The Trainee 1×03 Review: “The Grown-Up Battlefield”

“The Grown-Up Battlefield” continues to field test our intrepid interns as they are brought on location to shoot the ad they’ve been working on the past couple of days. The Trainee is really delivering on a realistic workplace series that I feel like everyone can relate to, even if you don’t work in production.

It’s a pretty rare BL that actually spends so much time focusing on the job. And I’m not just talking about how the industry skews heavily towards high school or college-set dramas. Oh, there are series set at a workplace, or where we see specific characters at their job, but for the most part, that’s a secondary thing. (Seriously, for as often as we saw Prapai at the office in Love in the Air, how often was he actually working?) The Trainee is giving me Cherry Magic vibes (and not just because Ryan needs to channel his inner Achi), because the working together is actually an important part of the dynamic.

With “The Grown-Up Battlefield”, we expand a little bit more on the things we saw in last week’s episode. Pah and Pie are spending more time together, given the very important task of handling the second unit filming. Meanwhile, Ryan assists Jane on the first unit, and Ba-Mhee shadows Judy with the client. All of them have their own hurdles that they have to overcome.

Despite Ryan’s initial screw-up (showing up 10 minutes late might not be a big deal in some places, but it’s vital when you’re on such a tight schedule), and some early fumbles, I think he’s slowly finding his footing. Some viewers are frustrated that he’s making such basic mistakes (letting the extra leave, not knowing how to silence his phone), but I think he should get some grace because this is an entirely new industry for him and it is, after all, only his third day on the job.

What’s important to note is that once Ryan receives clear instructions, he is pretty good at staying on task. The problem is that he’s only really being taught after he makes a mistake. Still, he adjusts to the situation. When he can’t figure out how to silence his phone, he just shuts it off. Once he knows that he’s not allowed to let the extras leave, he doesn’t. When the problem extra goes around him and leaves anyway, he comes up with a solution that saves them a little bit of time.

I think it says a lot about him that he is so willing to learn. He was late to the office and missed the ride to the shoot, so he found his own way there. He even was still semi on time. And later, when Jane calls him back to the set, he hurries to comply, even though he was told it could wait until he was finished eating. I think it’s that attitude and his effort that Jane recognizes, even if Ryan still has to be instructed about a lot of relatively small things. (I feel like it should be pretty obvious how to use a walkie-talkie.)

Ryan’s main issues that he needs to overcome are his lack of assertiveness – although he does stand up for himself at the end when he is almost blamed for Pie’s mistake – and his inability to foresee problems. He’s very proactive when there’s a problem to solve, but he doesn’t have the depth of knowledge yet to be proactive in preventing problems from occurring. I suspect that we’ll see him get to that point, maybe even soon.

Where Ryan seems to be warming to the job, even if it’s not something he necessarily wanted, Ba-Mhee doesn’t seem to have any interest at all in what she’s doing. Either that, or she’s one of those people who didn’t seriously consider that work involves working. Honestly, Judy has way more patience than I do. She scolds Ba-Mhee once for being on her phone, and then proceeds to ignore it every other time. I would have snatched that phone out of Ba-Mhee’s hand.

I think I mentioned before that Ba-Mhee really only wants to be there because Tae is there. But I don’t think she realizes that poorly performing at an internship could really affect her career. She doesn’t seem willing to learn anything, nor does she seem to know what her role actually is. When Judy asks her to handle refreshments, Ba-Mhee’s response is to wait for the support team to show up and then ask them, rather than going out to find the support team herself.

Pie, despite being trusted to oversee the work in the second unit, is frustrated that she hasn’t been given an “important” job. As dismissive as she was of secretarial work last week, she’s just as dismissive of not being on the first unit. After she finishes her job – and even does it well – she wanders over to the first unit and almost immediately screws up. She inserts herself where she doesn’t belong and ends up sending one of the extras home, which results in the whole crew having to stay late to wait for her to come back.

In “The Grown-Up Battlefield”, Pie is now in the place that Ryan was in last week’s episode. She is extremely hard on herself for a mistake. It’s the failing of the overachiever – you don’t let yourself make mistakes. I like that she showed how hesitant she was about letting the extra go; you could tell that she wanted to ask Jane, and in the end, I think she didn’t want to be a nuisance. If she had just been like, “Yeah, of course, the schedule says you’re done”, I wouldn’t have liked that. At least this way, she recognizes that she does not, in fact, know everything.

Pie’s issues are that she needs to allow herself to make mistakes, and she also needs to recognize that there is no such thing as an unimportant job. She is very bad at being a team player. They show this early in the episode, when she’s hassling hair and makeup about when they’ll be finished. And later, she has trouble relating to the crew members.

Contrast this with Pah, who is a great team player. He seems to be able to develop camaraderie with everyone quickly, as shown by the rapport he already has with the crew on second unit. He also does his level best to help Pie fit in better with the others, and he goes overboard trying to prop up Pie by telling everyone about her accomplishments. 

Unfortunately, he does this by being self-deprecating. When he says things like, “I could never do that,” Pie tells him that he won’t know what he can or can’t do if he doesn’t try. I think Pah’s biggest issue is going to be his confidence. I wouldn’t have thought that after the first two episodes, but this episode shows that he seems to be trying very hard not to brag about his skills. He clearly knows what he’s doing, but he seems almost afraid to be considered good at something.

And Jane? Jane is a phenomenal boss in “The Grown-Up Battlefield”. He’s patient with Ryan. He trusts Pie and Pah to handle second unit on their own. He steps in to defend Ryan when the problem extra gives him a hard time. When he realizes that Ryan’s shoelaces are a recurring problem, he handles it himself. Most importantly, though, he leads by example. When the client dresses down the entire crew for going over time with the shoot, Jane accepts responsibility and apologizes for everyone.

Phew, I needed to fan myself multiple times during this episode. Honestly, the scene where Pie steps forward to take the blame but Jane stops her may in fact be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. 10/10, no notes.

The dynamic between Ryan and Jane continues to soften. I loved the moment when Ryan was looking at Jane, and Jane turned around and caught him at it. I think it shows that Ryan’s feelings are already developing, and while Jane may not be on the same page, he’s still aware of Ryan.

I do think The Trainee needs to pull out something pretty big in order to shift the relationship to romance, though. Right now, I can very easily see how Ryan starts to fall for Jane (even if he doesn’t have the competency kink that I do). He’s already starting to look at Jane with stars in his eyes during the small moments when Jane drops out of Boss Mode and into Human Mode.

But I’m not sure how they can believably have Jane’s feelings about Ryan change. I think it will need to be something not related to the job. They should be in a situation that doesn’t have anything to do with work at all. Otherwise, I just don’t know how they’ll have Jane start to see Ryan as anything other than one of his interns.

This show is hell on my anxiety, and I do not handle second-hand embarrassment well at all, but it’s probably one of the better produced GMMTV shows in recent memory. So far we’ve avoided a lot of standard BL tropes, and there’s been a significant lack of sound effects. The cinematography is great, the pacing is pretty tight, and all the cast are doing a great job. I look forward to Sunday every week.

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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