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The Gifted thai drama review
Completed
The Gifted
1 people found this review helpful
by breadjiwoong
Nov 9, 2021
13 of 13 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.5
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers

Idealistic but surprisingly realistic. A more than perfect prequel

I believe this is really just a prequel to The Gifted Graduation where I'd expect the real fight to happen, and The Gifted does so much more. For a prequel, this is actually more than perfect. Here we are introduced to the characters, most especially Pang, and their potentials. Afterwards the story moves from the characters to the discovery of the school's secret, and finally we got a headstart to the fight against the system.

What I like:

- I am a huge fan of an ensemble cast. I love how we got an episode dedicated to each of them and their potential. It gave the show more life than have it simply follow a one-tone mysyery suspense mood and plot, and also gave us a deeper understanding of the characters.

- The diversity of the issues tackled. There's only one main plot, but because of the focus on each character, we got things like mental illnesses, friendships, rivalry and competition, discrimination, "villainification", and more. Special shout-out to Gun's episode about mental illness and the message on how it is caused by high expectations, neglect, and intense pressure. This must have been groundbreaking for Thailand which has a pretty rigid education system.

- The unhappy ending. This actually has many facets for me:
1. Pang's classmates' "betrayal". Not all who empathizes with you support your ideals. I especially appreciate the part during the end where none of Pang's classmates stood up for him, because that is reality. It is human nature to want to receive the best thing possible, and to not give it up for the sake of other people you don't even know.
2. Pang's plan losing. Given the previous happenings, there was NO way for his plan to succeed. And I'm glad that the writers didn't go out of their way just to have the lead good guy win.
3. Pang regaining his memories. Now I did not expect for this to happen this season, but I was so taken aback and very, very pleasantly surprised!

What I look forward to:

Since The Gifted already set a good precedent, I expect a lot of things for the second season:

- Utilization of characters. The characters were all well-introduced, but the latter half of the story was centered on Pang. I hope that the other characters have more place and impact on the plot to satisfy the build-up that was given to them in the first season.

- Clearing of plot holes or rather, the answering of questions. Why are Mon and Korn still part of the Gifted class? Why did the Gifted students still have memories of Pang and the chaos that had happened? Why are they suddenly helping him when they do not approve of his ideal in the first place?

- "Bigger" fight. The fight in this season, while already very gripping, lacks that "meat" that hopefully the second season would have. Honestly I don't mind if the ending still doesn't end well for the main characters, because it would still make sense for a system to be unshakeable, but I look forward to a smarter, larger fight uniting all the minds and talents of the Gifted students.

All-in-all I really enjoyed this show (as evidenced by the whole essay I just wrote lol) and I look forward to The Gifted Graduation!
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