A month ago, I never could have predicted that Iâd be sitting here trying to assemble some thoughts to explain how on earth this show went so badly off the rails. I am truly taken aback by where this story landed, and I advise anyone who wants to think of it fondly to just pretend it ended at episode 9, and even skip the finale if you havenât watched yet. Before I get into it, let me just start with a word of praise for the cast, who did a great job with their performances and kept this show afloat when the writing fell apart. And boy, did it fall apart.
In my view, this narrative had three main threads it was addressing: 1) Dayâs journey to accepting his disability; 2) unresolved family trauma; and 3) Mhok and Dayâs romance. And in the end, it failed on all three of them. I am going to dig into this and I am not feeling particularly nice, so if this is going to hurt your feelings I suggest you stop reading now.Â
JustâŚwow. We have been afraid of this turn the entire time and trying to hold out hope that the show would not go there, but here we are. I started laughing out loud when we got to the end of part 3 and Mhonâs phone went off with an alert for a new eye donor, and then just stared incredulously at my screen as we time skipped AGAIN to a Day whose vision had been restored for years (last week I joked to @bengiyo and @waitmyturtles that once a drama starts using time skips it becomes addictive and they never stop, andâwelp!). What was this entire show for? Why did we spend twelve episodes with Day grieving his vision loss, learning how to cope, and finally accepting his blindness only to completely undercut it at the end? The first part of the finale was so much about how he was thrivingâfinding a new career for himself and becoming self-sufficient and growing so much on his ownâonly to give us an ending that implied he could not actually have his happily ever after without his vision restored.Â
And this is in fact the message they sent by coupling the return of his vision with the return of he and Mhokâs relationship, and giving us a happy ending rooted in his contentment at having his sight back. They even went back to the Last Twilight mountain to completely tarnish the thematic resonance of the original scene. Calling back to the beautiful memory of Day âseeingâ the sunset and experiencing âa moment so good that you feel like you can live there foreverâ as he accepted his disability with this scene of him seeing the real sunset with his restored vision was so hurtful to me that I actually got angry. Day didnât need his vision back to get a happy ending, and I absolutely hate what this communicates about disabled peopleâs capacity to live happy and fulfilling lives. This show has created many writing sins but this is the most unforgivable to me.
The show began dropping the ball on this one a few weeks ago, but this finale put the nail in the coffin. We spent most of this episode at Porjai and Nightâs wedding, an event that might have felt meaningful if the show had let us see any of their romance. Iâm grateful to Mark Pakin and Namtan Tipnaree for their beauty and charisma because itâs the only thing that made me care about those scenes at all. Rather than actually being about them, however, this wedding was used primarily as a clunky vehicle to deliver heavy-handed messages about âsecond chancesâ to encourage Day to get back together with Mhok (more on that in the next section).Â
I did enjoy the brief nods in this episode to the brothers continuing to have newfound harmony in their relationship, but where the show really lost me was in their attempt to bring Night and Dayâs dad back into the mix and imply some sort of resolution between him and Mhon. Mhon, a woman whose perspective on their split we never actually saw, whose motivation for her choices and behavior toward her sons were completely elided by the narrative, who was forgiven and made peace with offscreen during a time skip. I was never given the chance to understand her or what this relationship meant to her in the first place, so why would I care about these scenes with her making her peace with this man? I continue to be so confused about where this show chose to spend its time, and why someone with Aofâs track record on developing strong and narratively important familial relationships dropped the ball so much with her.Â
Okay, letâs get into it, and remember what I said about not reading if this is going to hurt your feelings! My criteria for considering a romance successful is I have to believe the relationship is mutual, beneficial to both of the pair, and that the couple is prepared to weather future challenges. Last Twilightâs romance fails on all three fronts, and it all comes down to the total imbalance in the relationship that persisted right through the final scenes.
This entire narrative has been Mhok bending to Dayâs will, giving Day what he needs, forgiving him for everything, and letting him make all the decisions about the relationship, and the finale was regrettably more of the same. In episode 11, Mhok made a mistake when he lied to Day about turning down the job in Hawaii. But he made that mistake out of grief and fear, and Day didnât careâhe unfeelingly rejected him and his pain and ended their relationship without a second thought. That was potentially forgivable as a momentary lapse borne out of instinctual hurt, and could have been repairable had Day reconsidered soon after and extended Mhok some grace. But in this episode, we find out Day blocked Mhok and refused to communicate with him again after that night, and has left Mhok completely in the cold for three years after he failed to be perfect one (1) time.
And this episode? Was on Dayâs side in this conflict. Mhok is the one to return and start pursuing Day again. Mhok is the one to broach the topic of their breakup. Mhok is the one to thank Day for breaking his heart and tell him he did nothing wrong (yâall, I almost threw something at the screen). Mhokâs grief and trauma go completely unaddressed in this finale until they try to play the Rung card for one last moment of sentiment. Day cries to his mother about how he just doesnât know if he can forgive Mhok. And in the end, Mhok makes the grand gesture, missing his flight to go to Day and stay in Thailand with him despite the successful life he has built in Hawaii.
The cognitive dissonance I felt watching this play out was extreme. I rarely see a writer misunderstand their own characters and relationship conflict so thoroughly. In order to believe in this romance we needed to see Day finally show some empathy for Mhok, take responsibility for his own mistakes, and be the one to make an effort this time. We needed to believe that Day has the capacity to be a supportive partner to Mhok even when heâs struggling. But Day didnât demonstrate any of that, and so I simply donât believe in this relationship. I donât believe Mhok can trust Day not to abandon him again when some other major life event intervenes and Mhok is less than perfect. And thatâs a shame, because the show really almost had something here with these two.Â
And thatâs all I got. What a disappointment this show turned out to be. If you need me, I will just be over here in my little corner imagining the Night and Porjai romcom that we never got and pretending the rest of this show ended several weeks ago.
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