so here's my favourite works from this year.

There are, of course, a bunch of different crime-related plot lines in the show, but this is basically going to just be me yelling about Luo Fei and Lu Fengping, seeing as I remain obsessed with them. I’m always up for discussing these two nerds in love, so feel free to tag me or message me (*waves to @thinkonce-acttwice!*). I’m at about the halfway point now, so I’ll post again once I finish the rest of the episodes.

Overall, I really like Desire Catcher - the various bits of plot don’t quite come together in the end, but for me it’s more about the relationships and themes of revenge, regret, and forgiveness. So, lots of angst, which I’m always a big fan of, and which I suppose says something about me…

Luo Fei! Light of my life, the silent, broody, lone wolf cop - ACAB, of course, but he’s firmly in sad (not-so-little) man territory, which is catnip to me. Plus he has a collection of black leather jackets - need I say more?

Lu Fengping! Other light of my life - Luo Fei’s future boyfriend, I mean consulting hypnotist, the more outgoing, “quirky” one. He’s always in light colors, dashing around with a lollipop in his mouth (I know there's a cute connection with his mom about them, but that aside, “oral fixation vibes” anyone?), teasing everyone around him - contrasted with Luo Fei’s dark colors, grim expressions, and workaholic nature. Though it’s interesting that as the show goes on it becomes clear that some of Lu Fengping’s affectations are really a mask he puts on to hide his pain (yay, angst!).

Their first real meeting happens over a meal; it’s dark, it’s raining, there’s thunder in the distance - foreboding and romantic all at once. There’s definitely a teasing/flirty vibe there, though Luo Fei seems wary of Lu Fengping - in fairness, Lu Fengping is sort of using him for info on his mom’s murder case, though it gets a lot more complicated than that as time goes on.

While there’s a lot of emphasis on their differences (e.g., dark vs. light), it’s interesting to note how similar Luo Fei and Lu Fengping actually are, even if they don’t see it yet. For example, Luo Fei has trance-like visions as he imagines what happened at a crime scene, much like how Lu Fengping sort of walks around in someone’s mind/memories when he’s hypnotizing them.

So I know this is mainly about the boyfriends, but I want to say that I love all the other members of the investigation team too, especially Liang Yin - definitely not a fan of the “woman suffers for man pain” thing, but they do give her a couple of moments of reclaiming her agency, which I liked.

Luo Fei and Lu Fengping kind of dance around the whole I-know-you-know-more-about-my-mom’s-death thing for most of the first half of the show, at least until it all comes out when Lu Fengping hypnotizes Luo Fei (and WTF suggesting that Zhang Yu - you were supposed to be the show’s moral compass!). Like I get that by this point they’re becoming closer, feeling more open to each other, but still - you’re just rooting around in his brain without permission, my guy. Yikes.

I’m a big fan of parallels and I think we get a pretty significant one here between Luo Fei/Lu Fengping and the story of the relationship between Xiao Xifeng and Tu Liansheng. While you could certainly read it as just two longtime friends, the flashback scenes of them raising the abandoned kid together certainly give off a “couple-y” vibe. Given that the show can’t come right out and say anyone is actually gay/queer, to me it’s a way of floating the idea out there and letting people draw their own conclusions.

Speaking of reading into things, I had to go there and look up the various books shown strewn around Lu Fengping’s apartment. There were two romance novels (“Crimes of the Heart” by Allie Harrison and “Yesterday’s Bride” by Charlotte Walker), another female-centric novel (“Things to Make and Mend” by Ruth Thomas), a financial memoir (“The Age of Turbulence” by Alan Greenspan), and, my personal fav, some gay French shit (“Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust). Kind of an odd combo of things, but there are some bits that do seem to fit with the themes of the show - lots of misunderstandings, mistakes, not wanting to lose the people close to you. The Greenspan book is more of an outlier, but it does have the theme of “the invisible hand” - it’s mainly an economic term, but you could extrapolate it more generally to people acting on instinct, rather than in a calculated way, sort of like how Lu Fengping’s mom acts to save Liang Yin, setting off a chain of events (kind of a stretch, though). And I guess I don’t have to say much about the Proust - feels like the kind of book you’d use as shorthand for “some gay stuff is happening here, folks.” Plus, the book deals with memory and how people can perceive the same thing in totally different ways, which seems relevant to the mom’s death story line.

Getting back to the gay stuff, there were definitely a few things that made me 👀. First, when Lu Fengping says “no problem” a little too forcefully when Luo Fei tells him to wait outside while he changes - like, “don’t worry, bro, I totally don’t want to see you naked, nope, not at all, hahaha” (combine that with his comment “You don’t like men? Haha, neither do I!” in a later episode to Liang Yin - feels like he’s protesting a bit much). Second, they’re always kind of flirty with each other, even if it’s subtle. There just seems to be a bit of subtext in a line like “You’re in a pretty unique situation” when Luo Fei sees Lu Fengping facedown on the floor at one point, not to mention the looks they give each other when Lu Fengping ends up stumbling to his knees in front of Luo Fei (and you can’t tell me that that was a totally accidental push on the part of Lu Fengping’s mentor - he totally ships them too, IMHO). Third, you can’t overlook the jealousy that rears its head when Luo Fei sees Lu Fengping getting flirty with the (eventually evil) nurse, or when he thinks Lu Fengping brought a girl home to his apartment. Fourth, there are several bits of convo that play around with subtext and seem aimed at the audience with a wink and a nudge. For example, there’s the bit in the car where Lu Fengping brings up marriage (sure, it’s in reference to a different character, but Luo Fei has a justifiable WTF reaction), asks if Luo Fei has a girlfriend, and basically tries to set him up with a female client of his (who, it should be noted, sounds suspiciously like Lu Fengping himself - “very outgoing; your personalities complement each other very well”) in the span of about 10 seconds. Luo Fei gives him his best “bitch, please” look and ditches him - I’m with you on this one, boo. Then there’s a weird bit of dialogue when they’re searching a suspect’s very neat and orderly apartment - Lu Fengping says “A man living by himself can keep a place like this clean. He wouldn’t be that thing…” - long pause, pointed look at Luo Fei - “OCD or something like that?” The audience knows at this point that Luo Fei’s apartment is just as well-kept, and there seems to be an implication that Lu Fengping is actually referring to the stereotype of gay men being very neat. And how could I not mention the fight scene in the gym - beyond the groping, grunting, and full-body contact of their grappling session, the looks they give each other afterward, the small smiles when the other isn’t looking, Lu Fengping thanking Luo Fei for bringing flowers to his mom’s grave - it’s a lot.

DATE NIGHT! (Sorry, I just get really excited about this part.) So here we have Mr. Uptight, known-to-not-drink-with-his co-workers-ever Luo Fei agreeing to go out with Lu Fengping after work and proceeding to get shitfaced (or does he…? He seems suspiciously sober after Lu Fengping puts him to bed and leaves the room). It’s tropey (drunken piggyback ride), it’s sweet (Lu Fengping tearing up when he sees he’s been added to the work group chat), it’s typical man shit (drinking instead of talking about feelings). They’re both just so tender and raw right under the surface and it makes me slightly feral, ngl. Also, the bit with Luo Fei’s parents there in the morning - I love how Lu Fengping immediately charms them and how they rush off like, “oops, sorry son, didn’t realize you brought a 'friend' home - we didn’t mean to interrupt!” And, of course, Liang Yin’s knowing smile when she sees them show up to work together the next morning; at this point in the show I’m not sure there’s any character who doesn’t ship it…

On a sad note, poor Xiao Liu - all he wanted was for his boss Luo Fei to be proud of him. Sure, he fucked up a couple of times, but he still didn’t deserve to get stabbed to death like that, nor just become another brick in the wall of Luo Fei’s “man pain.” (Also, WTF Luo Fei - do not throw papers at your subordinates - not cool, bro.) I’m probably reading too much into things, but there was kind of an undercurrent of Xiao Liu having a little bit of a crush on Luo Fei - he seemed so sad that Luo Fei had drinks with Lu Fengping almost immediately after meeting him, while Xiao Liu had been waiting to do that with Luo Fei for years. Interesting to note too that Xiao Liu also favored lighter-colored clothing, much like Lu Fengping (more of the light vs. dark trope).

listen, i love this scene for a very obvious reason, and that is: bai yaxing was betting on luo fengping's anger to kill hu dayong just like he did with tu xiamao and he almost succeeded (and then again when he hypnotized lfp to off himself, using his pain, this time) but byx has miscalculated lfp

true, txm and lfp share the same grief, having lost someone that they love to greed but here's where byx has miscalculated: it's not that lfp's determination and belief is less than txm's (i mean, he betrayed and hurt the people he clearly cares about — who cares about him back — and faked his death and everything to get his revenge, if that's not determination, i don't know what is), it's that byx never considered what else lfp might believe in other than his anger and pain

now this is the part where another favourite scene of mine comes into play:

i think this was the part that truly and finally made lfp stop (i mean, lfp was already ready to stand down when luo fei brought up his mother but luo fei's plea and admission just might have done it)

byx feeds off on people's desires, mostly revenge, but i don't think he ever understood them despite how they all wanted the same thing, and certainly not lfp's, that's why it ultimately failed

i don't think byx ever considered that lfp's desire for revenge could be swayed by lfp's want to protect the people he cares about — as evidenced by the trio's moment by lfp's mother's grave and then that scene with luo fei above

another scene that further proves it:

another thing byx misunderstood about lfp is his love for his mother, byx reduced it to grief and anger and pain (which are easy to take advantage of) when it's also joy and cheer and comfort and a promise — to be good, to be someone with a sense of justice

Word count: 2,812

Relationship(s): Lu Fengping & Luo Fei

Tags: Grieving, Angst, sad luo fei, fengping's cooking, fyi it's not great, luo fei resorts to unhealthy methods of dealing with grief, sick luo fei, Fever, kitchen disasters

Summary:

Luo Fei doesn't take losing a subordinate well.

Desire Catcher (2023) // The Untamed (2019)