When last we left our time traveler and his admirer, Ren released nasty photos of Armin, but Tada has a plan.
Brave to be a Purple Cow
He says it earnestly, in English, so this is not a subtitle issue. Anyway, skipping that first part, “Purple Cow” is a marketing concept from a 2003 book about standing out from the others. Is this a clue about Tada?
Probably not. The important part is that Tada wants Armin to stand out by being honest and revealing what’s going on.
Mostly. They aren’t publicizing their relationship. But Armin tells the press that Ren and his mom have been using her paper to trash up-and-coming stars. He’s already reported everything to the police.
Ren gets dropped from projects. His agent is busy telling Armin and Tada everything she reported to the police. I don’t trust her earnest desire to help Armin, but we’ll see.
Ren wants mommy to fix everything, but she can’t because her paper is under attack. Crown is suing.
No worries, Ren has a plan. He calls Armin, apologizes, and asks really nicely if he can stop Tada from suing. That’s it? Armin says no.
Armin and Tada drive through terrible greenscreen
Tada wants Armin at his place, because of Ren, not the greenscreen. His real place, not the one in Armin’s building. There, they see Ren on the news, accusing Armin of trading sex with Tada for fame.
Tada isn’t worried. He’s sure no one will believe Ren, and it’ll fade into a rumor. Armin thinks people will become curious, and he’s afraid of making things harder on Tada.
Tada steps away on urgent business. Armin finds a photo album full of pictures of him and isn’t horrified. Shades of Kiyoi. Then he gets a call from Tada to go out on the balcony so he can see a new billboard featuring his face with the text:
ALWAYS SUPPORT YOU.
”TD for Armin”
Tada’s English is consistent. Armin cries with happiness rather than thinking this is a bit much. They’re perfect for each other.
Armin feels like he hit reset so he could come back to his love.
Tada is right, Thiwthit and Ren’s plan isn’t working
Crown ignores the rumors, and no one cares. Plus, Thiwthit owes someone a huge amount of money. He wants Venus’s CEO to use the Crown shares he gave him to force Crown to work with Venus.
Armin remembers from the, er, future that this Does Not Go Well for Crown. He urges Tada to buy the shares instead. Tada is reluctant because it’ll put them in a financially risky place. He’s also worried about Y2K. Armin uses this to place a bet about whether Armin knows what’s worrying about. We all know Y2K was nothing, so Armin wins.
Tada buys the shares. Thiwthit and his mom are growing even more desperate, and the people he owes money to are escalating their threats. Thiwthit wants mommy to mortgage the house, but she’s not into it. She wishes Tada were gone. Uh-oh. Foreshadowing?
Some flashbacks provide creepy insight into Thiwthit’s true motivation
He was the kind of devoted step-brother who got handsy. Tada was a big Nope. Also, if he can bring Crown back to #1, Thiwthit and his Mom have to stay out of Crown’s management forever.
Thiwthit sets pictures of Tada and… Armin? On fire? Why aren’t there better close-ups of photos in this episode? Anyway, it’s creepy.
In the morning, Tada shows off his rich-boyfriend powers by taking care of Armin’s phone bill. I like that Armin shamelessly enjoys having a rich boyfriend, none of that annoying “we must be financial equals even though you were born with privilege and I wasn’t!” He also teases Tada when he discovers he’s in his phone under “Min Min”.
Tada’s Assistant interrupts to tell him that Thiwthit has brought Narin on with Venus. Speaking of trading sex for fame, I was waiting for him to show up.
Jeed has kidney disease and ends up in the hospital
Armin is upset because this is also happening early. The first time this happened, he failed to visit her in the hospital before she died. Phat was furious with him and spiraled into depression, never achieving his dreams.
Armin promises himself to slow this reset world down.
On set for the film again for the first time in forever, Thiwthit is there with Narin. Thiwthit tells Armin he’d always be welcome back to Venus, and Armin says thank you. Tada warns Thiwthit that if he keeps going, he’ll end up with nothing. Thiwthit tells Tada that Venus will rise above Crown with amazing confidence for someone who hasn’t succeeded even once at anything.
Armin enrolls Phat in a fancy culinary school to help him achieve his dreams. Considering Phat helped him earlier, he’s earned it.
Then Armin sees Tada at the mall. He follows him and sees him meet and hug Narin.
Poor Armin, he’s afraid that he’s destined to be betrayed
Tada finds him, drunk. He babbles about not wanting to be disappointed or a toy, and asks Tada not to leave him. Then he passes out.
The next morning, Armin is hungover. Tada is thrilled that Armin is jealous. He only wanted information from Narin. Narin has nothing useful, only that Armin needs to be careful. Which I think they knew.
Tada wants Armin to trust him. He’s been his ever since he saved his life. Armin says he saved his life too, and he will trust him. Awww. These two.
Then we see Armin rehearsing a scene with a gun, and I get a bad feeling. I’m hoping it’s a fake-out even as Tada sees the propman getting nervous and gets the same idea as me.
But no fake-out here, Armin gets shot. He’s afraid of not seeing Tada again, and wishes he’d had more time with him.
But he’s not dead. The bullet missed his organs. Tada is at the hospital when he wakes up, and won’t let the nurses nurse.
The Prop guy blames Ren, but Tada thinks Thiwthit was in on it. Turns out Narin was Tada’s plant all along. Not that it did them much good.
Step Mom gets arrested while Ren and Thiwthit pay shady people to get them out of the country.
6 Months Later
Armin is better, Tada is super paranoid, and Ren and Thiwthit are still missing. Tada has bodyguards all over Armin as he resumes filming. Then he terrorizes a prop guy over a plastic knife. Armin diffuses the situation by stabbing himself with it to prove it’s a prop.
Armin tells Tada to get a grip and sends him to fix things. The poor prop guy thinks Tada is going to murder him and really doesn’t want to accept his check. He only does it eventually out of fear.
Tada has set up another one of his grand gestures outside, with fireworks and lights. And now he wants to take advantage of the first wish, that Armin accept whatever Tada gives him. It’s a crepe.
Meanwhile, Thiwthit is doing the newspaper-on-the-wall-crossed-out-faces thing and losing his mind somewhere watching the news.
I like that these bad guys keep going to their mom’s for help
And the moms are too busy. I’m also glad Narin had his limits. Throw himself desperately at Tada, yes. Destroy Tada and Armin, no. At least so far, I don’t trust anyone in this show. We have two episodes left, and Armin has already died 1.5 times.
Poor Tada. The whole “paranoid on set” thing was played for humor, but the guy has to be traumatized. We already saw him freak out and flash to the, er, future, and Armin dying once. Seeing Armin shot was his worst nightmare, even though he lived.
The 6-month time skip was startling, but better than seeing Armin leave the hospital in a week. Maybe in the next episodes, we’ll learn if Ren and Thiwthit were up to anything evil in that time. I’ll be a little disappointed if all Thiwthit did was decorate his place.
What happened to poor Achi? I feel bad for him.
So far, though soapy and over-the-top, this is one of my favorite fantastical BLs. I’m hoping they can pull it all together in the next two episodes.
I want to see our power couple go through more drama, prove how awesome they are, and then get back to the beach.
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