre. Inspired by Charlie talking about just feeling, Elle drags Tao along with her, separate from the group, to explore the museum on their own. Tara finally shares her frustration with Darcy, and Charlie finally faints because he hasn’t eaten for who knows how long.

Nick finally confronts Charlie about his eating — or lack of — when he recovers, and Nick proves he’s boyfriend of the year by being an absolute reliable rock for Charlie when he explains why he does what he does. Charlie also finds out that Nick can speak French and has a French dad and like I said in the previous episode, I don’t get what the big deal is. But they do run out of the Louvre and get on a train and for some reason it reminds of the Le Marais segment from Paris Je T’aime.