When last we left our kinda prince and his taciturn bodyguard, rain trauma led to sweet kisses.
And we get right back to them!
Until Chakri ruins it. Chakri, I thought you were on our side.
Calvin wakes up with Jay in his house. He has drunken memories of running into him at the club, asking for a ride, and telling him he’s a prince. Luckily, Jay accepts it as a joke, even when Calvin has trouble unwrapping a sandwich.
Nin and Charan talk about the attack at the club. They suspect Ava’s dad, but Charan believes it was a test more than an attempt on his life.
Unsurprisingly, the club adventures made the news, and the King is Not Happy. Charan is punished by being dismissed and confined. Later, Chakri urges Nin not to “go against the stream”. Don’t listen Nin!
Nin’s new coach is one of Ramil’s Dad’s men
Nin stays away from Charan to prevent further punishment, but assigns Chakri to check on him. Then his biological father arrives for his bi-episode “showing my concern for my son” scene. He tells Nin the King is being Really Nice to Charan.
Nin says he has no one to trust besides Charan. Biological Dad gets hand-touchy and urges him to be alert. Thanks Dad!
Ava’s Dad is upset because she’s a woman. This is not a good show for Dads.
Chakri has to neigh like a horse to find Charan in the stable, all sweaty and shirtless. Charan wants Nin to focus on his training. He’s also worried about this new coach.
Nin’s new coach sucks. He focuses more on pushing him than teaching him. Nin manages to set up his archery training near where Charan works out. Good timing, because the coach gives him a new bow. As Charan watches, Nin gets in a few good hits, then misses and looks sick. Finally, he collapses.
Charan runs over and gives immediate orders to check on poisoning, and carries Nin off.
Yup, the King assigned a coach who poisoned Nin
Charan is back on Nin duty. He’s way too grateful to be allowed to do the job they make him do. But now he gets to keep watch over Nin with Chakri.
When Nin wakes up, Charan admits he was worried and blames himself for what happened. When Nin welcomes him back, Charan smiles and promises to always protect him.
Charan doesn’t get anything from the evil coach before he’s broken out of jail and probably killed.
Nin recovers and worries Charan will leave. More than that, he’d like to have sex. It takes a little gentle pushing from Nin, but we get a long sex scene.
Nin starts calling Charan “Ran”, but I won’t
They’re having morning-after-sex breakfast in the garden when Calvin stops by to check on Nin. Thankfully, he knows not to stick around. But Charan doesn’t want them to be open with their affection.
Nin takes up the challenge, being flirty about being punished during lessons. Charan is stern. This is their love language. Then we get a romantic training montage. Chakri is us, watching them with delight. And providing PPL.
Eventually, they get to romantic horse riding in front of perfect sunlight. Charan makes promises about being there for Nin. There’s some kissing, but the sky ruins it by threatening rain, making Charan nervous.
Nin gives Charan noise-cancelling headphones. He’s determined to be as helpful to Charan as Charan is to him.
Calvin and the King have morning wine together
Calvin wants to go on a trip to Meenanagarin. Nin and the King invite themselves along. Poor Calvin.
Ramil and Paytai appear for some sexy-kinky time. First, Paytai isn’t interested in mountain biking with Ramil because he has already been ridden hard. Ramil promises his Dad won’t find out he skipped training, and we get flashbacks showing Paytai getting punished and Ramil trying to stop it. Not always successfully.
Despite this uneven record, Paytai trusts Ramil.
Next, we get a longer sex scene. Cuffs and blindfolds come on and off so fast I get whiplash. Speaking of whips, Ramil keeps hitting the bed and not Paytai. That’s not really how that works, but I’ll give them points anyway.
Unfortunately, the whip reminds Ramil of his Dad beating Paytai, which is NOT sexy. But they’re able to recover and return to cuddling, kissing, and sex.
The King has an accident, but he’s fine
He just can’t crash Calvin’s trip anymore. So it’s just Nin and Calvin who go to the smiling, heirless Prince’s place. There, we learn he once had an heir, but he died. For real? Not like Nin? Or is he Nin’s real-real dad?
Nin learns that the gender roles in Meenanagarin are pretty strict. Nin isn’t into this, and Charan says change takes time.
Never mind oppression and societal change, let’s talk pearls. Nin finds the ones he wants, and Charan offers to have a necklace made. This is a nice echo of his parents.
Calvin goes to Jay’s and meets his coughing sister, the reason why he protests. Maybe it’s a subtitle issue, but this is poorly explained as the word “mining” never appears. It’s like Jay is upset his Dad died and his sister is sick and randomly blames the monarchy. But it comes up later, and we’ve seen the princes mention mining from time to time.
Calvin agrees to go to the protests.
Nin has a flyer about how dust is dangerous and wants to go to Jay’s singing protest. He’s allowed, with a whole lot of guards.
Very predictably, the protestors yell at Nin, for the first time bringing up the mines. They blame the King’s selfishness. The guards step in, getting violent with the protestors. Nin tries to stop them as Charan drags him away to safety.
I wouldn’t have minded more conflict
The combined length of the two episodes was nearly 2.5 hours, with a sizable chunk spent on sex and romance that didn’t further the relationships. Mostly in episode 8.
The sex was an important development for Nin and Charan, and they deserved to ride a horse together. But I missed the power struggle with the King, or learning more about Charan’s trauma, or Nin getting a lesson on how to deal with his horrible relatives.
But the protests are setting us up for more turmoil, so I’m being impatient.
I just want to see Nin drag Charan out of that dark place where he believes his life is limited to whatever the King gives him. Even during sex, Charan had a repressed, hesitant attitude at first. I don’t expect (or want) him to be less stern and protective, but it’d be nice to see him feel free to go after what he wants.
The way they kept promising to be together forever made me nervous.
Also, for someone so against monarchy, Nin is very good at giving Chakri orders. I get that.
No complaints about Ramil and Paytai except that all we saw was the sexy pseudo-kink. I hope we get more of them soon.
Ramil’s Dad seems to me to be most suited to be the next King with his vicious scheming. I don’t know why the King wants Nin’s biological father, who seems sad-eyed and useless, to be King.
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