The Sign – Episode 1-2 – Recap and Review

Welcome to my recap and review of The Sign! Lets get into the first two episodes!

Who are all these men in black uniforms and black ball caps?

They’re all police recruits in training. The two most important ones are our leads, Tharn and Phaya.

Tharn is the shorter one with horrible visions of people he knows dying. These visions are often, though not always, tied to Phaya. He keeps Phaya alive but despite his efforts, another trainee is badly injured (but he’s awful anyway). His friend Yai is the only one who knows about these visions, but the others have noticed his habit of saving Phaya’s life. 

Tharn is also a virgin, convinced whoever he falls in love with will die, and a silly drunk. He’s training to become a cop so he can investigate his parent’s death.

Phaya is the taller one who hallucinates dragons and women, one who seems to rescue him and the other who nearly drowns him. (Don’t worry, Tharn saves him). Between the two he’s more outgoing and seems to keep his head together better while drunk. He’s possessive and protective of Tharn, getting snippy with another man who dares buy him a drink. 

He can also sing and may not be a virgin.

Tharn thinks Phaya is an evil jellyfish. Which I don’t totally understand but it’s adorable.

After that we have Yai, Tharn’s friend who is overly invested in his sex life. There’s also Thongthai and Khem, who may or may not be a couple. It’s a little confusing.

So how does training to be a police officer work?

It involves a lot of exercise montages and standing around naked in locker rooms. None of our characters have any issues that they need to overcome in order to pass, so there’s not much to it. They study in class, sit in tubs of ice water, run with heavy things, take off their shirts, look strong and handsome. Everything that is needed to serve and protect.

There is one short detour when a Lieutenant Tam shows up dead, floating in the water by the shore. Our trainee group is not happy with the ruling that it was suicide, and quickly start to investigate. They find evidence to support their convictions but are almost immmediately discovered. Their instructor threatens to kick them out of the program if they keep it up. They are told to do their jobs, follow rules and mind their own business. Everything needed to serve and protect.

After that, there are more training montages and and they all pass and get put on the Special Investigation Team.

So how is the romance going?

Phaya and Tharn meet shortly before the training starts. The connection between them is fast and undeniable. Besides Tharn’s visions, that he doesn’t tell Phaya about, Phaya feels Tharn looks like someone in his dreams.

The idea of past lives and reincarnation is brought up by Phaya one moody evening. He suggests that things that happen in a past life can revisit you in the current one. Tharn believes in past lives and reincarnation, but doesn’t take the idea that they knew each other before very seriously.

Outside of the supernatural stuff they gravitate towards one another anyway. They start to investigate Lieutenant Tam’s death together first, and rely on each other for help. They’re often scantly clad and have already had a fall-kiss, so this isn’t what you’d call a slow burn.

I really like this show so far, but here are some things in I didn’t like…

Let me get the negative out of the way first. 

For me, the humor is really hit and miss. It’s the same humor as in the other two Idol Factory shows, but for me the silly humor meshed better with the college/office settings and lower stakes. Especially with Secret Crush on You, the plot itself was silly and comedic.

Here we have serious, life and death circumstances that abruptly switch over to fall-kisses, drunken silliness and awful ‘it’s a funny scene’ bg music. The humor can undercut the dramatic moments of the plot, so that I don’t have time to process them before things get silly. I don’t want it to be a dark, grim show, but did we need TWO drunk, spin-the-bottle scenes in two episodes?

In general the writing is the roughest part. The Lieutenant Tam issue is brought up and let go so quickly it makes the characters seem scattered and lacking convictions. The training montages don’t seem to exist to do anything except show off the actors’ bodies. They are worth showing off, but they could have done more with the story too.

So what is working?

This show is a lot of fun. To give the writers credit, I like how the supernatural stuff has just been hinted at so far. Unlike the other plot threads, it’s being developed slowly. There’s a lot of mystery behind Tharn’s visions and Phaya’s hallucinations and how they might be tied together. I definitely want to keep watching to see where it goes.

The blurred out butts and crotches (and Khem on the toilet) are the kind of tongue-in-cheek, not-taking-itself-too-seriously production humor that does work for me. There is also good atmosphere and mood building. The training montages could have had more story, but they were well shot and visually interesting.

Idol Factory is good at picking it’s actors. Billy, who plays Phaya, I recognize from Secret Crush On You. He’s got a nice physicality to him, he is the tallest of the main cast, and a casual attitude that suits his character. By contrast his co-star Babe, who plays Tharn, is more tightly wound and you can see it in his acting. Together they have nice chemistry so I’m OK with how fast they are getting under the sheets together (which isn’t for sex, but still.)

That’s it for the first two episodes!