When last we left our kinda prince and his taciturn bodyguard, people got shot.
Never mind that, sudden flashback is sudden
Nin’s Mom is sent away with baby Nin, while Charan’s mom abandons Charan to take care of them.
Flashforward: Nin asks Charan about “the King killed your mom” thing. Charan knew this entire time, and didn’t want to burden Nin.
Flashback: The Moms are attacked and killed, leaving baby Nin. Charan thought it was the King, but it’s the Smiling Heirless Prince. ‘Cause he just likes killing? How did Charan find this out? None of this matters.
Little Charan snuck out with the guards and saw his mom dead, in the rain.
Flashforward: Nin feels guilty, Charan says everyone was doing their duty, and I feel underwhelmed.
Charan says everything BUT that he loves Nin.
Chakri lives! Does anything else matter?
Unfortunately, the King is also alive. Heirless Smiling Prince is dead.
Ramil’s Dad is alive and abusing his son. When Paytai tries to stop him, Ramil’s Dad slaps him to the ground and steps on him. Then Dad bullies Ramil until he steps on Paytai too.
Paytai has had it. He wants what’s between them to end so he can preserve his dignity. Ramil can’t stop him from leaving. So that’s a job you can quit?
Nin and Charan have romantic mom-gravesite time. The King recovers enough to demand the competition continue from bed. Just the fencing part.
Ava feels empowered to quit the competition if her Dad says it’s okay. It’s confusing messaging.
Nin thinks they should be a Democracy already
Biological Dad vaguely promises things will change if he becomes King. So, if Nin can hit Ramil with a pointy thing, the country gets democracy.
The King feels bad. It occurs to him that he might have hurt people.
Nin has a good time with Charan and his Dad. Ramil is abused by his father, and Paytai is gone.
Then, right before the match, Charan reminds Nin to breathe. Like he does during sex. But it works, so hey.
I still don’t understand fencing
But there’s a scoreboard and I can count. Ramil does well and then doesn’t. His Dad calls a time-out to hit him. Ramil sees Paytai watching and does better.
After faltering initially, Nin does great. When Ramil falls, he helps him up. We want Nin’s father to be King, but Ramil is so sad it’s not fun to watch him lose. Nin wins. He and Ramil shake hands and call each other brother, so that’s nice.
Ramil’s father abuses him more, but none of it matters. Ramil lost and has nothing. He tells his father he will no longer serve under him and leaves.
Grandpa’s current status: Alive
Nin visits him to accept an apology. Grandpa dies. Grandpa sucked.
Nin’s biological Dad sits on the throne and promises to devote himself to the people, like many terrible leaders have in the past.
Nin dances with Charan at the celebration. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he wants Charan there. I like watching them dance together.
There’s an awkward scene on a balcony where the Dads interrupt to check on Nin. They want him to be happy. They give Charan a look and leave.
Ramil finds Paytai on the beach
Paytai gives his entire backstory in two sentences while they sob together. Despite telling himself he was there out of duty, Paytai knows now he was there for Ramil. He promises to be by his side.
Nin and Charan go on a date wearing “I love Emmaly Shirts” and elephant pants, which is great. Charan is more relaxed now that he’s not trying to keep people from killing Nin. But Nin still has to prompt him to say he likes him.
Charan kisses Nin. Then says he wants to keep supporting the King, same as always.
Nin will dump his title and go back to the UK to learn about pollution management. But will Charan say he loves him now that he’s not a prince?
Nope. He’s still worried about being inappropriate. Nin is sad, but will wait until Charan can say it. He walks away, and Charan looks sad too. I wanted more of this.
JANINE IS HERE
Jay finally takes his sister’s advice and reaches out to Calvin. Calvin apologizes, again, for secretly being a prince. Calvin now explains his backstory and plans to leave his country. He likes Jay. Jay likes him. They hug and kiss.
King Dad will follow through on his promise to turn the country into a democracy. And he says he’ll always love Nin unconditionally.
Charan gives Nin a necklace with his parents’ pearl on it. Nin promises never to stop waiting for him. Also, he asks Charan to come to him soon.
Chakri goes to London with Nin, bringing PPL. At first, Nin and Charan keep in touch, but time passes, and he has to get Charan news from Ava. He can’t reach him.
But when he wakes up, Charan is in his bed!
Charan apologizes for being unclear and upsetting Nin. He decided that his family will no longer serve the royal family. He’s going to follow his heart.
Nin is happy with this news, and happier when Charan says he loves him and kisses him. They have a meal as a family with Chakri and a picnic with Chakri.
Later, Charan proves he truly has changed by initiating sex. They get a kinky with English.
They cut to a flowing fountain. Charan promises to Nin using his parents’ ring! Nin says yes, and we end on a make-out session.
I wish this show had been more about fencing
And that last fencing match would have been more suspenseful if the show had taught me anything about how it worked.
I like that this show had ambitions, but ultimately, those ambitions hurt it. Right at the midpoint of the series, when Nin learned about the pollution, the story left its main characters behind.
Nin had no personal connection to the mines. He was just a nice guy who cared. And there wasn’t much for him to overcome to do anything about them. As far as we know, he had always cared about people, been a good student, and a hard worker. On top of that, around then, he found his Dad, and the King stopped getting between him and Charan.
So he studied, fenced, and talked about change.
Meanwhile, Charan had even less to do.
This sucked because the potential was there. Their characters had a good dynamic, with Nin being very free-spirited and Charan being totally repressed. I’m glad we got back to that at the end, but it felt like the change Nin inspired in Charan was implied. I wanted to see it.
In general, there were just too many characters for the writing to balance. Ramil and Paytai almost had a whole character arc and journey, and I was okay with their ending. Ava’s story went nowhere. Jay and Calvin’s barely started.
Our big, bad Smiling Heirless Prince didn’t make a whole lot of sense. His wife died, and no one cared, so he wanted to kill everyone.
There were some good moments in this show, particularly in the first half. I’m glad I watched it, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes an ambitious mess. I might even watch some of the first half again. But as a whole, I wish it’d been stronger.
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