Yes I'm here again!

Despite vowing not to touch any more Thai BL after the unfolding disaster that was this year, I nonetheless pressed play on TharnType: 7 Years of Dysfunction (sorry, love) and here I am. I know this is the review you have all been waiting for.

Well, it's been seven years since Tharn and Type got together and refused to deal with any of their internal relationship issues. So here we are, kind of tired and muted and a bit sad after seven years of Tharn avoiding conflict because of his fear of rejection and Type being publicly in the closet because he refuses to admit he's gay. The two do nothing but bottle things up, have a kind of passive-aggressive fight and then have sexy times to cover the cracks. I suspect as viewers we're just supposed to enjoy the sexy times and not notice that this relationship is terrible. But it is. It's terrible. I desperately want both of them to break up and go find somebody else better suited to them. Or at least FINALLY deal with the issues in their relationship. Also, Tharn has these moments where he's absolutely f'ing creepy to younger gay men and it only reminds me that he was abused as an adolescent and nobody is doing anything about it. His abuser is practically living at his family's house. But at least he's no longer dating a literal child.

So it's seven years later and Type is struggling at work in probably the only plotline that is possibly about something (there IS a big difference between studying and working and dealing with workplace nonsense can be exhausting). And I'll expand on the implied point here - there is literally nothing else in this drama so far that is about anything. There is no plot. At all. The show is lacklustre and paint by numbers. Even the shoe-horned soft-core porn I'm supposed to be distracted by is phoned in. They devoted actual screentime to Type being jealous over a woman despite his boyfriend being completely 100% gay. And if I touched on the screaming misoygnism of that whole plotline I'd be here all week.

Tharn wants to get married because he think that means that Type will be his possession and can therefore NEVER LEAVE (marriage doesn't work like this, my damaged friend) and Type doesn't want to get married because if he marries a man he might have to admit he's gay and we can't have that because this is Thai BL and we all know GAY IS BAD. And of course you'll remember show completely glossed over this conflict at multiple points even though it's the main one. Possibly if Tharn needs constant emotional reassurance he shouldn't have spent seven years with a man who's already married to his closet and again - these two are TERRIBLE for each other. Break up! Do better. I get it, you love each other. It's not enough!

Since this show is unlikely to be about these two actually working out any of these issues but will inevitably find an external conflict for them to pretend they're a rock under siege then I should bow out now. But if I did then how could I reliably report back that TharnType is a bad show about a dysfunctional couple and you shouldn't bother getting invested.

This has been my much-anticipated review of TharnType: 7 Years of Ignoring All Our Real Issues.