I wanted to do this right after the finale aired, but couldn’t really watch it till today. I’ve never really reviewed a show before, but it’s been so fun watching and also discussing this one every week! There’s so much to talk about, so this feels like the best way to go about it. 

Before a more character-oriented breakdown, let’s begin with the end. There are lots of mixed feelings about the finale and I had been worried about the ending before it aired too. But I was so pleasantly surprised by what we got. Everyone who enjoyed it has pointed out how perfectly in character everyone remained right to the end, and that’s part of it. But ultimately, I loved how the point of it all shone through in the end: This was a show for the artists. For those who struggle in a seemingly impossible world, who crave recognition for our skills, who cannot imagine doing anything else and for those who try so hard and work many jobs just to get to do what they want. It’s never felt like a romance because it isn’t one. It was also never going to be about how to beat AI. It is about how essential art and its creators always will be to this world, no matter how they are neglected. 

I’ll begin with a character that may not strike immediately as the most important one, but she really is at the heart of the whole story in many ways: Ing.

She has such an interesting role in relation to art. She may not make the art, but her passion is in curating it, presenting it to the world in way that makes the audience think, push their boundaries. She’s actually doing real work that can bring recognition to artists who are struggling to get their work out there. But she’s also working a full time job to fund her passion. She knows what she needs to do to be able to do what she wants. She can be Jira’s rock because she’s struck the precarious balance she needs to survive. It burns her out, it takes all her energy, but she has incredibly clear priorities. She doesn’t desire recognition or even a livelihood from her passion because she knows its damn close to impossible. She finds her peace in just being able to do it, which is the opposite of Jira. Art is everything to him, and that makes him quite off-balance in the world. And even thought creation is his passion, he also craves recognition for it. Not necessarily in the sense of wanting to become a famous artist, but for his art to be truly seen and loved and needed by someone else the way he himself needs it. Honestly, that’s why Koh and Jira getting together at the end feels fine. Fitting, even. We can debate if its transactional or not, but that’s not really the point. Jira desperately wants him for his art, and Koh desperately needs him and his art to sleep. There’s no pretense of control left for either of them. They’re both in this for themselves, and both these things are essentially tied to Jira’s art. 

With that said, lets talk about the one guy who was not in this for the art of it all. Pheem is the biggest loser I’ve ever been compelled by. It really was so much about his ego and Koh, is what the finale confirmed for me. He sees Jira’s painting of himself and is awed because yes, he’s being seen in a way he has never been before, but also because it’s as fabulous as Koh’s is (even if he’s never going to be the centerpiece in the end). He throws hands with Koh and they squabble over Jira (who they have both lost at this point) like they’re kindergarteners fighting over a toy. He lets Jira go only after he sees Koh being pathetic and broken up with. He is still convinced that he’s doing it because he cares about Koh, for the sake of a long lost friendship. He drives away at the end, but I can’t help feeling that he will be circling right back, and it will once again be about Koh, no matter how much he think it’s about Jira.

 If Jira matters to Koh because of his art, he matters to Pheem because of Koh. I think it’s quite significant also that the last Koh and Pheem interaction we see is in a place where they grew up together. Also fascinated by how it apparently slips Koh’s mind that Pheem was here all the time, which is quite the reversal from what we see of their earlier interactions – Pheem being all about business or cursing at Koh for his bullshit while Koh brings up their friendship, gets him his favourite wine. I don’t quite believe Koh when he says that. And I don’t believe Pheem either when he says he’d stuck around so long to try and make Koh ‘more human’. I still think there’s a fucked up threesome in their future lmao. 

Coming to the crux if it: I kind of love how the show frames the question of AI. We see all the ugly sides of it, but the show isn’t about the AI. It’s about the artists who are trying to make it in the world with AI in it, and there’s a crucial difference. There are many ways fiction can engage with reality, and one of the ways this show could have gone was to tell an allegorical story of a world where AI loses to art, or a tragedy that ends the other way around. But, like several excellent posts have pointed out, the show wasn’t making Koh, Jira and Pheem representatives for Art and AI and so on in order to tell an allegorical story. The show wanted to talk about the very real dilemmas, choices, compromises and motivations of the very real people who live very real lives. That’s why nobody gets redemption arcs (if Koh had gotten one, that would’ve given me the biggest ick actually). Nobody has a flash of enlightenment about where they belong or what they’re meant to do. They all simply make a choices that are, for all their principles, ultimately governed by their hearts. Jira goes back to Koh. Koh, for all his hyping of logic over heart, cannot go on without Jira, is never even shown trying to make his AI replace Jira. The point of the story is simple – no matter how art and artists are pushed into corners, struggle to survive, are neglected and even betrayed by the world, the world will always need them because art is a fundamental part of what makes us human. Koh doesn't need to have a realisation and change his mind about AI; he has been incredibly human right from the beginning and will inevitably act like one, crave Jira’s art and Jira himself. Jira doesn’t need to be a morally perfect anti-capitalist warrior, he will pursue his source of inspiration no matter what and continue to create.

The show is an excellent use of a romance genre to tell an utterly unromantic story. I think it becomes even more meaningful, as a story coming from artists who are working within the limits of an incredibly commercial genre like BL. There’s many ways in which they used very standard romance and BL tropes to tell a story that wasn’t really romantic, but here’s a few examples. The way Kohjira speedrun all the typical romance beats not only ticks all the boxes but also shows us the disharmony between them, the awkwardness of it, the unease on Jira’s side and the desperation on Koh’s, the clear signs that this isn’t about finding The One as much as it is about latching onto what each of them wants. Another very clear use is the classic branded-pair-ends-up-together part of it, which has a bunch of people pissed off. I actually feel that the story was shaped very deliberately and cleverly to make that ending be meaningful. It wasn’t a moment of enlightenment, or belonging, or affection that led to the reconciliation – it was constant, year-long reminders of how they need each other to get what they want. Their love doesn’t fix or heal either of them. It’s not a beautiful miracle. It’s a mess that happens to work for them, at least for the moment. Seeing such deliberate use of romance genre tropes delights my aromantic heart in so many ways, that could be an essay of its own.

My few quibbles:

I kind of wish we’d gotten to see more of the impact of Jira's struggle with basic things like getting art supplies and just keeping the house going past just episode 1, even though it is alluded to a bit. His apartment is beautiful but how was he affording that! And the expensive art supplies!

I can’t complaint too much about what we did get, because AJ and Dew had such great chemistry, no matter how you read their relationship GIVE US THE AUDITION KISS AHHHHH. But I wish Mawin had more of a role than Pheem’s supportive bestie towards the second half.

Less of a quibble, more of a thing I need to chew on a little more before forming an opinion on, is the question of money and class difference. It’s easy to equate it to the Art vs AI dynamics, but that’s not right; trying to understand how this imbalance operates between Koh and Jira is also important. As someone who has struggled financially, money must mean more than just validation or recognition for Jira. In the light of that, what does it mean for Jira to be willing to sell only to Koh? What does it mean for him to be paid for his art by the man he’s in a relationship with? What does it mean for him to be happy doing that? I’m not sure yet, and I won’t feel confident about my understanding of the show till I figure that out.

three's a crowd and two's in love and I can't sleep alone