In Love Forever – You are my home.

In Love Forever: 1x05.

In Love Forever’s fifth episode, almost halfway through the season, is a good point to think about the nature of apologies, as various forms of them take up the majority of the story here. What is a good apology? What’s a sincere one, one that can be believed? We’ve seen Runch apologise to Neen numerous times – sometimes, I would argue, almost reflexively, as if to ward off an argument that she knows is coming by taking the blame early, to avoid a worse outcome. Those previous apologies were sincere – Runch never wants to hurt Neen – but not really effective, because Runch didn’t know yet what she had to do to change things. Apologising to Neen for her mother’s behaviour again and again is pointless if there are no boundaries in place to keep Kingkamol from hurting her daughter-in-law, and in any case, Runch is apologising on behalf of someone else, someone who doesn’t even accept that she has done something wrong and has no intention of changing her behaviour. At the beginning of the episode, Runch is back to apologising (for her mother) after they return from the argument over Meilin, but this time, things are different: Neen isn’t emotional because she is upset with Runch, she has just witnessed her wife standing up for her, against her mother, with determination and conviction, for the first time. “You already protected me. You did it in front of your mum and everyone” she says, crying, looking vulnerable but also different from their previous fights, where she ultimately knew that nothing would change because Runch was in an impossible position. “It made me so happy that I was speechless”. It’s what she has wanted this whole time: for Runch to make a choice and to choose her (“Today I chose you. I chose our family. You are my home, Neen.”) – and it should change everything. It’s so sad for them that it only works for a little while, because they aren’t up against a rational opponent, but someone utterly determined to do whatever it takes to destroy their love for one another.

Runch puts her change of heart into words in another conversation with Natee, her overseas friend, the next day: she says that she wants to “protect someone for the first time in my life”, like the instinct to choose Neen over her mother outweighs the guilt and gratefulness she has for Kingkamol, and that she won’t divorce Neen. “I won’t go anywhere. I’ll keep staying with her until she chases me away herself”, which is a brave and true statement but also, secretly, a pretty dire prediction of what might happen in the future. The next time they’re at the brink of divorce, it might just be because Neen is the one who suggests it, but Runch at this stage seems so blissed out by the path that has opened to her because she has finally made a choice that it doesn’t yet occur to her what her mother is truly capable of when she’s backed into a corner.

Neen also processes what happened with her friends – and it’s interesting that these two conversations with people outside of the relationship bracket the conflict in this episode. Neen seems so happy, so relieved, that Runch stood up for her for the first time, and she says she realised that when she agreed to the divorce she was just being “snarky”, because sometimes Neen tends to think one thing and says another. One of her friends suggests that she has got her happy ending now, which is definitely not something any character should be saying halfway through the season of a show (but viewed from the escalation that will happen later, Neen’s little smile of hope will break your heart even more).

It should be immediately apparent to Runch how hard this process will be, even if she has now decided for herself how to proceed, when she goes over to her mother’s house to establish the boundaries she wants to put in place to protect her marriage. Kingkamol sees Runch’s presence alone as proof that nothing has changed, that her daughter is still as devoted to her as she wants her to be, and she immediately brings up Meilin again, as if all the things that Runch said to her last night had gone straight over her head (I giggled a bit at the deliberate use of a flashback here – the show uses these replays of scenes we’ve already seen very sparingly, they’re such a staple for GLs, but this one was used specifically to showcase how wild it is that Kingkamol would think she could brush this under the rug and just pick up where she left off). It makes Runch furious enough that she says the most determined words we’ve heard her speak yet: “mind your own business”. It only serves to play into Kingkamol’s perception that Neen is the problem because she has changed her daughter from the devoted, pliable child she used to be, to someone with a whole inner world and life that is now unreachable to her, instead of realising that this is just the nature of children growing up to become their own people. In a last-ditch effort, Runch kneels down in front of her mother to explain that she is grateful for everything that she has given to her, that she will continue to take care of her and her father. Then she pleads with her: “Please, don’t destroy our family, don’t hurt Neen, either with your words or your actions.” She is clearly stating her boundaries, and Kingkamol immediately and furiously crosses them, saying she hates Neen, that she would have prevented the marriage if she had known this would happen. Then she finishes it off by calling Runch “stupid” – again, after Runch, for the first time in her life, found the determination and bravery to stand up to her overbearing mother.
I don’t know if Runch went into this conversation expecting a different outcome or if it only served to confirm for her what she already suspected: that the only way out is a clean break and distance, because her mother will continue to disregard any attempt to protect Neen (it fits that the first time we meet her she is breaking an earlier boundary, when she just turns up at the gate of their house without calling first). Runch’s dad confirms it for her: “she’ll never change, don’t expect her to change, it’s a lost cause”. It’s so hard to hear Runch talk about how she idolised her mother when she was a child, how she was her hero, and how her perception of her has changed now. “I know what I have to do. I just don’t want to do it.” She’s grieving the loss of who she thought her mother was, and she knows that she can’t save her marriage without cutting Kingkamol out of her life.

I don’t think anything the show does could ever really justify Kingkamol’s actions, especially as they become more unhinged in the rest of this episode, but the flashbacks to Runch’s childhood show what she feels she is losing at least: the devotion of a child who thought the world of her, whose entire world turned around her, until she got married. It’s like she put all of her energy and hope and dreams into Runch without realising that Runch would eventually have to go off to live her own life, and now all that is left is a house filled to the brim with memorabilia of her daughter and a husband who doesn’t comprehend her actions. It’s not exactly an unhappy marriage, but an empty one, because Kingkamol has tended to Runch, and is still obsessed with only her, and her husband is kind of just there as a prop. It’s a stark contrast to Runch and Neen’s marriage which is filled with so much devotion, care, desire and love when it is free from Kingkamol’s influence: these two people are habituated to each other, but they don’t provide for each other emotionally. Apart from Runch, Kingkamol’s life is empty, her house is a shrine to a relationship that is broken, her marriage is unfulfilled with a husband who is, emotionally and maybe also physically, frequently far away. There’s a haunting quality to little Runch’s words echoing in Kingkamol’s mind: “I won’t leave you. I’ll always love you more than anyone. I promise.” It’s so obviously a promise that no parent should ever take so seriously to build an entire life on, and yet here the threat of it being broken sends Kingkamol into a spiral.

But back to apologies, with Meilin, who does a whole tour of them, meeting all the standards of a good one: she talks to Runch to clear the air and clarify that she never wanted to mess with her marriage. She goes to Neen, who seems reluctant to show too much of her feelings but also accepts her apology as sincere. Her final meeting with Kingkamol breaks the last straw as far as Kingkamol’s rationality is concerned: Meilin makes it clear as she can that she will not be anyone’s tool, especially not to break up a marriage, destroying any hope that Kingkamol had for this particular plan of attack. While Neen and Runch rebuild their relationship and reconfirm their devotion for each other, Kingkamol goes back to scheming.

The reconciliation scene is beautiful, visually reminiscent of all those flashbacks of them initially dating, with a care-free atmosphere of two people who feel like they’re falling in love with each other in a new way. They are going for a picnic, Neen rides on the back of Runch’s bike, they’re finally taking the time to have a full conversation instead of distracting themselves from it by falling into bed with each other.

Runch: You asked me who I’d choose between you and my mum. Will you stay by my side?
Neen: So we’re not getting divorced anymore, right?
Runch: No, we’re not.
Neen: We’ve been through a lot. We’ve given each other a chance. We’ve expected things and been let down over and over again. I hope this was the last time. I really want us to be happy together.
Runch: I want us to be happy together too.

It’s honest and direct and a new beginning, but it also comes with the kernel of discomfort from Neen’s warning about hoping that this was the last time: knowing Kingkamol, we can feel that it won’t be. And again the parallels in this show are so well-considered because the next morning, when Runch and Neen are in bed and Runch insists that there is no reason to wait for nighttime before they can have sex while slipping her hand under the cover, she is inadvertently replaying what happened in her dream: she’s wearing the same clothes, she’s taking control, she’s asking for what she wants, and, just like in the dream, a phone call interrupts them. It’s Runch’s dad for a change, but that doesn’t make it any less upsetting when the true extent of Kingkamol’s new unhinged phase is revealed. Her new plan, apparently, is to ruin her own marriage along with her daughter’s: skilfully, she’s baited her hapless husband into kind of saying to give him some space which is enough linguistic room to claim he has thrown her out of the house, as she works herself into a tantrum, packs her bags, and shows up at Runch’s gate unannounced, ready to move in.

It almost doesn’t succeed because Neen manages to stay calm as the antics play out and reasonably suggests that Kingkamol should be having a conversation with her husband, because “married couples should talk when there’s a problem” (a truth she has come to the very hard way). Here we arrive at the final apology of the episode, one that meets neither standard – it is not sincere, nor indicates a change of behaviour to prevent further injury. In a dramatic scene, Kingkamol goes to her knees in front of Neen, begging for her forgiveness, promising to treat her better and stay out of her business, working herself up into such a tantrum that she ends up fainting. Obviously, they can’t turn her away now, and so she moves in. In a second debrief with her friends later (that comes with very different emotions than the first one), Neen reveals that she is well-aware that this is another plot to destroy her marriage, and that she is going to war to prove it to Runch, who fully believes her mother is being genuine. “This isn’t just family drama, this is a war between a wife and a mother-in-law.”

In the flashback scene, we’ve moved to a year ago when Runch proposed to Neen in a beautiful scene set by the seaside, guiding Neen down a trail of seashells and rocks, finally presenting the ring to her in a seashell. I think it’s significant that the proposal itself already holds some sadness within it instead of just being joyful: Runch talks about the heaviness of her life, that she wouldn’t have wanted to keep going if she hadn’t met Neen. I feel like this show won’t have the time to explore what exactly Runch’s life was like before she met Neen but the hints of it are there to flesh out her character. We know from what Runch’s dad said that Kingkamol started her campaign against Neen when they were just dating (but the very structure of the flashbacks – only showing their happy moments – means we haven’t seen Kingkamol appear yet in the past), so it’s probably safe to assume that Neen would have some reservations here, that play out for a microsecond in her face before she says yes. 

Runch: I may not be a perfect woman. I have responsibilities. I have my own world that can feel heavy at times, but if you accept, I want you to be there by my side, in my world, on every good day and every difficult day. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife and my family?

Random notes:

The acting in that first scene is so good: they are both so vulnerable with each other, so soft. Runch is on her knees, kind of offering this determination that she has found, the choice she has made, to fix things, not even realising to start off with that Neen already knows and has just been waiting for this moment. The show hasn’t really made it explicit that Neen went into this whole thing thinking genuinely that Runch had stopped loving here but realised she was wrong through the last few episodes – they never really directly talked about it – but it’s clear that this could be a new beginning for them if only Kingkamol wasn’t this determined to destroy them.

It’s just a prop, but the Foundations of Weaving book that Runch brings to their picnic date made me think that maybe Neen’s question about what kind of life Runch envisions for herself, to be truly happy, would look a lot simpler than the one she has currently, and we can only hope that one day she gets to live it. Also, talking about props on this show, Kingkamol’s shrine to Runch is truly magnificently detailed (all the cards she’s ever written to her mother!), even if it just takes up a few seconds of actual screen time. 

Kingkamol moving in is played for laughs to start off with and the scene of Runch and Neen watching a horror film together, already freaked out (I love that Runch is the wussier one between them), to then have Kingkamol appear at their door in a black face mask to add to the horrors, is very, very funny: but it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief that Neen would be the one ending up sharing a bed with her mother-in-law. I’ll allow it if only for how funny Neen is when she pretends to sleep-talk where she gets to say all the things that propriety would normally forbid her, already set in her agenda to prove that Kingkamol is faking it all (“You think you can fool me by being nice”). Also Orm seems like she’s having an absolute blast in the scene.