That Summer 1×01 Review: Episode 1

That Summer is one of the shows I’ve been most excited for since the pilot dropped in the GMMTV 2025 presentation. (To be fair, I was excited for most of those shows.) Now it’s here, and it’s everything that I hoped it would be.

That Summer is the story of Lava (Winny Thanawin), a troubled young man whose behavior is damaging his family’s reputation and endangering his stepfather’s electoral campaign, so his mother ships him off to the islands to live with his uncle Peng (Mond Tanutchai) for the summer. We also have Davin (Satang Kittiphop), aka Wave, the Crown Prince of Aranta, who runs away to Thailand for an adventure and ends up washed up on the beach with absolutely no memory of what happened to him… or anything else.

Obviously I have to comment on the irony of a show called That Summer airing like two days before the first day of autumn. But given the fact that the entire premise of this show implies a fleeting summer romance, I think it’s apt that we’re getting it as summer ends. It will help with the overall vibes, which are already excellent, and give everything a sense of nostalgia.

It didn’t occur to me, while watching the trailer, that we would have a bit of mystery with this show. I suppose it should have, but I didn’t think there would be all that much behind Wave’s accident. (Yes, his name is Davin, and we know that from the start. But he’ll be referred to as Wave for a while, probably, and I’ll just call him that.) Of course it’s a mystery! How did he get a head injury? What happened to Victor?

I actually love that we started with Wave in the water. It’s a fantastic way to hook the audience right from the start. It also gives us a lot of hints about the mystery of Wave. I’m immediately suspicious of Victor’s father; it’s not unreasonable that he’s concerned about officially naming Wave as the heir when he’s so young and inexperienced, but at the same time, it’s not like he’ll immediately be taking the throne. He has time to learn. That makes me question Victor’s father’s motivation. Is he secretly plotting to take the throne? Or is he just genuinely concerned?

Victor’s father being suspicious kind of makes me suspect Victor as well. We don’t know what happened to him between them speeding away from the palace in Aranta and Wave showing up on a boat in Thailand. Maybe Victor just got him there and then left him on his own; Wave did seem adamant about being a normal person and may have been determined to make his own way. Maybe Victor was on the boat as well and we didn’t see him. We just don’t know yet.

I also caught the little moment between Victor and Wave, when Victor put his hand over Wave’s. That could mean nothing. But given that we saw it again in the montage where we discover that someone said something disparaging about Wave’s sexuality, it’s not ridiculous to assume they could be connected. But if there were something going on, I don’t think Wave would have given Lava “the eyes” when they saw each other on the boat.

The episode is nicely paced. We got all of the pesky backstory stuff out of the way quickly so that we can spend the bulk of the ten episodes on the island. I had wondered how quickly Lava and Wave were going to meet, given all of the stuff we would have had to go through for that to happen. I expected that Lava finding Wave on the beach would be the end of the first episode. I never thought it would happen so quickly! We sped through all of that and got right to the meat of the story.

The opening also gives us a great introduction to our two main characters. Lava seems like a good guy who is in a situation where he isn’t wanted, which is making him act out. From the trailer, I assumed he was just angry and volatile. And I’m not going to argue that he didn’t go overboard in the fight. But he stepped in to help a girl who was being harassed, and he’s not the one who threw the first punch. Yet everyone seems determined to see the worst in him; he doesn’t get the chance to explain himself, and he is almost immediately shipped off for the summer.

Wave, meanwhile, lives an extremely privileged life. But as is the norm in stories like this, he is unsatisfied with the hand that he’s been dealt. He longs to be somewhere that people won’t know who he is, where he can be treated the same as everyone else. (Now, isn’t that a heavy dose of “be careful what you wish for”?) I’d also wager that, as the heir to the throne, he hasn’t had a lot of choice in what he does with his time. He longs for freedom and to have no expectations on him, no obligations.

These two have one of my favorite ship dynamics: openly antagonistic. I am a huge fan of pairs who are constantly sniping at each other. Wave may not remember details, but he’s retained enough of his personality to be stubborn and demanding, used to being accommodated and obeyed. Meanwhile, Lava is hoping for someone he can boss around the way he’s been bossed around. They are pretty intense right from the beginning, and I am totally here for it.

Winny and Satang didn’t really hook me in My School President. As much as I enjoyed the show itself, and actually I did like their characters, I just wasn’t blown away by the two of them as a pair. However, I absolutely fell in love with them in We Are. Their relationship was probably my favorite of all the couples on that show. And I don’t know what they did between now and then, because they are on fire in That Summer. The chemistry is chemistry-ing, and I am ridiculously impressed. Who are these boys?

That’s not even taking into account Wave’s breakdown in the hospital. That was fantastic. My heart breaks for this boy. Satang did an amazing job in that scene.

Our second pair is Peng and Doctor Wut (Ryu Phudtripart). This is Mond and Ryu’s first series as a pair, and even after one episode, I am sold. They are ridiculously adorable. Plus, I do so love getting established couples, which is still pretty rare in BLs. Established couples can give us entirely different stories than we’re used to. In this case, Peng and Wut are not out to the village. Peng is worried about his position as Village Chief, and also afraid of Wut’s father, who is the local school principal.

Based on the trailer, Peng is right to be concerned about the reaction of the villagers, and I suspect that this will become a fairly big issue. When Peng mentions that they haven’t been able to see each other since Lava came to the island, Wut jokes that they probably wouldn’t have seen each other anyway. He doesn’t sound angry or offended when he says it, but I think it’s obvious that it bothers him.

I got a kick out of the fact that Lava clocks them right away, though.

Something else the show is really nailing from the outset is the vibes. The cinematography is gorgeous, and it really captures the feeling of the islands. One thing you know you’re going to get from a Jojo Tichakorn series: a whole-ass mood. His shows have ambiance and presence and a unique look.

I also love that they haven’t gone overboard on the makeup for Lava (I didn’t even know Winny had freckles). He looks like someone who’s been spending a lot of time in the sun.

If you haven’t gotten into Thai BLs yet, you really should. We are being fed right now; there are so many amazing series either currently airing, or premiering soon. As it is, I am officially seated for That Summer. I can’t wait for next week’s episode.

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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