Recap
A classic text scroll introduces us to 1931 Thailand, where 5 Chinese merchant families make up the Five Dragon Association, of which the Song family heads.

For future reference, here is a quick breakdown of the most immediately important characters, all of whom we meet as the story opens with a Five Dragon Association meeting:

Five Dragon Association
Song – The patriarch of both the Song family and the 5 Dragon association
Zhang – The head of the Zhang family who is very close with Song
Ma – Head of another one of the families and clearly evil based on his intro music
Xiaotong – Head of another family and the only woman in the group

Song Family
Li – Song’s first wife and mother of his eldest son and heir, has the most power among the wives
Tian – Li’s son and the Song family’s heir
Jia – Li’s awesome assistant

Chan – Song’s second wife, painfully aware of her lack of power
Yang – Chan’s son and the second son in the family
Nuan – Chan’s assistant and partner in crime

Bua – Song’s mistress who lives in a separate house

Both these groups are seething with power struggles. Li, as first wife and mother of the heir, is jealously guarding her power while Chan desperately wants it for both herself and her son. 

Meanwhile, during the business meeting, Song announces an important position will go to Zhang. Ma then reveals that Zhang has a male lover and is homosexual. Zhang points out that Ma is evil, but his homosexuality is deemed a greater threat to the business. He and his family are removed from the association and the position is handed to Ma instead.

Yang and Tian see the whole thing, but they along with Bua don’t understand the meaning of the word homosexual. Their father’s assistant, Pao, explains it to them using the classic cut-sleeve story. Pao explains that being a homosexual is terrible, but Bua defends love as being just love.

Song talks with Li about what just happened, and that he was hard on Zhang to protect himself from Ma. They’re interrupted when Zhang comes back. 

Zhang feels more betrayed by Song than Ma, because of how close they were. He revokes their promise to be brothers for life, and cuts his own throat. Blood hits everyone. Before he dies, he hopes Song feels the same pain of betrayal as him one day.

The Song family goes to see Peking Opera, and Tian loves it so much he re-enacts it at home in his bedroom. Yang sees him and is more interested in his brother’s performance than the real one. They go outside to play together, and Tian is left to sniff flowers while Yang gets snacks.

Chan takes advantage of a convenient cgi snake and tosses it in Tian’s direction. Yang comes back, and Tian gets bitten protecting his brother. They can’t drive him to the doctor because Chan had Nuan flatten the car tires. Tian is saved from death when Jia whips up some magic brown liquid that cures him. 

When it’s just the two of them, Li accuses Chan of being responsible for everything, but Chan proclaims her innocence loudly and demands proof. 

Song visits Bua, wanting her opinion on what happened with Tian. She thinks it’s strange but nothing can be proved. He apologizes for kicking Bua out of the house because she was sterile. Bua refuses to move back into the main house and feels she has value even without children. Bua is awesome.

Li visits Bua the next day for her opinion too. Bua mentions the specialness of Yang and Tian’s relationship. Li is concerned by the closeness of a mother/son relationship and what Chan might say to Yang. But when Yang visits her bed-bound son later, she supports them despite Jia’s worries.

Bua makes Yang a wooden sword but Tian wants a hairpin, so she makes him one. Li and Jia discover Tian re-enacting the opera wearing the hairpin and scarf and are horrified. Jia immediately brings up Zhang. Li drags Tian outside and he sobs as the scarf and hairpin are burned. Li tells him this must be a secret.

Chan and Nuan overhear their conversation and find the burned scarf and stick but are clueless about what the secret could be. They corner Tian, who hides another hairpin he just got from Bua, and try to physically drag it from him. Li and Jia put a stop to it.

In his bedroom, Li cries but beats Tian with a stick for going against her and getting another hairpin. Yang sees from the doorway. 

Twelve years later, an adult Tian hides away in the library, drawing Peking Opera actors in his notebook.

Thoughts
There’s an in memoriam for Pattaratida (Nida) Patcharaveerapong, who was to be Chan and shot some scenes before dying tragically in a boating accident. I don’t know anything about her or the accident, but that is terribly sad.

The show is a lot of silly fun in bad wigs but I also think it is really well written. This first episode sets up the core conflict for the rest of the show: Tian’s secret. You can make a game out of how often it will come up moving forward.

The gravity of the danger is set up when all the characters see what happens to Zhang. Homosexuality becomes the monster that can destroy a man’s business and take his life, no matter how beloved, kind, and competent he may be. 

(Of course, homosexuality isn’t the monster, people are the real monsters, but we’re not there yet.)

So then we understand why Li is so terrified when she realizes that her son might be homosexual. Not only is she afraid of losing everything she’s building for him as the heir, but she’s also afraid of losing him. 

The sheer innocence of Tian’s interest in Peking Opera and how it brings her to that conclusion is something in itself. It’s a leap, but I can also see the danger in a man being feminine regardless of sexuality, because of the assumptions people would make and still do make. I’ve seen BLs make a point of proving how ‘masculine’ their characters are and more ‘feminine’ BL leads get derided online enough to know this hasn’t gone away.

And I love when LGBTQ+ stuff addresses gender as well as sexuality, so I like that Tian expresses ‘feminine’ qualities while also leaping on top of his younger brother to protect him from a snake. 

The final thing the show sets up is that adult Tian still indulges this secret part of himself. It may be the monster to others, but he allows himself to treasure it in secret.