Wandee Goodday 1×07 Review: Episode 7

They should change the name of this show from Wandee Goodday to Wandee Not Having a Goodday after this week’s episode. It ripped my heart out of my chest and then kicked it for good measure. And though the ending made me giggle and kick my feet, can we really trust what we’ve seen? This show is from the same people that gave us The Eclipse, after all.

Oh, this episode hurt. It hurt so much. But at the same time, I think all of the drama Dee and Yak went through has solidified – to themselves at least – where they’re both at with their feelings. They might not have communicated to each other that they’re on the same page, but they clearly are. This is not fake dating. (Let’s be honest, this was never fake dating. But these boys are stupid.)

This is never more evident than later in the episode, when both of them are given the opportunity to kiss their crush, and both of them refuse. We knew that Dee was more or less over Ter, after the way he’s talked about him recently. (We may not know what would have happened if Ter hadn’t passed out drunk, but I think Dee was giving off enough “stay away from me” signals that he would have stopped on his own.) But Yak was still determined to date Taem even last week. (She seems just as affected by the near kiss, which I found interesting because up until that moment I got no romantic vibes from her at all.)

A conversation that Dee has with Kao early in the episode confirms that he knows that he has feelings for Yak. In fact, at some point off-screen, he’s even told Kao that he intends to finally break the no kissing rule. He even seems to be willing to risk his scholarship, as he tells Yak that he doesn’t want to go to Japan; he doesn’t want to leave Yak, even for a few days.

Meanwhile, Yak is doubting himself. Not only does he find an old photo of Dee and Ter tucked in a book, which makes him believe Dee isn’t as over Ter as he claims, but also Ter confronts him and claims to know Dee better. Unfortunately, his worst fears seem to be confirmed when he goes over to Dee’s for a late-night meetup only to find Dee is not home. Ter called him over to his place, ambushed him with a “romantic” meal, and got him talking about their upcoming presentation. And Yak finds Dee at Ter’s and jumps to the wrong – but understandable – conclusion.

This is when Yak rightfully punches Ter in the face. If anyone needed to be punched in the face, it’s Ter, especially because he is ignoring Dee’s boundaries. (I even thought that he needed a punch in the face like ten seconds before Yak actually punched him.) Sadly, Dee accuses Yak of always resorting to violence (which, when has he ever??? boy is a marshmallow), which prompts Yak to tell Dee that they should end their fake relationship. He even demands his necklace back.

Cue the pain. Obviously, neither of them wanted things to end. But as much as they’ve communicated their needs in bed, they haven’t really talked about the deep stuff in their relationship. Namely, the fact that they’re clearly in love with each other. What upsets me is that Dee had intended to do just that; he’d set up a romantic dinner for him and Yak, and I do believe that he meant to confess over dinner. But then Ter slinked over with his punchable face and ruined things.

(Though, to be fair, Dee shares some blame in that. He could have easily told Ter he was busy and shut the door in his face. He didn’t even change out of the tiger getup before going over. But then, it’s really hard to shut off feelings that you’ve had for so long. He was probably going on autopilot and didn’t even realize until Kao came to get him how long it had been.)

Both Yak and Dee spiral a bit. Dee has what seems to be a minor panic attack at the loss of Yak’s necklace. And Yak is so bothered by the breakup that he spaces out during his boxing match and gets knocked out.

After Yak’s loss, there is a tense scene with Yei and Cher. Yei is berating Yak for his poor performance in a match that was previously expressed to be important. I gather, from context clues, that the prize money he should have won was sorely needed for the gym. (Either that or Yei bet money on Yak. Or both.) Here Yak gets extremely emotional and hyper-critical of himself.

One read on this scene is that Yak doesn’t love boxing as much as he used to – if he ever did. He worries about being a disappointment to everyone – Yei, their mother, Dee – and repeatedly states that he sucks. It’s possible that he felt pressured into becoming a boxer, like Yei and their father, and it’s not what he wants to do. He is, after all, getting his degree.

This especially makes sense if you contrast his boxing match with Dee’s presentation. Yak is unfocused, seeing Dee and Ter canoodling every time he looks at the crowd. He’s obviously upset at what happened, and is allowing his emotions to distract him from something that was stated to be very important for him. Dee, on the other hand, is able to present his research seemingly without any issues. Though we know he is just as devastated as Yak (his repeated, unanswered calls are proof of this), he does not allow it to affect him. Despite the fact that he didn’t want to go to Japan in the first place, we know how important being a doctor is to him. It stands to reason, then, that Yak is not as attached to being a boxer as we thought.

Side note: I love Yak and Cher’s relationship. Cher really does seem to be the voice of reason in a family of hotheads. I like that Yak feels comfortable coming to Cher for advice, and that Cher is willing to cover for him with Yei (even while lecturing him and advising against it).

Anyway, the crux of the episode is that Dee and Yak finally kissed! Seemingly after a phone call from Kao, where he finds out that Yak lost his fight, Dee returns “early” from Japan. (I put “early” in quotes because technically he’s probably returning on time, it’s just that Ter The Worst extended their trip without his knowledge or consent.) Dee tracks Yak down at the rooftop from last week’s episode and kisses him. Yak asks if the kiss was to console him on his loss – he’d asked for a kiss as a reward for winning – and Dee claims that it was. But then he kisses him again.

Now, initially, fandom freaked out – and deservedly so. We’ve been waiting on this kiss for weeks. Under normal circumstances, you usually get a kiss in episode 5, but considering the leads have been sleeping together since the beginning, we were well overdue. But that’s because Dee had placed such an importance on this kiss that we knew it was going to be a big deal when it happened. And it was! It managed to be tender and intense at the same time, and the way they grip each other when Dee goes in for the second kiss says a lot.

However, a lot of people started to point out that, hey, Wandee Goodday is by the same people who did The Eclipse. And for those who haven’t seen The Eclipse, we also got a kiss around this point in the show… that ended up being a dream. So people have started to speculate, was this kiss a dream?

I’m inclined to think that the kiss is real, if only because we know that Dee was already planning on kissing Yak earlier in the episode. We also know that he didn’t even want to go to Japan in the first place, and that without his ticket having been switched (again, without his knowledge or consent), he would have been back by now. So it’s totally plausible that he hops on the next flight out to find Yak and comfort him.

But I guess we truly won’t know until next week. The wait is going to kill me!

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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