Last Twilight (Thai Series)

This Thai BL love series also came highly recommended and I was looking forward to. To be honest, the story and chemistry was fairly engaging for almost 9 episodes (although attire it did feel like being unnecessarily stretched). Our two leads, who are very different characters were healing each other and growing together towards a better life. But, as it happens a lot of time, the makers gets. Too excited for whatever reason and they completely botch up the whole thing towards the end. The show should ideally have ended at the 9th episode. But the makes likely thought they have a winner on hands and instead they mess it up, at least for me. I felt cheated. The show is 12 episodes, and each episode is almost an hour or longer in duration.

We meet our protagonists. Day is a badminton player who loses his sight and can only see about 20%. He is bitter about the whole thing and spends his days locked up in his room. Then we have Mhok, ho comes from a different world. He is quick to pick up fights, but when he lost his sister to an accident, he is determined to get her car back by paying off the loan. Destiny brings them together when Mhok gets hired as a caretaker for Day, since his mother and brother are busy. Mom looks at this as an interim job to just earn enough. After a fe pintail hiccups and the duo not getting along, slowly both Day and Mhok start getting used to one another. Mhok makes Day realize that he is normal and is still able to do everyday things and slowly helps him become self sufficient. These include arranging his things, eating, going out shopping, meeting friends etc. And in contrast, working with Day, he also slowly realizes that this life is so much better than the rowdy life he had. So a few episodes focus on these two getting along. A mandatory love triangle is thrown, when we see that Day's ex badminton player comes into picture. Apparently him and Day used to like each other but things have changed now. Slowly both Mhok and Day realize that their relationship is no more than just that of a caretaker. Also Day is obsessed with this book called "Last Twilight" since apparently the book is all about hope. So their outings also include a trip to the town where the author wrote the book. Evtnually Day loses his sight completely and since the mother is not happy with Mhok taking Day around, he quits his job as caretaker and they officially become boyfriends. When an eye donation happens, Day gets surgery but the surgery fails. Day tries to pick up things and Mhok even takes him on a trip where Mhok has gotten an opportunity to enhance his cooking skills as a chef. When Day finds out that Monk is getting an opportunity to go abroad for work but has refused because of Day, he breaks up with him. 3 years later th two meet again at Day's brother's wedding and the romance is rekindled.

The story about hope and love and accepting one another for who we are is actually a nice and warm concept. emphasizes the challenge of being in a relationship, rather than the obstacles in getting together. From how they portrayed Day and Mhok, it feels more of a character-driven story than plot-driven. In fact, in terms of plot it is very thin. It is almost the usual boy meets boy story, fall in love, a love triangle happen, they both have issues, eventually they fall back in love, then one of them decides to break u p for a silly reason, years fly and then they are back together. By now, we have seen this outline in Thai BL shows plenty of times, but this show gives an interesting touch with the choice of character it makes. You can see very easily how Mhok and Day’s clashes actually bring out honesty and clarity for each other, and the theme of acceptance and treating people with disabilities as equals are both really powerful. So while the love and growth was happening, we do get t o see many warm scenes and they make your heart full. But then in last three episodes, it was just meandering and twists for just no reason. I actually would have liked to see the show end when they become boyfriends. The whole situation of Day breaking up with Mhok made no sense from a story perspective. I mean, I do understand where he was coming from, but wtf! Can't you chat and talk like mature individuals for God's sake. And then randomly in last 15 minutes, another time jump happens where Day gets his eyesight back. I feel really disingenuous to the disability theme to show that he needed his eyesight back for it to be considered a happy ending. Part of this is also just because it all happened so fast it felt thrown in. We also have parallel track of Mhok's ex girlfriend turned best friend and her eventually finding love in Day's brother.

There are positives in the show but also negatives at the same time.  The show is thankfully devoid of any jealous exes, girls throwing themselves on a guy who is clearly not into them, and stupid misunderstandings (I mean there is one stupid break-up, but you know what I mean). However, none of this is ground-breaking anymore. Other BL series have also moved past the negative portrayal of women and the other toxic tropes that were part of older BLs. This show took a simple story and had a unique representation from a differently abled person's POV. I am hoping that the makers will continue to take more feedback and get even better. The challenge now is to have a plot that can hold the viewers' attention until the end. (6.5/10)