When a Man Loves a Woman – Episode 1

Channel 3’s new primetime lakorn premiered today taking over the Wednesday-Thursday timeslot, and does not waste a moment in their storytelling. Piang Chai Kon Nee Mai Chai Poo Wiset (which translates as ‘Just a Man, Not a Magician’) seems poised to be a show with a lot of dramatic impact. I like the pairing already and smiled quite a bit during their confrontations. It’s a romantic story that I want to see unfold.  But first, let’s see if I remember how to do this.

EPISODE 1 RECAP

We open with Anusaniya (Kimberly Voltemas) arriving at Casa Studio – a furniture conglomerate that is owned by her family. She’s a revered and feared leader, and the employees straighten immediately when they are alerted of her arrival.

A man watches her from the story above, that’s our hero Satawat (James Ma) who receives confirmation that she’s the woman he’s looking for. As they meet face on, Anusaniya is taken aback by his familiar face. We flash back to 4 days ago in Krabi, where the majority of our storytelling takes place in this episode.

An event featuring a dual sponsorship between Acacia and Casa Studio launches in Krabi. Anusaniya regales to the crowd of reporters why her company chose this particular spot, however music erupts and a singer/dancer steals her spotlight. It’s Soamika (Namcha Cheranut) who happens to be dating Anusaniya’s uncle, Chayakorn (Pop Thagoon). The reporters flock to Soamika’s side immediately, snapping pictures of her flamboyant show.

Back at headquarter, Dad and her four aunties all surmise that this is not a launch of their company’s partnership with Acacia, but it’s more like Chayakorn doing a media announcement about his relationship. The four aunties indicate that if Anusaniya got into a relationship with Chris from Acacia, Casa Studio will benefit tremendously. Thankfully Dad doesn’t like the idea of hooking his daughter up with someone just to gain profit. He retorts that at least Anusaniya is capable of making the company money by her own merit than her four aunties combined. Ha.

In Krabi, the hotel celebrates the launch by throwing a big pool party. Soamika is the heart of the party while Anusaniya feels uncomfortable at such noisy and loud events. But Chris (with Acacia) doesn’t want her to leave until he has his fun with her. Soamika detests Anusaniya (these two appear to have a long history of being frenemies) and she conspires with Chris so that he can have his night of fun with Anusaniya alone.

Chris spiked a bottle of champagne and takes Anusaniya on board his fancy boat. The night wears on and she starts to exhibit drowsiness and fever, yet refuses his advances. At the same time, we see a bearded Satawat in a much smaller and humble boat. He was watching the coral reefs and the fireworks when he suddenly hears a person falling into the water. From a distance he spies the man turning his boat away, which only means the other person is still in the water.

Anusaniya finally manages to make a safe distance from her assailant when her legs give out and she loses strength. Her body drops lower into the sea but shortly after, she feels a person pulling her above water. Satawat carries her to shore. But notices how feverish and drug ridden she is. He does his best trying to keep her clothes on, while she incoherently tries to take them off. In the end, she falls on his face, passed out from the drug and exertion. Cute and funny.

Morning comes and Anusaniya notices that she’s on an island, in a strange bed in someone else’s clothes. As she walks around the cabin, she spies someone in the restroom and peers underneath the door. That is when the door comes crashing down, revealing a naked Satawat. Anusaniya screams and rushes away, and the man chases her.

He finally captures her on the beach and tells her to get a hold of herself. A fellow islander sees them from afar and takes a picture of Satawat on top of Anusaniya. He grabs hold of her bra that fell on the ground. He uses this as evidence to show an island girl who crushes on Satawat.

Anusaniya promises that she didn’t see anything, but Satawat relents that they’re even now. Anusaniya freaks out, realizing that he must be the one who changed her clothes. She questions whether he “raped” her and Satawat nods his head to tease her. But finally admits that she had been the one who tried to rape him. Lol. He calms her down enough to encourage her to think about last night and what had transpired. He told her that she must have taken drugs and fell into the water (notating how irresponsible she was). Anusaniya realizes that he was right (minus the irresponsible part since she was advertently the victim).

Uncle Chayakorn realizes his niece is missing and searches for her. He doesn’t inform headquarter because he doesn’t want to cause a stir. Meanwhile Soamika and Chris fret over Chayakorn’s reaction if he finds out the truth.

Anusaniya offers to pay Satawat to take her back to the mainland but he’s not interested in cash, instead he is annoyed by her behavior. He had every intention to help her anyway and borrows a boat. But Anusaniya takes matter into her own hands by trying to get back to the mainland with a canoe (rowing in circles that is) and falls into the water again. Satawat brings the boat over and spots Anusaniya stepping right into a sharp coral. She yelps in pain and Satawat hoists her back into his arms. Heh.

Even though Satawat literally tries to beat the splinter out of her foot, Anusaniya starts to see him as a more trustworthy man. She peers at him as he tenderly bandage her feet and offers her food. She mentions not to take to mind whatever she had done or said the other day, she wasn’t herself. The two introduce each other – Satawat tells her to call him Wat (without giving her his full name) while Anusaniya reveals her full name and nickname – Nut. They smile sweetly at each other.

But that is the end of their sweet beginning perhaps. Satawat carries her back to shore where they meet Chayakorn who mistakes Satawat for being a villain. I mean, just because he didn’t shave for a few weeks, does that mean he’s a bad guy? Lakorn logic. Anusaniya clarifies that “Wat” saved her, and the true villain here is Chris.

With that, Chayakorn pummels Chris’ face while the entire gang of reporters snap their pictures. Chris reveals that Soamika was his accomplice. Chayakorn glares at his girlfriend and dumps her right in front of everyone, much to Soamika’s dismay. Soamika declares that he must be so head over heels for his niece in order to dump her like this. A keen reporter by the name of Mirantee listens on with curiosity, the words “in love with your niece” seem to have stayed with her. She has been following these hi so folks for some time and decides to tail the truth.

Embarrassed from the public breakup, Soamika hightails out of there and steals Satawat’s boat from the shore, who ends up following her to get his boat back until it runs out of gas. They end up back at his island.

Reporter Mirantee finds herself at the small island as well and meets the islander who had taken pictures of Satawat and a lady. Mirantee knows exactly who that is in the pictures.  She found Soamika by Satawat’s home and decides to get a reaction. She tells Soamika that she’s not exactly upset that she lost her man, she’s actually more hurt that she lost to Anusaniya. She hit the nail on the head there.

Back in Bangkok, Anusaniya tells her father that she’s going to let this one go because Chris is their client and she doesn’t want to hurt their business. Unfortunately she learns that her aunties has been trying to hook her up with Chris so that their business can thrive even more. Angry, Anusaniya spats that she’s there to work not to find love. The person who should be worried about their business is actually her Aunt Nan who loaned 60 million baht to a company with no credit, over the course of years they haven’t received a penny back. Anusaniya scolds her aunt to ensure they get their money back and stop trying to pawn her off to some guy.

Anusaniya smiles at her uncle and says that if she can’t find someone like him, she’d rather not be with anyone. He replies that they can make a pact, if she can’t find anyone, he won’t be with anyone either.

Soamika snoops around Satawat’s home and notices some high end devices. But when she spied some bottle organs and blood, she starts to formulate that he must be a murderer of some sort. Much to her surprise, he’s actually a doctor, currently researching on the island. She watches as he saves an islander by resuscitating him back to life. In one short period, Soamika went from heartbroken to finding a new love interest.

That night she confesses that it doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore being heartbroken. Because her heart is still beating. This means she’s alive, which is the utmost important thing. He made her realize today that she shouldn’t chase after a man who doesn’t care about her. She should look onto new things. And at that, she peers over at Satawat with a smile. Our guy turns his head away and feigns sleep, he was just thinking and smiling about Anusaniya, when his thoughts unfortunately got interrupted by the flirty Soamika.

The next morning the news about the public breakup overshadows the event launch. To make matters worse, Anusaniya gets a text message with what appears to be compromising pictures of her and Satawat. She surmises that maybe the islander (Satawat) is blackmailing her. She is disappointed because she thought he was a good man, and she had been thinking about him last night too. She orders someone to find Satawat on the island.

Mirantee who works at Hi-So Online has an even juicier story to cement her way out of society gossip and do something more meaningful. Mirantee summarizes that Soamika and Anusaniya knew each other since grade school and has been frenemies ever since. They are both from wealthy families and very competitive. The breakup between Soam and Chaya could be because of Nut. Apparently even though Chaya is Nut’s “real” uncle, their family thinks that they’re not blood related, which in turn makes Chaya regard Nut as more than a niece.

Meanwhile Satawat and Soamika make it back to the city. Soam’s father’s men retrieves her back home and she takes Satawat’s bag and number in order to see him again. Pfft. But can’t fault her trick.

Aunt Nan shows up at her debtor’s home, demanding that they pay back all of the money she owed them. Satawat’s mom (Mam Jintara) happens to be the debtor whose husband took out a loan for his business. Then after his death, Mom took out even more loans to keep them afloat as well as to send Satawat overseas for medical school. Satawat walks in on time to hear that his mom owes that much money. This came as a shock to him as he was never aware of their financial struggles. He feels responsible as well since his mom used that money for him. Mom tells Aunt Nan that her son is a doctor and can also become a guarantor. They will pay it back. Aunt Nan says they can take that up with her niece (ha, sounds to me that even the auntie fears Anusaniya). Mom pleads with Satawat to talk to Anusaniya for her.

And that’s how we get back to present time, where Satawat faces off with Anusaniya in Casa Studio. It is a small world when Anusaniya realizes that the islander is her debtor. She accuses him of knowing this and for blackmailing her with the pictures. Satawat declares he just found out about the debt minutes ago and he has no part in blackmailing her. Regardless, Satawat asks for five years to pay off the debt, but seeing that they didn’t even pay a penny in many years, Anusaniya is disinclined to give them more time or believe that he’s genuine. She wants her money back right now. Satawat couldn’t believe that she’s that thoughtless, but Anusaniya retorts that she only gives it to those who deserves it.

Anusaniya tells her father that she thinks the debtors will bail, but she’s not going to let that happen.

Chayakorn has a bone to pick with Mirantee who he feels reported false news. Mirantee is fearless and tells him that she only reports the truth, he ought to stop doing scandalous things if he doesn’t want it reported upon. Furious, Chayakorn declares that he’s going to shut them down.

Soam’s father has a word with Chayakorn, hoping that he’d get back with his daughter, but realizes that Chayakorn has already moved on. They had been business partners and he was sad to see a good catch go. Soam has no interest in ending well with Chayakorn, she confronts him that he has never loved her, in fact, he has always loved Anusaniya. Chayakorn seems to deny it at first, but the look on his face is uncertain.

Soamika instructs Satawat to meet her that night if he wants his bag back, which is the same spot as where Anusaniya and Chayakorn are conversing how small the world is. Oh yes indeed.

COMMENTS

I am already starting to like how small this world is. The show takes off in full speed, having boy meeting girl for the second time around under constrained circumstances. The setup is very different (a welcome difference) than what I’ve anticipated. It is not like Wanida at all. The editing was a little shakey to begin with, but by the middle and end of the episode, it has smoothed things out a bit. I love our kind and righteous hero who doesn’t feel like he needs to explain himself to anyone, and a responsible one who realizes that his mother’s debt is his as well. I also enjoy the fact that our heroine gives as good as she gets. The two are trying to make sense of each other’s situation, which conflicts with their initial attraction to one another.

For a premier episode, this show has gotten me hooked and curious. Conflicts abound, Uncle-Niece attachment, Frenemies between Nut-Soam, Interesting conflict between Chaya-Chakree, and I haven’t even gotten to the best part, the spark between Satawat and Anusaniya. How will she ensure that Satawat pay up? I mean, marriage isn’t the worse way to writeoff a debt. Just saying.

Feel free to watch this show on Channel 3’s YT.