2gether The Series
Thai BL 2gether The Series (2TS) generated massive hype when it first began to air in early 2020. Everyone loved its fantastic early start, and word of mouth spread quickly across social media, pulling in big weekly audiences for creators at GMMTV. But as the series progressed, some viewers' opinions started to sour. Let's take a closer look and try to work out if it really is true love or nothing more than fake flirting.
Warning: spoilers ahead, read with care if you haven't watched the whole series yet.
Summary: Freshman law student Tine is a free-and-easy ladies man, and, together with his three best friends, he lives a fun, carefree life at university. He's fallen into a dating slump though, and he can't find a decent connection with any of the women he meets. When an effeminate gay man Green loudly confesses his love for him and starts stalking him, horrified Tine tries to find ploys to get rid of him (you'd think he'd just say he's not gay and not interested, but ok, let's go with it). Green, however, sees through all his tricks and refuses to give him up, so Tine turns to a desperate last resort: he decides to ask the hottest, coolest guy on campus, Sarawat, to pretend to be his boyfriend. Sarawat is the brooding musician loner type, and he flatly rejects Tine's offer. But Tine persists, putting himself in Sawarat's way at every opportunity. After Tine accidentally smashes Sarawat's phone, Sarawat ramps up his revenge, pushing the two closer together. When Tine manages to get into Sarawat's university music club after a lot of hard work, an impressed Sarawat finally gives in. He at last agrees to be Tine's fake boyfriend. But does he have an ulterior motive? Oblivious Tine's sudden interest in a new girl Pear puts Sarawat under mounting pressure to make a decision. Is Sarawat's increasingly ambiguous behaviour nothing more than his latest revenge? Will the pretend relationship and fake flirting turn into something more, or will it scare both boys away before it goes any further?
Everything falls into place so well for this series. Its comedy-focused screenplay is one of the best of its kind in Thai BL, and its two lead actors make a great couple and are highly watchable. It certainly helps that the actor playing Sarawat, Bright, has a compelling screen presence, with his smouldering dark-eyed stare and his abrasive yet introverted persona. It's a highly contained performance that lets his facial expressions do all the hard work, so it's a real bonus that he's so good at it. Debut actor Win does fantastic work as Tine; he's a natural new talent with great acting instincts, and he clearly loves every minute of his work. His crying scenes in particular have the sort of credible acting that we rarely get to see in a BL series. How can this be his first acting job?! We can expect to see a lot more of him in the future. (I'd love to see him in a drama with a more forceful director like P'New, for example.) Together, these two are always fun and entertaining to watch - though, to be honest, their chemistry can sometimes be patchy.
The humour in this series is regularly laugh-out-loud hilarious, and it's mainly because it ties in so well with the 'Are they or aren't they?' guessing game of their fake flirting. Sarawat's ongoing obsession with grabbing Tine's "boobs" never gets tired, it's honestly one of the funniest running jokes you'll ever find in BL, mainly because they come up with such great ways of reusing it. Bright plays Sarawat's emotionless cool guy image to perfection. He almost never cracks a smile or gives anything away, so the writers have come up with some brilliantly funny ways of turning his image against him when he's confronted with how he feels about Tine. Watching him being forced to perform a silly dance in front of everyone at Tine's freshman orientation while still trying to look cool is gut-bustingly good comedy.
There are some noticeable weak patches in these initial episodes. Its most painfully obvious and disappointing weakness is the way the writers deal with Green. As with all effeminate, 'out' men in a BL drama, his main purpose is to serve as an object of ridicule and mistreatment. In the series' most horrifying scene, Tine tries to drug him in an attempt to get rid of him. How is this acceptable, and why do writers think this is a legitimate way to tell a story? One day, BL characters such as Green will be considered as human beings who are the equal of everyone else in the story, and not just as stupid, disposable comedy props that challenge one of the central characters' sexuality. (Side note: do you think we'll ever see the day where a character like Green will be part of the main couple in a standard BL drama like 2TS? I honestly don't.) The other glaring weakness is the BL subplot involving Sarawat's innocent younger brother Phukong and a selfish, nasty Architecture senior Mil. Played by famous 'Cause You're My Boy actors Frank and Drake respectively, there's initially some hope that their rapport will spark some interest, but their acting is simply not good enough and they can't overcome their deadly boring, senseless and badly written story. There's repeated use of music and songwriting as a way of expressing love, but their quality never rises above mediocre, and even Sarawat's much-vaunted guitar-playing and original songs don't make a much of an impression. As sometimes happens with GMMTV dramas, the editing, sound recording and direction can be a mess and create confusion.
But the light-hearted comedy wins us over in the end, and it's hard to think of another BL story that has this much fun. There's a brilliantly executed series of scenes where a very confused Tine starts hallucinating that Sawarat appears wherever he goes. It's hard to think of a better, funnier way of showing that the poor boy can't get Sarawat out of his head. In one of the best scenes in the series, Tine is unwillingly roped into wearing a silly blue wig to be in a photo with Sarawat. When scenes are as good as this one, it has the added benefit of making it easier for the audience to understand why Sarawat falls in love with him, Tine is absolutely adorable. Tine's bunch of friends are supportive and kind, especially wise, observant Fong. Their 'bad restaurant reviews' are weird and a nice original touch in a series that doesn't have much in the way of originality. You know what you're in for when Gunsmile is in a new BL comedy series, but he's next-level funny here because he always finds something to do with literally nothing. Playing one of Sarawat's friends Boss, he is his inimitable self and this series' secret weapon, even though he has just a handful of scenes throughout the entire series. He steals every scene he's in - whether he's lurking in the background behind the main characters, getting catatonic drunk, being selfishly greedy about eating BBQ pork, or twisting his face into ridiculous expressions at nothing in particular. Please GMMTV, just give this guy his own series already.
However the comedy soon drops away and the tension mounts, as Sarawat gets increasingly frustrated with Tine's inability to take the hint. Episode 7 in particular throws everything at its audience - fights, revelations, regrets, realisations, confusion, anger, apologies, confessions. But what it does best of all is show us the moment when our heroes set aside all the lies and manipulation they've subjected each other to, and instead they at last face up to the truth openly and honestly. The confession of love scene is superb, adroitly pulling in all the loose threads with a beautifully written moment of passionate emotion that can't be contained any longer. Just like 'Cause You're My Boy, 2TS's climax has a breathtakingly good flashback sequence involving a rock concert that reshapes our experience of the series in the light of its big reveal. Once the initial shock subsides, it's so good just to sit back and let such a beautiful moment wash over you. It's really well-written, and it gives Sarawat in particular greater depth and interest. It forces us to reconsider everything we've watched in the previous 7 episodes, and it's impossible to come away from it without a huge smile on your face and your heart glowing.
Then, suddenly, everything turns to crap.
It's strange and sad, but the program suddenly doesn't know what to do with itself after episode seven's life-giving emotional climax. After giving us one of the most entertaining BL stories ever put to screen in its first 7 episodes, everything comes to a grinding halt with no sense of where to go next. What on earth were the screenwriters thinking?! Instead of giving the two leads a natural progression in their new relationship, or perhaps focusing more on a secondary coupling, it confusingly throws in more of the 'are they, aren't they' moments. Even more pointlessly, it adds some unforgivable padding. Sarawat's macho war with Mil is an attempt to amp up the tension but it fizzes out quickly with almost no impact. The sudden appearance of Tine's tactless brother Type almost ruins episode 10 by being both worthless and stupid, when it should have been so much more. There's a moment of 'revelation' with Sarawat's friend Mann that was on track to be one of the series' best scenes, but the way it's written is so bad, it destroys our hopes for something better. Episodes 11 and 12 are the most pointless of whole series, as Tine and Sarawat go on a 'Love Sick'-style tree-planting weekend with the music club, and the sudden appearance of Sarawat's friend Pam makes Tine jealous. It's meant to generate tension and show us Tine's uncertainty & stress about his new relationship, but no matter how hard it tries, the storyline is just not interesting. There's too much contrived drama riddled with BL clichés in these episodes, and even the romance gets cloying as Tine turns into an anxious shadow of his former self. It makes sense to present Tine as an insecure lover in his first serious relationship, but the writers take things way too far by warping his character with self-sabotage and paranoia when faced with even the tiniest doubt about Sarawat's love. This is not the Tine we know and love. Sarawat doesn't fare any better. He becomes a caricature of his earlier self, without any of his distinctive personality left to redeem him. All his powerful emotion is suddenly channelled into being a violent, protective lover and a few patronising head pats for Tine. Why would the writers mistreat their central characters in this way, reducing them to the most mundane aspects of seme and uke BL types? There are so many other, better ways of throwing obstacles under the feet of a newly-established couple in a BL drama. 2gether The Series doesn't even bother looking for them. Instead, it uses boring standard BL tropes, as if the enjoyment of its earlier, fantastic episodes didn't even exist.
But none of this compares to the horribly botched final episode 13. It ties in all the subplots and padding from the last few episodes, but that's not what we're here for. We want some seriously good Tine/Sarawat resolutions and romance that demonstrate how far they've come and what they've learned. Giving them a memorable ending is what they deserve. Instead we're given a very poorly directed concert competition sequence and a jump into the future that has zero romance or comedy. We don't even get a hug or a kiss, we get a high five instead?! (I'm certain this high five will become notorious and something that BL fans will point to forever as a prime example of how not to finish a BL series.) It actually ends up feeling more like a bromance than a renewed, stronger BL relationship. A montage of flashbacks of past episodes - which is never a good sign in a BL series that has run out of ideas - is meant to be sweet, but it merely serves as a contrast to show how good the initial episodes were and how meaningless this final episode is. Sarawat and Tine have a guitar lesson scene that's devastatingly awful in its cruelty. This backward step towards the same old 'are they, aren't they' teasing, ambiguous behaviour from Sarawat made me so angry, and it strikes entirely the wrong note. Is this honestly supposed to reassure the audience that their relationship is on the right track, with frank and open communication? How are we supposed to view this as a happy ending, which it's clearly meant to be? God, what a massive disappointment.
It's still very easy to recommend this series solely on the basis of its first seven episodes and the two lead actors (and the legendary Gunsmile, still my favourite BL actor). But after all the hype and excitement 2TS generated when it first aired, you need to temper your eager expectations of whether this series is ultimately successful or not before you watch it. In this spirit, it's probably best to approach it with a more open mind than I did. I don't deny that this series was on track to be one of my favourites. But now it's up there with Until We Meet Again and HIStory 3: Trapped as one of my biggest disappointments.
Rating: 13 out of 20. Essential viewing.
Ending: happy
Best scene: Episode 7 has some of the best BL you'll ever see.
EDIT: oh my God, there are people out there with the same Gunsmile obsession! Check out these golden YouTube videos that edit the camera view to follow him through his appearances in 2TS. Brilliant. He's like a character in Seinfeld.
Warning: spoilers ahead, read with care if you haven't watched the whole series yet.
Summary: Freshman law student Tine is a free-and-easy ladies man, and, together with his three best friends, he lives a fun, carefree life at university. He's fallen into a dating slump though, and he can't find a decent connection with any of the women he meets. When an effeminate gay man Green loudly confesses his love for him and starts stalking him, horrified Tine tries to find ploys to get rid of him (you'd think he'd just say he's not gay and not interested, but ok, let's go with it). Green, however, sees through all his tricks and refuses to give him up, so Tine turns to a desperate last resort: he decides to ask the hottest, coolest guy on campus, Sarawat, to pretend to be his boyfriend. Sarawat is the brooding musician loner type, and he flatly rejects Tine's offer. But Tine persists, putting himself in Sawarat's way at every opportunity. After Tine accidentally smashes Sarawat's phone, Sarawat ramps up his revenge, pushing the two closer together. When Tine manages to get into Sarawat's university music club after a lot of hard work, an impressed Sarawat finally gives in. He at last agrees to be Tine's fake boyfriend. But does he have an ulterior motive? Oblivious Tine's sudden interest in a new girl Pear puts Sarawat under mounting pressure to make a decision. Is Sarawat's increasingly ambiguous behaviour nothing more than his latest revenge? Will the pretend relationship and fake flirting turn into something more, or will it scare both boys away before it goes any further?
Everything falls into place so well for this series. Its comedy-focused screenplay is one of the best of its kind in Thai BL, and its two lead actors make a great couple and are highly watchable. It certainly helps that the actor playing Sarawat, Bright, has a compelling screen presence, with his smouldering dark-eyed stare and his abrasive yet introverted persona. It's a highly contained performance that lets his facial expressions do all the hard work, so it's a real bonus that he's so good at it. Debut actor Win does fantastic work as Tine; he's a natural new talent with great acting instincts, and he clearly loves every minute of his work. His crying scenes in particular have the sort of credible acting that we rarely get to see in a BL series. How can this be his first acting job?! We can expect to see a lot more of him in the future. (I'd love to see him in a drama with a more forceful director like P'New, for example.) Together, these two are always fun and entertaining to watch - though, to be honest, their chemistry can sometimes be patchy.
The humour in this series is regularly laugh-out-loud hilarious, and it's mainly because it ties in so well with the 'Are they or aren't they?' guessing game of their fake flirting. Sarawat's ongoing obsession with grabbing Tine's "boobs" never gets tired, it's honestly one of the funniest running jokes you'll ever find in BL, mainly because they come up with such great ways of reusing it. Bright plays Sarawat's emotionless cool guy image to perfection. He almost never cracks a smile or gives anything away, so the writers have come up with some brilliantly funny ways of turning his image against him when he's confronted with how he feels about Tine. Watching him being forced to perform a silly dance in front of everyone at Tine's freshman orientation while still trying to look cool is gut-bustingly good comedy.
There are some noticeable weak patches in these initial episodes. Its most painfully obvious and disappointing weakness is the way the writers deal with Green. As with all effeminate, 'out' men in a BL drama, his main purpose is to serve as an object of ridicule and mistreatment. In the series' most horrifying scene, Tine tries to drug him in an attempt to get rid of him. How is this acceptable, and why do writers think this is a legitimate way to tell a story? One day, BL characters such as Green will be considered as human beings who are the equal of everyone else in the story, and not just as stupid, disposable comedy props that challenge one of the central characters' sexuality. (Side note: do you think we'll ever see the day where a character like Green will be part of the main couple in a standard BL drama like 2TS? I honestly don't.) The other glaring weakness is the BL subplot involving Sarawat's innocent younger brother Phukong and a selfish, nasty Architecture senior Mil. Played by famous 'Cause You're My Boy actors Frank and Drake respectively, there's initially some hope that their rapport will spark some interest, but their acting is simply not good enough and they can't overcome their deadly boring, senseless and badly written story. There's repeated use of music and songwriting as a way of expressing love, but their quality never rises above mediocre, and even Sarawat's much-vaunted guitar-playing and original songs don't make a much of an impression. As sometimes happens with GMMTV dramas, the editing, sound recording and direction can be a mess and create confusion.
But the light-hearted comedy wins us over in the end, and it's hard to think of another BL story that has this much fun. There's a brilliantly executed series of scenes where a very confused Tine starts hallucinating that Sawarat appears wherever he goes. It's hard to think of a better, funnier way of showing that the poor boy can't get Sarawat out of his head. In one of the best scenes in the series, Tine is unwillingly roped into wearing a silly blue wig to be in a photo with Sarawat. When scenes are as good as this one, it has the added benefit of making it easier for the audience to understand why Sarawat falls in love with him, Tine is absolutely adorable. Tine's bunch of friends are supportive and kind, especially wise, observant Fong. Their 'bad restaurant reviews' are weird and a nice original touch in a series that doesn't have much in the way of originality. You know what you're in for when Gunsmile is in a new BL comedy series, but he's next-level funny here because he always finds something to do with literally nothing. Playing one of Sarawat's friends Boss, he is his inimitable self and this series' secret weapon, even though he has just a handful of scenes throughout the entire series. He steals every scene he's in - whether he's lurking in the background behind the main characters, getting catatonic drunk, being selfishly greedy about eating BBQ pork, or twisting his face into ridiculous expressions at nothing in particular. Please GMMTV, just give this guy his own series already.
However the comedy soon drops away and the tension mounts, as Sarawat gets increasingly frustrated with Tine's inability to take the hint. Episode 7 in particular throws everything at its audience - fights, revelations, regrets, realisations, confusion, anger, apologies, confessions. But what it does best of all is show us the moment when our heroes set aside all the lies and manipulation they've subjected each other to, and instead they at last face up to the truth openly and honestly. The confession of love scene is superb, adroitly pulling in all the loose threads with a beautifully written moment of passionate emotion that can't be contained any longer. Just like 'Cause You're My Boy, 2TS's climax has a breathtakingly good flashback sequence involving a rock concert that reshapes our experience of the series in the light of its big reveal. Once the initial shock subsides, it's so good just to sit back and let such a beautiful moment wash over you. It's really well-written, and it gives Sarawat in particular greater depth and interest. It forces us to reconsider everything we've watched in the previous 7 episodes, and it's impossible to come away from it without a huge smile on your face and your heart glowing.
Then, suddenly, everything turns to crap.
It's strange and sad, but the program suddenly doesn't know what to do with itself after episode seven's life-giving emotional climax. After giving us one of the most entertaining BL stories ever put to screen in its first 7 episodes, everything comes to a grinding halt with no sense of where to go next. What on earth were the screenwriters thinking?! Instead of giving the two leads a natural progression in their new relationship, or perhaps focusing more on a secondary coupling, it confusingly throws in more of the 'are they, aren't they' moments. Even more pointlessly, it adds some unforgivable padding. Sarawat's macho war with Mil is an attempt to amp up the tension but it fizzes out quickly with almost no impact. The sudden appearance of Tine's tactless brother Type almost ruins episode 10 by being both worthless and stupid, when it should have been so much more. There's a moment of 'revelation' with Sarawat's friend Mann that was on track to be one of the series' best scenes, but the way it's written is so bad, it destroys our hopes for something better. Episodes 11 and 12 are the most pointless of whole series, as Tine and Sarawat go on a 'Love Sick'-style tree-planting weekend with the music club, and the sudden appearance of Sarawat's friend Pam makes Tine jealous. It's meant to generate tension and show us Tine's uncertainty & stress about his new relationship, but no matter how hard it tries, the storyline is just not interesting. There's too much contrived drama riddled with BL clichés in these episodes, and even the romance gets cloying as Tine turns into an anxious shadow of his former self. It makes sense to present Tine as an insecure lover in his first serious relationship, but the writers take things way too far by warping his character with self-sabotage and paranoia when faced with even the tiniest doubt about Sarawat's love. This is not the Tine we know and love. Sarawat doesn't fare any better. He becomes a caricature of his earlier self, without any of his distinctive personality left to redeem him. All his powerful emotion is suddenly channelled into being a violent, protective lover and a few patronising head pats for Tine. Why would the writers mistreat their central characters in this way, reducing them to the most mundane aspects of seme and uke BL types? There are so many other, better ways of throwing obstacles under the feet of a newly-established couple in a BL drama. 2gether The Series doesn't even bother looking for them. Instead, it uses boring standard BL tropes, as if the enjoyment of its earlier, fantastic episodes didn't even exist.
But none of this compares to the horribly botched final episode 13. It ties in all the subplots and padding from the last few episodes, but that's not what we're here for. We want some seriously good Tine/Sarawat resolutions and romance that demonstrate how far they've come and what they've learned. Giving them a memorable ending is what they deserve. Instead we're given a very poorly directed concert competition sequence and a jump into the future that has zero romance or comedy. We don't even get a hug or a kiss, we get a high five instead?! (I'm certain this high five will become notorious and something that BL fans will point to forever as a prime example of how not to finish a BL series.) It actually ends up feeling more like a bromance than a renewed, stronger BL relationship. A montage of flashbacks of past episodes - which is never a good sign in a BL series that has run out of ideas - is meant to be sweet, but it merely serves as a contrast to show how good the initial episodes were and how meaningless this final episode is. Sarawat and Tine have a guitar lesson scene that's devastatingly awful in its cruelty. This backward step towards the same old 'are they, aren't they' teasing, ambiguous behaviour from Sarawat made me so angry, and it strikes entirely the wrong note. Is this honestly supposed to reassure the audience that their relationship is on the right track, with frank and open communication? How are we supposed to view this as a happy ending, which it's clearly meant to be? God, what a massive disappointment.
It's still very easy to recommend this series solely on the basis of its first seven episodes and the two lead actors (and the legendary Gunsmile, still my favourite BL actor). But after all the hype and excitement 2TS generated when it first aired, you need to temper your eager expectations of whether this series is ultimately successful or not before you watch it. In this spirit, it's probably best to approach it with a more open mind than I did. I don't deny that this series was on track to be one of my favourites. But now it's up there with Until We Meet Again and HIStory 3: Trapped as one of my biggest disappointments.
Rating: 13 out of 20. Essential viewing.
Ending: happy
Best scene: Episode 7 has some of the best BL you'll ever see.
EDIT: oh my God, there are people out there with the same Gunsmile obsession! Check out these golden YouTube videos that edit the camera view to follow him through his appearances in 2TS. Brilliant. He's like a character in Seinfeld.
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