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 final episodes 11-12 of Interminable. There were some extra Yais in these last episodes, but somehow everything still came together in the end. Get my mostly spoiler-free full series review below.
I also recapped episodes 3-4 of My Romance Scammer. I feel bad for Tim, but I’m more worried about how hard Pai is going to take it when the truth comes out.
I’m a little busy with things that are NOT dramas, so it’s just the one full series review:
Interminable – อสงไขย – 2025
A recent-ish historical reincarnation Thai BL with 12 episodes.
A young man unexpectedly inherits a home, where a ghost hangs out and stares at him lovingly.
Strangers on the internet warned that this show was slow, but I don’t mind slow. I wanted to see Billy and Babe on my screen again, and as a bonus, I’d get another historical reincarnation story.
Ultimately, I admired the show’s ambition and enjoyed many aspects of the story, but was unsatisfied by the drama as a whole. To me, the problem wasn’t that it was slow, but that it wasn’t very clear where the story wanted to go.
So let’s start there, with the story
I like that we had a double layer of historicalness. Our “present day” is the 1940s, and the flashbacks to previous lives are set in the 1910s. Reincarnation apparently happens very fast.
In the present day, our lead Kaew is a poor art student who unexpectedly inherits a house with a tragic past. The previous owner, some distant, previously unknown relative, had it built to share with his male lover. They didn’t get to live together for very long.
Kaew doesn’t realize it, but that owner is still there, a ghost who wanders around, staring at him.
And here’s where the problems start for me. Because I don’t know what the ghost, Yai, wants from Kaew. There is a lot of noise about secrecy and not telling Kaew about their tragic past together and how things have to be done, but I never understood why.
At times, it seems this secrecy is on the order of a stern-faced local monk who is helping the ghost … move on and reincarnate? But this same monk communicates with the ghosts Kaew can’t see while Kaew is there. If he wanted them to be a secret, maybe he shouldn’t talk to them right in front of him?
This confusion persisted throughout the series. At times, they seemed to be trying to do certain things, but never for very long or trying very hard. Because of this, the story felt aimless.
It wasn’t helped that the 1910s story frequently took over the narrative, often with repetitive flashbacks. But we knew how that story ended from the beginning, so it only further weakened the main story.
Another big problem for me is the villain
Or, the fact that our main characters are oblivious to her being the villain, despite constantly acting like a villain.
In the 1910s timelines, Sophee is Yai’s adopted younger sister, and she and her father expect Yai to marry her one day. Yai handles her by being nice and refusing to have dinner together most of the time. He, and everyone else in the story, seems to know that Sophee is horrible. But no one does anything about it.
In the 1940s timeline, there is another Sophee, who possesses all her past-life memories. She would like revenge for not getting what she wanted last time.
Our Ghost Yai notices her and worries a little, but doesn’t do much of anything about her. Kaew and everyone continue to be nice to her despite her being nasty and horrible to them. Towards the very end of the story, when she takes some pretty extreme actions, Yai seems surprised by her behavior.
When the characters don’t know that someone is trying to kill them and don’t do anything about it, it’s… pretty unsatisfying.
But amidst this, was some stuff I quite liked
Our ghosts are not the kind that float around and can’t connect with human beings. They can interact with certain people in certain ways. They can also be fierce, with glowing red eyes, and expend energy to interact with the physical world.
A familiar face from all of Idol Factory’s stuff, Heng Asavarid Pinitkanjanapun, is here. I first enjoyed him as one of the romantic leads in Secret Crush On You, but since then, he’s mostly played annoying second male lead characters. But here I got to enjoy him again, as he plays a loyal servant with a cheerful attitude who is also quite capable of more threatening and dangerous activities.
Our 1910s Kaew is a dancer who specialized in the Chui Chai dance, something which I can find very little about on the English internet. I loved seeing Babe with long hair and costumes, dancing. I would not have minded more time spent on that and his dance school.
There was also an interesting system of merit-making and karma, and what was going on with our ghosts. But they never went into it enough. Possibly, if I knew more about Thai Buddhism, I would have understood it better anyway. But it still felt like a missed opportunity to explain how it was working here.
And, outside of the villain, I found the way the lovers and their past lives were resolved satisfying.
I admire them for trying to tell a complicated story
Unlike last week’s show, the production was strong, and it looked good. I can’t speak to historical accuracy, but Billy looked very handsome in his noble, 1910s costumes. Babe’s clothes clearly marked him as someone with less money. There were some nicely done moments. It was mostly the storytelling that fell apart.
I didn’t ramble so long about this show to conclude with “it’s evil don’t touch it!” But I’m most likely to recommend it to people who really like Billy and Babe, or Thai historicals.
If you don’t fall into either of those groups, you can always read my recaps and see if you want to spend time watching the show.
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