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 27-28 of Pursuit of Jade. I’ll be honest, I miss the lighter parts of this show, but if you like war, you won’t be disappointed.
I continued recapping Payback with episodes 7-8. Yes, I hit THAT episode.
What did I watch this week? This week I finished two Thai BLs, one about adults, and one about high schoolers.
Let’s start with the adults:
A Dog and a Plane – หมาเห่าเครื่องบิน – 2026
Recently aired Flight-Attendant-EMT-to-lovers Thai BL with 10 episodes.
After a series of meet-cutes, a rough and tough EMT is in debt to and head over heels for a high-maintenance Flight Attendant with a wardrobe of gold.
As I wrote in my initial review, I binged the first 4 episodes in a day, drawn in by our elderly (in their thirties) actors playing adult characters with jobs and problems.
In the second half of the show, the characters got less interesting
The first half of the show was about our Flight Attendant facing an unpleasant reality about his life with the EMTs’ support. The EMT was in love with him from the moment they met, and did his best to be there for the Flight Attendant without making his life harder. Mostly.
The natural pivot, to me, in the second half would be for some issue of the EMTs to become the central conflict. That… sorta happened. But I’m not thrilled with how they did it.
The issue they went with (mainly) was that he doesn’t make enough money as an EMT for the Flight Attendants’ FAMILY. It didn’t really matter to the Flight Attendant, but that didn’t matter to the EMT. He needed to prove himself to the patriarch.
I’m already not the biggest fan of romances turning into thrilling takes of people pursuing career goals. Add to that, the Flight Attendant is pretty much humoring his partner’s sudden career pivot.
And then add to that, it wasn’t used as a way for his character to grow. It really became about watching him grow a business. I did not want to watch him grow a business.
The low point for me was watching our leads try different office chairs
(I think it was product placement, still.)
Strangely, there was a more emotionally intense conflict happening with our EMT and his (formerly?) deadbeat Mom. Mommy issues aren’t the most original conflict, but it could have had more weight and more ways for our EMT to grow as a character. But the show instead focused on our EMT’s need to grow his business.
Plus, with the retro-style closing credits, I was expecting it to pull in a more retro-style plotline. Something screwball, that played out over a longer series of episodes.
In general, the writing felt like it got weaker. The business felt like something our EMT came up with in five minutes. Everyone talked about it like it was a great idea, but I’m not sure why. If it was going to really be the focus of the second half of the show, I needed just a few more details.
Outside of that, the best I can say of our second couple is I disliked them a little less in the second half. Just a little.
If you want to see our leads being cute together, this is here for you
They are cute together. And I never started disliking their characters. They never acted horrible or mean or created conflict from nothing. It never became one of those shows where you have to endure episodes of sobbing.
They remained cute and supportive of each other, and worked through a few small relationship bumps. If that’s all you need, this is still here for you.
In this pair of reviews, the kids are doing more-alright:
When Oranges Fall – ต้นส้มอยู่บ้านเขา แต่ผลส้มหล่นมาบ้านเราตลอดเลย – 2026
Recently aired neighbors-to-boyfriends Thai BL with 12 episodes.
A cocky young man gets a quiet new neighbor and wants nothing to do with him until he makes him a part of his gang and Catches Those Feelings.
The fear I mentioned in my initial review, that Richard Dreyfuss would show up at the end all sad and nostalgic, never materialized. Given that, I can’t think of a single strong complaint about this show. It was a sweet coming-of-age BL from beginning to end.
If anything, this proved to me that for my tastes, Thai High School BLs are too long. I prefer the shorter length and often-gimmicky someone-has-a-secret setup of Japanese High School BLs. (Which is good because there are THREE OF THEM coming out in the next month. Anyway.)
But setting that aside, what makes this show stand out?
To me, the strongest part of the show was probably the Orange-Eater half of our main couple. He embodied a particular kind of cocky, arrogant, overly-confident teenager.
While that can get annoying quick, there was also a genuine strength of character to him. He talked big, but he was also a natural leader who could and would take care of all his friends.
There was also something very young about him. He was most comfortable being this brash, sometimes immature, loud-mouthed kid. But that’s not someone who transitions easily into adulthood, or handles change well. And in your teenage years, the change is constant.
Luckily, his love interest was pretty much the opposite of him. Maybe a little too mature and serious, our Orange-Tree-Owner had his future worked out. He’s the perfect companion for his more lively, less mature partner.
I also think that our Orange-Eater also made a great POV for a nostalgic show. That kind of person, who really enjoyed their youth to their fullest without looking towards the future, can give some good VO about the magic of those days.
(If I were to give the VO, it’d be about how much High School sucked and I hated it and just wanted to escape, so that wouldn’t work.)
And the show’s nostalgia was more about being young than the particular era it took place in. There was some cute stuff with the technology of the early 2000s. There were also references to popular comics of the time. But if politics and pop culture of the era came up, I missed it.
But as for capturing the nostalgia of being that age, of transitioning from youth to adulthood, it did an excellent job.
The advantage of being a longer show is that it told a bigger story
We’re not here for a single semester of these kids’ lives, but got to go on a journey spanning years with them. And I think the show did that very well, highlighting the pivotal, life-changing moments and how they grew, without giving me temporal whiplash.
As I also mentioned in my initial review, this show is beautifully shot and well done. By spanning years this way, we weren’t stuck in High School classrooms the entire time. We went to different locations, different people’s homes, out on a boat, on a school field trip that was very muddy, and more. Bikes were ridden all around the neighborhood they lived in.
And all the extra points for a final episode that I think was really well done. I think it can be hard to close out a larger, coming-of-age story with no strong central conflict, but they pulled it off.
I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I won’t go into details, but I think it showed our characters’ evolution since the first episode really, really well.
Watch this show, or keep it for when you burn out on the hard stuff
If you aren’t currently in the mood for sweet, coming-of-age stuff, save it for when you’ve binged too much of the delicious, dark, toxic stuff. I can imagine this being an excellent chaser for Knot.
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