Welcome to my Saturday blog post, where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching, whether at the beginning, middle, or end. Whatever I want, because I’m petty that way.
This week, I recapped episodes 9-10 of Interminable. Sophee is the absolute worst, but no one seems to notice or do anything about it.
I also recapped the final episodes 9-10 of Dare You To Death. It does not go out with a bang. You can read the recap to understand what that means, or my more spoiler-free full series review below.
Let’s just get to it:
Dare You To Death – ไขคดีเป็น เห็นคดีตาย – 2026
Recently aired buddy cop Thai horror-thriller BL with 10 episodes.
A rule-avoidant cop teams up with a rule-loving cop to catch a serial killer. Slowly.
Joong and Dunk were my favorite part of The Heart Killers, so I figured at least enjoy seeing them again. Even better, here they play opposite characters: Joong is outgoing and fun, and Dunk is restrained and quiet.
Instead, I felt bad for them because nearly everything about the production let them down.
First, let’s talk about genre and production
I don’t talk about production often, but I’m going to make up for that now.
Different genres require different levels of production, in terms of time, skill, and money. There’s a reason we don’t see much (any) serious sci-fi in BL: It would require too much set building and special effects.
A college BL is relatively simple in terms of production: you need a college (or something that looks like one), some dorms, some uniforms, and some casual clothes. Add some goofy sound effects, and baby, you’ve got yourself a BL.
As grumpy as I get about college BL, this simplicity is part of why I love the genre in general. There’s no time or money wasted on fancy OSTs, designer clothes, or fancy set-pieces. The focus is on characters and their relationships. Given this, the actors do a lot of the heavy lifting.
I’m thinking of a show like the currently airing Duang With You, basically a Golden Retriever-Black Cat college BL. Most of the show is them interacting, one of them too eager and excited, the other restrained and cold. Sometimes they’re at school, sometimes they’re in one of their dorms, sometimes they’re eating at a restaurant. I’m just here to see them be together.
If the lighting is a little bright, the editing is a little slow, and the sound effects a little much, I can still enjoy it.
Dare You To Death is not a cute college BL
It’s a horror thriller, with a murderer killing students one by one in horrible ways. There are seedy nightclubs, shootouts, a no-rules boxing match in a cage, grim scenes of death, physical fights, and numerous situations where our leads could die.
Scenes like that require a lot more than two people in a room.
Take even the “Truth or Dare” premise, with various characters receiving threatening letters forcing them to choose between revealing a secret or someone dying. You need more than an actor standing in a room, looking fearfully at a letter to sell the moment. You need a claustrophobic camera angle, anxiety-creating sound effects or music, and tight editing to keep the moment from dragging.
This show had none of that. The shots were medium, the lighting bright, there was often nothing happening in the audio, and the editing left the actors sitting on frame doing nothing for painfully long seconds.
At one point, a character is wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher without even dirt on him.
Compare 5 minutes from a tense, emotional scene in this show with 5 minutes of a tense, emotional scene in Goddess Bless You From Death, and you should see the difference immediately.
To be brutally honest, the weakness of the production here would even hurt a more actor-reliant show like Duang With You.
I’ve barely talked about the story or characters
Though I’m not super familiar with either, I have the nagging feeling that the creators were going for “Starsky and Hutch” meets “I Know What You Did Last Summer” with a BL twist.
Our leads are a classic odd couple, and after an awkward meet-cute, our more outgoing cop takes a stronger interest in his stiff partner. While college students die, they flirt, they go on dates and eat satays, and get jealous in the morgue where the doctor keeps flirting over the corpses.
The writing is as weak as the production. I get the feeling they came up with a list of action scenes they wanted included (cage-boxing match, nightclub scene, dangerous shoot-out with drug lord), and built a plot from there. As a result, the whole thing feels disjointed. Scenes don’t build up or lead into one another. They happen. One after the other.
Our cops keep busy with police work, while the killer helps narrow down the suspects by killing them off. This doesn’t make our cops look great, but since the victims are all terrible, it doesn’t feel so bad.
Eventually, it all leads to a reveal that I guessed two episodes earlier, with some underwhelming special effects.
I will never tell you not to watch a thing
Though I admit, I’m getting awfully close to it here. Realistically, I know that every show I dislike will have people who loved it.
In my recap of the final episodes, I talk about how this show reminds me of the light-hearted, episodic action shows of my childhood. Despite the terrible murders, the weak production keeps the story from getting too intense. What I found frustrating could make this show an easier watch for someone who likes this genre when it’s not trying so hard to be upsetting, and is just a silly ride.
And it’s still rare enough to even have action-adventure-horror-thriller BLs that those who love the genre might just enjoy getting to see another one. If you liked The Sign and/or Jack and Joker, ignore me and give this one a shot too.
Or you can always read my recaps and see if it’s something you’d want to watch.
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