Perfect 10 Liners 1×16 Review: Episode 16

Yotha and Gun are officially a couple now, to the surprise of no one, and yet somehow everyone at the same time. Meanwhile, we have an undeserved reconciliation, a boyfriend-off, and a perfect setup for the upcoming arc.

I’m going to start with the family thing, because I am still so livid about how this was handled. Look, I get it. Cultural differences. Redeeming and forgiving toxic family members is a big thing in Asian media. (Although, look at how often that happens in western media as well. Say it with me now: it’s perfectly acceptable to cut toxic family members out of your life. “Because family” can die a painful death.) But the way they handled the relationship between Yotha, Faifa, and their mother is so rage-inducing it almost soured the entire episode for me.

First of all, this woman is moving to England literally that day, and not only had she not yet told her children, but she clearly never intended to say goodbye to them. The only reason she even brought it up is because they happened to be at the house when she stopped to say goodbye to her ex-husband. (By the way, is it common for the ex-wife to just rock up to the house and let herself in without even knocking? Rude.)

Second of all, this [expletive deleted] seriously told Yotha and Faifa to their faces that the only reason she took Faifa with her when she left is because otherwise she would never have visited the other boys. She really wanted to take Yotha with her, but then they would have been too happy. One, it’s the implication that Yotha doesn’t love his brothers and father, when he so clearly does; and two, it’s the implication that she wouldn’t have ever seen her kids of her own accord. Mother of the year, right here.

We know by now that all of the kids have lingering trauma from what happened to their parents. And it bothers me that we don’t really know how or why the relationship ended. But we know that Faifa responded to essentially being abandoned twice (remember, once she started her new family, she shipped Faifa back to his dad) by having to be everyone’s best friend because he can’t stand not having anyone like him. Which I think is a very interesting dynamic to head into his arc with Wine, and I hope the show does it justice.

But considering this woman made no efforts to try and rebuild her relationships with anyone other than Yotha, and that’s because he was so obvious and loud with his anger. She was clearly just hoping to assuage her guilt before peacing out to England for the foreseeable future. So I am suddenly unsure that we’ll get any satisfactory resolution to Faifa’s issues. With how quickly Gun’s trauma was resolved, and now this, this show has a serious pacing problem.

Like, did she even apologize? And everything’s OK now? Yeah, thanks, I hate it.

One thing that did come out of this absolute travesty of a plot is that it highlighted how fantastic both Perth’s and Junior’s ranges are. Perth is really good at these emotionally heavy scenes and can handle that kind of quiet devastation very well. But the look on Junior’s face during her entire spiel – I wanted to reach in and give Faifa a hug. And then he had to hear about how his stepdad and stepsibs miss him; you are the one who sent him away! I hope her plane crashes, sincerely.

Also, I know that this is the final episode of Yotha and Gun’s arc, and I probably should be talking about them. And I will. But while I’m on the subject of Faifa, I want to talk about how absolutely on-point all of his reactions were every time Yotha and Gun did anything couple-y. Because these two are clearly That Couple™, which is so very unexpected when you factor in Yotha’s… everything. And poor Faifa has to witness this all the time, because he’s Gun’s roommate, Yotha’s brother, and in the same major. So I genuinely loved him being 100% done with them. (His face during the scene where Pun read Gun’s survey answers!)

OK, I love Yotha and Gun. There are some aspects of their relationship that I’m iffy about (I talked about the consent thing last week, and to be frank Gun should have stayed out of Yotha’s relationship with his mother), but I do seriously love their dynamic. We can argue about changing for a partner until the cows come home, but I think everything between Yotha and Gun shows that Yotha didn’t necessarily change; he became more like how he would have been if his family had been remotely functional.

This is clearly how Yotha is naturally. He’s one of those clingy boyfriends who can’t be without his partner. I mean, he was like this the whole time (he gave Gun his P10L bracelet before they were even dating), but I feel like now it’s turned up to 11, because now he has an excuse. He brings him a blanket in case he gets cold. He brings him snacks and water while he’s working on a project. He bought Gun a tie with his birthday embroidered on it so that they would match.

And I think Gun has also changed in the sense that he’s matured a bit. Even if you ignore the fact that he can now sleep with the lights off, I think he’s seen that he doesn’t need to be sunshine all the time (even if he does keep calling himself sunshine of the world). I also think he’s able to stand up for himself more than he was at the beginning of their story. Granted, he didn’t realize Yotha was telling the truth about the survey and that his answers were going to be read out to the entire faculty, but just the fact that he was confident enough to say that stuff to Yotha in the first place is a big step up.

(But really, couldn’t Pun tell that those weren’t serious answers? And she kept reading? Perfect 10 Liners = chaos gremlins, I swear.)

I feel like more conflicts should be resolved with a boyfriend-off. Yes, please. Competitive cheek kisses instead of bar fights. I heartily approve. Particularly if one of the couples is AouBoom. I could honestly not care less about their characters at this point, but that scene in the bathroom was fire any way you slice it.

And with that, Yotha and Gun’s arc has come to an end. I will always wonder what they would have been like with Chimon in the role of Gun, but I must give props to whoever it was at GMMTV that decided Perth should pair up with Santa. I really liked their chemistry, and I think they balance each other very well. I look forward to their future projects (although I’m still squicked out by the teacher one), and I’m now excited to get background clingy YothaGun boyfriends the way we had Arc and Arm.

As I’ve said before, I’m also way more excited about Faifa and Wine’s arc than I was at the beginning of the series. I think Faifa came off one way in the first episode, and now that we’ve seen how we got there, I have a completely different opinion of him. Faifa may end up being my favorite character; I love him so much. So bring it on!

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.

Twitter

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary