#tol rewatch

[lurkingshan]

Theory of Love: The Romcom Rewatch

It's happening, folks! @bengiyo sealed his fate with a comment on the most recent episode of @the-conversation-pod, in which he mentioned that the next time he watches Theory of Love, he wants to start with watching the film in parallel with the episode that references it. Since this show is an all time favorite for me and my bestie @neuroticbookworm, there was simply no way we were going to let this golden opportunity pass us by, and we're dragging a few friends in with us. As always, never underestimate my ability to turn a stray thought into a whole project.

So here's how it will work! Every Saturday for the next 13 weeks we will watch the featured film + its corresponding TOL episode and post our shared thoughts about the relevant themes and points of interest. Here is the full list of films in order:

Dear Dakanda

Love Actually

Friends with Benefits

Crazy Stupid Love

10 Things I Hate About You

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Flipped

The Proposal

The Last Moment

Begin Again

He’s Just Not That Into You

My Girl

Stand By Me

I wanted to share this on tumblr in case anyone else would like to join us, either by reading along and engaging with our weekly posts, or by watching and posting your own thoughts. We'll aim to post on Saturdays, but anyone should feel free to jump in and join us anytime throughout the week. We'll use the tag [#tol romcom rewatch] to make it easy to find everyone's posts. If you're having trouble tracking down any of the films, let us know and we will crowdsource the issue.

Hope to see some of you as we discuss!

[wolfhoundish]

HALLOWEEN I'll probably draw their Halloween escapades again because AHRHHR I love them

[twig-tea]

TOL Romcom Rewatch Week 7: Flipped

It is so nice to be writing this post on time! This week we watched Flipped, which is a film I had forgotten I’d watched, because I had memory shelved it so hard (for good reason–see @lurkingshan’s post). While the film itself was not good, thinking about the parallels with Theory of Love was really fun, and it felt like the most plot parallels we’ve had to date.

@solitaryandwandering asked me whether my thesis from last week's 1-6 round-up post--that there were actually good messages in these films for Third to learn from, if Third watched them more closely--continued into this week, and I think the answer is yes! The biggest thing Third missed, to me, is that when Juli realizes that Bryce sucks, she tells him outright and to his face what he did and why she was no longer interested in him, not even as a friend. This, then, emboldens Bryce, first to change his behaviour and then to make amends. In contrast, Third has only at best hinted that he knew ("you played with my emotions!"), but he didn't outright confront him on anything except how frequently he changes partners. Khai doesn’t actually know that Third knows that Khai intentionally tried to bait him into confessing. At this point in the story, Khai thinks Third is done with him because he kissed Third and said Praew’s name, and that him expressing sincerity with someone had the intended effect of making Third get over him (which is also partially true). This means that, unlike Bryce, Khai doesn’t yet know what he’s up against in terms of making Third trust any of his behaviour, which explains some of his stumbles in this episode (in addition to the insights Shan already talked about in her post re: Khai having no experience with dating a man, or dating a friend, or wanting to date Third, or particularly caring about any of his previous partners). 

One of the things I love about this perspective flip is how effectively it is used in the series; it’s something I especially love thinking about in the context of having watched this film, which did not use this device effectively. Having seen Khai’s behaviour from Third’s perspective, when we didn’t know what he was thinking, was really effective in hiding how much Khai knew, whether his behaviour was intentionally romantic, and whether it was sincere. It meant we felt the heartbreak with Third when we realized with him what Khai was actually doing. Now that Khai is genuinely being sincere about having romantic interest in Third, the most effective way for us as an audience to trust that is to hear Khai think it so that (unlike Third) we can feel certain in his intentions (even if we don’t trust that his feelings are going to last, or that he deserves reciprocation yet), and instead sit with Khai on his uncertainty about how Third is going to take his advances, whether he still has any feelings for Khai, and whether his sincerity will be believed. And in case we don't just trust Khai's thoughts (which is so fair after the first six episodes), we get to see him reject a girl, and have a physical reaction to Third, all of which is important in reinforcing that he is sincere.

I also just love seeing Third be distant, competent, cold, and difficult to read from Khai's perspective, after having seen inside Third's head for weeks and knowing that he is an angsty mess on the inside.

And on the flipside, we see that Khai does not realize that he comes across to the entire campus as such a douche, which is very fun after having sat with Third and knowing exactly what people see on the outside. The scene where he improvises on Third's script (based on himself, unbeknownst to him) and perfectly portrays the character is not something he understands as a bad thing, but the director is quick to point out that yes, this is perfect because it's exactly what a player would say.

I also speculated in last week’s post that we might be moving into more Khai-coded films with the change in perspective, but we know that Flipped is Third’s favourite movie, so I don’t think that’s the case (at least not yet). But I will be thinking about the plot of this film, knowing that Khai knows how much Third loves this movie, in the weeks to come.

[bengiyo]

Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch Episode 3: Friends With Benefits (2011)

Once again I am watching Theory of Love because @lurkingshan gets specific pleasure out of making me change my mind about this show. This week we’re continuing with Friends With Benefits (2011), another American romcom I watched for the first time this past Saturday. Shan continued to reiterate that Third keeps taking the wrong lessons from the romcoms he’s watching, and @solitaryandwandering wrote about this film’s struggles with wanting its cake and eating it too, as well as Third’s inability to appreciate his own friendship.

Friends With Benefits (2011)

Well, I can confidently say that I do not feel like I’ve been missing out on the 21st century heterosexual romcom experience so far. Every film in this project so far has been a genuinely frustrating experience for me; this film included. In this film, Jamie (Mila Kunis) is a corporate recruiter who is trying to secure Dylan (Justin Timberlake), an online magazine editor for GQ. Jamie is a plucky, tomboy-ish type that still appeals to mainstream heterosexual tastes, and she and Dylan become friends after he moves to NYC since both are currently frustrated with romance. Eventually, they decide to begin a friends with benefits arrangement that eventually turns into more. 

Overall, I will say that this film was fairly forgettable. It was a mildly unpleasant watch in similar ways to Love Actually (2003) with the same issues with racism, misogyny, fatphobia, and homophobia. However, I did like how enthusiastic the sex was in this film, and that all of the issues that come up resulted from a lack of emotional honesty. I appreciated that there wasn’t much slut shaming in this film, even if I was once again subjected to a painfully white film that really wants us to stop calling Justin Timberlake gay (I remember the 90s). 

I think my biggest frustration with this film is that Jamie and Dylan really have no other friends that we develop along the way. It’s annoying to have a film about friends with benefits arrangements that doesn’t offer us much comparison with their other relationships. Most of the relationships in this film were familial, with only Tommy (Woody Harrelson) developing a work friendship with Dylan (that seems mostly based on the idea that Justin Timberlake is most certainly NOT gay!). It’s a bit of a letdown overall because the film implies that a long-term FWB situation is not possible at all for people who actually crave romance. Moreover, I just don’t vibe with how mean Jamie is, which I’ll discuss more in relation to Third. 

Theory of Love Episode 3

Third has fully moved in with Khai and is totally deluding himself as usual. This was actually a great episode to watch after watching Friends With Benefits (2011). Third sets himself up for failure this week because, like Jamie, he isn’t telling Khai the truth about his feelings and their arrangement, and then gets himself mad and hurt by Khai treating him within the expectations of their friendship. 

Even when I was at my most “Fuck Khai,” I was not mad at Khai for how he behaved in this episode. I’ve been in close friendships with men who had a revolving door of women, and it felt a lot like this. Those guys will tell you plainly that they’re just fucking with those girls and that bro time is sacred to them. Khai is no different. He genuinely likes Third. He admitted plainly that he is happy to have Third live with him, and he wanted Third to go with him to IKEA because he wants Third to have a say in what their shared space will feel like (and probably is hoping Third will have better ideas than him about home decor and supplies). 

I also was not mad at Khai for asking Third to leave for the night so he could hang out with a lady friend. I’ve done this a lot for guy friends, and will say firmly that Third is being way too dramatic about all of this. All you have to do is wait until later in the night and then quietly go to your room. Third did not need to stay out all night moping, and he clearly has enough wealth that he could have stayed at a hotel if he needed to. Khai clearly cares about Third, and did not think asking Third to dip for a night was an unreasonable ask. 

It’s also telling that Third only gets mad at Khai for his relationships with girls when both Two and Bone are doing the same things. We say this every week, but Third is a hypocrite about this, and it really isn’t fair to Khai for Third to hold this grudge for no reason. It’s also sad that Khai is picking up on Third’s tension and is saying directly how important Third is to him. This hurts because Third really violated Khai’s privacy when he peeked into the room to see Khai with a partner; that poor woman didn’t deserve that either!

I remain deeply disappointed that Third has no other queer people to hang out with. I want to see a version of this show where Third goes to a gay club or at least a gay cafe and commiserates with other homos about Khai, and they all side eye him for being so caught up in a straight guy. It's no surprise that Third ended up identifying so hard with Jamie, because he's just as mean as her. The film seemed to want to paint Jamie as charming, but I found her to be mean, and was not surprised that she didn't seem to have many friends. Third really needs a get-a-grip friend, because Two is clearly not suited for it. You can’t tell me a boy with Third’s face doesn’t know other queer people.

Our next film is Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), in which I’ll get to see my beloved Julianne Moore break up with a man. I hope I have reasons to talk about Don Jon (2013) during that review.

[neuroticbookworm]

Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch Episode 5 and 6

If we peep at the list of movies on this project, a gradual increase in narrative quality is very noticeable. Which is why I was so excited when we finally arrived at last week’s pick, 10 Things I Hate About You. My brilliant rewatch project buddies have thoroughly meta’d the movie and the corresponding episode, while my tired ass procrastinated a lil too close to the sun and missed posting last week. So I figured I’ll combine my thoughts on the movies and episodes of week 5 and 6 into one post filled with few observations and lots of incoherent screaming. Let’s go!

10 Things I Hate About You

ICYMI, 10 Things I Hate About You is a modern day adaptation of the Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew. And coincidentally, Taming is the only Shakespeare play I have read so far, thanks to my 10th grade English curriculum. My memory of the opinions I had on this play as a teenager are not pleasant, so I was a little skeptical going into this movie (I have watched the movie before, but it was so long ago that I barely remembered a thing about it). This movie was surprisingly a treat to watch, for multiple reasons. Heath Ledger was charming as always, the writing was smart, witty, and snappy (hey this Shakespeare guy is pretty good I should check out his works sometime), and the supporting cast was so stacked and so delightful to watch on screen.

As a young and budding shrew, I remember my teenage self being pretty miffed at the idea of a dude “taming” one of my brethren. But as I watched the movie, I quickly realized that the story is aware that it really doesn’t take much for a girl to be termed a shrew; all you need to do is not comply with the stupid social mores of the time and the job is done. The story also doesn’t just let Kat be a prickly and annoyed teen who is Not Like Other Girls. As @bengiyo mentioned in his post, I loved that Kat was called out by Mr. Morgan for her derision and performative white feminism. I also liked how Kat was a pretty easy project (ugh) for Patrick, even though she thinks she is anything but. Her mental walls built entirely with hardcover copies of The Bell Jar (lol) were not high enough to hide her hopeful naivete on the matters of the heart. I loved the idea of social misfits finding romance with each other.

This film was not without its flaws: I agree with @lurkingshan that the narrative forgave Patrick so quickly for getting paid to date Kat, then deliberately hiding the truth from her, and gaslighting her when she questioned his motivations. Knowing how the rest of Theory of Love plays out, it’s easy to see how the show’s approach to Khai’s retribution differs from the way the movie treated its stupid and flawed boys.

Speaking of the show, I think I struggled to write about this episode last week because I was frustrated by all the conflict avoidance that was going on in the episode. Third felt hurt, betrayed, and angry after overhearing Khai and Bone talking about their stupid scheme, and he lashed out at Khai (which is great) without ever telling him exactly why he is so mad at him (not so great). Instead of direct confrontation, Third chose the passive aggressive route. He told Khai that he hadn't wanted to call Khai a friend for a while (which is so loaded with hidden meaning that Khai has no way of parsing), and he moved out without an explanation. When Khai brings a girl to their group project meeting, both Third and Khai escalate the passive aggressive comments to a point that almost culminates in an explosive fight between friends, before Third stepped in to stop them. And he walks away once again without resolving a thing.

And Khai was no better! He was fuming when Third finally returned home late at night, and he let his anger and frustration override his brain, and did not connect the dots on what could’ve possibly made Third say “You played with my emotions.” *insert eyeroll* He never gave a good think on what could’ve possibly made Third so mad and prickly towards him, and he never allowed himself to read Third’s emotions beyond his hurtful words. One of the things that is really standing out to me in rewatch is how Third and Khai are so different in their approach to conflict resolution. Third enjoys being in pain, so he never works towards addressing the problem in a constructive way. He brushes things under the rug without a resolution, so that he can glare and scoff and be perpetually mad. Khai, on the other hand, seems to prefer direct confrontation. He wants people to spell their ire out for him, which is not bad in itself, but it looks like he also uses it as an excuse to never pay attention to non-verbal communication. These two approaches are totally incompatible with each other, and it is clear that if Third and Khai want to end up together, they have to learn how to constructively work through and resolve a conflict between them.

The episode ends with Khai reaching out and making amends with Third out of nowhere, and I was so glad that @solitaryandwandering picked up on Chekhov's laptop that had mysteriously changed Khai’s behavior. Next up on the romcom list was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I’ve been looking forward to this week’s movie and the episode right from the beginning of this rewatch project. And yes, it was everything I'd ever wanted and more.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I watched this movie in my late teens as a young and curious cinephile in undergrad whose favorite weekend activity was hunting down and watching 16 straight hours of media from around the world. I remember being so moved by the story and the fight to preserve the memories of a loved one, and I was looking forward to revisiting it. I really did not anticipate the effect it would have on me this time around, as I spent most of the runtime screaming at my screen, feeling so many emotions all at once.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the story of Joel, an unassuming everyman who comes across as passive, internal and someone who would rather prefer to be left out of even the tiniest whiff of conflict. He meets Clementine, a quirky girl with loud hair who has no problem chatting up a stranger on the train and picking a fight with him when he says something she disagrees with. The movie then throws us into a confusing montage, suggesting the passage of time, and picks back up with Joel reaching out to Clem, his girlfriend, after a vicious fight. Which leads to him learning that she had undergone a procedure to wipe her memories of them, so she can move on from him. Joel, feeling crushed, betrayed, and cast aside, makes an impulsive decision that is very out of character for him and decides to undergo the same procedure to wipe Clementine from his memory. We are introduced to Dr. Howard, the lead doctor and the brains behind the technology, Stan and Patrick, the technicians working under him, and Mary, the receptionist at the practice. What follows is Joel’s emotional journey as the procedure takes him through the memories he shared with Clementine one by one, the good, the bad, and the ugly, before permanently erasing it from his brain.

This movie has two distinct yet intertwined narrative threads:

The dissection, research, and understanding of Joel and Clem’s relationship

The movie’s cognizant lens on the ethics and morality of the memory-wipe technology, and its commentary on the people willingly working in the industry

The first thread is the core of the story, and the one that hurts the most with its commentary on romantic relationships, and the beauty in the imperfectness of it all. Watching Joel realize halfway through the procedure that he does not want to forget Clementine, and his futile fight to save at least some of his memories of her was heartbreaking. The procedure erasing Joel’s memories of Clem starting from the most recent ones means that we (and Joel) go from watching them fighting, cursing, screaming, and making each other miserable, to the soft moments of quiet intimacy, and to those few precious moments where simply existing in the world with the person he loves makes Joel feel larger than life, and the happiest he’d ever been. The story is so skilfully constructed and edited to slowly immerse Joel and the audience into the realization that relationships are rarely perfect, and communicating and working through problems is always a better path for long-term happiness than going nuclear and wiping every trace of the other person from memory.

I remembered little to nothing about the side characters from my first watch of this movie, and I was absolutely floored by the vile and unethical behavior of every single person involved in this practice. Patrick steals Clem and Joel’s medical files from the clinic and used them to pursue Clem exactly as Joel did, sending her spiralling into a mental breakdown that she couldn’t fully understand, as the memories that’s causing her pain are gone, leaving only a discombobulated echo that is now made stronger by Patrick’s actions. We also see this confusion paralleled in Mary, who is openly infatuated with Howard, despite her relationship with Stan. Each reveal in this thread hit me like a ton of bricks, and every time I thought I was through the worst of it, the story hit me with another, more horrifying one.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film that will both devastate and heal you with its romance, while simultaneously scrambling your brain with its brilliant writing and commentary. I recommend it to everyone, and especially to narrative gremlins and angst monsters like me.

And finally, episode 6 of Theory of Love, my beloved! My experience of watching episode 6 was pretty similar to @lurkingshan’s, I remember jumping up from the chair and screaming when I watched Khai narrate his marvellous plan that destroyed his friendship with Third. The POV switch is a great narrative tool in any well-constructed story, but it hits especially hard in Theory of Love, because both the audience and Khai lose our access to Third and his thoughts at the same time, just when we need it the most.

Lemme do a quick rundown of episode 6:

After making amends for his part in their fight in episode 5, Khai takes Third shopping and buys him a gift that is personalized and meaningful.

Then they go to a party where Khai gets drunk, holds Third down against a wall, and forcefully makes out with him, while calling him a girl’s name, which further devastates Third.

The next day, Khai chases down an already dejected Third, and thanks him for talking sense into him, and tells him that he’s gonna pursue his current girlfriend seriously with the intent of long-term commitment.

Third, finally reaching his limits, decides to move on from Khai, and starts involving himself in university projects that will keep him occupied and away from Khai.

Khai notices Third pulling away from him and their friend group, and gets increasingly sad about it. Finally he goes away to visit his brother.

Sitting on the beach with him, he reveals that he found out about Third’s feelings when he stumbled upon the private video Third made confessing his feelings for Khai and struggling with the idea of moving on. So Khai hatched a plan to make Third thoroughly hate him, to help him move on from Khai. And finally, after orchestrating the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks, he reveals that he might like Third back.

Just putting all of his actions in writing is making me wanna scream into a pillow. The sheer stupidity of it all makes my mind boggle every single time. Third has been making dumb choices consistently for five episodes, but my boy Khai outdid it all in just one episode. This week was the one where I felt the strongest thematic parallels between the episode and the corresponding romcom, which is funny because the parallels also cannot be fully attributed to either Khai or Third. It almost felt like a bridge between the two POVs, with Joel’s passiveness clearly mirroring Third, while Joel’s struggle of coming to terms with an impulsive decision that fundamentally changed his relationship with a person that he realizes a little too late as too important for him to lose, perfectly mirrors Khai’s position at the end of episode 6.

The narrative structure of the episode is also clearly influenced by the structure of the secondary narrative of the film, every information revealed by Khai hit me hard and fast, and the next, more brutal one was already in the chamber, ready to be fired. There’s always another rock bottom under Khai's current rock bottom. It’s not hard to see how Joel and Clem’s incompatibility parallels Khai and Third’s. And it is also notable that Joel and Clem’s second chance came after they had listened to the other say the most hurtful things about them. That was their rock bottom, and the movie’s ending made us feel hopeful that they now have the emotional tools to find their way out of it. We shall see how the show parallels it and approaches the mending of Khai and Third’s relationship in the coming weeks.

In one of their quiet moments in the movie, Clementine whispers into Joel’s cheek, “Share with me, Joel. That’s what intimacy is.” I know Joel heard her, albeit a little late. And I hope that it is one of the lessons Third internalizes eventually, in his journey of mending and rebuilding his and Khai’s relationship.

[happypotato48]

Theory of Love Romcom Watch Along Episode 5 : 10 Things I Hate About You (Lazy Unhinged Edition)

Well well well well well well well well well (somebody stop me) well well well. It's 10 Things i Hate About You time, i haven't watch this movie since i was a wee little lad and i can say with my whole chest that this movie mostly hold up despite me not being snarky 15 years old anymore (i'm still snarky just not 15 anymore T_T) unlike many of my friends that participate in this project i'm probably the least familiar with shakespeare's works which i like to ratify soon since i tend to enjoys shakespeare modern adaptations and references. like my biggest fictional sad old man crush is based on Prospero from the Tempest ffs. anyway one thing that stuck out to as very positive for me from this movie is how poetically it feels i never read the The Taming of the Shrew but i noticed some line that probably came from the play, the well written scripts and the dialogues feels witty and sharp this movie did came off as a very well done modern (1999) take of shakespeare work.

Now to a side segment just for this week it's time to throw shades at Mr. Jojo Tichakorn as i had promised my good friend @lurkingshan. THK, The Heart forking Killers. first let let me say some positive stuff so some of you nerds would know that i'm not just a hater (i'm a snarky slightly crazy bitch that hope one day these posts would not come back and bite me in the ass when i enter the BL industry.)

THK mostly did an ok Job as adaptations/inspired by of 10 Things i Hate About You, some emotion do works well translate from the movie and i will give credit where the credit due i think the fall out and the resolution after the lie got discovered is handled pretty good in the show unlike the movie where it feels rushed and half baked.

Ok now after i said the all nice things let get mean!! most of THK dialogues are lame AF. it's like someone took a lot of the wittiness of the movie out and replaced that with lame tired and cliche BL dialogues. most of the actors ate their roles but even that some lines feels listless and lack flair. instead of charm the show sometime came off as trying too hard or trying too little to be charming. and that is the problem Thai language as a tonal language has a lot of possibility to do and says so much more interesting stuff but because it's a GMMTV show the dialogues feels stripped of any potential and ended up being generic and sanitized.

I'm the same with @solitaryandwandering feelling about the side stories. i'm so bored with them, i love you mike with all my heart but i can't spend another minute watching you and what her face hitting on each other. that being said i'm still intrigued by our main fuckboi Khai and loser with zero braincell Third even tho they're aggravating me so much. Khai continuingly semi unpurposefully hurts Third but the crack starts to show in this ep that he seems to some degree to know what is going on with Third.

In Thai he says "When he came to sleep with me like a wife, then i'd talk nicely to him." Khai maybe is in deny or he just an absolute asshole that let his subconscious hurts Third this badly. but it's clear he is catching up and acting out on purpose. and Third in his infinitely dumbassery refused to uses his god danm words. and the end those two ended were they always do uncommunicative and stuck in the a cycle of this toxic friendships. these two needs time out and spend time apart to reevaluate themselves and grows as people before i'd buy any kind of kind romantic relationship. but this is a BL sooo let see where this goes.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Dear Dakanda (2005)

[impala124]

Theory of love Episode 1: I hate myself for loving you

Well well well, what do we have here? Could it be my half-baked thoughts on Dear Dakanda, a movie I was supposed to have finished watching 3 days ago, but couldn't get through in a single sitting because I was too busy face-palming myself the whole time, and how it relates to episode 1 of Theory of love? Yes, it is.

The film is about a shy art student, who's in love with his bestfriend but is unwilling to confess because he's scared of losing their friendship.

Third in his review of the film:

I was practically cheering for Khaiyoi. I felt relieved for him.

Even though the film is told from Mhoo's perspective, we know very little about the man himself, other than his unrequited love, which made it really hard for me to root for him. So, Third was definitely projecting onto Mhoo.

As @lurkingshan has already pointed out, Third sees himself in Mhoo and has chosen to out do him in his pining for his bestfriend. It makes me wonder when Third saw Dear Dakanda for the first time, whether it was before meeting Khai or after. He and Khai had a meet-cute which is similar to that of Mhoo and Dakanda, atleast that's how Mhoo views it.

If he had watched the movie prior to meeting Khai, then he was just setting himself up for failure by comparing Khai to Dakanda. Now, if it were the latter, I wonder why he couldn't see himself in Nui rather than Mhoo. Maybe Nui was too honest about her feelings for Third to relate to her. I'm pretty sure that one of the reasons Third likes Khai is because Khai isn't afraid of confrontation, unlike him. Khai goes to the film sceening of a guy his ex chose over him, just to publicly humilate the guy. Third can't even himself to show Khai the concert tickets he bought for them to go together.

Side note about their meet-cute: It's a reference to the characters from My girl, which credits the director of Dear Dakanda as one of its screenwriters. If I'm remembering it right, My girl is also on the list.

@neuroticbookworm made a note about the romanticisation of pining in the movie and I'm pretty sure Third caught that because he was embodying it. As harsh as it might sound, the suffering of both Third and Mhoo is self-inflicted.

At no point were they given any indication that their feelings might be reciprocated and yet, they continue to resent the other person for treating them 'only' as a friend. I understand yearning, I love it, but give me some insight into the character before showing them as a pathetic loser (my favorite genre of men, if I may say so myself).

@bengiyo made an interesting note about the overtly heterosexual bubble Third lives in. This gave me a whiplash because in 2025, I'm kinda used to bls where queerness is the norm. We don't know anything about Third's past experiences and how long he's known that he's attracted to men to make any judgements here, but let me just note that Third is not some wallflower, he's part of a clique that is rather popular. Now that Two saw Third crying in the dark over Khai, maybe he'll find an ally, because Third definitely needs someone in his corner.

Something I'm interested in knowing more about is what Khai brings to his friendship with Third. Third repeatedly says that being friends with Khai is better than nothing, so he can't be a friend that flakes on him constantly, as he did in this episode. Hope you're not that much of a masochist, Third!!

Mini-rant:

Having Dakanda mention that she broke up with her boyfriend in her letter to Mhoo was definitely a choice and I wonder how much of that factored into Mhoo mailing her the postcards in return. Also, Mhoo writing I'm happy that, in the end, the thing that lasts the longest and can't easily be ruined is our friendship and ending the postcard by stating that this will be his last correspondence with her doesn't sit right with me.

Of course, one can outgrow a friendship, but, was Mhoo only friends with Dakanda in the hope that she might wake up one day and see him in a romantic light? That would be rather disingenuous now, wouldn't it?Is a female friend worth having only if she's a potential romantic partner? Is the narrative punishing Dakanda for not recognising Mhoo's quiet pining and replying with Why did you confess now?after he let her know about his feelings for her by having her break up with her boyfriend? This whole sequence reeks of valourization of Mhoo's unrequited love over Dakanda getting herself a boyfriend and Third definitely feels the same way about his pining and Khai's flings. Told y'all, I can't look at het romantic relationships objectively because biases start kicking in.

(OR)

Maybe it's about Mhoo choosing to move forward in his life instead of trying to see what can become of his relationship with Dakanda, now that she's aware of his feelings towards her.

We can't know for sure, but I feel like it's a bit of both.

[thepancakelady]

𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓸𝓵 + 𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓹𝓮𝓼 >> tae darvid as tin and tee thanapon as tol

[riosnecktattoo]

can someone gif the bit in 3x02 when Colin tells Penelope to hide in the study and he opens the door and cause of the height difference she literally just walks under his arm where he's holding the door open

[lurkingshan]

Theory of Love Episode 1: Dear Dakanda

And we're off! We begin this week with a 2005 romcom classic from Thailand: Dear Dakanda (the Thai title is more like "Close Friend"). The plot, in brief:

Mhoo buzzes off his luscious mane of hair and heads south to hit the beach. An accident on a boat lands him in the hospital with a broken leg and flirting with a local nurse, Nui, and as he gets to know her we flash back to his uni days in Chiang Mai to see what he's running from: Dakanda, the girl he met during Freshy games, fell in love with, and stayed close friends with while pining after her hopelessly throughout college. In the end, he ends up confessing only via letters after he already gave up and ran away, and the film ends on an ambiguous note.

For those who have seen TOL, I think the parallels here are fairly obvious, and the posters above confirm: Mhoo's story is Third's story. Like Mhoo, Third never says a word about his feelings, choosing to keep it to himself and cry and rage alone. And similar to Khai in these early episodes, Dakanda seems totally oblivious to her friend's feelings as she enjoys spending time with him.*

*There's another parallel to a Thai BL here: Nui is clearly an inspiration for Tharn in I Told Sunset About You! I won't get into that as it's off topic for this discussion. But it's fun to watch old Thai media and newly understand how shows we love were referencing it.

This movie is so much about how Mhoo hurt himself with his slience for years, and ultimately gave up without giving Dakanda a chance to even respond to his confession. Unfortunately, Third doesn't seem to have learned anything from watching it. We hear in his review of the film that he romanticizes--and ends up emulating--Mhoo's behavior rather than recognizing that Mhoo set himself up to fail and things might have gone differently if he was willing to be more honest with his friend. As @bengiyo pointed out, the fact that Third gets caught up in these heterosexual romance films and takes all the wrong lessons from them is part of the conflict at the heart of this story. I love how the show signals that by pointing us to this film right at the start. And with its story over the next 12 weeks, TOL will be in dialogue with this film, ultimately rejecting the notion that Mhoo's refusal to communicate and ambiguous ending was romantic.

As for this first episode, I love how it drops us right in the middle of Third's dramatic pining spiral as it sets up the world of the show. One of the things the show is super clear on is that Khai's player behavior, while kind of dickish, is fairly normal and accepted--Two and Bone act exactly the same way--and Third is only pressed about it because of his feelings. But as the film framing this episode signals, Third never says anything, just gets increasingly resentful as Khai keeps unwittingly reminding him that they are not on the same page.

And of course, he makes it worse for himself by agreeing to help Khai deal with his exes, a truly self-destructive choice that only fuels his jealousy. And every time Khai behaves selfishly or thoughtlessly or does anything to remind Third that their feelings are not mutual, his anger only grows, but Third can't help but press on it like a bruise. I groaned when Third went to catch Khai at the theater with the date he ditched him for; stop torturing yourself, my guy! For his part, Khai has some maturing to do, as he is far too willing to be an ass to his friends in the name of hooking up, and he also just doesn't get that he is constantly hurting Third's feelings by treating him so casually. But for the first half of the show, we are firmly in Third's story and perspective, and I'm excited to see him get to the end of his rope.

Tagging in my other watch partners in case they have anything to add: @neuroticbookworm @solitaryandwandering and @twig-tea.

[airenyah]

Hey, thanks for answering my ask! No worries about timing of replying, it's just me ranting my love for Style in your inbox! It's been a blast reading your meta every week and I appreciate your taking time to give attention and love to details. I actually had a lot of help understanding Style's actions in the first 2 eps because of your post.

THK finale aired and the only complaint I have in regards to Style is he only wore crop top once!? One of the best, and I understand it's too risky to wear during prison visits, but I hoped to see one after the brothers were out of prison. Whelp, but he'll always be legendary for his style ;)

And I'll def watch Summer Nights! I was watching Only Friends while THK aired and about to finish and needed another series to watch after that. Do you mind if I send you asks again for that..? I have a feeling I'll enjoy it as well :)

haha yeah to be honest, i still feel like my metas are quite rushed 🤣

i'm glad my first post helped you understand!! when i wrote it, i actually hadn't been planning on making this a whole meta series 😂

that post mainly came to be because i saw people say things like "style is so bad at flirting" and i was so confused because to me it was so obvious what style was doing and why?? like, yes he says flirty shit, but his INTENTION isn't flirting at all whatsoever. he has very different motivations for saying the things he says and so of course the flirting would be bad and would not be working bc the goal was never actual flirting anyway, you know? but apparently people weren't understanding this and so my very first meta post came to be and then it kinda turned into the behemoth it is now bc i was having so much fun with it. oops 🤣

(it's also funnny going back, because even for my first post people were all "omg this is so detailed" but now in comparison to my later post, the first few just barely scratch the surface ESP the one for ep1+2 dfkjdsfjk) (i wonder if anyone would be interested in reading it if i went back and looked at the first two eps again in more detail, looking at almost every line the way i'm doing now 🤔)

true on the lack of crop tops in the finale but tbh what offended me more was the lack of a wedding (or at least a proper wedding proposal)!!!! IF NO FADELSTYLE WEDDING THEN WHY FOUR (4!!!) MARRIAGE REFERENCES????? 😩😩😩

hoping and praying for and manifesting a special episode or two 🙏🙏🙏🙏

YES, DO MESSAGE ME ABOUT IT!!!! i've been meaning to binge the complete show ever since i watched the final episode and i've also been meaning to make (and kinda lowkey promised @titkos--sideblog to make) more gifs of it. hopefully i'll get round to it once i'm out of my thk era dfgjkkjsdjkdsg

also!! when you're done with summer night, can i interest you in a bit of mafia the series? 👉👈🥺

i'm on a mission to get as many people to watch mafia the series as possible, because it's without a question one of the best things that has ever happened to me. i just don't wanna say too much about it, because i think it's better to go into the series knowing as little as possible. i went in for joong, having certain expectations based on the poster, and let me tell you, it was an Experience™

[twig-tea]

TOL RomCom Rewatch catch-up: Eps 1-6

As folks may have noticed, I’ve been pretty absent from tumblr the last few weeks. I started the TOL Romcom Rewatch and then was unable to bring myself to write except that one infodump re Dear Dakanda for ep1. But this week was ep6, the point at which we flip (foreshadowing to the next film) to Khai’s perspective, and I wanted to write now, because I’m excited to see whether the way the parallels in the show and the films we watch will feel the same through the perspective flip, or whether this will end up being specific to Third’s POV and Khai's section will feel different. 

My thesis for the first half of this series is: Third is terrible at watching films. I know, it’s not a hot take so much as stating the obvious. Pretty sure at this point all of the other romcom rewatch buds have said the same thing over the last several weeks, and I’ll link out to them when I get into the relevant sections. But the more nuanced point I want to make is that: while Third takes a very literal and surface interpretation to these films, often identifying in ways that perpetuate his poor communication habits and validate his dramatics, these films actually have messages in them that he needs to hear, and if he could watch these films with a more mature lens, he would actually find the lessons he needed in them. In other words, I blame Third on Third, not on the films he was watching. That being said, this post is already late enough, so this is going to be less structured than I usually like.

Week 1: Dear Dakanda

Week 1’s film was Dear Dakanda, which I did already write about a bit as a reblog to @lurkingshan's week 1 post. I like @solitaryandwandering framing Third and Mhoo as an unreliable narrator in their post.  Like Shan wrote initially, Third definitely romanticized Mhoo/Khaoyai and did not realize that if he had said anything, maybe things could have been different. He certainly didn’t realize how Mhoo treated Dakanda like an ideal rather than a person. Like @neuroticbookworm said in her post, Third is treated badly by Khai because Third lets Khai treat him that way. He does things for Khai that Khai had already accepted a ‘no’ from him for. @bengiyo noted that Mhoo’s hesitance to confess is less understandable to him than Third’s, due to the additional lens of queerness that the show implies without ever committing to.

And what I keep thinking about is Nui modeled a different route. She didn’t pine for ages, she confessed pretty quickly to Mhoo, and it worked–he gave up on Dakanda without even giving her agency in the decision (as Megan also pointed out in their post). Nui is not a perfect protagonist or model either, but Third would have been better served modelling his behaviour after Nui than Mhoo (something I note @impala124 speculated about in their post too).  

Week 2: Love Actually

In Week 2, Megan wrote an excellent and frankly cathartic post about why Love Actually sucks, actually. And Shan wrote a great post talking about how Third modelled his confession after a confession in the film that was doomed by design . Impala noted that even in his fantasies, Third didn’t really think Khai would respond to him. I also liked bookworm's point in her post that at least in the film the confession came with context, but in the show Third’s confession came out of nowhere, so it’s understandable Khai reached for a rationalization instead, because he doesn’t seem to be seeing or considering Khai at all in these plans. Piggybacking on this, I could not help but think after watching this truly terrible film that Third would have been much better served modelling his behaviour and taking lessons from the ‘no homo’ confession between the self-absorbed rock star Billy Mack and his manager, Joe.

Like Shan said, I can understand on the surface why Third identified with the Mark character. This character has loved from afar in what he feels is hopeless pining, but he can't help but hope. In the film, the character's situation is much more absurd (they have never had a conversation!!! Juliet is MARRIED TO HIS BEST FRIEND PETER!!! I cannot with this movie), and so he decides to confess on Christmas as a way of finally being able to move on. 

Mark’s confession, which Third emulates, is him one-sidedly pouring out his feelings before moving on with his life. Juliet rewards him with a kiss (WHY), and then we see the three of them (Mark, Juliet, and Peter)  together in the future relaxed and presumably with Mark being a better friend to both of them than he has been to date. 

Mark's confession reminded me strongly of Mhoo's confession in Dear Dakanda: A one-sided dump of information with no interest in the recipient's feelings. Both of these character moments, as neuroticbookworm said in their post, did not have the person they were in love with in mind. 

In contrast, let's take a look at the other confession in this story. Why did I choose the one that was canonically non-romantic (and explicitly "no homo", at that) as the one Third should have emulated? Well, this confession was about two friends, one of whom finally admitted that, instead of the party lifestyle he thought he wanted, he actually just wanted the company of the man who had supported him and stayed by his side all this time. Billy said aloud, to Joe, that they were the two most important people in each other's lives, and that even though he had underappreciated his friend, this man was the person he cared about most. 

You may have noticed that this confession is from a character who is (relatively) Khai-coded. Rather than thinking about his own perspective and who he always most relates to, if Third had been thinking about Khai's perspective, and caring about Khai's feelings, he might have confessed in a way that Khai can relate to and that speaks to him. Instead, so far he's still so wrapped up in his own perspective that he keeps trying to approach with Third-character-coded approaches. 

Most importantly, the confession is clear and allows for the recipient to respond. And it also leaves room for them to be important to each other in a platonic way, if that were the only thing that would work for both parties.

A little bit of an aside, but I loved Ben and @happypotato48 thinking through a list of what queer films in Thai Third would have had access to. I had fun thinking about whether any of those had better confession scenes that he could have emulated but I ended up coming to the same conclusion as Ben, I can see why he turned to romcoms. 

Week 3: Friends with Benefits

The allegory here was not very difficult: Jamie is the romantic who loves romcoms but falls for assholes and is tired of being lied to, and Dylan is the player who has no interest in romance but by becoming his friend and then sleeping with him Jamie apparently managed to break through his walls to allow himself to actually fall in love with someone. The worst part about this film is that Jamie gets mad at Dylan for pulling away emotionally after sleeping with her, accusing him of being like her other asshole guys who only date her to get her to fuck them. But, as Dylan points out, he took her home to meet his family after they fucked, and they are only friends with benefits; she’s getting mad at being denied emotional intimacy she never actually asked for or that he ever agreed to. [The part that frustrates me most about this film is it all could have worked if Jamie got mad at Dylan for pushing for emotional intimacy without being willing to name what he was doing, instead, but alas alack.]  And then Dylan decides he does love Jamie and makes a big gesture, and everything is fine. Jamie doesn’t have to own up to any of what she did (i.e., assuming the dynamic of their agreed relationship had changed and then getting mad at him for violating rules she’d set in her head about it). I really appreciated Megan calling out that actually there was some great sex-positive stuff in there buried under all the bullshit. 

Shan pointed out, and I agree, that Third’s fantasy from this film would definitely be that Khai realizes his feelings and confesses to him, and also that this is not the Khai we have seen to date.  I would have loved for Third to take away from this film that you don’t get anywhere without actually talking about it, but unfortunately as Bookworm pointed out, this film fully enables his delusion that you can romcom moment your way into a relationship without ever having to speak. Impala noted that the difference between Third and Jamie is that Jamie had the sex without the closeness and Third has the closeness without the sex. It is interesting that Third chooses domesticity as his in rather than casual sex—while I do think that some of that choice is related to the different hetero/homo dynamics of these properties (by which I mean, Third doesn’t think sleeping with Khai is on the table anyway), I also think this has to do with what Ben pointed out in his piece around how Third, as his bro, is Different to Khai. Like Pluem said, he has a serious case of ‘main character syndrome’ . Honestly, if Third were watching this film with any kind of critical lens, he would have seen that the ending should never have worked, and that relationship intimacy does not happen on its own without a conversation. Instead, he takes the dramatics to heart.

Week 4: Crazy Stupid Love

Slight aside, Week 4’s Crazy Stupid Love made me furious and I had to unpack why, because after conversing with my fellow watchers I was able to admit that the plot that didn’t work for me did on paper work, and  other than the side plot which was a little gross, the film wasn’t that bad. Turns out I was projecting past experiences on Jacob when the character was written in a way that his emotional turn was believable (I didn’t believe it when I watched it). Apologies to this film. I still maintain parts of it suck, though–being in love isn’t an excuse to violate boundaries. This is a terrible lesson that Third seems to have taken from this film instead (re: his peeking into Khai’s room in the previous episode). Also, if you love somebody, please don’t set them up to be caught having committed a felony without their knowledge (the naked photos from the film). 

Loved Shan pointing out how the reveals in the episode are handed similarly to the film, and Bookworm noted that the theme of betrayal are also consistent across the film and the episode (though she rightly notes the likelihood of reconciliation is very different) (loved pluem’s rant about how out of pocket Khai was this episode). This is the lesson that I had wish Third had learned watching this, that moving on past a betrayal requires vulnerability and openness on both sides. Neither Third nor Khai are willing to be that with each other at this point in the story; instead Third is very focused on the romance of one-sided love and pining (and, like Megan said, I bet he cheered when Robbie continued pursuing his crush on Jessica despite her asking him multiple times to stop). But while boundary violations make for popular film, they don’t make for good relationships.  

Week 5: 10 Things I Hate About You

Like Shan said in their post Third’s interpretation of what Kat was doing in her poem is frankly embarrassing. Third’s argument in this episode reminded me a lot of the Jamie/Dylan fight in Friends with Benefits, in which Third was mad about things that Khai rightly points out he has no reason to be mad at, based on the parameters of their friendship. Ben mentions in his post that third is lashing out but refusing to name what is actually the problem (Bookworm notes that Third passive-aggressively hints that he hasn’t wanted to be Khai’s friend for awhile; frustrating). I wonder how much of Khai getting mad back is related to how he knows he’s been messing with Third’s feelings and is stressed about it–like how Patrick lashes out at Kat because she’s rightly guessed he has other motivations for going to prom–similar to Third being unwilling to name the actual problem, Khai is too, though he gets closer with his ‘you’re not my wife’ comment (Pluem speculates in his post that Khai is aware and acting out on purpose and I think so too). Megan points out that both Kat and Third have to learn the difference between maintaining healthy boundaries and not letting anyone in. The fantasy in this film and in Third’s mind, is that someone will come along and break through, avoiding having to ever learn. In this film, as wrong as they were, I would have much rather that Third have learned from Bianca and Cameron; Cameron finds out he was being manipulated and he asks outright: 'Did you ever even like me? Was any of it real?' And he states his own feelings too. They owed Kat a huge apology too, but for a couple to learn from I would have rather Third sat up and taken note that an honest conversation naming the hurt and discussing real feelings is more productive than passive aggressive displaced anger. 

Week 6: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I like Shan's theory that this film is our bridge from Third to Khai, and this is why I decided to write this post now, because I want to go into the Khai section of this show with fresh eyes to see whether the ways that the episodes end up paralleling the films changes with the change in POV. I think Shan is exactly right with her drawing the parallel between Joel only realizing that he didn’t want to lose Clementine after the erasing was already underway to Khai on the beach weeks into Third cutting him out of his life and Khai realizing this is not at all what he wants.

Bookworm said it perfectly that this film is so carefully constructed to make us and Joel realize that good relationships are built through intimacy and vulnerability; the question now is if Khai and Third are ready to do what they have not done to date, and be open with each other. And their point about how we lose access to Third’s thoughts right when we most need them was bang on. 

Megan characterized the procedure in Eternal Sunshine as a violence against the self, relationship, and community, and I was thinking about Khai’s plan to break Third's heart and how it had the same effect. As they said, miscommunication is the core of their problem and when two people act independently in a relationship, miscommunication is inevitable. I think their post hit the nail on the head of what I wanted Third to take from this film: If you want a relationship you need to accept the whole person. Instead, Third thinks to himself how nice it would be if he could erase specific memories. I was thinking about how there is a similarity to me in how Third could only confess to the recorded post only visible to him, and how Joel could only open up to the Clementine in his head who is just an extension of his psyche. At the same time, I wonder if Third choosing to finally be the one to leave and cut ties like Clem in this episode is him finally making a Khai-coded character choice. And in reading Ben’s summary of the film, it struck me how much these characters are choosing to be physically vulnerable to relative strangers over being emotionally vulnerable with people they love and with themselves. The choices of these characters in both properties are more painful the more I unpack them.

Finally, doing a final edit of this post, it struck me how the actions of Mhoo in Dear Dakanda really seem like the kind of immature person who would delete the memories of Dakanda if he could. He did the next best thing, purging everything that reminded him of her and saying that he'll never be in touch again.

Welp this was a mess but at least I've got this out there now. I'll try not to leave the back half to one post. One general thing I'll say is that so far I'm getting so much out of this project and I'm so glad that Ben suggested it and Shan leapt on it. For those who enjoy thinking more deeply about shows, I highly recommend watching evn a couple of these films and thinking about Theory of Love and how these films tell us so much about Third's perspective (and, I hope in the back half, Khai's).

[bengiyo]

Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch Episode 5: 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Once again I am watching Theory of Love because @lurkingshan gets specific pleasure out of making me change my mind about this show. This week we’re continuing with 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), a late 90’s adaptation of the Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew. As usual, I had not actually seen this one before, but was happy to see so many faves. @lurkingshan wrote about her frustrations with the fast resolution of the big lie. @solitaryandwandering wrote about the connection between Third and Kat. 

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

I think every generation needs a compelling version of Shakespeare’s plays, and I especially love when they offer opportunities for younger and newer actors to make a name for themselves. I was not expecting to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Heath Ledger, David Krumholtz, Gabrielle Union,, Allison Janney, Larry Miller, and Daryl Mitchell in this, but boy did I have a good time as a result. 

In this film, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) moves to a new school in the San Francisco bay area, and gets the classic high school clique tour from Michael (David Krumholtz) after a quick meeting with the disaffected counselor (Allison Janney) (who’d rather be writing her smut). Cameron falls for hot girl Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) immediately, but is told she’s out of his league and unavailable. He learns that Bianca can’t date until her dad (Larry Miller) allows her, and he won’t as long as her antisocial sister, Kat (Julia Stiles), starts dating. Cameron and Michael convince love rival Joey (Andrew Keegan) to pay off Australian bad boy Patrik (Heath Ledger) to date Kat. Patrik eventually breaks through the “feminist wall” Kat puts up, and things blow up in their faces when Kat eventually learns that Patrik was paid to be with her. 

This is not my favorite Shakespeare play, but I was genuinely engaged with this film. I liked that the film understood that Bianca’s nice girl routine was fundamentally cruel, and I like that she was forced to reckon with that and grow from it. I enjoyed the ridiculous amount of homoerotic tension between almost every male teen in the main cast of this film, especially between David Krumholtz and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I loved Mr. Morgan calling out the performative white feminism Kat engaged in, and how that led to a confrontation where Kat had been sardonic for so long that he thought she was trolling him when she tried to be earnest. I also loved Larry Miller, who remains one of my favorite character actors from this era. I also genuinely enjoyed the romantic arc between Patrik and Kat. Teen movies are better when they’re underpinned by classic writing. 

Like Shan and Megan, I was not as keen on some of the worst aspects of 90s humor that continue to show up in these films, and I also didn’t like the fast resolution at the end. I also wasn't that impressed with Kat; she was just kinda rude to everyone. I think Kat should have had more time to reckon with her sister and the guys who played her before reaching romantic reconciliation with Patrik, but it also doesn’t surprise me that Third would go to a film like this, despite completely misreading the whole list component. 

Theory of Love Episode 5

I’ve found on this watch that I’ve clearly hit my mid-30s, and no longer over-identify with Third. Instead, I feel like a teacher or mentor to him woefully disappointed in his terrible taste in films, and poor media literacy. Before I can even get too deep into this episode I must lament that he completely misunderstood Kat’s list. I almost wonder if there was something going on in the Thai translation, because in the list scene Kat makes a list of all the reasons she loves Patrik. I was genuinely baffled when I came back to this episode to see Third goin YEAH, I’LL MAKE A LIST ABOUT HOW MUCH HE SUCKS JUST LIKE THIS FILM in complete seriousness. He’s the screenwriter of this quartet?

Khai was wrong for testing Third last episode, but damn did I really want Third to go off properly on him. The closest he came was yelling at Khai for playing with his emotions, but they never have the proper conversation about it. It’s also clear that the tension in their group is causing discussion in the side chats, because Bone learns from Two that Third’s feelings for Khai are serious. Everyone in the group but Khai now knows, which feels especially difficult because Khai is the only one being punished. 

On this watch, I’ve also grown weary of Third’s double standard with his friends. Third spends the entire episode putting distance between himself and Khai, but he doesn’t apply the same barriers with Bone. Bone tried to apologize to Third for his role in all of this, but Third won’t even let Bone make amends there. It’s only Khai he’s mad at, and I just find this to be rather unfair this time around. It’s also notable that despite Third’s determination to make Khai suffer, he balks at Bone taking his side and striking Khai. I’m ready for the blow up. I hope the moment I’m thinking about happens next week. 

[neuroticbookworm]

Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch Episode 4: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Finally, I got to watch a movie for this project that did not make me wanna facepalm as the credits rolled. As always, @lurkingshan has summarized the movie in her post, so I will jump straight into adding my 2 cents. The film was really well-written, the relationships had more complexity than I had expected, and the commentary on love and what it means to be vulnerable was moving. The late-night conversation scene between Jacob and Hannah after their makeout, where Jacob finally opened up about his past, and the scene where Emily calls Cal under the pretence of fixing a heater, when in reality she just wanted to hear his voice, and him watching her from the garden that he tends to in secret even after their split were two of my favorite scenes in the movie. Both scenes show us the characters struggling with and overcoming the mortifying ordeal of being known, in order to win the prize that is love and affection.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the com part of this romcom, the comedic reveals were well-timed and always hit their mark. I was a bit irritated by Robbie running around trying to win his babysitter’s heart with grand gestures, but then later I watched Cal hijack his son’s middle school graduation (???) for his grand gesture, so I can’t be too mad at Robbie for working with the genetic knowledge he’s given. I also see why Third likes this movie that houses a reformed hoe, and a lot of scenes where characters confess their love for another. But I am also confident that Third (at this point in the show) had missed the nuances in the themes of the movie, on the value of earnestness in relationships (@bengiyo)

Now, I’ll be honest with y’all: I got got by this episode. I did not remember the exact series of events that unfolds in episode 4 of Theory of Love, and I got thoroughly hoodwinked by the romantic vibes. My brain realized what was about to happen just as Third walked towards the bathroom where he overheard Khai and Bone discussing the results of their scheme, designed to expose Third’s feelings for Khai. I remember feeling so surprised, betrayed, and nauseated on Third’s behalf when I first watched this scene, and I felt those same emotions again during rewatch. Khai and Bone were extremely in the wrong for playing this game on their friend, and the anger and betrayal Third feels is extremely understandable. It is also very relatable because, well, this is the flip side of being vulnerable and open to experiences in life. You run the risk of getting your heart trampled by assholes and their asshole behavior.

I like that we watched Crazy, Stupid; Love with this episode because the film begins with a betrayal that shakes a 20-year long marriage, and we watch Cal and Emily make more mistakes, scream at each other, and then finally find a way to work towards a path of reconciliation. Theory of Love episode 4 ends with a betrayal that shakes a one-sided infatuation that’s been precariously hiding behind a friendship, involving two people who have very different understanding of the place they hold in each other’s lives, and we know that neither of them are capable of discussing and working their way through this fuck-up with any emotional maturity whatsoever. I am so looking forward to tomorrow’s episode, and this week’s romcom pick, 10 Things I Hate About You.

[happypotato48]

Theory of Love Romcom Watch Along Episode 4 : Crazy Stupid Love (Lazy Unhinged Edition)

I've been up for almost 24 hours playing Monster Hunter so, plz clap for me that i somehow use my remaining 10% of my brain cells writing this. so let talk about this white people movie first. surprisingly i enjoyed this movie way more than i thought i would Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Julianne Moore are phenomenal in this. The way this movie live up to it name of Crazy Stupid and Love with it earnestness and uncompromising commitment to says that yeah Loves are fucking dumb but they're worth fighting for.

Now let talk about the Fuckbois. i think i didn't mention this last week but this is my first time watching TOL after ep 2 so i have zero clue aside from some gifs and that this is a GMMTV BL that deft gonna have a happy ending. SOOOOOO Khai did something so awful that made me genuinely see red. he "queerbaited" Third because he feels like it something he could and should does. in his head there only one version of Third and bacause a friend made him slightly doubt that. he think he could subject Third to this cruelty in the name of proofting something. these flirts and baits are just a game to him because he can't fathom and unwilling to ever consider for one second that Third feelling might be true. this kind of queer teasing is something i personally delt with in my childhood, something that made me feel like my inside are turning outward. this feelling of getting something you wanted so badly but also doesn't want other people to see because you're trying to protect your self from homophobia, it's suck. Love is stil a thing i think is worth fighting for and Oh BOY KHAI YOU LITTLE BITCH you better fight like your life depend on it to earn my approval, you stupid fictional fuckboi.

Hope this post make sense cuz idk if it does55555555.