"THE EX-MORNING" AND KARMIC CYCLES
Y'know, I think there might be some Buddhism going on in this series made in a country where Buddhism is super influential to the culture.
I'm tagging @hallowpen in case they want to critique or add anything since I'm basing most of this on conversations I've had with them about karma and Thai culture. \:D/ (Baby's first Buddhist meta!)
Okay so here goes: I think we could be watching a story about breaking karmic cycles, lads.
Like, here, I went back to episode 2 and rewatched this scene:
Their professor tells them that they complement each other because their strengths and weaknesses align. So when they're in balance, they're perfect together.
The trouble is that they weren't balanced. Because of Tam.
We also have Yong emphasizing the same point in the last scene of episode 2:
He says, "This clip has shown me that both of you are good in different ways," which is, crucially, the first time he's recognizing this about them. I mean, one could argue that based on the flashback in episode 7, Yong has been under the impression that Phi was dependent on Tam.
Not the other way around.
See, what I really like about Tam's reason for leaving is that it was selfish. Because he also has an arc. The bigger arc, actually, because Phi has basically completed his now.
This is where I think Phi's main arc ended.
Tam is his arc. I know some viewers raised an eyebrow at Phi asking Tam to get back together before he knew the reason why Tam left, but I think he made the conscious choice to reconnect without knowing as a gesture of forgiveness. 1) Buddhism is heavy on forgiveness, and, maybe more importantly: 2) Phi broke his karmic cycle and narratively earned himself his relationship with Tam back.
Phi tells Tam that he thought he knew Tam better than anyone, but he knows now that he was wrong because he was still blindsided by what Tam did to him. They couldn't get back together without something changing first, and it's this: having recognized that his pride was part of their weak foundation, Phi opens up to Tam through his newfound humility. His only condition for them getting back together is that they resolve what he seems to see as his biggest failing in their relationship: his ego.
Narratively, Phi was always going to get back with Tam not just because it's a romantic comedy and duh:
But because from the moment they met, Phi has literally never wanted anything more than he wants Tam.
Tam is Phi's sun, and Phi is Tam's world. They're quite literally named so they're connected (Pathapi: "earth", Tamtawan: "following the sun"). Without Tam, Phi has no vibrancy, and without Phi, Tam has no purpose. But together, they also run the risk of being too codependent.
Phi was established from episode one to have a want vs. need arc: he wants his career back, but he needs Tam. Now that he has his need resolved (Tam), he'll likely spend the remaining episodes trying to get his want (career).
This means, delightfully for me, that Phi is a false POV character.
Because this story's central character is actually Tam.
[we all miss the turtleneck don't we]
The title of the series refers to Tam.
The English title is "The Ex-Morning" (the name of the show they're creating) but the Thai title is: "The Ex Always Changes" (which is based on a Thai phrase about the weather being mercurial), so this series is definitively about Tam. That's why his overall arc is the bigger one, the one that took longer to unpack, and likely the one that'll stretch to the end of the series.
Tam's arc is about breaking his own karmic cycle in which he continually gives up everything he has for Phi's benefit.
It's literally part of Tam's song "Consent":
He doesn't like living like this. He's painfully aware that from the start of their relationship, he's always prioritized Phi over himself to his own detriment, and he knows it's making him miserable.
Buuut he's still not being totally honest about it. So his character arc isn't done. As of episode 7, he's only now trying to take a step back so Phi can stand on his own.
This scene in episode two has a whole bunch of new meaning to it now that we know what we know about Tam as a character. Initially, I wondered what Tam's tone was when he says, "If I lose, you'll never see my face again. Are you okay with that?" I think he's literally offering this to Phi. As in, "Not only will I quit, I'll leave, and this time I won't come back or bother you again."
Obviously, this isn't what Phi meant, and it's clear from both of them crying afterward that it's not what either of them actually wants.
But it shows that from episode one, even after four years apart, Tam's still as self-destructive as he was when he made the choice to leave.
After one critique from their boss, Tam gave up his career and his home in the name of Phi's success. And he valued himself so little in the process that he didn't expect it to shatter Phi the way it did.
The one bit of evidence Tam had to back up this assumption was when he saw firsthand how quickly Phi got over his seemingly (but not actually, apparently!) hopeless crush on Paul by dating him. He went from best friend to rebound and never saw enough value in himself to realize it was because Phi actually does love him more than anyone.
What I like most about Tam deciding to leave the country is that he didn't do that part for Phi. Tam left Thailand because he didn't trust himself not to try and do everything for Phi again.
In this episode, we saw that his "let's break up" text was deliberately hurtful. He started out with something much, much kinder, if still cowardly. (Breaking up a loving, three-year relationship by text is only okay if you're trapped in an avalanche, kids.)
Tam was so convinced he was going to hurt Phi's chances at fulfilling his dream that he deliberately texted Phi in the way most likely to hurt him so Phi wouldn't try to get him to stay. Tam, in all his twenty-three-year-old wisdom, probably expected Phi to recover the same way he did when his crush on Paul seemed to fall through.
One could argue (and I am!) that Tam was much more dependent on Phi than the reverse. (And it might explain why Tam's mother isn't a big fan of Phi if she thought Phi was actively taking advantage of Tam rather than just, y'know, being aggressively coddled by her son.)
That's why Tam doesn't stand up for himself when Phi confronted him: he doesn't think he was in the right for what he did. He starts the episode by saying it was the worst mistake of his life. He calls himself the villain! But the reason he did it is consistent with everything we've seen of him.
He values Phi over himself every single time an opportunity presents himself.
And I think he didn't tell Phi in the bathroom scene in episode three because he didn't want Phi to know that Yong chose him over Phi while Phi was willing to humiliate himself to get his career back. It would have been genuinely cruel to do that to him considering what he'd just experienced.
I suspect Tam was planning to tell Phi after Phi's career was back on track.
But I also think Phi nailed it in this part:
I don't think Tam ever intended to come back to Thailand when he decided to leave, and I think he might have actually wanted to leave again when he thought Phi had everything he needed.
I think that changed as they spent more time together and Tam just wanted to have Phi back, but for real: I do not think Tam had a plan. One phone call from Yong and Tam left Australia to start his post-graduate career helping his ex resurrect his broken career. I think he's making this shit up as he goes along, lads. Hence all the "Ex Always Changes" thing.
I ran out of screenshots but this part is also crucial. Tam admits the contradiction of blocking Phi everywhere so he wouldn't be tempted while also saying every text and phone call made him hope somehow it was Phi. He says it only took one call from Yong to bring him back to where he was.
In response, Phi tells Tam that time doesn't make you forget, it just makes you strong enough to remember what we've been through. (Which is a banger of a line, holy shit.) Which lines up perfectly with all the flashbacks we've been getting to show us what their relationship was like and why it fell apart.
Episode three is completely about karmic cycles. The series literally shows us a transition from Phi and Tam arguing in university to arguing in the same way in the present. They were stuck in a pattern of behavior, and only now has Phi broken free of a major one.
Because despite the premise of the series making it seem like Pathapi is the one who has the most to change, Tam is actually much further behind in his arc. All Phi needed was, frankly, any support system since Tam was not only his boyfriend but his only actual friend (lol).
But Tam's need is more abstract than that, so it's gonna take him longer to get there.
As for the meta aspects, it's not a perfect one-to-one with KristSingto's lives, but it is related. PhiTam are the same age, but Singto's a year older than Kit, and through their first chapter working together, Singto clearly felt like he had to take care of Kit in a lot of ways. He was his nong from school and now, even though they were both new to the industry, Kit was still younger, more carefree, and also a notorious people-pleaser, so he did frankly need someone like Singto to ground him. But Singto's said he tried too hard to be cool, to appear unaffected, and he's doing that less now. He's loosened up a lot, and I think it's because Kit matured. Obviously Kit still adores him and needs him to a degree because we all have people we need, but he's not dependent on him anymore. They're strong as individuals now and working together by choice, so in that regard, I think the parallel to PhiTam works beautifully.
I continue to love my domestic little series about exes who are cosmically obsessed with each other. :')
