In Love Forever - Can I be yours forever?

In Love Forever: 1x04.

I’m just confirming that it’s not a dream. […] Waking up to see your face just makes me so happy.

If you hadn’t watched the previous episodes, if you didn’t know that Runch and Neen had together decided to get divorced, with a four-month waiting period imposed by Neen’s dad, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they are actually currently reliving their honeymoon. They are sharing a bed again, they have been sleeping together for three consecutive nights, as Runch reminds Neen, proudly smiling, neither of them even mentions the divorce that is looming over their heads, as if they’ve both forgotten about it. And “forgotten” is apt here, I think, because as in love as they are here, trapped in their shared marital glow, they’ve also clearly not spoken about if any of these developments affect their decision about the divorce. In Love Forever makes it clear what they have been doing instead of talking, which is very much the source of all their problems, but it’s hard not to fall into their little bubble – which they’ve managed to sustain somehow, since leaving the garden house – and believe that their love can outlast whatever challenges they’re about to face. Runch’s words, “my girl, my wife, mine”, Neen’s question, “Can I be yours forever” – it all sounds like renewed vows rather than an ending, with the “forever” doing all the heavy lifting for the conversation they are not having about whether or not they still believe in it. It would be infuriating, if it weren’t also so lovely, with all the stakes becoming obvious: this is what they are bound to lose, and it would scar them both irreparably.

The ticking time bomb that falls right into the other centre of Runch’s life shouldn’t be a surprise to her: of course Meilin would pop up here too, and it’s almost worse because she has the wide-eyed naivete of someone who isn’t deliberately setting out to ruin a marriage, but to instead get closer to her childhood crush and idol (who she believes, for all intents and purposes, to be single). She’s been hired by Neen’s uncle, who knows her mother, and Runch has been tasked with training her – but of course the fact that they already know each other means that from the outside, the way they interact could be misinterpreted (and Meilin’s love-struck gaze doesn’t help). Att sees an opportunity to spread more malicious gossip in the office, where it falls on fertile ground (it’s funny that the coworkers immediately agree that Meilin has a crush on Runch, while I’m not really certain if Runch realises – again, she strikes me as the kind of person who’d be ignorant about, or at the very least wouldn’t take it seriously). When Meilin goes so far as to openly share with Att of all people that they’ve known each other since childhood, a clear plan starts to take shape in his mind.

The fallout is delayed for a bit, with Runch coming home to a romantically lit up home and Neen surprising her. I think that there’s is a clear difference between how the two of them are handling the situation in this episode: Runch, reassured by their newly discovered closeness, has more or less returned to what she normally does, without any changes in her actions, while Neen is making a deliberate effort to be more open and supportive after finding out that Runch struggles at work. Runch has kept her struggles a secret because she didn’t want to burden Neen, or was eager to uphold the image she had of her in her mind, but now she is experiencing what it means to share the burden with a supportive wife – my guess would be that Runch has always been the one to tend towards big gestures, but here Neen goes all out with the candles and the wine and the outfit, all of it tastefully arranged around their wedding photo, which should have been a prompt for a conversation (that is cut short by Runch taking off Neen’s clothes right there in the kitchen, a predictable outcome and maybe exactly what Neen expected but still, it’s a conversation they don’t have, continuing not to address the elephant in the room). It does subtly connect to Runch’s dream in the first episode – the part of their relationship where they fall into each other like this again and again is easy and comes naturally, “don’t talk”, but neither of them manages to approach the hard part.
I think Neen’s growth and change shows again when Att initially approaches her with the rumours, proudly showing off a picture he’s secretly taken that could easily be interpreted as Runch sitting a bit closer than she has to to someone who is just a new colleague. Instead of getting furious immediately, but maybe also concerned about what it would mean to show how upset she is in front of someone that she knows has been torturing Runch, she gives her wife the opportunity to explain – and if Runch felt more secure in herself and in her relationship, if her default position wasn’t to always try to manage situations herself to “protect” Neen (or to protect their precarious relationships from what she thinks Neen’s reaction would be), it would be a good moment to just come clean about everything in one go: that she has known Meilin since childhood, that this is the same woman her mother has been inviting over to meet with Runch. Instead, she only shares what she has to, deliberately controlling the conversation – an attempt doomed to fail because Neen already knows more than Runch is saying here (because Att told her they’ve known each other since childhood). By keeping secrets deliberately, she is causing suspicions that Neen would have otherwise never had (of all the problems they’ve had in their marriage, unfaithfulness wouldn’t even have entered her mind, I think). Neen is behaving more maturely, giving Runch the benefit of the doubt, allowing her to explain herself, but Runch is falling back into the old pattern that has caused the rift in their relationship. It opens everything up to misinterpretation and doubt, and combines catastrophically with Att’s intent to ruin Runch’s life (even though not even he could have orchestrated the perfect moment deliberately – Neen walking in as Meilin faints into Runch’s arms, a moment that obviously looks so bad that Runch immediately knows where her mind would go).

Runch: I didn’t want you to worry so I didn’t tell you.
Neen: So you decided what to tell or not to tell me? I always trusted you, but today you made me feel like you have a secret you don’t tell me about. I s there anything else you haven’t told me?
Runch: No. There’s absolutely nothing else.

Neen asks her so directly, giving her every opportunity to explain the full extent of the situation here, and Runch does not take it, in spite of the fact that Neen is so clearly only asking for honesty here so they can solve the situation together. Runch is so desperate to preserve the happiness and peace they’ve managed to find over the last few days that she doesn’t even realise how she’s dooming them – there’s no way that Neen won’t find out that this is the same woman Kingkamol wants as a new daughter-in-law. Runch is once again choosing to leave the bomb ticking for a later explosion – in her defence, she has limited resources to deal with anything right now, and she’s addressing things as they occur, but it’s hard to excuse her behaviour when it’s so clear already how it will blow up in her face, and how much it will hurt Neen when it does, in spite of her stated intention to spare her feelings. How can they reconcile when Runch’s insecurities keep putting everything in peril, when her lack of trust in herself translates into lack in trust in their relationship, in Neen?

The final reveal of what Runch has been keeping from Neen comes quickly: Kingkamol once again fakes being sick to get her daughter to meet up with Meilin (who has agreed to the meeting to address the fact that Runch has been married this whole time). Neen comes with her – both to support, I think, but also because it means that Runch can’t keep whatever is happening secret anymore. Before they arrive, Kingkamol has a truly insane conversation with Meilin about how in spite of her daughter being married, the marriage is failing, the marriage is soon going to end in divorce, to keep her on the line somehow, which is the exact moment when Runch and a very fired up Neen walk in – because how dare Kingkamol talk about divorce when she doesn’t even know yet that they are actually getting divorced, when she is actively lying to Meilin because she is recruiting her as her daughter’s mistress. You can see in Runch’s face that her house of cards is falling down, and they end up having a fight: Neen very clearly telling Runch that she is upset because Runch didn’t come clean when she was asked directly about it, and Runch adding to the damage by insisting that her mother wouldn’t do what they have just witnessed her doing very clearly (I think it’s also interesting that Neen knows Runch doesn’t have any feelings for Meilin but also instantly clocked that Meilin has feelings for Runch).

Neen: Your mum told that girl that we’re getting divorced, even when…. Well, we are getting divorced for real. But your mum doesn’t know that.
Runch: No one could ever replace you, Neen.

That little pause after “even when” is maybe one of the most heartbreaking moments in In Love Forever so far: it could contain so much. Even when we’re so in love, even when we’ve been fixing the relationship – but it remains unsaid, as Neen realises that they are still getting divorced, haven’t actually talked about not getting divorced, and are once again in the emotional place where a divorce seems like the better option, in spite of her trying so hard to fix things, in spite of her just having spent the last few days falling in love again with Runch. It’s like she wakes up from the daze that started at the garden house in that moment, coming back to reality. “This isn’t what lovers do to protect each other”, she says to Runch, even though she can’t come up with what exactly Runch has to do to fix it (“You’ll have to prove it”). And they’re back to sleeping in separate rooms.

The things that Runch attempts to do to fix things – the things that kind of worked in the past – fail. She makes breakfast and Neen refuses it. She tries to seduce Neen, and Neen, wobbly but determined, manages to walk away from it, even though it’s clearly a struggle to do so. They end up having to spend together because of Neen’s dad – another conveniently timed moment where the facade needs to be kept up for the public. Neen exerts a small amount of revenge on Runch by picking the most provocative outfit she can find, a backless dress, knowing that Runch will jealously note every single person who looks at her wife (“don’t play games with me”), but not even Neen can escape the appeal of Runch deciding not to answer another phone call from her mother (who for once genuinely needs help after falling in her home) and instead dancing with her wife.

Runch: Every couple is bound to have misunderstandings. What matters is whether they will still hold each other’s hands.

I think there’s a sense here that it has taken Runch this long to realise that she has to change something about the way she approaches the core issue in their relationship: her mother, that the other gestures aren’t enough, that in spite of them existing in their little bubble for a few nights, what she has to do to genuinely save the relationship is choose Neen over her mother and defend her marriage against what Kingkamol is trying to do to it. They leave the party after Neen picks up a phone call from Meilin on Runch’s phone about what happened to Kingkamol, and in the fight that ensues, Runch ends up standing up for Neen, telling her mother firmly that she does not have the right to speak to Neen like this (“It is because of you that Runch is rebelling against me”), that she has no right to replace her and make her feel less – and then they hold hands, with Runch following her own statement that this is what matters.

Runch: I married her. She is my family. You have to respect my decision. Mum, I won’t let anyone hurt my wife’s feelings. No one. Not even you, mum. Let’s go home.

It’s so significant that she is choosing to stand up for Neen in a moment where her mother is genuinely hurt, instead of softening to her, and Neen realises what it means. But we’ve seen that Kingkamol will never stop trying.

In the flashback, Runch and Neen, maybe about a year into dating, are spending time at a beach house, but it is incessantly raining outside. Neen is frustrated and sad to see her plans destroyed, but Runch suggests they could just spend their days and nights in the room, doing “something that won’t make you feel bored”. Maybe it’s the first time they say “I love you”. How long can they stay like this before Kingkamol starts interfering? 

Random notes:

Runch is having a bad episode here (truly human-disastering all over it), but Meilin is also having a very bad not good week: Att ends up being the person to tell her that Runch is already married, and she knows immediately that Kingkamol has been manipulating her feelings in such a cruel and deliberate way. The pathetic conversation they end up having later where Kingkamol explains that Runch is about to get divorced anyway is just the nail in the coffin, and yet she somehow still shows up when Kingkamol needs her.

File under surprising things you don’t expect people to say who are about to get divorced: “I love you more and more every day.” There isn’t an explicit recognition here that Runch never asked to get divorced because she fell out of love because that would mean talking about the divorce but do we think that Neen fully understands at this point, and it’s why she’s showing so much patience in this episode? 

Neen is really compelling in this episode because she doesn’t really explode until the little moment after Kingkamol’s fall: she’s contained and quietly sad for most of it, through all the little betrayals. I really like the small moment when they’re having lunch together after the fainting episode and both comment that they’ve lost weight, acknowledging the toll it’s taken on both of them, still trying to care for each other (Neen keeps showing up and gives Runch so many chances to fully explain, but she never takes the opportunity).

Kingkamol voices her precise concerns about the marriage here, about how Runch will have a better life if she divorces because she is so inferior to Neen, because she wants Runch to be admired for her own successes – all of this with meek interjections from her husband, who isn’t equipped to intervene in any meaningful way (he does give an accurate prediction of the future though: “Runch doesn’t talk much. She tolerates everything. But if one day she can’t take it anymore, she’ll run away so far you’ll never see her again.”) All of these ideas are clearly things she taught Runch to think as she raised her: that she must be successful on her own, at all costs, but also that her success means Kingkamol’s success as a mother. It’s just so unfortunate for Runch that she’s now existing at work with someone who feeds into these ideas, while it’s so clear from everything that Neen does that she doesn’t consider herself superior at all, and just considers whatever she has as something they share in equally (in short, Runch needs therapy). 

In Love Forever - When it comes to you, I’ll always remember.

In Love Forever: 1x03.

 

This is by far the sweetest, most romantic episode of In Love Forever yet, and it’s fascinating how the sweetness comes from how the majority of the episode kind of mirrors the flashbacks scenes that have been unfolding as their own little story after the main part of the episode finishes. It’s still Runch and Neen after their shared decision to go through with the divorce, it should still have all the bitterness of a couple that still deeply loves one another (even if Neen has no certainty about Runch’s love – I would say she does by the end of the episode) being forced into divorce by an outside influence outside their control. And yet, for most of it, the two main characters feel like they’ve entered a protective bubble far removed from their normal circumstances where their love can exist without the outside pressure that Runch’s mum exerts on their relationship. In Neen’s grandparents’ house in the countryside, with their phones out of reach, living a life that is different from their normal routines, it becomes obvious that they love each other but that they are deeply in love – and a year into their marriage, three years into officially being together, can still surprise each other with things they didn’t previously know, that make them even more in love.

Talking about bitterness – with all the fluff, all the happiness that carries the episode – it almost fades by the end of it, but it is difficult not to sometimes still feel it in the back of your throat, like an unexploded bomb quietly ticking away underneath. This is true especially with how the episode begins, and there’s something about Runch here, leading up to their trip, that shows pretty clearly already that this happiness won’t last. A character that constantly falls back into ignoring problems because they are too big to solve or would require radical decisions they’re not ready to make can be frustrating to watch, even if all of her actions come from either love or devotion to her mother. I’m torn about whether I believe that she knows exactly what her mother is trying to do the moment she walks into her house and finds her sitting there with Meilin, or if she is naive about Kingkamol’s motives, not realising the great lengths she will go to to rid herself of Neen, still maintaining an image of her in her head that sees her mother as protective but not vicious. She must realise, the moment she walks in and finds her almost jittery with excitement, that she has been lured home as a ploy (proving Neen’s immediate reaction upon receiving her message, “I bet the old hag is faking it”, true), that her mother does not in fact require her to take her to the hospital, and her high blood pressure, if anything, is due to finally having come up with a plot that will truly hurt Neen in a way that sticks. It’s the whole way the scene unfolds: the excited introduction of Meilin as the childhood friend who used to play with her (long enough ago that Runch doesn’t seem to remember her very vividly, while she has left such a big impression on the younger woman), the attempts to connect them through their shared careers (which Meilin has chosen because of Runch, because Runch is her idol among other things), Meilin’s wide-eyed excitement at seeing her and the way she receives her career guidance, and her phone number. Runch does strike me as the kind of person that would be unaware of someone having a crush on her – I think if Neen hadn’t been so forward and clear about her intentions, Runch would have been very much in the dark and never made the first move – but she should be able to read her mother well enough to see what she is planning. She’s also very well aware how jealous Neen is – remember her reaction at the coffee shop, and that was just a friendly interaction with a regular barista – and knows to keep Meilin’s whole existence a secret up to the point where she has to explain it. It’s kind of defensible based on the fact that from Runch’s perspective, she’s just helping an old childhood friend get settled in her career and she knows that bringing it up would upset both Neen and the very, very brief period of peace they’ve achieved since Neen managed to take full revenge on Kingkamol, but it’s also the actions of someone who has spent a lot of energy and effort on controlling what information Neen has about her life (remember how long she kept her struggles at work a secret).

 

Human Resource

In the middle of Human Resource, Fren (Prapamonton Eiamchan, in a singular performance) and her husband are deciding whether they are willing to pay a non-refundable, half-a-million baht deposit to reserve a spot at an international school for their unborn child. The husband is enthusiastic about it: he is already planning the precise ways in which their hustling for the future of their child will guarantee success, outlining that the rest of their lives will be dedicated solely to ensuring that this child will climb the social ladder higher than they managed to do. Fren is a lot more cautious – she was already hesitant to tell him about being pregnant in the first place, before an accident revealed it regardless, and she is now faced with having to make a decision about a future she can’t even imagine in her head. Instead, she is thinking about the pressure of raising someone to be “good” – all the choices, all the work, that goes into making a good person, in the unspoken context of a world that is increasingly more violent, chaotic, exerting pressure on everyone trying to survive in it. It captures the central themes of the film, how the hustle of survival – or in this case, the hustle of someone who is middle-class not to fall behind, to keep her place. When her husband talks about his negative experiences of going to a public school, when they visit Fren’s mother, who seems to lead a simple life as a shop-keeper and is suffering from constant pain in her leg, they are making clear what the stakes of not keeping up are. It’s the inherent struggle of the (in this case, newly minted) middle-class: memories of their parents lack of options haunt them, falling behind is a vivid possibility, but the option of climbing higher on the social ladder is dangled like a just-out-of-reach carrot to keep the wheels turning. This sense of precarity is translated into a constant sense of unease, of un-mooredness, along with the destabilising sense that society is collapsing around the characters, with news about violence, predictions about future catastrophes, filtering in through the news.

The dichotomy of “being a good person” and “surviving in a capitalistic hellscape” is at the centre of the film. Fren works as a recruiter in HR, feeding desperate people who cannot turn down a job even when it comes with a requirement to work six days a week and face an intolerable boss who frequently throws things at his underlings when he is frustrated (or resorts to quiet, psychological terror, openly exerting his power especially when he is in the wrong) into the machine, knowing what toll it will take on them because she is living with the burden of it every day. There is an empty workstation in the office reminding her every day what it means, morally, to recruit: the woman who used to sit there has disappeared, her mother hasn’t heard from her for days, and the film eventually reveals that she has committed suicide after quietly bearing the burden for too long. The spectre of the consequences haunt Fren throughout the film, as does the deadline of finding someone to replace the employee so that things can continue as usual. If she weren’t pregnant, if her husband didn’t have such grand plans for their child, perhaps she could quit, but through how she and her colleague speak about the potential hires, it becomes clear that the job market is tight enough that it would be difficult to find a new job – and she doesn’t have rich parents to fall back on, or a financial cushion to make this clearly necessary decision. What does it mean for a society when it becomes impossible to make a moral decision, to be a good person? 

Fren’s inability to act and how trapped she is in her situation is contrasted with how her husband adapts to the circumstances of their life. He is a product rep for bulletproof vests, and chasing an expensive contract with the police force that is putting him in contact with very powerful men. Fren seems morally cautious about his involvement, as he is quite literally profiting from an increase in violence, from the uncertainty that is haunting her, to the extent where he is hounding down the most blood-thirsty, captivating news story to make his sales pitch stronger. At the same time, he is in a constant battle against the motorcycle riders who disregard the one-way-street leading to their apartment building: he might not have real, actual power anywhere else in his life, but he tries to regain it by enforcing the road rules they disregard to his inconvenience, in a process that first puts Fren in physical danger, and then, at the end of the film, leads him to an actual act of violence that he commits because he knows that he now has the kind of highly-placed friends in the police force that will mean he is protected against consequences. This is the kind of corruption, the lack of consequences for the well-connected to the detriment of everyone else, that is the cause for both her woes at work and the chaos in society in general, but the film hasn’t really left her with any way out – she is trapped by circumstance. 

Phanakngan Mai (Prod Rap Wai Phicharana), 2025, directed by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, starring Prapamonton Eiamchan, Paopetch Charoensook, Pimmada Chaisakaoen, Chanakan Rattana-Udom.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Warpaint - Elephants (on Exquisite Corpse)

 

 

In the dark we are waiting for you
With your dying need for their attention
Hold on tight now, we won't let you fall

Reading List: June.

Non-Fiction: 

 

Eric Jay Dolin: The Wreck of the Mentor. 

 

Fiction: 

 

Benny P. Peterson: The Maidenheads.

Isabel J. Kim: The Sublimation. 

Lisa See: Daughters of the Sun and Moon. 

Jules Ohman: Body Grammar. 

 

Films: 

 

Namibia no Sabaku (2024, Yōko Yamanaka).

Bunnylovr (2025, Katarina Zhu). 

Summer's Camera (2025, Divine Sung). 

Samâ firumu ni notte (2020, Sōshi Matsumoto).

Yuyeolui eumagaelbeom (2019, Jung Ji-woo). 

Gespenster (2005, Christian Petzold). 

 

Shows: 

 

For All Mankind, Season Five. 

This Is Not a Murder Mystery, Season One. 

In Love Forever - This is why I could never get over you.

In Love Forever: 1x02.

We pick up seamlessly where we left off in the previous episode. Runch’s mother has thrown a vase out of anger and frustration, and a shard cut Neen’s leg. It’s an escalation of their years of fighting that Kingkamol knows has crossed a line, and it is clear from how Runch removes her from the house – determined, quickly, without doing anything to reassure her that she understands that it was an accident – that makes it clear that this is a turning point. It’s clear from the face she makes right before leaving that it hasn’t made her change her mind about her approach to Neen, that all she is concerned about here is Runch’s reaction, not the harm she has actually done.
Inside, Neen seems stunned, shocked out of being able to even have a fight about what just happened. She just keeps saying “don’t” to Runch’s attempts to soothe her. The scene of Runch patching up the wound is so significant. It might be a placed advertisement, but it also fits into both the characters and the situation perfectly. Here’s Runch, meticulously running through all the steps of cleaning and disinfecting the wound, then applying a plaster with the words “sorry” on them, gently blowing on the wound like you would for a child. It shows her care and love, but beyond the physical act of applying a bandaid to a wound, symbolically, she is trying to patch up a gaping injury – that her mother is inflicting upon their marriage – with a bandaid and a sorry, and as such, nothing she does here could possibly be enough. She apologises on her mum’s behalf, but she must also know that her mother, given the opportunity, would never apologise for what she has done, and so it won’t change anything real about the dynamics of their relationship.
It’s also important to remember that Runch and Neen are not on the same page about each other because they don’t talk. Neen thinks that the only way that Runch would have ever asked for a divorce is if she didn’t love her anymore, while Runch has explained to her overseas friend that the opposite is true: she asked because she loves Neen so much that she wants to protect her from the harm that Kingkamol is causing her, specifically because she feels that the conflict is changing her wife, forcing her to become hardened and less innocent (and the episode will show just how much this is true). From Neen’s perspective, Runch’s clearly demonstrated love and care are confusing, because she is trying to create the emotional distance to grapple with the coming separation, but all these acts of love just remind her of why she fell in love with her in the first place – “You always act this way. This is why I could never get over you.”
At the same time, Runch is following Neen’s clear instructions. For the four months that they are forced to remain together, she will act like a devoted wife – except it isn’t an act, because that’s exactly what she is – and in addition, Neen requested that she be allowed to break her mother’s heart just once, which is what she will do her best to achieve in this episode. The prospect of at least exacting revenge against the woman who has destroyed her marriage is the one thing that really lights her up here, and it’s so easy to do with how reactive Kingkamol is to any suggestion that there are parts of her daughter she cannot control.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Yellow Fang - Cosmos Session