Hey Everyone! I’m still alive, just a little pissy. I had episode 13 recap done last night but as I tried to transfer from Word to my blog – which became a huge mistake – I ended up losing the entire Word data because it crashed (and evidently burned). Now not only do I have to rewrite the episode 13 recap, I have to table my time from watching the ending. Bleh, I should have learned my lesson from the first time years ago, but whatever, it was a bad night. It’s a new day now, and let’s all strive to breathe deeply and begin again. Apologies for the delay, for the extra snark in my recap today, and well, for the shorter content. It is, what it is.

I have always wondered, from that fateful intro of the story, on what Nok must have done in order to warrant Nai removing their baby from her clutches, and minutes after she had pushed a baby out no less. Turns out, absolutely nothing. You don’t have to do anything, because it NEVER happened. That scene was only a DREAM, Nok’s deepest fear, that strung us along for THIRTEEN episodes and played with our emotions. It was a let down really, a lazy resolution to an issue we’ve been wondering about for so long. Not to say that at least it stayed true to our faith in Nai, in that he would never do such a cruel thing, because then I wouldn’t forgive him, but I was prepared to see how the writer resolved the scene, and what creativity or restoration of faith she would impart. But a dream? That’s disappointing.

Now what we’re left to face here is Nok and Nai feeling like they must follow through with an agreement that both have no desire to fulfill but are too stubborn to be the first to say it. Both are willing to be the one who loses the most, opting to be miserable than to confess or take back what they’ve said. Guys! It’s not like you’ve written it in stone, and even so, we can just hire a bulldozer and smash it to pieces. NULL. VOID. Needless to say, we spend the whole episode in a really sad state of affairs, with the only shining light: Nontapat. A baby born into this world to bring people happiness. Now that’s a tough act to follow, like you have to make people’s day all the time, when sometimes you just want to slap them from their dramaqueen/king induced brains, even if they’re your parents and you don’t quite know how to lift your hands yet.

Let’s proceed with the top ten important things that happened in this episode, before the finale. We are at STALEMATE or is it GAME OVER?

  1. Nok’s decision to hide Mom Nim’s reappearance from Nai bites her in the ass, knowing full well that mom is sick, that Nai has been searching for her, and that she’s playing with time. But Nok was afraid mom would bolt, and so she opted to make a choice against all odds, but it did not work out to her favor. Instead:
    • Mom falls to her eventual death. She hits her head, bleeding badly, but still manages to try and sell her garlands on the street like the stubborn badass that she is. She even reconciled with grandma, who tells her that she should let her son take care of her, he’s more than capable, and to come back and be with grandma if she wants to repay her.
    • On her dying bed in the hospital, Mom Nim asks Nok to promise and make sure Nai smiles his beautiful smile always. Nok gives mom her word as the older woman holds their hands together and then she rests in peace.
  2. The guilt ate at Nok. She notices that Nai could barely look at her and she confesses to Wongwait that she wished she had listened to him and told Nai the truth from the getgo, though the nice doctor relents that nobody could have predicted what will happen.
  3. Nok feared that Nai would get so angry and think this is her way of getting revenge or to win in their ongoing war. Nai tells her that he knows she wouldn’t do something like this, because if this was just a game, she wouldn’t take his mom for treatments. I will admit that I feared he would take it badly, but sometimes I forget that Nai is very forgiving when it comes to Nok.
  4. But being very forgiving doesn’t mean you would easily forget it. Nok overhears this as Nai was talking to Khun Nat, and thinks that she’s a burden to him, so she rejects his help, his meals, his kind actions because she thinks she doesn’t deserve it and that he would never forgive her. But instead of maybe telling him that, she opts to hurt him instead.
  5. In a way Nok is very much like Mom, once she makes up her mind about something, she’s gonna stick to it. Mom decides she needs to stay in her lane and act like the appropriate aunt and rejects Wongwait, not even giving him the opportunity to discuss this with her.
  6. Dad and Kae have their baby! Named by grandma – the goddess of names – Meunkanid, because she looks like her sister. Kae is good with the name because she wants Nu Nid to be just like her older sister. You might want to rethink that. The older sister doesn’t even want to see her little sister’s face.
  7. Nok has that fateful nightmare about Nai taking the baby and when she wakes, she lashes at Nai, who then thinks that she must be so disgusted by his touch that she recoiled. Ok, smartypants. This propels him to draw up divorce papers and crying a pool of tears as he thinks about his lovely memories with Nok. (This scene was heartbreaking, the crying and angsty James Ji is hot). He even declines his name to be added to the business papers because Dad is retiring. This makes the parents wonder if their marriage is on shaky grounds. Both mom and dad have a conversation with Nai individually:
    • Mom tells Nai that she had reminded him about what may happen if he decides to pursue Nok, but she never imagined that he would give up so easily. Where is that fighting spirit, she inquires. Ditto, mom. This realization that her kids’ marriage may fall apart, and that her daughter may end up alone like her, brings mom to tears. Aw, mom. Could you at least choose the happy route? Always choose to be happy, people.
    • Dad is disappointed that things are turning out this way – he saw the divorce papers – but he tells Nai that he’s not losing hope. Ever the optimistic, Dad!
  8. Nok is in labor. Nai stands beside her the entire time, holding her hand, encouraging her. But when the baby is born, Nok turns her head away, not wanting to look at it. Oof, the realization on Nai’s face.
  9. On a roll, grandma names the baby – Nontapat – and tells the baby that his job is to make two people stay together and make them happy.
  10. Instead of sharing her fears with Nai, Nok confesses to Wongwait that she couldn’t hold the baby because she was afraid she would not be able to hold him again. Sticking to her guns about their agreement, she says that she won’t have the baby anyway, why try to bond with it? Nai of course hears this, but only the part about her wishing that she would never have the baby. And then seeing that Nok doesn’t want to breastfeed the baby either. This solidifies to him that she wants nothing to do with him or the baby again.

Talk about the gearing up for the grand finale, Nai walking away with purpose and anger. Although Nai is not without his faults, I’ve been giving Nok the side-eye. The biggest sticking point is that she’s accepted that she won’t get to be the mother of her own baby. I know she will change her mind in the final episode as she will see the light, but it’s so unrealistic and unfathomable for her to worry about this as she’s giving birth. Heck, when I was in labor, and days after, I couldn’t get past how bone exhausting the whole ordeal was, how my body seems to be not my body, how much sleep I’m not getting, much less worry about some stupid agreement I made with my stupid husband. Do you know what agreement I stuck with? KEEP THE BABY ALIVE. And hopefully I get fed too.

But with all this angst, this means only good things for the finale right? As evident on my Twitter feed. A known rule: don’t scroll through twitter unless you want to be spoiled.