Wandee Goodday 1×11 Review: Episode 11

Everyone mark this day down in your calendars. We’ve all got a rare treat. A BL without an eleventh-hour breakup or serious angst-fest in the penultimate episode. It’s wonderful to see Wandee Goodday bucking the trend and giving us an episode that was mostly about joy.

I do have to start off with my one major complaint. I’ve been hoping, as we go along, that at some point, Dee would have to make the conscious decision to choose Yak. When it was revealed that his big surgery was scheduled at the same time as Yak’s fight, I thought for sure he was either going to miss the fight or would have to skip the surgery. (Logically I know that would be disastrous for his career, but this is fiction, so let me have this one.) 

The entire time, it has been Yak who has made sacrifices, Yak who has stood up, Yak who has come through. So far, we haven’t seen Dee reciprocate. At least, he hasn’t gone to the lengths that Yak has. I wanted to see Dee have to make a choice, and choose Yak.

For that matter, I cannot fathom how we’re still here. For the, like, fourth episode in a row, we have Yak exclaiming that this isn’t fake – that his feelings are real. And the two have now kissed multiple times, after Dee made such a point of telling Yak that he only wants to kiss the person he loves. How are we still circling the relationship? Why are they still fighting it? What is the point of pretending to date for Dee’s scholarship when they could just actually date? Make it make sense.

I love the virtual absence of unnecessary angst, but I also don’t understand how these two aren’t dating yet. What is Dee still hung up on? He clearly wants to date Yak, as evidenced by the fact that whenever Yak refers to him as “boyfriend”, all Dee says is, “Not yet.” Why not yet???

These two could not get any more adorable together. Almost every scene they have has me giggling and kicking my feet. (Yak sneaking away before a match to get last-minute cuddles? Yak surprising Dee with flowers in front of everyone in the hospital?) They are so sweet and so in love and for crying out loud just date already. Why is this so hard? Why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do to you?

Hopefully, they’re together now. Dee kissing Yak in front of everyone at the match should be a pretty significant declaration of intent. Plus there’s only one more episode. It’s not like they can drag it out much longer.

Anyway, Dee didn’t need to choose, in the end. He was able to participate in the surgery and make it to Yak’s fight. His boss was even like, “What the heck are you still doing here?” afterward. Even though they did have me white-knuckling at the end there, as Dee’s car broke down and then he got stuck in traffic. I also was worried that they would have him and Ter show up together, and Yak would get the wrong idea. Thankfully Taem rode to the rescue and got Dee to the fight on time.

Side note: save Taem from Ter, please. She doesn’t need the hassle.

While we’ve been dragging out the “will they or won’t they” when the answer is obviously “they will”, we’ve spent precious little time developing other side plots. Like, for example, whatever is going on with Yak when he sees the hooded figure before his fights. We still don’t know why he sees this figure, or what it may mean. When we see one of his sessions with Kao, we learn that he’s been lying about it and acting like the issue is resolved. Therapy doesn’t work if you lie!

I can only speculate, of course, but part of me wonders if it has something to do with the fact that his mother died while he was in the middle of a match. Perhaps he associates matches with death? And it seems to have only become an issue since he started seeing Dee (at least, he doesn’t mention it having been a problem before then), which makes me think that Yak worries something will happen to Dee during a match. It could be one of the reasons he was so worried when Dee was late for his fight.

I don’t have much faith that they’ll adequately explain it. Dee’s intimacy issues were essentially dismissed in a matter of minutes at the end of last week’s episode. But I hope that I’m right in my suspicions, and that Dee showing up to the fight helps Yak get over whatever he’s dealing with.

On the note of side plots that didn’t get enough development, while I’m super happy that Kao got a love interest, I’m a little annoyed that it isn’t until the second-to-last episode. We haven’t had an asexual character in a BL before Kao, and I really wanted to see him actually navigating the dating scene. I’ve been worried that they wouldn’t really give Kao a meaningful subplot on his own, and they didn’t. He was mostly there to give dating advice to Dee.

It’s disappointing, to say the least. And in retrospect, it really makes Dee and Kao’s friendship seem very one-sided. I was misled by the first episode! All of this time, Kao has been counselling Dee on his situationship, and it seems like Dee has never once asked about Kao’s love life. Until this episode, when Kao gets a text and Dee is like, “Oh, your date?” I could sort of understand if his date ended up being someone we’ve seen before, but it wasn’t!

(Although photos of Title with the cast did circulate, so many people guessed that he’d end up with Kao. But they could have introduced the concept of him earlier, at least.)

I’ll cross my fingers that the next time we get an ace character, he or she gets an actual storyline.

Now to my lovelies, Cher and Yei, who absolutely deserve their own series or special episode or something. I am forever smitten with these two, who are just the epitome of #relationshipgoals. The way Yei so casually brought up having kids (like they haven’t raised Yak) as something to seriously talk about after they get married (which judging by the trailer for the finale is happening pretty darn soon).

It’s honestly pretty rare to have an established couple in a BL, and I am loving the variety of storylines that we got because of it. Dee and Yak are out here still not technically dating despite having been dating for three months, and Yei and Cher run a business together, had a super sweet proposal, and are talking about having kids. Those aren’t really plots that you get because we almost never get to that point of a relationship by the last episode. And I’m so happy that while things weren’t perfect, Yei and Cher were able to stay strong and supportive.

Most of the humor from this episode honestly came from Cher and the other guys at the gym. The sitcom-style search for Yak only to find he went to the bathroom was hilarious. Cher getting all excited when Dee and Yak were about to kiss – and filming it – was so cute. I totally believe that Cher has a phone full of blackmail-worthy photos of all of his boys.

I pray for more BLs to give us couples like Yei and Cher, who are solid together and still so in love even after however many years it’s been. You love to see it.

It all gets decided next week! Does Yak win the fight? Does Dee get his scholarship? Will Ter get punched in the face for the third time? I can’t wait to find out!

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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