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junkonthebrain · 3 months ago

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Blank 'We Can Never Have Peace' The Series (Season 2)

Fair warning, there are SPOILERS littered throughout. Hell, this entire post is basically telling you what all went on so if that is not what you are looking for please run now and save yourself from my scathing report – hehe.

For clarity I will be referring to the characters as follows:

Aneung – Neung/Aneung

Khun Neung – Khun/ Khun Neung

Piengfah – Fah/ Peingfah

Aneung’s Grandmother – Granny

Khun Neung’s Grandmother - Granmama

Chet – demon/idiot/warden/Chet... (I'm sure I missed a few but, oh well)

It is now the end of an era… that’s a little dramatic to say but if you’ve lived through Blank, alongside the rest of us, then you may understand where I’m coming from with this. This show put us through the ringer and I can’t even complain about it. But there are points of concern, things I can absolutely say I took issue with and one of my main problems throughout this show was an idiot named CHET.

There are few things in the world that have the ability to incite furry within me and the mere mention of that man’s name can set me off like a baking soda volcano with a shook up cola bottle. I have a hatred so deep for this man that I would set my soul on fire if I were told that I would be born into his bloodline… I hate that man so much that I almost broke my computer screen trying to deal with his sheer AUDACITY!

And, look, I get it. Okay? I understand, he isn’t real… but the fact of the matter is there is a Chet in every one of our families. He may not be the dad or the uncle or the brother, hell, he may not even be a he but there is a CHET in all our families and the irritation I feel when I think about that fact makes my skin itch like I just got a vacation sun burn (iykyk).

Alright, now that we’ve gotten the formalities out of the way, let’s get down to business. This second season, blessed as it was, was WAY. TOO. SHORT! Everything felt like we were moving at light speed just to get to the end and the end was… something. And, no, I’m not referring to the beach scene after the hospital. I’m referring to the beach scene AFTER THAT. You know, the one where Anueng and Khun were completely different people. I understood wanting to “age” the characters, to show progression and to give a timeline to their love story. I got all that. But the characters they choose threw me off a little. I accidentally jumped to the end – ‘accidentally’ – and I was worried they’d introduced a new couple without any of us knowing it. I went back through the first part of the episode trying to find them only to figure out that it was the older verions of Aneung and Khun Neung.

It was jarring, to say the least. I feel as though they could have gone about making us aware that time had passed with those two in a different way. Because, and I’m being critical here, they made Aneung’s actor 3 – if not more – inches taller than she was when we left off and we, the audience, were expected to just accept that that made sense? Where? How? I’m trying to be imaginative here, but how did any of this hit the storyboards, in a room full of people, and everyone went “Oh, it’s been a few years and a 22-year-old woman grew another three inches? Yeah, that tracks…” Excuse the ever loving heck out of me, but WHAT!? I feel as though they could have done some cosmetic changes, put them in different environments, hell just put “A FEW YEARS LATER” on the screen and carried on with Faye and Yoko and closed off the story. Instead, I’m sat here wondering if they were chemistry testing those two ladies at the end for some other show they plan to produce. What was the purpose of changing the actors? And yes, I’m complaining a lot right now, but that is only because I had really high hopes for this show.

Anyway, let’s dive into the storyline.

So, the story picks up the day after Khun tells Neung to leave in an effort to ‘protect’ her. Life is still hitting her hard and she is now moved back into her family’s palace, sans Sam, sans Granmama, sans Song. She’s in this big estate filled with the memories of all she’s lost all on her own and her heart aches for what could have been. And then she gets a phone call, in the middle of the night, informing her that Neung is out on the town, getting trashed and raising hell. Now, because all of Neung’s family have entrusted her with Neung’s care, Khun cannot just say that they are now in a weird, emotionally charged predicament – of her own making – and just call it quits. She has to get up and go fix what she broke, and it seems all she’s been looking for was the opportunity to do so. But it also seems that Neung took the break up way worse than Khun did and decided that a descent into madness was fitting for how she was feeling and she does not skimp.

She was doing all the bad girl things now that she wasn’t tied down. She was staying out late, drinking and dancing with boys, not to mention not contacting her gran. She was basically a delinquent.

And when she is found, on a school night, in a night club, drunk out of her mind and damn near being felt up by some random college dude, Khun just about loses her mind. She immediately claims ownership and carts Neung out of there – not without some token resistance, of course. When they make it back to the palace, they hash it out, kiss it out and then fall asleep in each other’s arms… only for them to wake up the next morning with Neung having vengeance on the brain. She’s still sour about how Khun ended their relationship and she decides that she can do the same.

She repeats, almost word for word, what Khun said to her. To ‘pretend last night never happened’ and move forward as they were. Khun, not really knowing how far she can push the issue, decided to take a step back from it all and allow Neung the space she seems to crave. We all know that she doesn’t actually want space, she wants a chase, but that is neither here nor there because Neung ends up losing at this game she initiated.

Neung wanted Khun to feel jealous, to understand what life would be like without her there and is instead met with how Khun flirts with people who aren’t her. Khun makes Neung jealous of one of her own friends, the same friend that Neung had been using to try and make Khun jealous. She started a fire fight with no ammunition, hoping she could pick bullets up along the way, and Khun came fully prepared with a military grade arsenal. The poor poppet never really stood a chance.

Now, outside of this one fight, there isn’t really a conflict between them. Their conflict bleeds over from season one. Khun believes Neung is too young to know what she wants and in a few years she will be tossed to the side when Neung finally ‘finds herself.’ Neung is not having it, this time around, and latches on like a barnacle to a turtle shell. She will not be thrown into the depths all on her own a second time. All is well with these two, if you don’t bring Neung’s family drama into consideration. They are living their best secret-love-story lives and it seems nothing can pop their bubble. Until daddy dearest starts popping up and inviting himself into their personal space and nothing is sacred anymore.

This is where my rage begins to boil over. This is where Chet exists… I mean, he inserts himself in almost every other thing Neung does – or tries to do – and makes demands of her like he’s been there this whole time and they should seem normal to her at this point but it is within the family unit that Chet thrives, where he finds power and back up. Chet, on his own, is an annoyance that we can usually ignore or circumvent. Usually Neung lets Khun deal with Chet because she’s been doing it since forever so she knows how to make him go away, but in the family unit Chet has granny’s support. And granny has Neung’s ear. Things are now complicated but they navigate it. When Chet oversteps, Khun brings him back to Earth but when Chet starts to suspect that there is something else going on between Neung and Khun, all bets are off. Chet calls Fah back to Thailand to test the waters, then Chet flat out accuses Khun, and the cats out of the bag because Khun may be a lot of things but a liar isn’t one of them.

But before we get into how things went wrong, let’s go back to why we despise Chet.

Chet spends the majority of this show spewing random, differing degrees of homophobic rhetoric. He doesn’t like Neung’s new college friend because she seems too boyish to him and, according to his two functioning brain cells, apparently this makes her contagious because he wants Neung to stop being friends with her so she doesn’t ‘catch the gay’ from the too boyish friend….

Can you hear my eyes roll all the way into the back of my skull? No?

Alright, how about when Chet decides to bring up Neung’s friend choices in front of her grandmother, who is also a raging homophobe, and they try to gang up on Neung. Because Chet couldn’t convince Neung on his own, he decides to get back up from literally the only person who gives a damn about his opinion in this entire show. Then – because it gets worse – he decides that since Neung and Khun are ‘getting along so well’ now would be a great time to revisit his and Khun’s possible marriage. He proposes. To Khun. In front of Neung. Without consulting either of them. His justification? Khun would make a great stepmother for Neung and they’ve grown up now so the issues that caused Khun to run from the wedding the first time must have gone off into the stratosphere seeing as how HE couldn’t possibly have been the problem.

And when Khun rejects this proposal, shocked Pikachu face!

This is where I believe Chet started suspecting something else was going on with Khun. Maybe he didn’t suspect that she was in love with his daughter – who he’s been aware of for the blink of an eye – but he certainly thinks she is with someone else because that would make much more sense than the fact that she’s just not that into him, I suppose.

When he can’t get Khun to marry him, he inevitably turns his attentions back to Neung which makes the poor baby even more uncomfortable with him. She hasn’t known him all that long and he is talking at her like she has no mind or thoughts of her own. He talks about what he wants for her like his thoughts are blueprints to be followed rather than talking points. He has injected himself into Neung’s life like a bad vaccine and the effects are opposite to what he was hoping because, again, NOBODY LIKES HIS PRESENCE! I don’t know how else I can say this. Chet is that one mosquito you hear just as you’ve settled in bed and you’ve switched off the lights. Just as you think you are at peace, he starts buzzing around, trying to suck the life out you… and then disaster strikes.

Neung and Khun get caught.

Piengfah comes in like a sleeper agent because, as per freaking usual, these parents are not engaged with the raising of their child until it is time to inconvenience said child by throwing their thoughts at her and expecting her to be excited about their hair brain ideas.

Let us all remind ourselves of how we ended up here, shall we?

Piengfah was in love with Khun and got rejected. Chet was in love with Khun but – from what I’ve gathered – said nothing. Fah and Chet make a baby and Khun tells Fah, out of concern, to abort said baby as this may slow down or altogether stop the progression of her life. Fah has the baby but her own mother is not pleased with this development and even worse is the fact that Piengfah refuses to tell her mother who the baby daddy actually is.

Granny decides that Thailand is clearly too much for Fah and sends her overseas to go get her shit together and she raises the baby. Chet is left unaware of the existence of said baby. Chet is set to marry Khun due to an arrangement but Khun’s granmama and Chet’s family. Chet is pleased with this arrangement, Khun is not. She runs from the wedding and effectively cuts off Chet and her gran.

Baby Neung is wrapped in bubble wrap by granny because gods forbid she turns out like her dear darling mother. Jump forward about 20 years and Neung bumps into Khun in the market – INSTA LOVE. Khun and Neung get close, then Khun falls in love. Fah makes a reappearance to rub into Khun’s face that she is Neung’s mother. Chet finally finds out about the daughter he’s had under his nose this whole time.

Chet starts love bombing this poor girl but also he really REALLY wants her to get a DNA test to prove she’s actually his kid. Neung couldn’t care less about what Chet wants and is only concerned about what Khun wants. Chet and Fah become privy to how attached to Khun Neung is and they think they can use this to their advantage but Khun is already off the deep end at this point and she has no intentions of doing things that Neung’s now helicopter parents want when that is clearly not what she wants.

Piengfah realizes that the only way any of this works is if they give Neung some space and Chet thinks space means being a puff of air away from one another. And, lastly, Chet thinks parenting is calling in your child’s grandmother any time she won’t do exactly what you want her to, when you want her to, how you want her to and with no resistance or questioning.

Chet is the most irritating character I have had the pleasure of watching and I watched Khun’s gran make a complete fool of herself and Sam’s betrothed Kirk in GAP the series and in Season 1 of Blank.

Now, because Chet has never been taught how to deal with rejection or situations that he finds averse to his morally skewed compass he doesn’t know how to properly deal with his only child being in love with a woman. And he certainly cannot wrap his brain around that other woman being his ex-fiancé. And his last brain cell is holding on to dear life when it has to process that his child won her over where he couldn’t.

So, like any untrained and untamed animal, he lashes out. At Khun. In her own damned palace. Then he demands that Khun and Neung not come into contact with one another. Gets Piengfah and granny to back him up and they all devise a plan for Neung to go live with Piengfah overseas somewhere and hopefully – and I shit you not – GROW OUT OF BEING GAY. This move only works because they have finally hit Khun where it hurts. She has been fighting with the idea that Neung is too young for her this entire time and now she has three other people telling her that she is not worthy, that she’s too old, that she is sucking the youth out of their “baby” and if she really loves her then she’ll let Neung go and let her make her own choices.

The irony there is not lost on me and I hope it isn’t lost on you either.

Just as Neung is about to leave for brighter skies with Piengfah, Khun has a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and decides to pour her heart out on live radio, for the whole nation to hear, about how in love she is and how her heart is breaking from having to be separated from the only person she has ever wanted for herself in this life. Neung hears this message and, because the demon and his minions had forced separation between the lovers, she makes a run for it. Hoping against hope that the prison sentence she had been serving for the past few days can finally come to an end when she is, unexpectedly, hit by a car.

TROPE TIME – she’s in a coma now.

So, because she was on the phone with Neung when the accident happened, Khun is the first to arrive at the hospital… somehow… I mean, the accident happened right in front of Neung’s gran’s house so the warden and the guards should have been the first at the hospital but, I digress. When they do eventually get to the hospital, all they are is enraged at Khun, for luring their baby to her possible death, and scared shitless for Neung. They blame Khun for them needing to be scared and then they try and pin the whole accident on her. Khun, like anybody else in life, has a breaking point and this comment pushes her over.

She starts firing back. She asks them why they felt they needed to come between two people who just loved each other. She asks how they can accuse her of being the reason Neung was out on that street when the car came barreling towards her when they were the ones keeping her prisoner. She asks what she’s ever done to deserve their ire. Asks how it can be wrong to love someone. Asks how she can be solely to blame when the only person who ever actually heard Neung, actually listened to Neung, was her? Crickets! Until granny comes in, on her sanctimonious rocket ship, and slaps Khun across the face before telling her to kick rocks.

I’m over it at this point. This whole family can go jump off the nearest bridge.

Khun takes a page out of Neung’s book and refuses to be tossed by the way side. She wears everyone – save Chet – down with her sheer devotion. She shows up, reads to, talks to, pleads and begs with Neung to just open her eyes. And then she does. She opens her eyes and the first thing she does is make a phone call?

Look, I’m as confused as you at this part but the director, producer and creator all thought this worked so we’re going with it.

Neung wakes up, calls that same radio station in hopes that Khun is listening and confesses as well. Lays their love story bare for the country to hear. And, by some miracle, Khun is listening to the radio station at that exact moment and B-lines is straight for Neung’s room. They hug, they kiss, they hug some more and then Neung is walking out of that hospital with her arms around the woman she loves and her family supporting them all the way. Heavens, how I wish it had just ended there! It would have been sappy, it would have been sickly sweet, but it would have made a world of sense more than switching the actors at the last moment – YES I’M STILL ON THIS!

Like I said in the beginning, I wish the show was longer. I wish we had more time with these characters. I am in love with the chemistry that all the characters have with one another. This cast really sold this plot and Faye and Yoko were the perfect actors for their roles.

The only question I guess I have at the end of all this is does love really have an expiration date like Khun has been stressing this whole time or is the love of the right person infinite and unending like Neung has been saying since the very beginning?

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