The Crow Club – Episode 7-8 – Recap and Review

When we last left our second of four couples, Ranne discovered Phatee had a crush on him in High School!

Phatee denies even remembering him

Despite Ranne holding a sheet of song lyrics with his name and a heart around it. Phatee gonna Phatee. Ranne looks unconvinced but doesn’t push it.

Next, Phatee meets with Kao, their manager/producer/I dunno, to tell her he doesn’t want to sing an AI song either. But if he’s not part of the group, she’ll disband it.

Meanwhile, poor Ranne deals with his whining drummer’s complaints that Kao only cares about him and Phatee. Ranne thinks that what really matters is the band and the music. I agree. And he needs better bandmates.

Then, Phatee and Kao show up together. She promises never to use AI again. Problem solved!

Of course, this is only because Phatee agreed to do pair promotions with Ranne.

Suddenly, the drummer is curious about Ranne’s feelings for Phatee

Ranne admits he thinks Phatee is cute and talented, but in a younger brother way. That’s all. 

Or not, because he gets dreamy-eyed remembering finding those High School photos. 

Their song debuts! It’s a song! They play instruments. And dance. I know nothing about music. Go them! It seems to go well.

Later, Phatee insists on taking Ranne home. They’re followed, and Phatee notices, but the stalker quickly leaves.

At the crow club, the other crows encourage and tease Phatee about his debut. He’s Phatee about it. Talay encourages him to seize the moment, for his dream and his love life. 

All the crows bring their slightly confused partners to see Phatee and his band’s first performance.

Ranne finds Phatee being nervous and brooding 

He puts Phatee’s hand against his chest to feel his heart racing with nerves too. Phatee smiles, and Ranne explains how to manifest what he wants on stage. Surprisingly, this connects to things later. 

They make it on stage! And they’re singing and playing instruments and dancing! Phatee and Ranne are adorable on stage, so I don’t blame people for just wanting to ship them.

Kao Is Pleased. They’re going to get an album AND a concert. It’s everything they ever wanted.

BUT, Phatee and Ranne are the only ones with brand endorsement deals.

Instead of being happy about the album and concert, the other bandmates get grumpy when some fans only show interest in Ranne and Phatee. These guys don’t deserve Ranne. Whatever. He patiently reminds them that this is all so they can work together and put their music out there.

At night, Ranne sneaks into Phatee’s room and wakes him up. He wants Phatee to promise to stay paired up until the band explodes. Phatee wonders if people would focus on their music more if they weren’t being shipped. 

Ranne says they aren’t just a ship. He’s never forcing or faking anything. Phatee isn’t either. So Ranne says they should continue being themselves, and feeling what they feel.

Staaaaaaaaaaaaaring leads to nearly kissing, but Phatee reminds Ranne they aren’t making content. Ranne says they do what they want, and KISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSING.

It was Phatee’s dream again! Boo! Sorta!

More on that later.

Meanwhile, someone online accuses Phatee of being arrested for beating someone. The social media mob attacks Phatee. Kao wants him to do a press conference and deny it. But Phatee can’t deny it. He did it.

Ranne knows there has to be a reason. Phatee says the reason doesn’t matter. Kao says whether he did it or not doesn’t matter.

Phatee will only tell the truth or leave the band. Actually, never mind, he’s not telling the truth. No matter how much Ranne begs. He’s leaving the band. 

Once he’s gone, the other band members discuss whether this is good or bad publicity. Will Kao promote them if their ship is gone? These guys suck.

Phatee returns to the Crow Club, where two random customers abuse him. Tangmo punches them, and Linda kicks them out. Phatee thinks he should leave the Crow Club too, but Linda tells him to stay. But he can’t hug her this time.

Ranne hires the Crow Club to help Phatee

Which they should have already been doing, but whatever. I like seeing Ranne fight for Phatee when Phatee won’t fight for himself.

Vann tracks down the social media account that posted the accusations. It leads them to one of his bandmates’ homes. But it’s his sister who made those posts. Because her brother wasn’t being promoted enough. And Phatee is a horrible, violent psychopath and needs to admit it. 

Her doing that didn’t help her brother. Finding her doesn’t help Phatee.

Anyway, Phatee dreams that Ranne wants him to return to the group and tell everyone what really happened. Phatee belongs on stage with him.

Phatee wants to be on stage with him too. So the next day he meets with Kao, but still can’t bring himself to share the story. He’s going to leave. Again.

Then, a woman arrives to tell the truth for him. She was violently and horribly assaulted by some rich guy. Phatee stopped him, but the guy drew a knife and, while trying to attack Phatee, got stabbed instead. The woman fled in shame, and Phatee took the blame to protect her.

But she has the assault recorded on her phone as proof.

Still, Phatee gonna Phatee. He disappears on Ranne.

Then we find out the strange, strange truth

All those dreams were something that Ranne whisper-manifested. Nay knows about it, and warns Ranne that it doesn’t always work. But somehow they met in their dreams, and Phatee always did whatever Ranne asked him while in them.

Nay thinks that’s because Phatee loves him and wants to do these things for him. But Ranne is confused because Phatee didn’t do what he told him this last time.

Phatee overhears this conversation, and Ranne chases after him to admit that everything in the dreams was real. 

Phatee wants to stop making content and faking feelings. But while it was for content at first, Ranne says it isn’t anymore. He really likes Phatee and wants to be with him. He doesn’t care about anything else. He’s sorry about the whole whisper-manifesting thing. 

Phatee is sorry too, for lying about not remembering. But Ranne knew that was a lie. He’s delighted Phatee got his love of guitar from him. Oh, was that my heart fluttering?

Ranne wants them to make their dreams come true together

I do too! But Phatee has his “no” face on. 

All he can do is support Ranne from afar. This is for the best. He got Ranne closer to his dream, and that’s enough to make him happy. And… he walks away again.

Phatee is exonerated because the victim filed a police report. The sister looks vaguely guilty, so… I guess that’s that for her. Now the social media mob wants Phatee to return to the band.

But he’s at the Crow Club, refusing to go.

The band goes on stage, but during the concert, Ranne has a solo and brings out Phatee’s guitar. He wishes Phatee were there and wants to tell Phatee that he inspires him, too. Then, he sings that song from High School for him.

There’s Phatee! He’s in the audience, with Ranne singing to him. The opposite of High School. My heart. This is working on me. And everyone in their audience.

Ranne walks into the crowd, and Phatee starts singing with him. This is a nice height difference. Phatee kisses Ranne in front of everyone. 

Everyone cheers for them. Phatee is all smiles.

I really liked how Ranne handled Phatee

Phatee was one of the most quietly resistant characters I think I’ve seen lately. To the very end, the guy did not want to budge on ANYTHING.

But Ranne never gave up on him. To the point where he was willing to manipulate him with magic. I really, really wish they’d dropped the dancing and AI song stuff and spent that time exploring this idea instead. 

Because I love how MAGICAL it is that they could meet in dreams! Especially since dreams were such a strong theme of their arc.

Phatee initially dreamed of being with Ranne, but having tried and failed once, didn’t want to ever try again. Yet, he couldn’t stay away.

Meanwhile, Ranne was inexhaustible in pursuing his dreams, despite having to put up with his bandmates. And because of this, he was able to coax Phatee and his dreams into the real world. Where they could share their dreams, again.

If they’d just focused on that, I think it could have been a magical, dreamy little arc. But it’s like they couldn’t resist putting in the standard stuff too.

I also wanted to know more about Ranne. Why he was so good at manifesting, if it ever worried him that he could be controlling Phatee, when he fell for him, etc. These are other important details.

But, I’m really, really glad Phatee was the one to kiss Ranne in the end. After all his work, Ranne deserved it.