Bad Buddy: Watch Diary, Episode 4

I gotta say I'm surprised. The 4th episode not only succeeded in addressing my main issue with the previous episode, it also managed to handle another issue better than I'd expect.

The Character Dynamic

Pat and Pran appear a lot more as equals than in the previous episode. There's still this small imbalance when Pat is the one who treats Pran's injury rather than the other way around and Pat enters Pran's apartment without permission, but overall I got far less of an impression that they were falling into the classic top-bottom dynamic. There is a lot more bickering between them in this episode. They seem far from being good friends at this point.

One thing that sticks out to me is that Pat is painted in a less positive light when he bothers Pran. His attempt to help find Pran's earphones leads to their destruction. When he invites himself into Pran's apartment, Pran is extremely annoyed and ultimately throws him out. He doesn't smile or look at him longingly afterwards, he genuinely pissed. When Pat asks Pran if he can spend the night in his room because he locked himself out, Pran first refuses and only changes his mind after Pat already gave up. Small nuances like this can go a long way to send the right message. After Pat's harassment in the previous episode was so unambiguously positive, this episode manages to show a healthier perspective. Pat isn't perfect, but not awful either. And Pran can stand his ground against him.

The way Pat and Pran manage to convince their teams to work together is great. They simply play into the rivalry to push them to outdo the other team. Teamwork disguised as competition. Their friends continue to look kinda shitty though because the rivalry continues and other facets of their personalities remain unexplored. I kinda hope they'll be put into more focus for a moment.

The Girl

This episode, a new character is introduced: Ink. She was Pat's and Pran's friend in high school and magically found her way to the same university as well. And thus the romance between Pat and Pran was disrupted when a love triangle between them unfolds. Pran is in love with Pat, that is pretty clear already. Pat however does not seem to feel the same way for Pran yet. In high school Pran already saw Pat and Ink together and got very jealous. He believed them to be together, but they may just have been good friends. This same dynamic now repeats at university.

When Pran and Ink talk with each other, Ink says that she only sees the two boys as friends. Again, we can't be certain about that, but there's no reason to assume she's lying either. As far as I can tell, she treats them both as friends and doesn't seem to prefer one or the other. We do however see Pat and her together a lot, but that has an easy explanation: Pat likes Ink, so he seeks her company. Pran on the other hand is jealous and avoids their company whenever they are together. Pat's interest in Ink is hinted at several times throughout the episode, but the ending makes it unambiguously clear. Pat and Pran simultaneously tell each other whether they like Ink. Pran says no, Pat says yes.

The jealousy that was depicted throughout the episode whenever Pran saw her with Pat and once the other way around, was a bit annoying to watch. Mostly because it's one of those conflicts that only exists because nobody wants to communicate. Luckily, it only took until the end of the episode for them to clear at least half of the misunderstanding. Pat thinks that he can simply try to date Ink without any hard feelings between them and it's true that Pran doesn't wanna fight with him about her. Pran's feelings for Pat remain unspoken however. His sadness when Pat told him his feelings was tangible.

Two episodes ago, I thought that Pran was pretty casual about his sexuality already, but now it seems that he is heading for a big tear-jerking coming-out scene. With Pat's assumptions about Pran being straight and Pran's complete silence in that regard, it begins to look that he isn't very casual about the topic at all. Is Pat aware that Pran was expecting a man when he went to their date on the roof?

I'm surprised how little I'm annoyed by this love-triangle so far. All too often when a girl is squeezed between the main couple, those are the most annoying moments of the entire series. But Ink is not toxic or obnoxious. She is not the cause of the conflict surrounding her. Her introduction served to flesh out the relationship between Pat and Pran, rather than needlessly disrupt it. Instead of driving them apart when they're already boyfriends, her introduction helped us understand the relationship that Pat and Pran have right now. And Pran's struggle in particular is extremely relatable as a result. Having a crush on a straight friend is like the number 1 or 2 on the list of struggles of every gay teen ever.

Seriously, Where's the Conflict?

Pat and Pran regularly pretend that they must not be seen together, but it honestly barely looks like they are trying to hide their friendship at this point. Meanwhile the bus stop is almost finished and their faculties are still rivals, but they don't seem particularly aggressive for the most part. The fact that their families pushed them into rivalry seems to be lost in these intermediate episodes. It's the second episode in a row where the families are basically absent.

The way their conflict was built up in the first two episodes, I basically see it as a promise that they will elaborate on it in a future episode. In a similar vein, the first episode featured three choreographed fight scenes, the second featured one and now the best we're getting are a few moments in a rugby match. I'm worried that those initial episodes might have given a completely unrealistic impression of the series' identity overall. Though with regards to the family feud, I'm optimistic that it will become more prominent again. The potential for conflict if Pat and Pran announce their relationship to their families, is just too huge to go ignored.

With regards to the bus stop: I think it's done already? After a short montage they seem to focus on other things again. It doesn't look like there are any repercussions for the lies that I suspected Pran was telling to establish the bus stop as a place of truce.

Smileys Everywhere

The focus shifted away from the "(:(" emoticon a little. However plenty of smiley faces remain visible everywhere in Pran's room. When Pran lends Pat a shirt of his for the night, that shirt has the word "friend" on one side and "unfriend" on the other mirroring the duality of the emoticon. The smileys remain prominently visible and Pat even explicitly reads out the shirt's motive, yet I'm beginning to wonder if I over-estimated their significance. Their inclusion is so consistent and deliberate, but apart from that moment when Pran flipped his door hanger upside down in episode 3, there doesn't seem to be any meaning behind them at all. Especially the symbolic meaning that the resolution of the main conflict will be achieved through a change in perspective begins to sound extremely far-fetched. I'm gonna keep looking for it though.

Conclusion

After the last episode, I was worried that the series would just drift into stereotypes and mediocrity. But the way this episode shook up that impression, I'm quite optimistic again. The series seems to have its way of including the same tropes and stereotypes as so many others, but not falling into the same traps. I don't find this depiction of gay relationships to be toxic or offensive so far. It's a similar quality I found in 2gether.

I might be biased in regard to the topic of "gay angst". I'm a huge fan of coming-out stories and struggles with acceptance as long as it is relatable. And Pran's struggle in this episode turned out to be so relatable I almost shed a tear myself. I'm looking forward to the next episode now.