Bad Buddy: Watch Diary, Episode 11

This episode is a strange one. It is not at all difficult to understand what its role in the story is, but at the same time I find it hard to really pinpoint what makes it special.

Honeymoon

One significant detail about this getaway is that Pat and Pran call it their honeymoon. They run away from their families and their homes to live with each other. Once they reach their destination, the camp they went to in episode 6, they even disable their phones. They cut all ties to the outside world to for at least a while. This episode is more or less supposed to be a dream of a better world. What if their families didn't hate each other and they could just be themselves around them? There is a small section at the end of the episode when they say this question out loud, but really the entire episode is a dedication to this question.

However while they do live in that fantasy for a while, it doesn't take long to clash with reality. Pran doesn't even last a day without worrying about his family, wondering if they are looking for them and if they will still be angry if they go back. They turn it into another game: Whoever talks about their families first, loses. But unlike the last time they started such a game, Pran can't find the motivation to win. The next day, while cooking a fish, Pran almost intuitively begins to talk about his mother, because the sauce he is preparing is her recipe. He realizes that he lost the game and immediately feels awful again, but Pat acts like he didn't notice and they don't touch the topic. On the third day, Pran can't hold out any longer and already has his phone in hand, ready to call his mother again. He doesn't do it, but later tells Pat that he pondered it which leads to a small fight between them.

It's obvious that they can't continue the way they acted for the past days. Sure, the people are nice, the food is good and they can find work helping the local people. But all that can't undo the fact that they don't belong there. Neither of them had a dream of a life like that. Pat dreamed of running his family business, Pran wanted to become an interior designer, artist, musician … And of course, neither of them wanted to lose their families forever. It doesn't matter how nice their life seems in that place, how much they enjoy their time and the isolation from all their troubles. That life is ultimately not who they truly are and they will have to return to their families and their old lives sooner or later.

That is what a honeymoon ultimately is. It is a short ride on a wave of good feelings. But it is not what your life as a couple will be.

The Zero-Waste Camp

The camp that Pat and Pran are staying at is a zero-waste camp. It is run by a man named Tong. (When I saw him in episode 6, my first idea was that he looks like a director and indeed his actor is one. Not the director of Bad Buddy though.)

One evening when they all sit together, they talk about Tong's reasoning and motivation to run a camp like this. He gives an excellent argument how every single thing in modern life is incredibly wasteful. Everything you buy comes packaged in several plastic bags and those end up cluttering the environment. Tong merely wants to keep the beach clean. It is a small act, but it's a righteous one. But that moves Pat and Pran to ask one question: Why does he keep doing it? Trying to counteract the wastefulness of society itself is a losing battle. He will never be able to clean more than that small camp and even that is already a battle of attrition that he will eventually lose when he gets too old.

But Tong has a very simple, yet powerful answer to that: "Even if I can't change the world, I want to show that it can't change me either." Just because you're facing adversity, you shouldn't just give up who you are. This an extremely important message. You shouldn't do good things only when they promise success, you should do them because doing good things is a success in itself.

Within the context of the story, the message seems clear: Pat and Pran shouldn't make their love dependent on the people who accept it or not. They should show them that their love is part of who they are and that their families have to accept that because they can't change it. There is a subtle hint at Pran embracing this message even before Tong says it out loud. In the beginning of the episode, Pran still says that he quit playing the guitar, but Pat convinces him to play again and later Pran even finishes the song he initially wrote for the music contest. Pran didn't quit the guitar, his mother made him quit. And when he starts to play again, he is simply becoming less of what his mother wants him to be and more of who he truly is.

This may the strongest hint at a good ending for their love story so far.

Hints at a Bad Ending

In the very end of the episode, Pat and Pran seem to break up. They return to their families homes and tell each other "Good luck, buddy." The preview for the next episode confirms this impression. They tell their friends and families that they broke up and then one scene suggests that they will meet each other again during the reunion. Years. Later.

I really hope that it is some sort of fake-out and that their breakup is either performative because they are pursuing a secret plan, or that they will at least get back together sooner rather than later. I'm the guy who would gladly accept a downer ending that sees the couple break up as I explained in my reviews of both Fish Upon The Sky and Lovely Writer. But the reason why I'd like to see a breakup in those stories is that it fits. Because there were levels of toxicity and forces driving them apart such that a downer ending would still send the right message. However giving Bad Buddy a bad ending like that would literally be antithetical to the themes established in the series so far. And this episode in particular just cemented the idea that a happy ending for Pat and Pran is the only right outcome here.

After all these things they brought to the table. Pat and Pran overcame all these toxic social dynamics pitting them against each other. They are one of the healthiest couple in the history of BL. In the moment of highest tension, they actually choose each other and run away together instead of breaking up like so many other couples in this situation. And then this episode tells us that you shouldn't bend yourself to fit the whims of a toxic outside world. A bad ending would only send one message: "It doesn't matter who you are and how well you fit together. If your environment—and your families in particular—want to tear you apart, there is nothing you can do. Living peacefully together is nothing more than a short-lived dream from which you eventually have to return to reality." It would be spitting in the face of everybody who cares about positive representation of gay romance. Because shoving in a miserable ending for no good reason whatsoever is a staple of everything bad with gay romance in the past decades.

Obviously, it's just a preview. Previews are supposed to be misleading to increase engagement. So I still have high hopes that the story will end in a satisfying way.

The Small Stuff

There is a subplot about Tong's son Junior who doesn't want to go to be with his mother, but rather wants to stay at the camp with his father instead. The plot is supposed to mirror the way Pran and Pat are trying to escape their own fantasies. It wakes feelings in Pran who realizes that staying at the camp is no long-term solution.

We get to witness Pat and Pran's first time. We only see the aftermath when they lie next to each other, Pran wrapping his arm around Pat who is sleeping with his back to him (i. e. Pran is the big spoon). Pran asks Pat how he was and Pat makes a hand gesture that I assume means that number 10. Fans took this scene as an implication that Pran is the top and Pat the bottom, but honestly, I'm not convinced. The only things that hint at this are themselves stereotypical associations. And this series has been about breaking stereotypes so much, I can't believe they'd still follow this most blatant stereotype of all. All we can actually infer from that scene is that they enjoyed it and that's what matters anyways.

There are a few short clips of Pa and Ink being happy together and of Wai and Korn being friendly with each other which reminds us that there still is an outside world and that not everything sucks as much anymore.

What If?

I cannot overstate how well made the last scene of the episode is. While Pran is playing the song he now finished, we flash back to a conversation that Pat and Pran had on the beach. It is actually a flashback to the scene in episode 6 which was the first time I realized that I'm not just watching a good series, but an actual masterpiece. They have a conversation about what their lives would be like if their families weren't enemies. We get a flashback to an imaginary past and see Pat sit beside Pran at the table in Pran's home and they just have dinner together and enjoy their time. It is so simple yet so effective. You get nostalgic for a past that never was merely based on this short scene alone. Yet at the same time it is so obvious that this scene will forever remain a fantasy. They wasted their childhoods fighting a fight they never wanted. And mending the rift between their families seems entirely infeasible. It is too late to change the past. And thus the happy imagination fades and we see them part ways in front of their homes.

Conclusion

Watching characters have a good time was always awkward to me. I'm so used to watching for the conflict rather than these happy moments. But now we have an entire episode that is focused almost exclusively on the "honeymoon" of our main couple. However, there is a lot more going on in this episode than just a happy fun time. In fact, it seems to be the crucial episode to decode the message of the entire series. It is incredibly complex and difficult to put into words. I'm a bit disappointed that the conflict between the families itself wasn't really advanced in this episode, and it worries me if they can fit a satisfying resolution into the final episode. But the episode we got is great and it would be unfair to judge the creators for that. I'm looking forward to the conclusion.