If you’re lost on any of the characters, I did a quick rundown of them at the top of episode 1 that you can consult.
Recap
Bua is worried about Tian and wants Yang to tell her Tian’s secret so she can help fix whatever is wrong. Yang says it isn’t a thing to be fixed.
Song overhears and also wants Yang to tell him Tian’s secret. Yang makes one up, and Song knows it’s a lie. He also knows if Bua and Yang are talking about it, there must really be a secret.
The Song family is off to Chonburi. Jia is excited to see Dr Qi since he taught her medicine and she sees him as a teacher and brother. Chan is excited to set up Tian’s assassination.
At the temple Song talks to Tian alone, making a heartfelt plea for Tian to open up. He feels they are distant compared to when Tian was young. Li interrupts before Tian can say anything.
Jiu is there, but he doesn’t see Tian’s face nor does he let Nuan or Chan see his. Chan uses wanting to be ordained as an amusing ruse to convince a bewildered Yang to bring Tian into the garden and leave him there.
Jiu tries to stab Tian, his face partially covered with a weird sheer bandanna. Tian throws dirt in Jiu’s eyes so he nearly stabs Tian without seeing him, but his vision clears in time. An attempted stabbing becomes a kiss through the bandanna, then he escapes.
Tian is confused and bleeding a little.
He lies to the family, saying he was in the garden on his own. Outside with Pao, Song guesses the attack is related to Tian’s secret.
Alone, Tian thinks about the strange kiss. Bua finds him and he tells her what really happened. He admits he isn’t sure about Chan, but he knows Yang would never be involved.
Ma is furious with Jiu for failing to kill Tian. Jiu doesn’t want to do the job, so Ma threatens his sister.
Li finds Song praying at Zhang’s memorial tablet and they talk about Zhang. When Li asks Song if he’d do anything differently Song says no. No one would accept a homosexual as a leader. Li looks disappointed.
It’s nearly time to go home and Bua and Yang haven’t located Dr Qi, but then he shows up. They corner him with the mushrooms, which he immediately recognizes and tells them about.
Jia is excited to meet Dr Qi in the garden, but Dr Qi shows her the mushroom and knows she had something to do with them.
Next Dr Qi goes to Song. Song tells Qi about Dong’s body and that he suspects Li. Qi tells Song to dig where the mushrooms were and he’ll meet with him later.
At home, Li acts like everything is normal while asking Song about his talk with Qi. Song also plays innocent, revealing nothing. He tells Li she’s a wonderful wife but people make mistakes and wants to know if she has something to tell him. She gets teary-eyed but denies it.
Song and Pao dig where the mushroom patch was, but the poison Jia used on the mushrooms dissolved the body except for a single tooth that Song finds.
Chan and Ma’s all-new plan is for Chan to find Tian’s secret. Seriously.
Tian goes to Jiu’s and learns about his sister’s illness. Jiu has Ma’s threat in mind and grips a knife, taking Tian home on a deserted path. He still can’t kill him, this time protecting Tian from a different assassin.
Ma finds out Jiu knows Tian, and has a new idea.
Thoughts
It’s important to keep in mind that these people do not live in our reality. They live in soap opera reality. In soap opera reality at least half the people you know are either killing or considering killing people as part of life goals. You have to just accept it, get on with your life, and try not to worry about it too much.
And accept it and move on is what I have to do with the kiss here. What does Tian think happened? Are we, and Tian, supposed to think that’s how a guy with a knife kept Tian from shouting for his mother? He doesn’t seem to know it’s Jiu, based on how he acts with Jiu.
Accepting it and moving on.
Song is finally catching on to what’s going on in his house and trying to do something about it. Very in character that he yelled at Yang, and approached Li and Tian with gentler tactics. And the scene with him and Li, where she was crying, was heartbreaking in its way. But he’d already ruined his chances with her earlier when he had no regrets over how he handled Zhang.
If he’d given a different answer earlier, I’m not sure Li would have changed her tactics, but it says something about her hopes for her son that she even asked.
Interesting that Song noticed that Tian was closer to him as a child, maybe before Zhang’s death? Tian might have told him the truth, but I feel like that would be because Tian doesn’t want to keep his secret, not because of any closeness or trust in Song.
Massive credit to Chan’s actress for acting like her finding out Tian’s secret is some new, great idea. That short scene with her and Ma cracks me up. It’s like the writers knew they needed a scene where Ma and Chan met and decided to just keep doing the same things they’ve been doing, but couldn’t come up with much else. So, voila! The actors get the credit there.
But I do want to give the writers credit for the way the broad conflict in this story is written. I love a story where the central issue seems to be small while conflict builds and swirls around it, a story shaped like a tornado.
In this case, the eye of the storm is Tian and his oft-mentioned secret. Tian is sweet and quiet, a good responsible son, just trying to live his life, even keeping his love of pretty things and his relationship with Jiu secret.
Around him, his family is a raging storm of violent murder, scheming, and plotting. But what better way to illustrate how he and his sexuality aren’t the problem, but everyone else is? Left on his own, he’d have a nice happy life and take good care of the business.
Random note, Chonburi sounded familiar to me so I looked it up. Pattaya, the location of Moonlight Chicken, is in the province of Chonburi!