He's Coming To Me
When two of the most charismatic Thai BL actors in the business are in same series, deciding to watch it is the easiest decision you'll ever make. 2019 Thai series "He's Coming To Me" is that series, and Singto Prachaya (SOTUS) and Ohm Pawat (Make It Right) are the actors. Seriously, don't wait any longer, just watch it already.
Summary: When university student Mes dies a sudden death on his 22nd birthday in 1997, he isn't reincarnated but left as a ghost to roam the grounds of the cemetery where he was buried. He has other ghosts to spend time with, but he feels lonely because no friends or family visit the cemetery. No one attends to his grave and, with time, it becomes overgrown and derelict. When a kind young boy Than takes pity on the dilapidated grave and lights an incense stick, Mes suspects the boy can either see or hear him. As he grows older, Than continues to visit Mes's grave once a year, leaving food and candy that Mes has asked for, much to Mes's astonishment. But just when Mes is certain Than can see him, Than's visits cease. Mes is heartbroken but still holds out hope Than will return one day. In 2019, Than finally returns to the cemetery in his early twenties and talks directly to Mes. He confesses that he has always had the ability to see, hear and talk to ghosts but pretended not to, after his father had once threatened to take him for psychiatric treatment. He's now so happy to see Mes again that he decides to become best friends with him and takes him to his Bangkok student apartment to live with him. Mayhem ensues, when his university friends - his basketball teammates joker Khiem and lovelorn Prince, and a beautiful intelligent young woman with low tolerance for bullshit Plaifah - think that Than has gone mad, talking to an imaginary friend. Than promises to help amnesiac Mes find out exactly who he is, and why and how he died, so that he can be reincarnated. But when their true feelings for each other rise to the surface, the boys begin to fear their inevitable separation.
Above all else, this series is a testament to the fantastic talents of its two lead actors, and how much their presence and abilities can elevate what's already a well-written story. The narrative itself is touching and sentimental in all the right ways for a BL drama, but it wouldn't be half the great series it is without Singto and Ohm in it. Singto has the more nuanced, challenging role of Mes. He mostly keeps his acting low-key and well-considered, where other less certain actors might more instinctively play its supernatural side for hammy laughs. (See Gunsmile's performance as Mes's ghost-friend at the cemetery as a comparison; it's a far more comedic turn that more or less works in itself, but it would be totally the wrong approach to take for the character of Mes.) Singto's is more obviously the lead role of the series, but he knows when to modestly yield the centre stage to his wonderful co-lead. Ohm's amazing performance is pure charm; he's completely credible as the kind-hearted Than, with an extraordinary gift of being a 'medium' that he's only just starting to take pride in. He gives full rein to his most likeable qualities; his winning combination of bad-boy mischievousness and devilish innocence, his total lack of pretension and self-consciousness, and that famously magnetic screen presence. The variety in the role is a perfect fit for his more mature and channeled gregariousness, and a natural extension of his star-making breakout role as Frame in Make It Right.
As for the story itself, it splits its narrative into three main parts: the initial episodes at the cemetery, the investigation into the mystery of Mes's true identity and how he died, and the growing attraction between Mes and Than. As good as the mystery plot is (it's damn good), your enjoyment of the series as a whole will largely depend on how much you can tolerate of its spirit/human love story. If you can't suspend disbelief and stop asking yourself how a ghost and a mortal can fall in love, half the battle is lost. But in another sense, this show is blessed with such a great screenplay that the love story is just one part of a larger narrative that exceeds expectations and delivers one of the year's best Thai BL series. It starts off slow and gentle, with its emphasis on run-of-the-mill comedy centred around Khiem's idiot joker routine, Prince's crush on Plai, and a sweet 'getting to know each other' friendship plot for the two leads. If it weren't for Ohm and Singto, these initial episodes might have seemed generic, dull and aimless. But the series soon creates a raft of extraordinary moments of intense drama, powerful emotion and - above all else - the grief and suffering arising from the death of a loved one, and it's unlike anything I've witnessed in BL before. The strange, overwhelming sadness of the possibility of losing someone who is already dead colours every scene where the boys appear together, and it's Than's purest but completely unspoken motive for everything he does to help Mes from the first day he sees him in the cemetery. For this reason alone, He's Coming to Me ends up being a BL viewing experience you'll remember for a very long time.
However it's often the smaller details about how Thai culture deals with death and its formal ceremonies that contribute to some of its most interesting story points, even though they aren't part of the story in themselves. There's a wonderful scene where Than burns a heap of new clothes as a spirit offering, so that Mes is able to try them on to see which ones he likes. All other scenes involving a spirit offering of food or clothes are just as good. Than also comes up with an ingenious solution involving an incense stick that allows Mes to leave the cemetery grounds permanently. There's a lovely scene where Than and his university friends (and Mes) visit a temple to 'make merit' with a monk. I was absolutely convinced that the monk could see Mes, and he gave Than and Mes such important and pertinent advice that virtually guaranteed it - although the odd scene thoroughly confused Than's friends. This leads to one of the better aspects of the series' first four or so episodes: Than's friends become increasingly suspicious of Than and his involvement in these sorts of inexplicable episodes. Plus when they witness him talking to himself, it disturbs them and makes them anxious about his mental health. This awkward tension and comedy ramps up, as Than's efforts to discover Mes's identity become increasingly desperate.
It's only once we move into episode five that the BL drama begins to warm up and the comedy drops away. There are gentle hints early on that the boys might have feelings for each other that are more than just as friends. Then in episode four, the tone changes abruptly, when Than's basketball teammates mock him and accuse him of being gay for not looking at some photos of half-naked women in their group chat. Than's shame-faced defensiveness when explaining the incident to Mes cracks the door open for what's to come. But it's in episode five that we finally get some memorably moving scenes that give us the BL story we've come to see. In the series' most romantic scenes, both of them being nighttime rooftop scenes overlooking Bangkok, Than and Mes contemplate their future in agonised tears at the thought of losing each other. The two actors are pitch perfect at conveying the emotions underpinning their friendship, and the audience instinctively feels their deeper, truer pain too. Ohm's acting in these scenes is passionate and heartbreakingly good, while Singto's is beautifully restrained, as if he is already resigned to his fate. Theirs is some of the best acting I've seen in a BL drama so far. Scenes like these could have easily fallen into the trap of morbidity, and possibly taken down the rest of the series with them, but full credit to the actors and writers for balancing the tone of grief, sentimentality and BL yearning.
The final episodes expand on the BL beautifully but also dial up the drama with some unforgettable, unexpectedly powerful emotional outbursts of pain and loss. There's nothing in the comedy and light tone of the initial episodes that can prepare you for the profoundly moving spectacle of Episode Six, which gives us some explosive revelations that destabilise all the central characters. Ohm's acting somehow manages to get even better in this episode. And yes, you will be crying! The irony of the final few episodes is that the truth which Than and Mes have been deliberately avoiding - the inevitability of the loss of Mes and his reincarnation - becomes more obvious with every new clue that Than uncovers in the mystery of Mes's life and horrible death twenty years earlier. They simply refuse to talk about the future, especially Than, who is by now so attached to Mes that he can't imagine life without him. As a result, the audience keenly dreads what's approaching in the finale, Episode 8. Without giving away any spoilers, the ending hedges its bets for a while to keep us on tenterhooks. Then, in the last three minutes, it throws its careful storytelling out the window with some pointless, badly-timed comedy and the sort of disappointing supernatural plot device that it had largely avoided during the rest of the series. Almost any other ending would have been better than these final few minutes, and it reeks of an enforced last-minute rewrite. It's hard to say whether it detracts from the effectiveness of the series overall, but it definitely doesn't help. After living through some really fine moments in episodes 5 to 8, but then to see it all end so poorly, it makes it hard to bear thinking about. It also reinforces just how patchy and generic a lot of the series has been, even as it hits dramatic heights that most other BL series never even catch a glimpse of.
He's Coming to Me is the Thai BL series that fans of personal, deeply-felt emotional BL drama have been waiting for. When it manages to step out of its restrictive cage of Thai BL cliches, and allows Singto and Ohm to deliver their powerhouse performances, this series reminds us of the potential that BL has always had and can contribute to TV when all of its elements - especially its actors and screenplay - come together to demonstrate our fundamental connection to what makes us human, in both life and death.
Rating: 16/20
Ending: This is the one time I'm not going to give it away! Too much of the series depends on it.
Best scene:
There are so many brilliant moments in this series.
- Expect to be crying with Than and Mes during the two painfully good rooftop scenes in episodes four and five.
- If you're looking for total emotional devastation as part of your BL viewing experience (as I always am!), look no further than Than's extraordinary scene with his concerned mother in episode five.
- Than's angry confrontation with one of the key characters when Mes's mystery is solved is deeply shocking. Like the other characters present during the quarrel, I almost felt like I had to stop him and apologise on his behalf, he's so disrespectful in his rage, especially as a Thai. Fantastic acting.
Summary: When university student Mes dies a sudden death on his 22nd birthday in 1997, he isn't reincarnated but left as a ghost to roam the grounds of the cemetery where he was buried. He has other ghosts to spend time with, but he feels lonely because no friends or family visit the cemetery. No one attends to his grave and, with time, it becomes overgrown and derelict. When a kind young boy Than takes pity on the dilapidated grave and lights an incense stick, Mes suspects the boy can either see or hear him. As he grows older, Than continues to visit Mes's grave once a year, leaving food and candy that Mes has asked for, much to Mes's astonishment. But just when Mes is certain Than can see him, Than's visits cease. Mes is heartbroken but still holds out hope Than will return one day. In 2019, Than finally returns to the cemetery in his early twenties and talks directly to Mes. He confesses that he has always had the ability to see, hear and talk to ghosts but pretended not to, after his father had once threatened to take him for psychiatric treatment. He's now so happy to see Mes again that he decides to become best friends with him and takes him to his Bangkok student apartment to live with him. Mayhem ensues, when his university friends - his basketball teammates joker Khiem and lovelorn Prince, and a beautiful intelligent young woman with low tolerance for bullshit Plaifah - think that Than has gone mad, talking to an imaginary friend. Than promises to help amnesiac Mes find out exactly who he is, and why and how he died, so that he can be reincarnated. But when their true feelings for each other rise to the surface, the boys begin to fear their inevitable separation.
Above all else, this series is a testament to the fantastic talents of its two lead actors, and how much their presence and abilities can elevate what's already a well-written story. The narrative itself is touching and sentimental in all the right ways for a BL drama, but it wouldn't be half the great series it is without Singto and Ohm in it. Singto has the more nuanced, challenging role of Mes. He mostly keeps his acting low-key and well-considered, where other less certain actors might more instinctively play its supernatural side for hammy laughs. (See Gunsmile's performance as Mes's ghost-friend at the cemetery as a comparison; it's a far more comedic turn that more or less works in itself, but it would be totally the wrong approach to take for the character of Mes.) Singto's is more obviously the lead role of the series, but he knows when to modestly yield the centre stage to his wonderful co-lead. Ohm's amazing performance is pure charm; he's completely credible as the kind-hearted Than, with an extraordinary gift of being a 'medium' that he's only just starting to take pride in. He gives full rein to his most likeable qualities; his winning combination of bad-boy mischievousness and devilish innocence, his total lack of pretension and self-consciousness, and that famously magnetic screen presence. The variety in the role is a perfect fit for his more mature and channeled gregariousness, and a natural extension of his star-making breakout role as Frame in Make It Right.
As for the story itself, it splits its narrative into three main parts: the initial episodes at the cemetery, the investigation into the mystery of Mes's true identity and how he died, and the growing attraction between Mes and Than. As good as the mystery plot is (it's damn good), your enjoyment of the series as a whole will largely depend on how much you can tolerate of its spirit/human love story. If you can't suspend disbelief and stop asking yourself how a ghost and a mortal can fall in love, half the battle is lost. But in another sense, this show is blessed with such a great screenplay that the love story is just one part of a larger narrative that exceeds expectations and delivers one of the year's best Thai BL series. It starts off slow and gentle, with its emphasis on run-of-the-mill comedy centred around Khiem's idiot joker routine, Prince's crush on Plai, and a sweet 'getting to know each other' friendship plot for the two leads. If it weren't for Ohm and Singto, these initial episodes might have seemed generic, dull and aimless. But the series soon creates a raft of extraordinary moments of intense drama, powerful emotion and - above all else - the grief and suffering arising from the death of a loved one, and it's unlike anything I've witnessed in BL before. The strange, overwhelming sadness of the possibility of losing someone who is already dead colours every scene where the boys appear together, and it's Than's purest but completely unspoken motive for everything he does to help Mes from the first day he sees him in the cemetery. For this reason alone, He's Coming to Me ends up being a BL viewing experience you'll remember for a very long time.
However it's often the smaller details about how Thai culture deals with death and its formal ceremonies that contribute to some of its most interesting story points, even though they aren't part of the story in themselves. There's a wonderful scene where Than burns a heap of new clothes as a spirit offering, so that Mes is able to try them on to see which ones he likes. All other scenes involving a spirit offering of food or clothes are just as good. Than also comes up with an ingenious solution involving an incense stick that allows Mes to leave the cemetery grounds permanently. There's a lovely scene where Than and his university friends (and Mes) visit a temple to 'make merit' with a monk. I was absolutely convinced that the monk could see Mes, and he gave Than and Mes such important and pertinent advice that virtually guaranteed it - although the odd scene thoroughly confused Than's friends. This leads to one of the better aspects of the series' first four or so episodes: Than's friends become increasingly suspicious of Than and his involvement in these sorts of inexplicable episodes. Plus when they witness him talking to himself, it disturbs them and makes them anxious about his mental health. This awkward tension and comedy ramps up, as Than's efforts to discover Mes's identity become increasingly desperate.
It's only once we move into episode five that the BL drama begins to warm up and the comedy drops away. There are gentle hints early on that the boys might have feelings for each other that are more than just as friends. Then in episode four, the tone changes abruptly, when Than's basketball teammates mock him and accuse him of being gay for not looking at some photos of half-naked women in their group chat. Than's shame-faced defensiveness when explaining the incident to Mes cracks the door open for what's to come. But it's in episode five that we finally get some memorably moving scenes that give us the BL story we've come to see. In the series' most romantic scenes, both of them being nighttime rooftop scenes overlooking Bangkok, Than and Mes contemplate their future in agonised tears at the thought of losing each other. The two actors are pitch perfect at conveying the emotions underpinning their friendship, and the audience instinctively feels their deeper, truer pain too. Ohm's acting in these scenes is passionate and heartbreakingly good, while Singto's is beautifully restrained, as if he is already resigned to his fate. Theirs is some of the best acting I've seen in a BL drama so far. Scenes like these could have easily fallen into the trap of morbidity, and possibly taken down the rest of the series with them, but full credit to the actors and writers for balancing the tone of grief, sentimentality and BL yearning.
The final episodes expand on the BL beautifully but also dial up the drama with some unforgettable, unexpectedly powerful emotional outbursts of pain and loss. There's nothing in the comedy and light tone of the initial episodes that can prepare you for the profoundly moving spectacle of Episode Six, which gives us some explosive revelations that destabilise all the central characters. Ohm's acting somehow manages to get even better in this episode. And yes, you will be crying! The irony of the final few episodes is that the truth which Than and Mes have been deliberately avoiding - the inevitability of the loss of Mes and his reincarnation - becomes more obvious with every new clue that Than uncovers in the mystery of Mes's life and horrible death twenty years earlier. They simply refuse to talk about the future, especially Than, who is by now so attached to Mes that he can't imagine life without him. As a result, the audience keenly dreads what's approaching in the finale, Episode 8. Without giving away any spoilers, the ending hedges its bets for a while to keep us on tenterhooks. Then, in the last three minutes, it throws its careful storytelling out the window with some pointless, badly-timed comedy and the sort of disappointing supernatural plot device that it had largely avoided during the rest of the series. Almost any other ending would have been better than these final few minutes, and it reeks of an enforced last-minute rewrite. It's hard to say whether it detracts from the effectiveness of the series overall, but it definitely doesn't help. After living through some really fine moments in episodes 5 to 8, but then to see it all end so poorly, it makes it hard to bear thinking about. It also reinforces just how patchy and generic a lot of the series has been, even as it hits dramatic heights that most other BL series never even catch a glimpse of.
He's Coming to Me is the Thai BL series that fans of personal, deeply-felt emotional BL drama have been waiting for. When it manages to step out of its restrictive cage of Thai BL cliches, and allows Singto and Ohm to deliver their powerhouse performances, this series reminds us of the potential that BL has always had and can contribute to TV when all of its elements - especially its actors and screenplay - come together to demonstrate our fundamental connection to what makes us human, in both life and death.
Rating: 16/20
Ending: This is the one time I'm not going to give it away! Too much of the series depends on it.
Best scene:
There are so many brilliant moments in this series.
- Expect to be crying with Than and Mes during the two painfully good rooftop scenes in episodes four and five.
- If you're looking for total emotional devastation as part of your BL viewing experience (as I always am!), look no further than Than's extraordinary scene with his concerned mother in episode five.
- Than's angry confrontation with one of the key characters when Mes's mystery is solved is deeply shocking. Like the other characters present during the quarrel, I almost felt like I had to stop him and apologise on his behalf, he's so disrespectful in his rage, especially as a Thai. Fantastic acting.
Comments
(Only one correction: Met learns that Thun can see him when the latter is still a little boy. Remember, they even hug.)
And oh, A second Ae/Pete series would make me SO happy! That trailer for that "Love by Cathy Doll" thing, whatever it is, annoyed me so much, with no sign of Pete and Ae moping around. I know a lot of people actually prefer TinCan, so they might not care, but I very much do.