Review: Until We Meet Again

Hello, friends! We meet again, and Bashful Bi is going to tell you some of my thoughts on Until We Meet Again while we're at it, because it's almost Halloween and this drama had some pretty scary moments. So get a blanket, a box of tissues--oh yeah, you'll need them--and hear me out.

Summary (official):

Thirty years ago, Korn and Intouch were university students in Bangkok. Intouch entered Korn's life despite knowing that he was the son of one of the most influential people in Bangkok, the mafia. At first, Korn kept pushing Intouch away, but in the end, he couldn't resist the boy who was so full of life where he was the exact opposite and decided to let him into his heart. However, in a time where homosexuality was unacceptable and having parents that were against their relationship and each other, Korn and In's love was bound to be doomed. Midst the chaos, while Intouch kept on fighting for their future, Korn could not deal with all the suffering his lover was facing and decided to give up. That day, two sounds of a gunshot rang through the air. Their story ended with tragedy, but something had already tied itself between them, bounding them together even after they were dead. 

Years later, a freshly returned to Thailand, Pharm (19) who is a freshman in T- University has grown up always feeling like he is waiting for someone. Being riddled with sad dreams that always left him waking up with a wet face, fear of loud noises, and a birthmark on his temple, the boy has always felt like there is someone he is missing. Dean (21), the third year swimming club's president at T- University has also spent his life searching for someone whose faces he can not remember. 

The red thread of fate that had tied them together in their past life once again pulls the two boys back to each other, tieing them to each other and a past that might not be worth remembering, but a love that is unforgettable. Because the red thread that binds the two hearts together will always lead one back to the other. Even though it might tangle or stretch, but it will never break.

My thoughts:

This BL was a lot to process.

We had fate... and then we questioned it. We had oscillations between the wants and hesitations of a first serious relationship. We had rosy sweetness and agonizing pain. We even had heartwarming friendships amidst the densely romantic plot.

You know what we didn't have? Enough of Win and Team. I liked them more than Dean and Pharm (as one frequently does with side couples), and I'm quite sad that most of their scenes were the weird product advertisements at the end of episodes (honestly, Lays, did I ask? I'm gonna eat your godforsaken chips anyway, you don't need to butt into this TV show). Their relationship didn't make a lot of sense because of how little information we were given, and I feel like it had a lot more potential than it was given credit for.

Also, I was really into the theme of food that Pharm kept making. I love making a wide variety of desserts, and even though I'm nowhere near as good of a confectioner as Pharm, it was still nice to see someone else display such an interest in this. Plus, I got inspired to actually make one of his Thai desserts, Leum Kleun! (I actually made an American knock-off version because I didn't have any of the ingredients to make it correctly and didn't feel like going shopping the day I made it, but it still turned out pretty good. I'll probably write another post about that later). It was probably most interesting to hear Pharm's explanations about all the meanings of the desserts--I never knew Thai cusine was so conscientious about their sweets.

There was definitely A LOT of sadness, which I was honestly not thrilled about, because I'm not super into sadness, and I find suicide to be seriously upsetting for personal reasons. If you read one of my previous posts on color palattes, you'll know that I also found Until We Meet Again to also be very dark literally: the darkness of the show was underscored by the darkess of colors in many, many scenes. I must admit that I stopped watching the series after the second-to-last episode for a month because it got so, so, so abysmal and I just could not take it anymore. But, when I finally did watch the last episode, I realized I had been missing out on, like, the best ending ever.

All in all, this BL was not an easy watch, but I felt enriched after watching it.

SPOILERS

Dean freaked me out because he freaked Pharm out. That guy needed to fucking curb himself and stop being oblivious to the fact that his boyfriend was uncomfortable with about 70% of everything he did to him. This seriously ruined my experience with the show. If you read some of my previous posts, you know I preach consent, and that just was not it. Did Pharm end up okay after everything? Yeah. Would a real person end up okay in those situation? Very possibly not. If it's bad enough that a neighbor could hear Pharm yelling "Stop, Dean, Stop!" then Dean most definitely needed to stop. At least the show kind of acknowledged that when Pharm's neighbor told Pharm to let him know if he needed help, because their whole relationship was kind of messed up.

Do university athletics have any other sports besides soccer and swimming? I like soccer, but in BLs it feels like swimming is just an excuse to shoot scenes where acters have minimal clothing, which is kind of annoying.

Also, that scene with Win, Team, and the mistletoe--is mistletoe not native to Thailand, because whoever made the props for this show clearly did not know what mistletoe looked like. It's not a ball of nasty, yellow-green moss. It is a green vine with white berries. As someone native to and currently living in the northeastern US (where we have an abundance of mistletoe), this bothered me.

The one thing about this show I really, really liked was the ending, when Pharm questions the reality of his attachment to Dean. Did Dean and Pharm's love really exist without In and Korn? It was a valid question, since so much of the past plot, including the development of their relationship, was based on them being reincarnated. (Also a valid question because Pharm seemed really uncomfortable really often, and yet he still hung on to Dean.) The answer to this question was delivered with such a golden sweetness that it almost made up for the tragedy in all the episodes before the last. The ending of Until We Meet Again was definitely my favorite part: it was happy, it was satisfying, and it made sense.

Besides Dean, something that honestly scared me was Dean's intensity with reconnecting with his past life. He had started off as a pretty sensitive and reactive character personality-wise, but as we dove deeper into his past life, those darkly scenes when he beheld various relics of his past life, such as the box of trinkets and photos (and the gun), and his old apartment were... well... scary. The intensity was so much that I had to turn the lights on in my room to watch those. It wasn't that I was waiting to be jump-scared like a horror movie (which I hate--not a fan of scary movies), it was that I was terrified about what he could and would do in such a tightly wound state. If there was anything Until We Meet Again nailed, it was the ability to create a tangibly intense atmosphere.

Overall:

Rating? 6/10 (the plot and acting were great, but Dead and Pharm's relationship was scary)

Flavor? Chocolate (the really bitter kind that isn't sweet at all)

Watch again? Maybe if I skip through the really sad parts

Recommend? Yes (TW: suicide)