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Spring Grab Bag Part 1: Genre Shows

And we're back! This week we're talking about all of the shows that blended other genres with BL, including mystery, horror, and science fiction. Because only NiNi and Ginny watched everything, we brought Shan and Ginny back to the booth to cover all of the shows. Today we're talking about how Playboyy failed us, 7 Days Before Valentine landed in a specific niche, our reactions to Dead Friend Forever, and the different things we walked away with from Love for Love's Sake.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Grab Bag Part 1: Genre Shows 00:02:31 - Playboyy the Series 00:18:42 - 7 Days Before Valentine 00:29:35 - Dead Friend Forever 00:50:03 - Love for Love’s Sake 01:13:39 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Grab Bag Part 1: Genre Shows

NiNi

We're literally doing it live, Ben. [Ben laughs]

Shan

Great start. [Ginny and NiNi laugh]

NiNi

We’re keeping that in! We're absolutely keeping that in! [Shan and Ginny laugh]

Go on ahead, Ben.

Ben

And we're back! This week we are doing our Grab Bag episode. We will be talking about quite a few shows. But first, we have guests.

NiNi

Say ‘hi’ Ginny and Shan. Say ‘hi,’ Ginny.

Ginny

Hello!

NiNi

Say hi, Shan.

Shan

Hi, people!

NiNi

Like Ben said, we're here to do a grab bag. Actually, we're here to do two grab bags. It's a two-parter, fun times. The first part, we're gonna talk about a bunch of genre shows. It's gonna be fun. We're gonna have a good time. It's always a good time when Ginny and Shan are with us.

Ben

Today we are talking about Playboyy the Series, 7 Days Before Valentine, Dead Friend Forever, and Love For Love's Sake. You may use the timestamps we provide to jump to your relevant section.

NiNi

Look at Ben being a good cruise director. I love it.

00:02:31 - Playboyy the Series

Ben

We begin with Playboyy the Series. Since I did not watch this show, NiNi or Ginny, would you like to describe Playboyy for the people, or do you want me to describe it based on my three episodes’ experience?

NiNi

I feel like this is all you, Ginny, go.

Ginny

Playboyy is a show that tried to be about the complex lives of sex workers and people exploring new thresholds of kink, and instead was simply a hot mess that devolved into several different directions. Did not say what it intended to say—or perhaps intended to say horrible things, we’re not clear on that—and disappointed nearly everybody. How's that?

Shan

Very well done.

NiNi

That is it in a nutshell. Ginny and I watched this to the end. Shan quit. Ben quit way earlier.

Shan

I wanna just give myself credit for hanging in there for a long ass time. I think I made it all the way to, like, episode 9 or 10 before I had to stop.

Ben

I'm just gonna own it right away. I quit at the end of episode 3. I said this is not for me, and I have nothing nice to say. I'm gonna just leave now.

NiNi

You really did. We're here to talk about the genre BLs of the season. And Playboyy technically counts as a, I guess, murder mystery? But ugh. Okay, I'm invoking The Shipper.

Shan

[gasps] Wow.

NiNi

I know we said we're never going to talk about this again, but I am invoking The Shipper.

Ben

Proceed.

NiNi

What a hot fucking mess this was. This show wanted to be about so much and in the end ended up being about nothing. It's offensive. It's sensationalist. I found it bad in a particularly banal, uninteresting way, and I'm mostly upset because when it started—it wasn't great, but it had some ideas. And then those ideas just completely fell by the wayside.

Listen, guys, I am the sex in story person. This was right up my alley. I don't know if you've ever seen the phenomenal classic Shortbus. Ginny was like, ‘this is giving me Shortbus,’ and I was like, ‘ohh tell me more, I’m seeing it.’ That was maybe episode 4, and by episode 6 I was like, I don't know that it's giving Shortbus.

I thought it was saying something about sex that it actually wasn't saying because in the end it's all about monogamy and the power of love. Which, yeah, okay, it could absolutely be about that. But that's not what it was sold as. I can't even continue on it. Ginny, you have to take over for me, it's just bad. I don't like it.

Ginny

What you said is key because it wasn't sold as being about monogamy and the power of love. And it's fine for a show to be about that, but if a show is going to give you a bunch of seamy underbelly, kink, sex work, highly stigmatized sexual topics, and then it's gonna come around and being like, but actually monogamy and the power of love is what it's all about, then you are only further stigmatizing those topics. If you put them in, and then you don't land on a positive note with those topics, you're just reinforcing what everybody already thinks about them.

That is not what the show was sold to us as, and I'm furious about it because I want to see more material that deals honestly with some of the more difficult sexual topics and the more controversial areas of sexuality. This show promised us that, and then it ended up being like, ‘buuut if you're in true love, then all problems are solved, and the kinkiest people are somehow also the evilest, oops, we don't know how that happened.’ And it's just infuriating.

NiNi

I'm not even gonna get into what Playboyy is actually about, because in the end, it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna be straight. There are people who enjoyed this. I was not one of those people.

Ben

I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask so we can unpack some stuff here. Let's go around the table, starting with Shan.

When we all signed up to watch Playboyy originally, what were you hoping for based upon the initial promotional materials?

Shan

Oh, this is such a loaded question. Now I have to invoke Only Friends.

So, Playboyy and Only Friends share a writer. Only Friends, as was very thoroughly discussed on this podcast, also ended with a message reinforcing monogamy and the power of love in a show that claimed to be about something else. And so I went into Playboyy, actually really eager to see another work from this screenwriter, because I wondered if maybe some other things had happened on that show that got in the way of this message that he has been claiming to be trying to put out in the world.

And so I expected, based on the promotional materials, based on the way the folks behind the show were talking about it, I expected this to be very much a sex and kink positive show, very much a show exploring the many different ways that sex and sexual relationships can evolve, can look, trying to also shine some light on the lives and experiences of sex workers. All of that was part of the promotion of the show, alongside the murder mystery aspect. It was never clear to me going in how much about each of those things the show would be. It seemed to be trying to tackle a lot, so I was interested to see how it would weave those things together. And it just didn't really, and it didn't do a lot of those things it was claiming to be doing.

Ben

What about you, Ginny?

Ginny

Very similar to Shan, I expected and hoped for a lot of showcasing of sexual diversity, and as NiNi said, I was hopeful in the first episodes. She and I hung on so long trying to defend what the show might be trying to do. It did look like it was trying to show somebody who was averse, maybe to touch, maybe was asexual, maybe had trauma, we weren't clear. That was an interesting thing to explore. People in sex work for various different reasons. People who were very clear about their kinks and interests.

And I was hoping for a mature, in-depth exploration that didn't treat sex itself like it was this shocking new frontier, that sort of accepted this is something that's a part of many people's lives and can be treated with seriousness and playfulness at the same time. I did not expect the plot to hold together because there were simply way too many characters, but I at least wanted the core messaging and character development around sexuality to be consistent and interesting and positive. And the longer the show went on, the worse it got in all of those respects.

Ben

So going in, I was expecting there to be some really fun examination about masculine sexuality, and then very quickly I realized the show was doing porn setups as basically just a joke? They weren't really doing with that what we thought they might be. Like, they're introducing porn setups to talk about the inherently artificial nature of porn and the lack of genuine connection happening for men who are projecting their expectations of sex onto the false notions they might be getting from adult content. And that is not what happened. At all, so. I left very quickly because I was like, I don't need this. And I thought their sex ed 101 messages were deeply muddled by some of their own unfortunate choices.

Speaking of unfortunate choices, let's go around the table again. What was the unfortunate choice that this show made [laughs] that pushed you over the edge and either quit it or decided you hated it by the end?

Shan

I gave it a long time. I really tried with this show. I tried to read some of these deeper themes and messages that both makers of the show and people watching the show were claiming were embedded in the work, and I couldn't find it. I think it was kind of a slow trickle for me of things that just kept adding up, but what might have really been the snapping point for me was what they did with Zouey's storyline. Someone who was maybe sex averse or sex repulsed. I was very much looking forward to development of that as he fell in love with somebody and was trying to work through that. The way that the show resolved that storyline—his falling in love with somebody just made it go away. He just suddenly was fine with sex one day, just like that. That's all it takes, apparently. And then even further down the line in the show, they undid it even further by completely retconning his entire issue and changing the source of it from the beginning.

But that moment when they just showed him just suddenly, magically being fine with sex through the power of love after what had felt like a setup of a serious sexual dysfunction issue that he wanted to work through, it just felt so disrespectful to me. It was a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, nothing this show is doing matters. It doesn't take any of it seriously. I was silly to trust that it did.’ That was just kind of it for me. I was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out.

Ben

Ginny?

Ginny

There wasn't one moment. It was just a slow decay of trust and interest over time. I think the storyline between First and Soong—first of all, it was badly acted.

Ben

Is First the thermometer boy?

Ginny and Shan

Yes. [both laugh]

Ben

Yeah, that's—spoiler alert!

Shan

Was that your moment, Ben?

Ben

—that's why I left. [laughs]

Ginny

I hung in with them well past the thermometer. That story could have been really interesting about the complexities of a dom-sub relationship that also has a very real financial angle. They keep being drawn to each other for reasons I did not understand, and the show did not really justify. It could have been such an interesting exploration of a really complex power dynamic, and instead it was just two people taking turns being mean to each other and then senselessly coming back to each other with no kind of nuance or complexity. So frustrating.

Ben

NiNi, did you have a breaking moment with this show that you recall?

NiNi

There are so many moments where I had to push through, like the toe sucking incident, I had to push through. There was a dog food incident, I had to push through that, as well. When I was over it, though, was, the main character is supposedly pretending to be his twin brother, and there were hints along the way that maybe there was no twin and there was maybe a disassociation happening there as this person tries to come to terms with their self-image in the wake of having kinds of sexual experiences that he enjoyed but didn't think he should. And there was a lot to unpack there. But then they showed the twin brother’s dead body, and I was just like, ‘Okay, no, this show is shit.’ I was over it at that point.

I stayed till the end because as I said to everybody, I wanted my complaints to be specific and comprehensive. But yeah, that was it for me in the end. The fact that they sold it as some sort of psychological deep dive and it ended up being not even a bog standard murder mystery with a cartoon villain.

Ben

I'd like to follow up with something Ginny mentioned in her response. You talked about how this show was a slow betrayal of trust for you. Let's talk about this creative team.

So with Cheewin and Den, this is their second outing together. How are we feeling about Den and Cheewin as a creative duo?

Ginny

I don't trust Den anymore, which is a shame. He's very, very vocal on social media about the shows he's doing and the way he talks makes it sound like he's coming from this forward thinking, sex positive, ‘Let’s push the boundaries’ way. But then the two shows, as Shan mentioned, Only Friends and Playboyy, just felt so regressive in their ultimate messages, and in how they treated their most boundary pushing characters. So I—with much regret because I was very excited about him as a new voice and a new presence in the scene—fully do not trust him anymore.

Cheewin I have more grace for because he's got a much bigger resume and he's made some things that I really loved. Secret Crush on You is one of my shows of all time. Why r u? is also a favorite of mine. I am watching Deep Night and I'm curious to see what he's doing with Den's involvement maybe less in this story side of things.

Ben

I'm glad for your answer. I've been dealing with my own version of BL burnout for a while. As you all have gotten here in real time on this show, so I am currently not watching Deep Night, so I've been curious about your reactions as we get deeper into that. I'm tired of getting disappointed around the 50 to 70% mark of these shows and then being grumpy for a month as they stumble their way to the end. I’m about to be like NiNi and just binge shows after they're done.

NiNi

It's a technique that I highly recommend for a lot of shows, actually. Not every show, but a lot of shows.

Ben

Shan, you traditionally used to like to binge shows after they were mostly done. You started watching live because you unfortunately met me.

Shan

[laughs] It's all your fault, bestie.

Ben

Where are you currently on Den, Cheewin, and your general vibe with showrunner teams that have let you down, and engaging with future work?

Shan

I really agree with what Ginny said about Den and Cheewin in particular. Cheewin has a long history. I've really loved some of his work. I've really disliked some of his work. I think that's how it's always gonna be with Cheewin, he's a little bit hit or miss. He tries things and it doesn't always work. But I'm willing to come into each of his new projects with benefit of the doubt to see what he's trying to do.

With Den, I'm much more wary after these couple projects back-to-back. I'm always wary of creators who speak so much on social media outside of their work to try to shape opinions about it rather than letting the work speak. That has been a wariness that I've had around him from the beginning because he's been very vocal about his active projects, trying to shape and define the fan response to them in a way that I find a bit off-putting. With these projects in particular, I feel like he's been really trying to claim a mantle that he is not actually owning and earning with his work. So yeah, similar to Ginny, I don't really trust him anymore. I will not be live watching any more shows that he's writing, and I'll be waiting to hear from other folks that I trust about whether or not I should be even venturing into them at all.

NiNi

I'm going to give it a 0 which I never give shows. I was actively offended and I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Ben

Ginny, you have any final thoughts about Playboyy you wanna share?

Ginny

No. I want someone to make a good sex show, that's all.

Ben

This show is going to get a DNF from The Conversation. We did not finish it. You don't need to either.

NiNi

And with that, let's move on.

00:18:42 - 7 Days Before Valentine

NiNi

The next show we're gonna talk about is 7 Days Before Valentine. Wait, so which one of us watched this, was it just me and Ginny?

Ben

Yeah, just you and Ginny. I'll talk a little bit about it and then I'll let you two take over. We jumped onto 7 Days Before Valentine because Punnasak Sukee was running this project. We all know him from 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us, which is a favorite of mine. So we were really excited to see additional work from him. He was adapting someone else's work this time.

The initial premise is about this guy named Sunshine, who is an aspiring actor who has a kind of ugly breakup with his boyfriend, who's now seeing someone else. He meets this supernatural being which is able to grant him a wish to erase someone from existence in order to help him reunite with his boyfriend. He gets seven days of attempts to erase someone, and then the world resets, and he progressively erases different people who he believes are the person responsible for why he and his boyfriend didn't work out.

I ended up not finishing the show because I was struggling with it as a weekly watch. NiNi came behind it late and watched it basically in two or three sittings and seemed to have a much better experience with it.

I want to go to you first, Ginny, because I think you live watched the whole thing.

Ginny

I did live watch the whole thing, and I do think that NiNi did it better, because I think it was better suited for a binge. Obviously, we know going in that this guy is not gonna end up thinking that erasing somebody every night is a great thing to do, like, that's a horrific premise. His journey of really internalizing what he's doing and the horror of it is slooow to unfold over 10 weeks or so. It moves too slowly. I think it actually would have been a better show with shorter episodes. I think the episodic breaks are where they need to be, but I think that each episode could be tighter and brisker.

NiNi and I both also read the source novel. I don't know how much we want to get into that, but I think we both were fascinated by how much the adaptation team added and enriched the very simple core story. It was a beautiful show, I think NiNi will talk a lot about that. The sort of root of this man who's lonely and has felt like he's had one person who loves and is a partner to him, abandon him and his desperation to get that back, being slowly replaced by his attachment to this other person who's locked in this weird Faustian situation with him.

There was some good meat in there and some really good scenes played out. So I am glad I watched it. I think I would have enjoyed it better on a binge and I think it would have been a better show if it had been, just edited more tightly and moved faster through this character’s realizations.

NiNi

I think that's mostly how I felt about it. So I did watch it on a binge and I remember when we were discussing it saying that it felt like being in the theater for some really experimental play. Just sitting in the dark, thoroughly enjoying watching this thing unfold, not knowing where it's going but having a real good time. That's how it felt to me going through it, it was a little trippy. It was deep and interesting in the places that it needed to be deep and interesting. I liked the rhythm and meter and cadence of the dialogue. I don't speak Thai, but I do sing, and getting rhythm and meter, you could kind of feel the way that it was written, the kind of poetry, maybe, that it was meant to evoke. I was thoroughly enjoying this soothing rhythm of how it was written.

The set design is outstanding. And then there's some stuff happening on like TVs and signs and all kinds of things in the background that was just crazy fun. It's a very moody, atmospheric kind of piece. It's sorta kinda like folklore or fairy tale, something supernatural. I had a really great, engaging time with it. I truly enjoyed it. I thought it was beautiful to watch.

I also agree, Ginny, that it feels long, but then when you go through it, you're like, well, what would they cut? Where would they cut? Everything that's there feels like it needs to be there, and then the things that you're thinking, well, maybe they could shorten this or that. They add to the atmosphere of the piece in such a way that helped me immerse myself in the work. Like, there's some lull portions of it where it's just a character singing or, like, Sunshine doing the monologue from Macbeth. Maybe they could have cut this, but then when those things are happening, I'm literally glued, I can't turn away from them.

It's definitely not BL, it's very experimental work that I personally enjoyed, but it's not a traditional narrative at all.

Ben

Shan, did you watch this show at all?

Shan

I did not. When the show started airing, I still hadn't watched 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us. So I remember when you all started this show live, asking whether I should watch it. And you, I think Ben, are the one who told me no. ‘No, I want you to watch 180D first.’ And as I was working through that binge, you all were continuing with 7 Days Before Valentine and kind of realizing, oh, this is not really holding up the same mantle as that show. So I ended up never diving in and then the final reviews of the show were pretty much mixed. It didn't feel like something I needed to prioritize to watch. I still haven't watched it. I'm not sure if I will.

NiNi

The only similarity really between 180D and this is that they both feel theatrical, but they feel theatrical in different ways. 180D is not anything like 7 Days Before Valentine.

Ginny

I think what you said about this feeling kind of folktale- or fairytale-esque was spot on, NiNi. In contrast to 180, which is all about these really deep, complex character interactions, all these characters felt very archetypical, and we were kind of watching these archetypical themes play out. In a way that was quite effective for a lot of it, but yeah, very different story strengths than 180 had.

Ben

So since the two of you finished the story, do you have any comments on the arc that Sunshine and Kyu go through over all of the resets they do together?

NiNi

I mean, I think here is where we would actually do like a little bit of novel comparison. The novel is so much more simplistic. There is so much less happening in the novel on a narrative standpoint. Kyu is not a character that gets his own arc in the novel. Kyu is just a character that shows up every night, gives Sunshine his wish, who he's gonna erase, and then disappears. Whereas in the show, Kyu is a fully fledged character in its own right with his own arc, and it is suggested, as well, his own Kyu?

I enjoyed Sunshine's arc in the show, a very lonely character who is sort of figuring out that he doesn't need to grab onto this one person and hold on to them super tight and be terrified if that person leaves him. Basically kicking and flailing to save the relationship once it's over. The way that that arc plays out, the way that Sunshine learns over the course of the seven nights. He starts with, ‘oh, we'll just get rid of the new guy, that'll bring him back to me’ and then he goes deeper and deeper and further and further out trying to find the ripples of how his relationship went wrong. Until, I think, it's the sixth night he asks to have himself erased? And then by the seventh night, he just wants Kyu to be happy. It’s really so well done.

Ginny

I think the nicest little storyline is around Sunshine realizing the importance of community. You see him initially very fixated on ‘I need this one person to come back to me’ and as the story wraps up and everybody's restored, you see him starting to see these other relationships with people who are in his life because of his ex, but also maybe care about him, who he could have some kind of community with. I think that was one of the most important character growth lines of the show, specifically with the ex's friend, and realizing that maybe the way he had seen her and his relationship to her had been very clouded by his own self-image and assumptions about people seeing him as somebody who should be discarded.

NiNi

What did you think about the Mephistopheles-esque character? Because he wasn't in the book.

Ginny

Oh, he was my favorite. The liquor and flower shop, so much fun. Every scene. There were a lot of scenes in the show that I was kind of bored during because again, I think they were just not paced very tightly, but every scene with this liquor flower shop owner, I was riveted. He was so engaging and dynamic as a atmospheric character, he brought so much richness.

Ben

What did the two of you rate the show?

Ginny

I gave it a 7.5. I think it's worth watching if the premise interests you, if you like great theatrical settings or cinematography. It was beautifully shot. And if the sort of Faustian theme and things like that are interesting, definitely worth a watch.

NiNi

I gave it an 8.5. I think that because I binged it, I had a slightly different experience and there were some things in the pacing that maybe I enjoyed slightly more because of that. I don't think it's for everybody, but if you like Faustian stories and you like experimental storytelling, I think it's a good one.

Ben

It's getting an 8 with an asterisk.

NiNi

I think that's fair.

00:29:35 - Dead Friend Forever

NiNi

So next up, we are going to be talking Dead Friend Forever. Be On Cloud’s, horror-slasher-thriller.

Shan, you pick up this one. Tell us what Dead Friend Forever is about.

Shan

Dead Friend Forever is, I think, maybe the first attempt in the genre to do a long form horror story. One of, actually, the big discussion points about this show is exactly what genre it lives in and what it's trying to be. It ended up blending a lot of different horror sub genres. It did some good mystery work. It did end up having a couple BL love lines, but that didn't follow the normal beats because of the genres it was living in. I think ultimately, it is the story of a teenage boy who was harmed by many people and the fallout of that.

Ginny, I feel like you know more of the lore behind the show and kind of the build up to it. Do you want to add to that?

Ginny

So this was a showcase for Be On Cloud’s new stable that they first brought in through their reality show The Hidden Character. And then this was the drama that a large number of these new guys got to star in. So some of the storytelling choices, there were some scenes that I felt like, oh this is really just for your resume reel, isn't it? But that said, it was well constructed. It was, I think, a good choice to make kind of the slasher genre that lets you have a lot of different characters with very vivid personalities that let these new actors demonstrate their talent without taxing them too hard on too much complexity.

I really enjoyed this show. I have some notes, but overall, I thought it was fantastically well done, and especially as a way to launch about half a dozen new faces into the scene. And also a way to launch the cooperation between Be On Cloud and Sammon, the very beloved writer of Thai BL suspense. Her skills and Be On Cloud’s orientation and vision seem to be a really good match, so I'm excited to see her writing and their production team do more together.

Shan

I think actually finding out that she was the writer is the thing that finally sucked me into this show. [laughs] I jumped in, I think after episode 8? I kept hearing how good the writing was, and then I think Ginny told me that Sammon was the writer and I was like, ‘Oh! Let me get in there.’

I'm with you, I want them to do a lot more collaborations in the future because she is one of the stronger writers, I think, working in Thai BL, and they are one of the stronger production houses, so it's a really nice pairing.

Ben

I was watching this weekly with you all and then we got to the end of episode 4, and the teaser indicated a flashback and I was like, ‘I saw The Untamed. I'm not spending 27 episodes on that.’

[Ginny laughs]

Shan

Oh not The Untamed catching strays! Rude!

NiNi

I will allow it.

Ginny

We're gonna get so many notes.

[Shan and Ben laugh]

Ben

Look, I enjoyed The Untamed, but it was so ridiculous. And I just was not in the mood because I am not that keen on horror. As a black person who was raised in the South, I do not need to watch horror to trigger my fight or flight instinct for fun, so. I'm not that keen on the genre. It does not do much for me. I find that I can really only give about two-ish hours to a slasher concept before I get tired of it and need to walk away. And that happened to me with Dead Friend Forever, ‘cause we were in it for about four episodes, which was about three-ish hours, and I was like, ‘I'm done. [sigh] I'm taking a break.’

And then Shan, after episode eight, was like, ‘This show is very good. So, jot that down.’

Shan

I was like, ‘I'm so sorry, bestie. You're gonna have to finish it.’ [laughs]

Ben

I was like, “Goddammit!” [laughs]

Shan

It was really good!

Ben

I enjoyed a lot of the character writing. When they decided to delve into the horrors that these boys had inflicted on Non, played by Barcode—who was really good in this show—the show decided to really full commit to it. Holy shit!

NiNi

Like it was Korean level, how deep they got into the bullying.

Shan

Yeah. Like, they did not hold back, they really went for it.

Ginny

Everybody wanted to see all of those boys die by the first flashback episode. Everyone was like, nevermind!

Shan

Kill ‘em all.

Ginny

Whoever’s out in the woods, killin’ ‘em? Get ‘em all.

Shan

Here's another axe.

Ben

I think they did a good job in illustrating the ways that boys just choosing to be a little bit shitty can snowball. There were a lot of points in the flashback where one person not being a coward or not being cruel could have saved all of them from the disaster that befalls them. It's important that we understand, like, why all these boys need to die if we're going to watch them all get brutally murdered.

Speaking of the brutal murder portion of it, let's talk about the final episode and the bloodbath we got. Let's start with our favorite deaths. Who is the most bloodthirsty of all of us? It's definitely Shan.

[NiNi laughs]

Shan

There's no contest.

NiNi

It is 100% Shan.

Ginny

100%.

Shan

The highlight reel of deaths, which was my favorite? I really liked Fluke and Top kind of taking each other out together. So these are both characters who had been antagonists throughout the show. Top had been the most overtly aggressive antagonist throughout the show, he was just horrible, annoying, like you could never see why anybody would ever like that kid. And Fluke had been the bystander who saw everything happening, didn't actually do any of the perpetration directly, but also never intervened and never tried to make any of it stop.

In their final scenes before their deaths, they were both standing in the same place they had always been: denying their accountability, saying, ‘I refuse to accept blame, I refuse to apologize, I refuse to die,’ and then they got into this little battle with each other and ended up going over the banister. They had already both been grievously injured, Fluke’s injury probably being my favorite. He ended up stabbing his own eyes out, which I thought was just such an appropriate poetic ending for him before then falling to his death.

Ben

Ginny, you were a huge fan of this show the whole way through. You're up next. Who was your favorite death?

Ginny

My favorite death was New. I think he's the last confirmed death because it's left sort of vague what happens to the last few guys. What I love is that he's been on this big revenge chorus and as far as we can tell, he's been doing everything. He overdid it. He caused the deaths of two people who weren't at all involved. Narratively, he needs to die, but he goes through this whole cycle of, ‘is this what Non would have wanted? Non, did I let you down again?’ He's got huge guilt on him.

He's been shot. He's bleeding out. He sees Non come to him and sort of say, ‘yes, big brother, you did a great job destroying all these people who destroyed me. Thanks for that.’ So it's this very cathartic and almost sweet moment, even as he is dying. And I really liked it.

Ben

NiNi?

NiNi

Whoo, so, in my view, the people who most needed to die didn't. Or maybe they did, who knows. But the death that I found most satisfying…Por dying slowly in the background while everything is not about him, given that his need for the spotlight pushed almost everything that happened. I thought it was really elegant that he just literally gets dumped on a couch and basically forgotten to die.

Ben

Because I'm last, I get to cheat. My favorite death was Fluke because all he did was watch people be cruel and do nothing to help, and he was driven to insanity and stabbed his own eyes out. I thought that was excellent, really good thematic death for that character. A+.

But my favorite death in terms of playing with genre themes has to be Tea stabbing White to death. A lot of folks in the discourse were hoping that he was gonna be the Final Girl.

Shan

It's me, I'm folks! I did not want White to die!

Ben

[laughs] I didn't think that boy deserved to die, but I thought it was appropriate. And he died in a really fucked up way.

NiNi

Genre-wise, it was definitely appropriate that he died.

Shan

It was a totally fair storytelling choice. I'm not mad at the show about it, but I'm really sad.

Ben

Oh, but we do have things we're mad at the show about.

Shan

We sure do. [laughs]

Ben

Let's talk about that bullshit ass final 10, 15 minutes [Shan dramatically sighs] with Phee and Jin.

NiNi

Phee and Jin and technically Tee, but let's focus on Phee and Jin.

Shan

Phee and Jin are the bigger problem here.

Ben

Who wants to go first? [brief pause] Oh, good, I'll go. [laughs]

NiNi

Oh no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no friend. I am going to go first, okay.

Shan

I was gonna say, NiNi’s gotta go on this one.

NiNi

Because let me tell you, Jin was the living worse because Jin was the Nice Guy. Jin just thought that his friends could be shitty as hell to Non forever, and as long as he smiled at him and was sweet to him and he put enough quarters in the Non machine that maybe Non would fuck him. And then when Non—trigger warning—when Non ends up being assaulted by his tutoring teacher and Jin sees that, what does he do? Does he try to stop it? Does he try to comfort him? Does he try to help him? No! He records it and puts it on the internet to ruin Non’s life. He needed to die, bloody, and he did not die bloody for me to see. And I was upset by that.

Now Phee. I have words for Phee because your man is basically run out of town on a rail by these losers. You are all set to get revenge with his brother, and then one of them slangs you the dick and you're done with the whole revenge thing? Really, you gave up on the revenge? Are you serious right now? You ain’t hard. You ain’t bad. You ain’t serious. You're really trying to protect Jin? After everything? You know what he did!

Ugh, I can't even. Phee and Jin needed to die bloody so that I could see. That did not happen. The psychological horror of whatever the story is saying happened with them at the end—that they never left the house, that they’re trapped in there—I don't care. I needed to see them die bloody. The end.

Now you can talk, Ben.

Ben

Thank you! [NiNi laughs] I'm just gonna say it straight up, I fuckin’ hated it. I feel like that was where the BL aspects of it got in the way of the horror aspects of it. It feels like the show didn't want to show them dying horrible, bloody deaths because they were the primary BL pair? And I was not that keen on them doing the whole, ‘they didn't make it, but here's a little bit of fluff for the people who need that so that they can check out from facing that reality.’

I didn't like it! I wanted to see them also die bloody, painful deaths. They hedged. They showed Jin also being affected by the toxin that New inflicted them with when he was taking a knife to his hand, but they didn't finish it. And I was grumpy about it.

Shan

I agree with both of you and I think it's a shame because, I thought that what the show was doing with Phee through, like, episode nine was so interesting and so smart. Phee cared about Non, but he had also ended things with Non before he disappeared. He thought that Non had been cheating on him. Things didn't end with them in a good place. So he kind of reluctantly came along with New into this plan to get revenge on these boys who had ruined Non’s life.

That whole arc that played out was honestly some of the best mystery writing I've ever seen. It was so masterful, the reveals were perfect, the pacing was awesome. I was so hype about this show. And then around episode 10 is when they started pulling their punches on Phee and it seemed to me to be related to this Phee and Jin stuff. It started with Phee and Jin finding out the roles they each played in Non's life and his downfall. I expected that to be a big moment of realization for Phee, like ‘oh, this boy that I've been interested in was the person who filmed Non being assaulted and put it on the internet.’ Like, that should have been a very, very big deal for him to find out that Jin is the person who did that. But it wasn't. Phee didn't care, really. He had a very brief reaction and then moved on and continued protecting Jin but it didn't create a fracture in their relationship at all, which it absolutely should have.

That for me is when the writing of the show started to falter, and when I started to feel like, like you said, Ben, there were some other influences external to the show interfering with the story revolving around Phee and Jin being a popular BL ship and them not wanting to bust them up. And then that also led to, I think, this weird choice with the ending to imply that Phee and Jin survived and got to be happy. ‘Oh, but maybe they didn't. Maybe that was a dream and they're in the woods. But we're not gonna show you. We're gonna leave it open. Shippers get to interpret it the way they like. The horror fans get to interpret it the way they like. Everybody wins.’ But, when you make those kind of weaselly, non-choice choices, nobody wins.

Ben

At the end of episode 11, they dropped that axe, and then they panned over to it and I'm like, ‘oh boy, I can't wait to see somebody get fucking chopped up with that fuckin’ axe.’ And no one got fucking killed with the axe! I am so disappointed.

NiNi

Ginny, what about you? Where did you get off, so to speak?

Ginny

It didn't feel ambiguous to me so much as it felt like a classic horror movie gotcha. You think they got out free and they're fine and they're all happy? ‘Whoops. Nope, they never left the woods.’ I think if they’d landed on that just a little bit harder, if for example, we'd seen a hand pick up that axe and drag it along the ground and then cut to black.

NiNi

Oh, that would have been so good.

Ginny

Right? I think it might have been wenkexingapologist who suggested that so I don't want to take credit for it, but lovely, my alternate ending. I do think because the ending was so brief and we don't actually see them back there, as Shan said, it leaves a little room for people who really wanna believe in Phee and Jin's happy ever after to believe that. And I think that's a bit cowardly, although I do understand the market forces that maybe led them to do that.

I also would have really loved to see, like, a full character devolution the way that we got with Fluke very appropriately poking his eyes out and Tee stabbing his new innocent love. I would have loved to see that kind of character-driven end for both Phee and Jin, so I'm a little disappointed in that. But my real quibble with the ending that we got is just that they didn't land quite hard enough on it for me.

Ben

I don't like a psychological ending to a slasher when I'm in a slasher I'm expecting my bloodlust to be sated. I don't wanna think through the horror at the end of a slasher.

NiNi

[laughs] Gotta agree.

Shan

That's fair. My only other real strong critique of the show is, given the way that White died, given that he was a victim in the end, I was frustrated by how underwritten he was relative to all the other characters. We just never got to know him. We didn't understand what motivated him. We didn't understand why he liked Tee. We knew he had nothing to do with what happened to Non, and that was intentional, he was meant to be an innocent victim in this. But I would have liked to know him better.

I think where my frustration with this really came bubbling to the surface is he had a hallucination at the end, just like all the other boys. And he was hallucinating boils on his skin and we never knew why. We never got any backstory to explain why his specific fear was centered on this visible disfigurement, this idea that he was going to be rejected because he was dirty, quote unquote. We can fill in some guesses. A lot of folks have put forward theories, but we shouldn't have to put forward a theory for that, all the other boys had hallucinations and fears that were very clearly tied to what we knew about them and what they had done. We didn't get anything like that for White’s. They wanted him to be part of it, but we never knew enough about him to understand what brought him to that state, and why those were his fears, and that felt a little lacking to me, in the end.

Ben

So, final ratings. NiNi?

NiNi

I ended up at an 8.5 because I just thought that it was egregious that I did not get to see Phee and Jin die bloody, A. And B, I also thought that the way the show was structured was really good, but, I think that it may have been more effective for the flashbacks to have been interspersed with the present day rather than being a section on their own in the middle.

Ben

Ginny?

Ginny

I also gave it an 8.5. It was so tight and so well written, did almost all of what it set out to do. Did pull its punches a little at the end. Did weaken story-wise over the final three episodes. That's why it's not higher, but I did really love and appreciate it.

Ben

Shan.

Shan

I gave it an 8 for the same reasons basically that NiNi and Ginny just said. I think it was an excellent show for 9 episodes and then I think it kind of weakened in the final arc. I give a lot of weight to the ending of a show like this and I think having to leave on the bum dissatisfied note at the end of a slasher is just kind of a bummer.

Ben

For the reasons Shan gave, I gave the show a 7.5. Release is a huge part of horror storytelling and not giving us release after three months pissed me off. I don't want to give the show a 7 ‘cause that feels disrespectful to how well executed this whole project is. My primary feeling with Dead Friend Forever is dissatisfaction when I think about it. I should be reveling in the bloodlust at the end and I did not get that feeling.

NiNi

[laughs] I know, right? One thing I did enjoy at the very end is everybody hallucinating baby Barcode basically coming for their asses.

Ginny

That was so good.

NiNi

Barcode had such a great time playing that character.

Shan

We shouldn't leave this segment without talking about how good Barcode was in this show.

NiNi

He was amazing.

Ben

They let Barcode play off of a lot of different characters in a lot of different ways, particularly with some of the fantasy scenarios. And I'm really excited for future work from him.

That averages out to 8.125. We'll give it an 8 from The Conversation. Recommended if you want to watch a long-ass horror experience with the caveats that we have some consternation about the ending.

00:50:03 - Love for Love’s Sake

NiNi

Let's head on to the main event for this episode: Love for Love’s Sake. Ben, you got this one. Take it away.

Ben

Finally, a show I watched properly the whole way! We've been here for an hour and 20 minutes, talking about shows I either quit or started late!

Love for Love’s Sake is a Korean BL. A 29 year-old man wakes up in some sort of strange world where he is back in high school, dealing with some sort of game interface telling him he has to go make his blorbo happy. The show initiates from him meeting with an old friend who's a writer who asked him to beta read his book. And he was pissed about this het nonsense, going, “Why does this boy have to be sad and suffer in other people's happy ending?” His friend goes, “Well, they're adapting my book into a game. If you could, would you make him happy?” And then he passes out drunk, because that's what happens in Korean shows, and he wakes up in the fantasy world, and now he's got this game interface telling him to do stuff. And his mission is: Make Cha Yeo Woon—his blorbo—Happy, or Die. As the show goes along, the game gives him different rewards, sends him different quests. And this gets complicated by some reveals we get late in this, but let's pick up there with the initial conceit.

Shan, you watch this live with us. Let's talk through the live watch experience of this. I was very familiar with this type of storytelling, where someone dies in our world or whatever and then wakes up in another world and has to deal with the fantasy conceits of it, particularly around gaming and such. And also I've played a lot of fucking video games. So a lot of this stuff was super legible to me right away and I did not need a lot of handholding. But you expressed some frustration early on with this.

NiNi

Just so that I understand when Ben teaches me Japanese terms that I remember them. Is this what they would refer to as ‘isekai’ Ben?

Ben

This is what we would call isekai.

Shan

Look at you, NiNi.

NiNi

Thanks! I learn things every day.

Shan

The live watch of this show was extremely fun. A lot of the discussion week to week was about like, what exactly is going on here? Because the show didn't want to tell us. [laughs] I think what might have frustrated me a bit in the beginning was not understanding fully the rules of the universe, which as we get to the end becomes clear why that was. There was a purpose to that in the storytelling. It's not always that easy to tell at the beginning of a show how confidently the story is being told, and like how intentional all the choices are versus what's just a misstep.

But the show, I think, was confidently told, like it knew what it wanted to do and what it wanted to do, ultimately, was leave a lot of room for interpretation in what this game world was, why it worked the way it did, what the choices of the characters meant, what the characters themselves even were. So I thought it was great as a live watch, honestly, and I'm really glad that we watched it that way. I got a lot out of those weekly discussions where we would all unpack what we thought was going on, the questions that we had, things that we noticed as we were trying to figure out what this world was about. An early moment in the show that just gutted me and, like, had me clutching my chest and like in it—no matter what—was when Myung Ha was in the game he would get these scores over the heads of people to see what Yeo Woon—what was it called, Ben? The attractiveness score or the like score or something like that?

Ben

It was the score about his affection level; how much Cha Yeo Woon liked you.

Shan

Right. So because his original mission as we understood it was to make Yeo Woon like him, he would see where his affection level was sitting—it was always hilariously low. And then he unlocked this new power to be able to see how Yeo Woon's affection level was sitting for other people as well. The score was very low for everybody, but then we see that the lowest affection score that Yeo Woon has for anybody is for himself.

Ben

I screamed.

Shan

It was a knife straight into the heart, like, oh my God, this poor boy. And you just fully understood him in that moment. It was done so craftily through this established power that Myung Ha had the way that the show moved on from it quickly. Like, I'm not even sure how deeply Myung Ha even processes it as the player in that moment. It was just so artfully done, and I was like, “Oh, this show knows what it's about.” It really instilled confidence in me from that point forward that I was along for a ride here, and that the things I didn't understand, it was because I wasn't supposed to understand them.

Once we clicked into that, the experience of watching each set of two episodes each week, having deep discussion about them, and unpacking them along the way was such an awesome way to watch. It's not that it's bad in a binge, but I think it's one that really benefits from stopping to think between installments and let your mind wander and process all the different things that it threw at you.

Ben

With that in mind, I want to ask Ginny, because NiNi's been very busy. But, Ginny, you generally receive through the grapevine what's going on with the project, even if you're not really watching it at the moment. What was it like for you seeing this show engender such positive brainrot in people, and then going into it yourself fairly spoiled for some of the big reveals?

Ginny

It was a totally different experience. The main reason I didn't watch it live is that Korean BL is real hit or miss for me, so I always let you guys go into it first, and then tip me off if you think I might like this one. Around episode 6, I was like, “Hey, should I watch this?” And Shan was like, “No, just wait till it's all over.” But yeah, I was seeing a lot of hype. It was clearly making people think a lot. And then it was really cool watching the conversation turn.

I didn't realize right away what was happening, but it was clear that this was getting really existential all of a sudden in ways that people hadn't necessarily been anticipating. Seeing people suddenly less up in their heads about what exactly is going on and more like, “Oh, I'm suddenly hit with all these emotions about all of these ramifications of what I've learned.” And then I did, not intending to, pick up the gist of the big reveals, and so I went into it kind of knowing what it was going to be. So, I had a very different watch experience from those of you who watched it live.

It was a good watch experience. It might have been better for me because I was immediately looking out for all of these little indications and all of these deeper ripples of meaning. For me, it was more like I know what we're getting to, so as soon as I saw that, I knew what it meant. Which was also a good experience, just a different one.

Ben

From this point on, listeners, we are going to discuss major reveals and spoilers about the end of this show.

I have a personal family experience around drowning, and so when we saw Tae Myung Ha's eyes in that sequence when he kept, like, teleporting around the world, because of all of the water sounds we have been getting in the show, I was like, “Oh no… I'm not gonna put that out there.” But I very much felt it coming. This show ends up being about Tae Myung Ha’s suicide, and we end up in an uncertain place about what all we're experiencing with him.

Shan

We started this show thinking that it was a game. And recognizing that the show was dealing with some heavy themes, recognizing that there seemed to be an element of Yeo Woon being a stand-in for Myung Has's need to develop self love. And I don't think we realized how literal that was going to get. It was heavy to realize this character that we had gotten invested in…was gone.

Ben

In her notes, NiNi has a comment about The Good Place relative to this show, so I want to come to you now, NiNi. You went into the show with us basically telling you, “We know you're busy, but in no uncertain terms you must watch [laughs] this show. We will not be telling you about it on the podcast. You will be watching.”

NiNi

So, I actually went in unspoiled, but I did binge it after it was over. It played with genre in away you start up thinking that it's a sci-fi thing where he's trapped in the game, and it ended up being this sort of existential, heavy magical-realism thing. When the game starts malfunctioning is when I realized it all was not quite right in terms of how we were processing originally what the show we thought we were getting is.

In the beginning, it's cool and fun to look at the show as a video game and try to be like, “Oh, there's the NPCs, there's dead pixels, there's the background map." Yes, Ben, I do know game things. Thanks. All the little video game elements of the story. You're picking up on all that and you're having a good time. In the meanwhile, it is giving you flashes of these things. Like, it's giving you that flash of Yeo Woon being the person that he hates the most. The game malfunctioning in little bits and pieces, things like that. You're getting all these hints, but you're not putting them together until something big and catastrophic happens. It's so well done. I was having such a good time with it, and then I get to the end and you realize exactly what's happening, that this is all…it's the gods playing dice, right? It's them saying this is the way that we have decided that you deal with your afterlife.

Ben talked about my note about The Good Place. For me, that's what it was. It was about Myung Ha having to find a way to accomplish the things in death that he didn't accomplish in life, of death not being an ending, of death being an opportunity to still learn and grow, and maybe have a life afterward. Whatever it is that you have to learn to take with you into the next life. Basically, it's Myung Ha learning to pour so much love into himself that he can feel it either in his afterlife or in the next life.

And that idea of death not being the end; people found it bummed them out. I found it really comforting.

Ben

I really want to get into how everybody received this project and the major feelings it engendered in them that they walked away with. Ginny, where are you sitting with this resolution of the show and how you're carrying it forward with you?

Ginny

Good question. It left me feeling, I think, less sad than it might have left you. NiNi compared it to The Good Place. I found myself thinking a lot about The End of the World With You, which is also about characters wrestling with the desire to die—the theme that I often am wary to engage with in stories. But I found both of these to be very affirming and loving towards those characters, while also saying, “What if you made a different choice? Not because it's the natural or the easy thing, but because there's reasons to do that.”

For Tae Myung Ha to turn his focus away from meeting other people's needs and say, “Actually, what if your happiness mattered? What if you gave yourself the love and care that you want to give to this character that you see yourself in?” is such a resonant theme. I came away not needing necessarily to know how I interpret the characters final state or status, but feeling like I'd been gently led through this experience of “Love yourself more. Work to make yourself happy instead of walking into the sea.” It was a very life affirming watch experience for me, although it did have this deep melancholy around it also.

Shan

One of the things I really like about the ending of the show is that it is so open for interpretation. There are no two people who have the exact same interpretation of what the ending means. People took what they needed from it, I think, and what they preferred to believe, and the show left it open for people to be able to do that. I ultimately didn't actually receive this show as a BL or a romance at all.

Important note here perhaps is that I am an atheist and I don't believe in the afterlife. And so for me, this was a show about something really tragic that happened, and maybe being able to be given this small chance to find self love. I don't think Yeo Woon is an actual person that Myung Ha fell in love with. I think he is a representation of Myung Ha's own self and his need to learn to love himself. And so I did find it quite sad and quite melancholy, but in a way that I thought was just so lovely. Such a lovely way to deliver that message about the importance of self love, about the importance of trying, about not giving up. I really loved it. I find it beautiful.

Ben

It's the rare instance where a show ends ambiguously, but the audience is not fighting with each other over the interpretation. As the resident Sad Boy of the podcast team, let me tell you: I chose the saddest interpretation possible for this.

NiNi

[Ben and NiNi laugh] Of course you did, bestie. Absolutely you did.

Shan

You sure did. Even sadder than mine, somehow. [laughs]

Ben

I was talking about the end, and Shan was like, “Damn, Ben shit. [laughs] “You live like this, girl? Shit!”

I was really caught up in the character of the nebulous writer, the God figure, and author of this world, seemingly. I like the idea of someone who clearly cared about his friend not really knowing what to do with his friend's tragedy, and trying to find a way to remember him kindly. I think that's where I connected to, less so in Myung Ha's final moments or afterlife, but more in the grief that the people in his life have to live with after his passing. I like the idea of somebody immortalizing a friend of theirs in an experience where the player is asked to please make him happy.

NiNi

This is why you're the melancholy boy, because I didn't even go there.

Ginny

Yup! [laughs]

Shan

One of the really interesting live discussions that we had was around the role of the game creator—a lot of speculation about who he was, this idea that he was a friend who would lovingly created this place for Myung Ha. And I was like, “No!” because why would a friend force these cruel choices on someone he was trying to help? The cruelest choice that I think really stands out for people in the game is when Myung Ha is forced to choose between saving his grandmother or saving Yeo Woon, and that was a big point of focus for a lot of the speculative discussion.

Who put him in this game and for what reason are we talking about God-like figure who is putting him through trials? Are we talking about a friend who's trying to give him a path to self love? One of the things that I love about this show is that there are so many things like that throughout where you could focus on a thing that happened, or something that was going on in the background, or like an interaction, and you could unpack it and come up with so many different interpretations for it that could be true. The show is just loaded with stuff like that and so many details.

Once you know where the ending is leading, if you go back and watch it from the start, or just think back, there are clues the whole time about the drowning. There are water sounds from the first episode. You can hear water when Myung Ha is in like a certain state. The place that he is talking with this author in is in some kind of otherworldly dimension that never connects to anything else in the show.

NiNi

He always looks wet, his bangs are plastered to his forehead. He always looks like he's soaked.

Shan

They definitely knew what they were doing the whole time, and the show is just loaded with these small details that the production baked in. It's just so well done.

NiNi

The show is basically a Rorschach test. It's so interpretable. It’s hard to do that in a show. It is an incredibly difficult balance to maintain.

Ben

That was part of the fun I had chatting with everybody. Shan was talking about the back and forth we're having where she really rejected my interpretation because she thought a lot of the choices in the game were cruel.

NiNi

I'm on Shan’s side. I think it's a cruel and whimsical God.

Ben

And I was talking about how ugly grief can be sometimes, and how sometimes some of that will come out where you get mad at them. I like that a big part of the resolution from Myung Ha is to reject the bullshit choice of choosing the boy he likes or his grandmother. That seems like the kind of frustration that somebody who's listened to a friend who's suffering fall into a really negative spiral over something that is not a correct way to place things against each other, like an either or in their life. And I interpreted that as sort of a…externalization of their frustration about that kind of stuff.

Shan

And I remember liking that interpretation, Ben. Not really a denial of the cruelty, but like an acknowledgment that sometimes we're cruel to people we love because of our own frustration. I really ended up liking a lot of different interpretations of the show, even if I didn't share them. I really enjoyed reading people's thoughts about it.

Ben

I really like that part a lot. I really loved that everybody took something from this and it was appreciable. Someone gives you their interpretation and you just go, hmm. And then you sit with it for a bit. And there's not a ‘I agree’ or ‘disagree,’ you just receive what that person is connecting to, and you've learned a little bit about somebody else as a result. We didn't talk a lot about the side characters, but I liked Cha Woong Ki in this because he was very funny on Boys Planet, and I really liked what Oh Min Su did with Chun Sang Won, because that boy was a very fun version of queer, and his crush on Tae Myung Ha but we'll get no satisfaction from it.

Shan

[laughs] I remember Ben being very disappointed that we never got to meet Kyung Hoon's boyfriend in Canada.

Ben

Right! We never met the Canadian. I'm so mad. I'm like, “That boy doesn't exist!”

Shan

Yes! And I said, “Ben, you're not allowed to meet the Canadian partner. That's the joke!”

NiNi

That's literally the joke. You go to a different school. You don't know them. That's the joke.

Ben

Yeah, but you showed me—what's that show—Goblin? We went to Maple Nation! We can go find him!

Shan

I do think maybe one of the consequences of the way the show ended and how that absorbed our attention is that the side characters got maybe a little bit of short shrift. Who are they? Are they players in the game? Are they characters in the game? Are they real? They kind of got lost a little bit, but those performances were great, and I really liked the dynamics between the characters inside the game.

NiNi

So ratings, let's start with you, Ginny.

Ginny

I gave it a 9. I thought it was really excellent. Beautifully done. A really good experience. As a story, it's not something that I want to go back to.

Ben

Shannon.

Shan

I also gave it a 9. I do think that there was some fuzziness here and there. It was short, and there were maybe some shortcuts that had to be taken because of the time that they had. It didn't quite get to the 10 level for me. It's a strong recommendation with a big trigger warning caveat about some of the really heavy content that it gets into, and I'm leaving it at a 9.

Ben

NiNi?

NiNi

So, I gave it a 9.5, and the reason that I gave it a 9.5 is I often come to this show and to our watches in the spirit of “let things play out and see what happens.” Because of doing this show, I have become a long view kind of person, and so, on an episode-by-episode basis, I now tend to give things a lot more latitude as being links in a chain. I am always the one here being like, “Okay, it did this, but you don't know what they're going to do next. Let's give it some space.” And I think that this show, I think more than any other show that I've watched, has really rewarded that way of processing it for me. The fact that I let it play out, and let it play out, and let it play out, in the end, it tied everything back up that I had noticed.

Ben

I gave the show a 9. It ends ambiguously and the audience does not have consensus. I think that is a totally fine choice, but considering how heavy this show was, I don't know how I feel about how much of the audience just walked away only connecting to the BL romance arc of it, and so it's a 9 for me from a recommendation standpoint. I have to gauge the viewer when I'm recommending it to them, because I don't know that the viewer ends in the same place with the show, and I'm not entirely certain where the show even wants us to land. I think it's fine for the show to turn that mirror back on us at the end as a completely valid choice, but it complicates it as a recommendation.

NiNi

It’s 9 from The Conversation.

Ben

I think a 9 is a valid recommendation from us. It is a worthwhile show to watch if you are okay contemplating suicide and the social impacts of that.

NiNi

Well...should we end on a joke after that?

Shan

[laughs] I was gonna say! Maybe we should not end on such a sad note. [NiNi laughs]

01:13:39 - Outro

Ginny

I am really excited that we're getting more and more genre BL. It's something that I've been eager to see. Me and NiNi probably are the most forgiving viewers. I love seeing shows take wild swings, even if they end up kind of missing. So my feelings overall are: Bring it on, bring us some wacky combinations, give us some things that make us incredibly moody. Let's expand this media world and give us BL with all of these other genre flavors added. I love it.

Shan

I'm agreeing with Ginny on that. I think it's cool to see BL venture outside of the basic middle of the road romcom model that it started in and really try out some new stuff and its storytelling. I do appreciate when shows are going to go into genre that they have a firm grasp on the genre that they're playing in, and that they try to meet the standards and expectations of those genres. I think the shows that we discussed today—mostly—really came to play in the genres that they were in, put together some really interesting, provocative stuff, gave us a lot to think about. And I'm really excited to get more of that in BL.

NiNi

I really enjoy good genre blend. All genres have their own conventions, and I enjoy when people who are writing in those genres are playing with the conventions, and they understand them, and they know how to bend them and twist them, and maybe even in some cases break them. It's interesting watching BL experiment with that—to different levels of success, granted. But I like watching it happen though.

Ben

What I really like about genre blending and BL is it gives these creators a chance to really say something, and there was some of that here. I think the Playboyy team had things they wanted to say, but they made a goddamn mess of it. I walked away from Dead Friend Forever and Love for Love's Sake with a lot that I was thinking about in response to the narrative and the events that the shows wanted to unpack. And even though I didn't manage to finish 7 Days Before Valentine at the time, I was with them for this examination of Sunshine’s character, and the nature of his relationship, and the selfishness at the core of his character and unpacking that.

This was a really cool experience beyond just, “There's two pretty boys. They smile a lot. There's some juice. They're going to kiss.” Which was a really nice change of pace. Despite the sort of mixed responses we may have had here, I really enjoy that the space exists enough to allow the people who have the money to let people try to do stuff like this.

NiNi

Okay, and on that note, that is going to wrap us up on this Genre Grab Bag. Next up in Part 2, we're gonna talk about some Japanese BL.

We out. Say bye to the people—in chorus—1, 2, 3.

Ginny and Shan

Bye.

Ben

Peace. [Ginny laughs]

NiNi

Oh, my God, y’all are so bad at this.

#playboyy the series #love for love's sake #dead friend forever #7 days before valentine #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #the conversation #lgbtq #on art #spring series #thai bl #bl series #korean bl #Spotify

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