You Never Eat Alone (2020)

What is normal?

Cast: the actors are known from other BLs, they have a couple of shows under their belts so they are rather experienced and doing their jobs well.

Music: nothing remarkable. No outstanding main tune, but nothing annoying either. There are few nice piano instrumentals though.

Production: this is very well produced, especially in the times of the pandemic. Camera work is fine, so is the editing. Props are fun, especially the whole colour theme of the main characters. Cooking bits are done extremely well. They filmed in a couple of interesting locations, I especially liked the library, the temple and the "classroom".

The only thing I will complain about (and not only me, judging from YT comments) is the quality of subtitles on the official Copy A Bangkok channel. The English subtitles are mostly delayed on every first part of the episode. Sometimes a large chunk of a dialogue is missing. The other time the entire subtitles sequence for the part is gone in 2min. They don't translate texts, messages, writings on the sheets of paper - everything that is not the dialogue. And episode 11 subtitling is an absolute mess. They also titled 2 parts wrongly. This is a shame for the international fans that enjoy and support Thai shows.


Plot: okay, this is bad.

Every episode I was screaming at the telly: Therapy! Psychiatrist! Meds! Diew is clearly on the autism spectrum and definitely not on the highly functioning one. The show says that he's got "autophobia", but it feels like it's just a tip of the iceberg. His issues, blown up by unprocessed grief after the loss of his grandmother and a big change which is going to university, make him unable to be alone for a longer period of time. This means he needs caretaker. Clearly his parents are to blame for not taking the matter earlier more seriously.

The plot is basically Diew trying to deal with his issues, struggling to understand the world and hoping to become normal. I've seen people complaining about the pacing of the scenes, but I suppose the creators wanted to show that people process the events in a different manner and I appreciate that. While the whole show was supposed to be uplifting, positive and "pat on the back" thing, I feel like this is a complete miss.

Although Diew's friends seem to be supportive and understanding of the problem, each one of them has their own life and has no time to care full time of him. Diew is forced to deal with the issues as best as he can. Some of his friends' ideas how to help Diew are only ad hoc remedies, that don't cure the real issues. It is clearly a work in progress for Diew, who needs a full medical support and a proper support network.

This is a complete misunderstanding of the situation. I understand the positive message this show wanted to show: you are not alone, in difficult times we're all together etc. etc. But I was more annoyed than uplifted. And disappointed as hell.

The show starts to develop properly from episode 10 onwards (although the messy subtitles do not help the situation). Diew starts to get professional help he clearly needs, his friends also team up to develop more tactics to try and help him. His relationship with Mix also blossoms.

And to all interested, this is not a full BL. There are BL couples, like Boon/Prem, but Diew and Mix don't get together. They do a lot of heart eyes at each other, and it is clear of their mutual crush on each other, but it seems that this relationship might be fully developed in season 2, if there is any.

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Subtitle Issues

Subtitle issues really had an impact. That was the worst of it for me (hence the title).
The guest couples were really fun if not oddly thrown in.
Some scenes were very slow moving. Like VERY slow moving and repetitive. At first, I thought the concept was cute, but s it went on without even a little bit of resolution, it seemed more like an untreated illness to me. I really think the show was meant to be quirky and really fun, but something went wrong. Also, Diew and Mix... frustrating. And what happened to their younger counterparts that seemed to wind up liking each other?

I don't think there will be a season 2 because how could they drag it out any more? I'd watch it to see if anything resolved or if anything happened between the main characters. But I'm not hopeful.

If the subs are ever fixed, I'd watch again in one throw and maybe enjoy it more and maybe it will seem to flow better.

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