Burnout Syndrome 1×08 Review: Episode 8

This episode feels like a complete tonal shift from the previous ones, as Koh opens up more to Jira and Jira pulls further away from Pheem.

It has been, admittedly, hard to sympathize with Koh for most of this series. He has been, quite simply, a raging a-hole. He’s selfish and ill-tempered, and the past few episodes have shown him to be cruel and manipulative. I didn’t think they would be able to realistically bring him and Jira together. However, episode 8 shows us a new side of him, and reveals a bit of backstory that explains why he is the way he is.

The flashbacks of Koh with his parents are enlightening. Up until now, I’d assumed that his parents were kind and loving, and that they were taken advantage of because of that kindness, which then caused Koh to drastically overcompensate. But we can see from his memories that this is not likely the case. It seems that Koh’s father may have been a pushover, and his mother was highly resentful of that fact.

Her warning to Koh about not trusting anyone is a perfect example of how careful you have to be when you explain things to your children. It’s amazing how much damage a parent can do with just a few words. Things like that stay with you. I understand that she was angry when she told him this – about how the closest people to you will just betray you – but it’s so harmful. She could just have easily taught him to be careful with whom he trusts, but instead, she made him paranoid and unwilling to open up to anyone.

And then he met Jira.

Taking Jira to his childhood home is a big step for Koh. He hardly lets anyone into his current apartment because he’s so paranoid. He barely even goes out in public, and yet here he is, revealing this big part of his past to Jira. Not only that, he’s willing to let Jira decide what he does with it.

I did love that scene where he was asking his mother’s photo for permission to trust Jira. I also loved the way it was interspersed with shots of Jira trying to catch the leaks. To me, that implies that Jira is willing to fix Koh – or at least pretend to. After all, placing a bucket under a leak doesn’t fix the leak; it just delays the damage that the leak will create.

That scene also indicates to me that Koh’s interest in Jira is genuine. It’s hard to tell, when he’s around others, whether or not he’s playing a game. But there’s no reason to lie in that moment, alone with just his mother’s picture. Whatever nonsense he tries to pull in the future, I think we can believe that he does have real feelings.

Still, I saw someone make the argument that because he hasn’t formed any meaningful connections since his teens, he doesn’t know what to do other than standard relationship milestones. In just this episode, he confessed, suggested they move in together, asked Jira to take a nap with him, slow danced with him, serenaded him, and slept with him. It’s almost like a checklist that a person might get from ChatGPT.

It took a few years, but OffGun have returned to the rooftop. The aesthetics of that kiss were something else, and the nods to Not Me were appreciated. Not just in the rooftop kiss, but also in calling back to the room above the garage where Sean lived, or the fact that White was still lying to everyone at that point.

I think it’s important that it was Jira who initiated. We’ve seen before that Jira is attracted to the red flags of a person. Yet in this episode, Koh wasn’t throwing out nearly the amount that he normally does, and Jira didn’t seem to care.

Oh, don’t get me wrong; he was throwing out plenty. His entire explanation of how he deals with his shady businesses, his declaration that he would open up a gallery for Jira as a way to launder his ill-gotten gains… But the careful consideration he was showing Jira is something new. Ordering him breakfast, offering him a hand up the stairs. It’s almost like he had a personality transplant while he slept.

It’s interesting to contrast this with Jira’s relationship with Pheem. We’ve seen how hard Jira has been trying to convince himself that he’s attracted to Pheem – and he clearly was, at least at the beginning. But then Pheem obviously tried too hard to win him over and ended up killing any interest that Jira may have had. Whereas Koh never tried to soften his edges; even now, as he’s trying to convince Jira to build a future with him, he doesn’t downplay that he’s not entirely ethical with his work. So despite Koh being a good deal kinder with Jira than he’s been in the past, it doesn’t seem to have dulled the attraction.

I wonder if that’s part of the attraction for Jira. Yes, Pheem has almost embarrassed himself with how hard he’s been chasing Jira. (I still cannot get over him getting a tattoo just to impress this man.) And he’s – mostly – been willing to move at Jira’s pace. But there were a few moments in episode 8 where Jira basically got Koh to bend to his will, and someone like Jira probably really enjoys that.

As I’ve said before, none of these men are good people. All three have a variety of flaws and enough red flags to moonlight as matadors. But this episode in particular highlights that there is something vulnerable about Koh and Jira that I personally don’t find present in Pheem. Jira frustrates me. Koh angers me. But Pheem scares me.

I will never get over the violence exhibited in last week’s episode. That scene in the rage room was brutal and terrifying. Regardless of whatever artistic inspiration Jira took from it, that moment showed me that Pheem is a man who may be willing to hurt someone if he’s angry enough. And we see this reflected in Jira’s art. The painting of Pheem was stunning, but it was harsh and aggressive.

Even in this week’s episode, when Pheem was barely present, he still found a way to irk me. Is Mawin trying to be an actor ill-advised? Maybe, but it’s still something he wants to pursue, and Pheem couldn’t take it seriously long enough to help him. And he admitted that if Jira were still playing a game with him, he would play right back.

Regardless, Jira needs to make a decision. I mean, he appears to have made it, considering he was putting off sleeping with Pheem and yet slept with Koh twice in this episode. But he is still dragging Pheem along, and he needs to nip that in the bud. And as there are only two episodes left, I anticipate this happening soon.

(Side note: I saw someone make the argument that Jira is entirely too practiced at lying for this to be the first time he’s juggled more than one guy. Ing’s exasperated, “you and your multiple men” may be referring to an ongoing behavior rather than a singular situation.)

Something I love about this series is that I still have no idea how it’s going to end up. Until this episode, I would not have expected a happy ending. But now I think they may be steering us in that direction. Well, as “happy” an ending as you can have with two deeply flawed individuals who don’t seem to know how to have normal, functional relationships.

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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