Uncomfortable with Vlad staying over, Karl throws him out. But when his guilt gets to him, he struggles to make a decision. Will he allow Vlad to stay with him in secret? (Source: Globe Studios Youtube Channel)
Let's Make room for those who've lost their sense of home...
ironic words or what, to end this ep with - keeps making me wonder WTF went on with the writer, that he can on one hand write some deep moving shit and on the other, act like a total unscrupulous animal. guess that's the consequence off all ur blood leaving ur brain - he created this wonderful drama (plot wise) and he has shattered it's perfection. cause i can't stop thinking about "it" or about how everything get's an ironic twist - cause of his actionsplot wise great and still funny, as the first time around - liked the "pay it forward" twist making Karl open him house to Vlad. and their connection to movies, furthering their house-share option. also like how the straight guy is portraying the out and proud gay - while the one out and proud, is playing the closeted gay that is unsure and a bit phobic. shows how hard both actors worked, to give us this perfect representation of their character's
Karl's struggle continues from being neighbors to housemate. Aside from financial struggle, we see Karl having a road block in achieving his real dream and identity.*Mention of Anne Curtis here as derivative gay lingo is connotative as being a socialite. Paolo (Karl) acting here was deliberately provoked and was indeed a cheerful BTS story in itself.Comic reliefs are more focus on land-lordship and socio-economic stability, Vapid as it seems by a few, but it's the society we grew up in. Which also had been the main reason for inequality apart from the dissonance when it comes to finding someone's true sexual orientation and gender identity.Karl and Vlad made a pact only that might fire up in a mutually assisted chaos.
Personally, I'm not a fan of Karl's imagination scenes - but yeah, that's personal preference thing, they just make me stressed because I relate so they're not bad or anything. I'd just rather skip over them. This episode gets into some heavier topics and again I don't think that's a bad thing at all, as long as it's addressed well (which so far I'd say it has been), but personally made this specific episode very stressful for me to watch. Some of it was awkward and made me cringe but the same disclaimer applies here as well, that kind of thing just isn't up my alley. I'm giving it a highly biased 7.5/10 - without bias I'd probably put it at an 8 or 8.5. I do appreciate the nuance I'm seeing in the main characters, and although am still not fully attached to them, I feel that I will become more attached the more I watch.
This episode gave us comedy gold skit (ehem, cold glow-in-the-dark condoms) and gave us slap-in-the-face social commentary on the current struggles of the LGBTQ+ community. Love it.
In almost every series, I consider the second or third episode as something responsible for actually setting the tone for later episodes. In this episode we get to know more about Vlad and Karl, as well as get clues on what future conflicts may arise. I'm not going to go too in depth but this episode claims the purpose of the series, and that is really to take stories back. The dinner table scene exemplifies this the best, and the delivery on both ends exposes the awareness of the characters (or lack thereof).
Episode 2 was a good episode. There was a slight drop from the excitement and fun of last week's pilot episode but it was still enjoyable. The story moved along on this episode with some revelations about Vlad's past relationship. Karl also got himself a part-time job. But there were some scenes that were a bit dragging. While the fantasy sequence and dream sequence were alright, I hope they don't overuse them in future episodes. There were good dialogues, particularly the dinner scene, and there were funny lines, specifically the opening scene with the hilarious Adrienne and the post-dinner scene with shirtless Ian (who, with or without shirt, is gorgeous!), but there were also chessy lines, notably the closing scene. Acting was generally ok but Ian needs to enunciate better (which didn't really take away much from his good deep voice) and Pao needs to tone down a bit to avoid overacting (he's still cute though!). But these were just minor issues. Both were far better than newbie actors of other Filipino (Pinoy) boys' love (BL) series, so they did just fine. Production value was still very good. Music was also very good. All in all, I still enjoyed this episode.