"It's not what we sell, it's the looks of the seller," so says Kai about the booth they are setting up for the campus fair.
He might as well be talking about the BL genre -- for what are is BL selling but the looks of its actors. The plots are mere excuses for us to stare at the actors; the plots are skeletons on which to hang those melting squeal-worthy moments, dazzling ornaments that make us forget that the tree is bare. In Ep 4, one of those moments must be when Off removes his shirt to take a shower, and briefly we see his dazzling white shoulders and the teeny nips. It's a tease, for you and for Third, who takes up the discarded shirt (still warm) and writes down "I love you" - along with the signatures of one thousand schoolgirls. The teasing continues.
The savage gang sell bangers and kisses, another chance for Third to get all jelly and pouty over Kai flirting with the clamouring girls - yawn. And then, weirdly, Kai starts to flirt with Third, feeding him a sausage on a stick, a kiss on the cheek; they go on two movie dates; Kai can't keep himself off Third, getting increasingly physical - a touch on the lip, a backrub, leaning on Third's shoulder in the cinema. (At which point shouldn't Third just turn around and kiss Kai? Why the reticence? Kai had obviously crossed the line of being a buddy.) Kai even lets Third ride on his bike, a treat reserved for his girls. I like the bike scene - it's romantic in an unexpected way.
The scene is like a dream, and the Ep 4 ends with the rude awakening - Kai is only testing to see if Third is in love with him. In a drunken bout, Third (he's always creeping about, listening at doors - why?) overhears Kai telling Bone that he doesn't think Third is in love with him because Third hadn't responded to his overtures.
Third just happens to be hanging out at the gents, and then he cries.
So, why didn't Third respond to Kai's overtures?
It's just one of the bigger plot holes that make much of the story flat and unlikely.
10 July 2019
04 July 2019
Theory Of Love Review (TOL): Episode 3
Perversity: There's a lot of dark perversity in Ep 3.
It's pure perversity, but I suppose it's one of those inevitable BL tropes, that Third would move in with Kai. This is a formula for misery, if anything, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I suppose the whole Snow White idea of setting up house, and playing the married couple, is irresistible to most queens and Ep 3 does its persuasive best to show us how prettily it could all work out. The "domestic bliss" scenes of Third in apron at the sink, or mopping the floor, scream pure "wife" fantasy. And what queen hasn't dreamed of shopping with her man in Ikea?
Unfortunately, it's all so prettily predictable that there's a deja vu effect -- you've seen it all before, and besides, you would have dreamt it up even if you hadn't seen it. How do you feel about this Ikea scene? For me it's too predictable to evoke any squeals -- I'd wish they had shown something more inventive.
And then Kai brings a back a girl (Fahsai) with Diana Ross hair who turns all psycho and gives this episode all its dramatic energy, some real emotion, which I otherwise feel TOL lacks. Like it's all too cutesy and sweet and quite... dull.
Fahsai, looks like yet another sweet-faced girl that Kai seduces, isn't dull: She unleashes a violent jealous rage like some junior demoness, breaking things, eating cake, beats up the hapless Third, hair flying (like she's doing a concert in Central Park) screams bloody murder and generally wreaks the havoc that you wished Third had the guts to do.
What's truly chilling is Kai offering Third cash to leave the apartment so that Kai can do the dirty with Fahsai -- and Third accepting it. It's unreal and impossible that Third, however besotted, would go through with this perversity. Another extra perverse scene, and this one so long-drawn and deliberate that it has a gothic creepiness: Third is feeling his way around the dark apartment and opening Kai's door, witnesses Kai in bed with yet another girl; the girl hears the door creak open and asks Kai what that was; Kai says it's nothing. It's ambiguous whether Kai knows it was Third watching him. This is creepy.
Third locks the door and weeps. (Gun displays two emotional settings so far -- weeping with self-pity and pouting like a wronged wife.)
On the other hand, Ep 3 gives us morning-after Kai sending off Fahsai in a taxi -- in boxers! What a treat -- the glimpse of Off's unexpectedly sturdy white legs -- totally worth the tedium of Third's misery. (Equally tedious is Too's high school sweetheart making her blandly sweet appearance, and Bone's unlikely romance with the unlikely Pan -- time-wasters.)
The last perversity has to be Kai's version of "friendship" -- in a drunken bout, he says to Third (who puts him to bed): "With girls I use my body, with you I use my heart. You can't compare them." This is neither here nor there, and obviously a red herring -- that it isn't obvious to Third is his own perversity, with no one to blame for his misery but himself.
It's pure perversity, but I suppose it's one of those inevitable BL tropes, that Third would move in with Kai. This is a formula for misery, if anything, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I suppose the whole Snow White idea of setting up house, and playing the married couple, is irresistible to most queens and Ep 3 does its persuasive best to show us how prettily it could all work out. The "domestic bliss" scenes of Third in apron at the sink, or mopping the floor, scream pure "wife" fantasy. And what queen hasn't dreamed of shopping with her man in Ikea?
Unfortunately, it's all so prettily predictable that there's a deja vu effect -- you've seen it all before, and besides, you would have dreamt it up even if you hadn't seen it. How do you feel about this Ikea scene? For me it's too predictable to evoke any squeals -- I'd wish they had shown something more inventive.
And then Kai brings a back a girl (Fahsai) with Diana Ross hair who turns all psycho and gives this episode all its dramatic energy, some real emotion, which I otherwise feel TOL lacks. Like it's all too cutesy and sweet and quite... dull.
Fahsai, looks like yet another sweet-faced girl that Kai seduces, isn't dull: She unleashes a violent jealous rage like some junior demoness, breaking things, eating cake, beats up the hapless Third, hair flying (like she's doing a concert in Central Park) screams bloody murder and generally wreaks the havoc that you wished Third had the guts to do.
What's truly chilling is Kai offering Third cash to leave the apartment so that Kai can do the dirty with Fahsai -- and Third accepting it. It's unreal and impossible that Third, however besotted, would go through with this perversity. Another extra perverse scene, and this one so long-drawn and deliberate that it has a gothic creepiness: Third is feeling his way around the dark apartment and opening Kai's door, witnesses Kai in bed with yet another girl; the girl hears the door creak open and asks Kai what that was; Kai says it's nothing. It's ambiguous whether Kai knows it was Third watching him. This is creepy.
Third locks the door and weeps. (Gun displays two emotional settings so far -- weeping with self-pity and pouting like a wronged wife.)
On the other hand, Ep 3 gives us morning-after Kai sending off Fahsai in a taxi -- in boxers! What a treat -- the glimpse of Off's unexpectedly sturdy white legs -- totally worth the tedium of Third's misery. (Equally tedious is Too's high school sweetheart making her blandly sweet appearance, and Bone's unlikely romance with the unlikely Pan -- time-wasters.)
The last perversity has to be Kai's version of "friendship" -- in a drunken bout, he says to Third (who puts him to bed): "With girls I use my body, with you I use my heart. You can't compare them." This is neither here nor there, and obviously a red herring -- that it isn't obvious to Third is his own perversity, with no one to blame for his misery but himself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)