Hate to be a Debbie downer bc I know so many people are attached to Not Me (me included), but there’s some loose threads in the show that I think desperately needed tying up, that I feel the need to address. (SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY) Buckle up y’all, this is gonna be MAD long:
Gramblack. Ok what the actual fuck was that. So they didn’t have to make everyone gay, and yes there are signs to Gram being queer if not explicit, but this wasnt queerbaiting, this was just straight up relationship baiting!! A good chunk of the first half of the show was White considering Gram, whether he was friend or foe, taking into account their relationship at uni and in the gang. Everyone was like ‘black and gram so close!!’ Forget the Eugene plot point (which I happily will, Film I’m so sorry honey they dragged you thru this), even without a romantic subtext they were friends?? After Black comes back the only interaction they have is when fighting over Eugene?? Everything they’ve established about Gram, and frankly everyone in the gang is that above all they are ride or die for their friends. Would Gram really value a girl, and not just a girl but a girl who is his best friend’s ex, someone still hung over her ex, and who frankly isn’t really interested in him, over his best friend??? They didn’t get the reunion they (or we) deserved, and honestly somewhere in the show Gram’s entire personality became ‘Eugene-chaser’, like he was purely incidental to the gang, the activism, the friendships, just a pawn in Sean/Todd/Tawi’s games. Maybe it came down to the fact that there were too many storylines to keep track of. It’s impossible to have almost 12 characters with their backstories and developments, and try to develop not only their individual stories and relationships but also progress the plot and conflict. Rough stuff, you get some at the risk of giving up the other, but at the end of the day everything feels incomplete.
The Twins' parents. We got them in the flashbacks, we got White's dad in a couple of eps in the beginning of his double life, and we got that epic scene with Black's mom. We know that they're both estranged with their mom, so it's understandable why we never see her again, altho it might have been cool to maybe see her motivations? Maybe she was tied up with Tawi, or the crazy top cop who threatened Dan in EP13? It just felt so random and disconnected. Especially since she knows her kids, it would've added an extra element of personal danger for the gang if she worked for Tawi. Also, what happens to White and his dad once White is fully integrated in the gang as Black, waaaay before his reveal?? At that point he's not living a double life, it's just a single life? Doesn't his dad wonder where he's staying?? His son has just come back from Russia and he's fucked off to god knows where and he just doesn't care? He's clearly not doing the diplomacy thing, what's happened to that? None of us are toddlers, we all have object permanence, it's not like the moment we stop seeing White's original lifestyle that it doesn't exist anymore?? And now that Black is back, who goes to uni and studies what? Like, just what?????
Tawi. He was supposed to be the big baddie of the show, symbolic of the corrupt Big Corporation, Big Industry, Big Monopoly/Oligopoly, but other than him being bad and us being told that constantly, we know nothing about Tawi. He had no agency, and was pretty 2D as a character. For some reason, Namo seemed to have weight to her character in a way that Eugene just didn't, like Eugene's every move orbited around some guy (Bechdel who), so honestly after the whole Black/Eugene break up, if they just left her alone and maybe focused on developing Tawi's story and relationship to the gang a bit more, I think that could have been cool. Everything about Tawi as a character, not as a symbolic archetype, just seemed so ambiguous. What were his intentions, did he do the things he denied doing or not, how much did he know about the gang and cop Dan, how personally involved was he with the dealings of his company, who was the person higher up he was talking to in the last episode? While he's one of the top men, he's also clearly not the one right at the top. Was it the cop threatening Dan? Todd had a better backstory and development than Tawi, and Tawi was the actual villain; Todd and Black were just equal and opposite antiheros.
Black. Honestly I think the show did my boy Black the dirtiest, especially at the end. He deserved, if not a happy ending, a hopeful one. I don't understand this idea of White having usurped Black's spot in the gang, because the fact of the matter is that they have different skills and could have different roles to play in the group. White talks about Black having sacrificed his role in the group for White, but White sacrificed his whole life for Black!! White has his boyfriend and all his friends around him, what does Black have? His methods weren't the greatest, i'll admit, (altho him putting Todd into a coma was one of the funniest things he could've done, my rage-filled gremlin child), but his intentions were some of the strongest in the group. Just because he isn't as burdened down by feelings as the others, doesn't mean he doesn't have them?? Justice for my boy Black!!
The Ending. Now, don't get me wrong, some parts of the finale were so cathartic and honestly beautiful. The scene where they are rescued from the van, and they realise that in a way they've won, because they don't have to fight from the shadows and alone anymore, something something poetic cinema. The combined relief, joy, shock, bursting out of chest feelings, it was everything. But it felt like too ambiguous of an end. In a way it makes sense, because they didn't actually achieve the tangible thing except for rallying the people to be vocal about their cause and about protesting for social justice, implying that the fight still lives on. However, I think we needed to see some kind of consequence. Todd got his consequence, and we got to see Gumpa (dedicating himself to the future fights for justice) and DanYok (establishing their new status quo) in the new order. I guess I needed to see what happens to Tawi, and also a different closure for SeanWhite. They've both been fighting for so long, especially Sean, that after all the momentum of the first 13 eps, the last one for them (esp 4/4) just falls a bit flat. Ofc they needed to take a moment for themselves, away from the cloud of vigilante activism hanging over their heads constantly, but for me SeanWhite aren't 'still' people. They need movement, they need activity, they need action. It would've suited them better to maybe end the series by showing them back in the garage, planning the next activity, or even outside the garage with other protesters fully in the open public. So much of SeanWhite was centered around them revolving around each other, that once they found each other and effectively stopped moving, it almost felt a bit static.
White's characterisation. This is only for the last few episodes of White, once Black wakes up and White is allowed to be White again. While White has changed his mentality on his priorities after joining the gang, it's like the moment he stops pretending to be Black he loses all of his strength. And I don't only mean physical strength, although that is partially it - he just turns into Sean's personal limpet. And that's all great and fine for Sean, Sean who has had no one truly on his side until White, but I had really felt like White had shaken off some of his 'damsel-in-distress' behavior from his childhood, except he reverts right back to that the moment everyone knows he's White. It's in even greater contrast to Black when we see them together, but after pretending to be Black for so long, I would have expected him to have imbibed some of those behaviors (Sean shouldn't have had to 'take care of him', because frankly White should've been able to take care of himself by that point).
The jumps. 👀
Conclusion: too much. I think a lot of what bothered me is the same thing that bothered me in WHY R U? - there was too much going on. When I saw WHY R U?, I (and I would hazard a guess a good majority of the watchers) could only focus on the two main pairings (Fighter/Tutor, Saifah/Zon). There were probably at least 3 other side pairings that I can't barely remember because frankly it was too much to keep up with. WRU was too much unnecessary romance, and Not Me was almost too much plot. In just 14 episodes, we had to cover the following: The gang's main activities and training, Sean's backstory with Tawi, White's subterfuge and hiding that, White's investigation for Black and his relationship with Todd, Gram's backstory with Black and Eugene, Dan and Yok's romance, White's relationship with his father, the general debates on politics and lawfulness and justice and queer rights in contemporary Thailand, Black's relationship with a variety of people, Dan and his battle between law and his heart, Sean and White's romance.
Anyone else think it's a lot? Yeah, it's a lot. Even just by cutting down on one or two of these plot points, it would've been easier to properly focus on and flesh out the rest of the issues, satisfactorily investigating and concluding them.
P.S. None of this is against P'Nuchy, or Off, Gun, First, Fluke, Papang, Mond, Film, or any of the team in the show. A lot of these decisions may have been entirely out of their hands, or were simply a result of how things turned out, without more time or a larger budget to fix things. The only reason I criticise the show this deeply is because I cared about it that much - I think it had so much potential, and lived up to almost all of it, but missed a mark on just a couple things. I am proud of the message that the show put forth, proud of the actors for their physical and emotional commitment to their characters and the story (hello?? oscar for Gun ATP now thank you very much), and proud of the work that the entire cast and crew put in to create this groundbreaking raw political drama, that had romance but was also heartbreakingly real, and important and relevant. A step in the right direction for raising awareness and fighting for social justice and equality, justice for the common man and for queer rights.
And before anyone says that the romance aspect of the show was 'unrealistic' - far from it!! Romance and love is hope, and hope isn't just something that exists, it's something that we have to actively critically manifest and cultivate. Because without hope (for a better future), what are we all fighting for?
Living in fear that Dan didn’t actually kill Sean’s father, but the people threatening to kill his parents made him say he did to throw the team into chaos
The more I think about it, the more the Dan plotline is an incredible one, but one that needs so much more fucking time than it's actually been given
Dan is an incredible, fascinating character. He's someone who fucked up, did something awful without meaning to and regretted it immensely. He is someone who, from the start, wanted to do good. Who believed that he could create change in a fucked up system but fell prey to it anyways. He's a good person who did something terrible and has been eaten up by it, who desperately wanted to atone and receive ANY type of consequences but never did. He turns to art to channel his guilt and his anger at a system he hopes can still change, that he can still change it.
You can tell that he is actively a good person, and that he hates the corruption and power that plagues not just the police force but society as a whole.
Like, yes, acab, but we also have to acknowledge that there are people who DO want to change the system and they either get corrupted by the system or they leave it because they can't stand what the system makes them do. And that's what Dan is meant to represent. Someone who became a cop because he genuinely believed he could do good.
And then he meets Yok (whilst breaking into Tawi's house and doing political graffiti in it) and they get to know each other and Dan sees people actively DOING something, actively making a difference.
He and Yok fall in love, hard and fast. He shows the darkest parts of himself and his NEED to do good. Not just because he needs to atone but because he always wanted to do good in the first place, and he's realizing that the way he's gone about it this whole time wasn't doing any good at all.
And he goes and tries his best to help Yok and the gang but he finds out that the corruption is so much deeper. They know he's UNAR. They know where his parents live. He's realizing that no matter what he does, someone he loves is going to get hurt. Because again, good cops don't exist because they either get absorbed by the corruption, they leave, or well. They die.
I don't think Dan is going to die, but I think he's learning that he can no longer hold onto his dream of helping people if he's still a cop.
I feel like I am watching a different show than other people or maybe my line of right and wrong is different because the Dan storyline has shown some things I find super disturbing in this fandom.
I will start by saying the way I view this show is layered and complex. There are no absolutes. No one is all good. No one is all bad and how we digest the story in of itself is a commentary on political strife. I have way too many thoughts but for today I will focus on Dan/Yok and why this story is so important if people can get past their hurt feelings and see the bigger picture.
Dan Is Not the Enemy The System Is
I can’t believe after watching this week’s episode I still see comments like “Dan betrayed them.” “I knew it was him all along” “I hate him for hurting Yok”. At face value I get it but what happen wasn’t that simple. To get to this point we have to go backwards. Yes Dan killed Sean’s father. I believe this act defined how some people see Dan and really, they have been waiting for him to be the big bad they have decided he is. Let’s look at the shooting, a rookie cop, a bad shot, he actually showed remorse, but the department covered it up. He didn’t intentionally take a life. Now should he have gone to jail for it? Yes!! So I will forever be upset about that since he did not he decided to fight injustice in his own way. He still believed in the system. That it could be fixed from within. It may be naïve but it’s not pure evil. This doesn’t make him bad it makes him idealistic. There were moments where both Black and White have shown idealism.
In any fight for justice there is no one way to achieve that goal. You need everyone, those who are willing to get their hands dirty and those who work within the system. Honestly if all parties worked together you have a better chance overturning the true enemy which are those at the top and system that keeps them in power. But you can’t yell a system so we choose to focus on people. Enter the Dan hater crew.
Fast forward to his confession on the roof with Sean. In that moment he was prepared to take his own life. Twitter was WILD with people saying they didn’t trust him cause he hesitated. Angry that Yok (who was in love with him) and Gram weren't supporting Sean’s thirst for vengeance. Taking a life is not the cure some of these people on line think it is. If you don’t think Sean would have been haunted by that then I question your humanity. Plus a dead cop on the roof would not have been good for anyone. If Gram and Yok had not been tough on Sean they would not have stopped that from happening.
Now we reach Ep 13. Even in this episode Dan was loyal till he was threatened. No Dan was not a secret agent. He never intended to turn his back on them. He did exactly what he promised. He thought he found someone he could trust. Yes he was naïve and too altruistic. We can all say he should know better but when you believe in the system it’s hard to see it any other way. The moment in which he betrayed them was after he was kidnapped. The old man threatened his family and he made a choice. He believed he was saving everyone’s life. That jail was better than death. He did not want Yok to die or his parents. Even after all of that when the time came he helped them escape putting himself and his parents in danger. How is he still getting slander? What should he have done? This was not a black or white situation. It’s like the trolley question. It’s an impossible choice. To act as if he’s some big bad who was “just what you expected” is so short sighted.
Why Aren't We Talking about the OLD MAN?
People are so wrapped up in Dan’s betrayal they aren’t asking the bigger questions. Who was that old man? Clearly he has known everything that’s been going on. Dan wasn’t even necessary. Plus Todd already had plan to frame them. They were screwed no matter what. The old man is more powerful than Todd and Tawai combined. The old man in my mind represents the system. Taking down one man, two men isn’t enough. We have to focus on fully dismantling the system or those at the top will keep doing this. We are so easily distracted in pointless debates when Dan wasn’t in control. Take that energy and put it where it belongs and those controlling they system. We always go for the little guy cause he’s what we can reach but it does nothing.
22 seconds · Clipped by SweetKK29 · Original video "[Eng Sub] NOT ME เขา...ไม่ใช่ผม | EP.13 [4/4]" by GMMTV OFFICIAL
What I find most interesting about this show is that everyone has similar goals Dan, the gang, Black, Todd but their ways to achieve it are drastically different. Who’s to say which is the right or wrong way? That is what makes this show so unique. It refuses to spoon feed us the answers. You have to decide. Are you the person that let’s your family die for the cause? Do you go to jail for the cause? Would you kill an old friend for the cause? Would you die for the cause? There will be a sacrifice. How do you judge the decisions of others with examining what you would be capable of. Think about it.
After reading @moon-penguinn‘s post on the Yok/Prometheus parallels, I was inspired to think more about Yok’s drawing of Dan and the parallels between him in ep 13 and Lucifer in Paradise Lost.
Folks have pointed out how the piece could be read as an allusion to Alexandre Cabanel’s the Fallen Angel. That makes a lot of sense with Dan having made a big mistake in the past that could be read as a fall from heaven along with how he becomes aware of the corruption of the police and his dream (heaven) crumbles around him.
But I also think it’s interesting in the context of ep 13. If I understand right, Cabanel’s angel is based on Paradise Lost which has interesting themes surrounding power that feel relevant to Dan being caught up in a corrupt system. In literary criticism, the character of Lucifer in Paradise Lost is typically read in either of two ways (both of which add interesting parallels): a) Lucifer is the tragic hero rebelling against a tyrannical god and b) Lucifer is a villain recreating the power of God for himself
I’m so conflicted bc idk if dan betraying the gang was just part of his plan to help them or not… like idk how he could even help them by betraying them tbh, but also rewatching his conversation with yok in the first part, why would he say that he would bring him home to meet his parents “when everything is over”, as well as “wait for me” & “we will win this fight together, I promise” if he didn’t mean it?? dan might be a coward but I don’t believe he would be that cruel. but also I don’t wanna get my hopes up looooool </3
nevermind, dan is wearing the same outfit in the hospital scene & the one when he gets taken by techit, meaning they happen all in the same day… so what dan told yok prior to that probably doesn’t apply bc he didn’t think he’d betray him :’(
So I was thinking his betrayal CAME OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE! after that ‘wait for me’ speech. But now I’ve had a few hours to process, here’s my two pennies worth…
Dan has been against the gangs illegal…methods, from the start. He tried to convince Yok that what they’re doing isn’t the right way to go about getting justice. He convinced them to make a new plan and involve the police instead of taking matters solely into their own hands. And actually, when you rewatch the scene between Dan and Yok where he talks about going away for a while, Dan is already so full of doubt. He never was fully on board with this plan I don’t think.
But that’s not to say Dan really believes in the justice system either. He knows it’s flawed, he knows good people get fucked over again and again because of it. But is he willing to admit that? Is he willing to accept what he’s devoted his life so is a complete sham when it’s the only thing that’s been holding him together for so long?
The bottom line is, he’s lost and he’s scared but he’s in love. And then he meets this old guy, and reality comes crashing down. Sure, they might take down Tawia, but this thing is so much bigger than all of them that it wouldn’t actually matter if they cut the head off the snake. Because another will just replace it. And worst case scenario, Yok and his friends die trying.
So he gives in. He falls to his knees. He accepts they can’t win this. It’s better and safer for everyone if they just stop now. Yok will hate him, hate him as much as he loves him, but at least he’ll be alive.
I’m just going to get some thoughts, comments and suggestions for possible changes out of my head. All suggestions are made with the thought in mind that if you do not have the time to properly deal with the emotional repercussions of certain writing decisions, do not make them; soften the impact, change it to a situation you can deal with.
1. Sean’s anger
I gotta say that I almost forgot his anger against Tawi or Tawi as an antagonist at all over the past few episodes. And what I noticed is that Sean’s anger and his revenge-storyline got split into two, between Tawi and the police or more so the police officer who shot his father. The thing is, the two instances are not directly connected with Dan not working for Tawi not having a direct influence in that death. The issue of Tawi secretly moving drugs, influencing the justice system to drop the case without further investigation and the ‘cover up’ of how Sean’s father got killed get muddled and I would say there are multiple issues mashed into one case.
It would probably give enough substance to have it as the center conflict of a show all on itself without even bringing Todd into it as a second villain. Not to mention that I think that whole arc again takes space and time from the story of Yok and Gram having their own anger against the system and their own goals of what they want to achieve.
Now, a suggestion of change would be to keep Tawi at the center of Sean’s anger with him also being more directly responsible for the father’s death. The drugs still get discovered, Tawi needs a scapegoat for it and there’s the possibility of Sean’s father being randomly chosen as the scapegoat. Techit could’ve been the one to shoot him, placing it as a suicide due to guilt over trafficking drugs under the cover of Tawi’s company without Tawi’s knowledge. This way you do not have to introduce a new character, and the one who killed Sean’s father is one of the ‘bad ones’ to begin with, so you do not have to deal with the redemption arc and save time. (Ntm that it could make for an interesting final confrontation of Techit going ‘I killed your dad’, but that’s not necessary.)
Dan’s involvement can still be possible if the police is paid off for looking away from the drugs being transported, but Dan is the new cop and wants to do everything right and notices the drugs. Therefore the case with Sean’s father happens. Dan again finds it odd because maybe the amount of drugs in the report don’t add up with what he saw and details don’t work out in the report, but he’s told by the superiors to stay still.
Again, you still have the conflict of him realizing that the police is not that great organization you always thought, and even when he did the right thing in noticing the drugs an all, it still went sideways because the powerful people control the playing field instead of the law.
This way also Dan’s redemption for indirectly causing the death of Sean’s father takes up less space in the writing of the story because he is not the one who pulled the trigger.
2. Dan’s guilt
His guilt in the show about shooting an unarmed civilian even given the circumstances and how he got basically reassured by the rest of the police that it’s not ‘that bad’ sits incredibly deep. (which is understandable btw, I’m not trying to talk this down.) The thing, that also came to mind after the last episode is that with my basically non-extent knowledge about psychology I would assume, that after that incident there’d be an issue with even using a gun again, much less pointing it and shooting at somebody, no matter if good or bad. And yet, where also the amount of Dan’s later revealed guilt doesn’t make sense to me, he holds Yok (another unarmed civilian) at gun point in the beginning with no issue.
That’s where the disconnect for the writing of the character comes from for me. What we know now about his character does not make sense to me when looking back at the beginning. (I also feel like Dan is not written as a 30+ adult.)
Again, with the suggested changes of the story with Sean’s father, it would work out again, and you could even make it a point of him having the gun, yes, but no ammunition? Something like that.
Now, this does remove the police as a problematic organization from Sean’s storyline to a degree, but you can fill that “empty space” with possible issues of police officers mistreating Yok’s mum at some point, and creating an arc for his personal goal of fighting for the better treatment of disabled people.
This would also create a pattern for the relationships, that I personally think would be very cool:
Sean falling for somebody from a privileged up class family, the same class of people, who caused his father’s death.
Yok falling for a police officer, who is part of the organization that makes the life of his mother difficult.
And finally some more thoughts about Gram and Black:
Gram has been shown especially in the scene with Yok’s fireworks as somebody who is more cautious and on the side of being scared. Black on the other is more on the extreme side of feral. So, Gram as somebody who is not prone to violence and is interested in fighting within the system of law and changing that playing field falls for somebody who doesn’t have a big issue with violence. So, you would have opposing standpoints of what to do when the laws you have do not work the way they are supposed to.
(Ntm them being the opposite to Sean and White, with Sean being the angry one and White the cautious one, and creating a parallel of what White said about Sean being the bravery and himself being the fear in that training scene, with this time Gram being the caution/fear and Black being the anger.)
Also, keep Eugene as the friend. Possibly also the friend for telling Gram, that she knows he’s into Black and she understands him being scared to admit it. And maybe even making a comment about Gram looking after Black, because that boy has self-destruction written all over his face. Eugene could’ve just ‘faded out of the picture gracefully’ same as Namo to give space/screentime to more important things.
And ending in the note, that for the Gramblack angst, you basically just need really short scenes of him seeing “Black” and Sean getting closer and being upset. And he can voice that in other scenes with Eugene als this confusion about Black changing, to further show that there’s still the option of friendship if you’re into the same guy. Wouldve made both characters deeper, imo.
Those are my thoughts, it got really long, but I just wanted to get it off my chest. Maybe I’ll add to it later if I think of something else, but this is it for now.
It is just it has been the same thing over and over and over.
Maybe they will be right but at this stage it doesn't make sense.
Dan has been established long before meeting Yok as someone that uses his art to go against the system , even if he is still part of it.
We have seen with Yok how he is trying to find a way to resolve his conflict, he is a cop but he has seen first how corrupted is that system.
And then we have his guilt about killing a man, in the flashback he is the only one that reacted in a human way, meaning he felt guilty and tried to go against all the justifications of his chief.
Dan is an overall complicated character cause he is living a huge ass conflict, a naive hope to change thing and a big baggage of guilt.
So unless the show is going to come in these last three episodes and tell us that the background we've got about Dan is fake and it has been all a lie, it makes no sense this boy to go and suddenly help a criminal.
i just think if dan were really to gather intel on the gang he would be more interested in the missions and plans they have but he says ‘i can’t get involved with that; i just want to help keep you guys safe’ and i can’t mesh that with the ‘dan is going to sell them out’ theories. like sean said not everybody is willing to go combative or go to the extremes the gang is and i feel like that’s what dan is saying; ‘i can’t put people at risk by burning down houses/getting involved poisoning a beverage supply but i can make sure y’all know you’re being watched and how to minimise the risk of getting caught’
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