Cubic (A SnarkCap) - Episode 16 FINAL
Shuk: FINALLY
Trotwood: Finally. Appropriate, too. Since I'm not going to be blogging anymore for awhile. Work is too stressful and too busy. Spending most of my vacation being bitter that I have to go back to work and researching ways in which I might not have to go back to work for long. I'm really feeling like I'm getting too old for the crap and pressure that I put up with.
But at least I haven't been blown up and gone down a trash flume slide!
Wow. This episode is almost two hours!!
Kmuse: It has been so long that I almost feel I need to rewatch the whole drama to remember everything. But then I remind myself that you can only spend so much of one's life staring at gangsters staring on stairs.
Chapter 16 - Final
That sad police tape is still up, but now there's a small sign that says "DANGER". Of course, the ambulance and multiple people are on the inside of this so-called Danger Zone. There's MIB's, guys in red suits, guys in yellow raincoats, and construction workers. A few tiny fires. And lots and lots of broken concrete.
I like how there is the one group carrying a stretcher around. Like just in case? Why not leave it at the ambulance in case they get called to a specific spot. Or is it supposed to make us sad that's empty?
Lin Lan Ser is still there, yelling at everyone to find Ruthainark. Oh look! MIB's have semi-automatic carbines as well. Just to make things more dangerous, I guess.
Meanwhile, Nark is taking a nice snooze in some strange room filled with garbage bags and spinach. I'm confused, as I thought she took the same flume ride as LLS. What happened?
She only had the cheap ticket. She got the trash flume instead. Also, it's time for me to start talking about the loud, bombastic music. It's just overwhelmingly epic strings that somehow don't match with the trash flume set that doesn't nearly have enough trash for a building that size or the incinerator that looks like it was made out of papier-mâché.
I love that LLS's cell phone (must have also went the cheap route) which seems not at all dinged or broken. I promise you if my phone went on a flume ride with me, that thing would be broken beyond use. I glance at it wrong and the screen breaks.
Aboveground, it seems that the MIB, without stairs, can only pivot in place with their guns. JS hands LLS a cup of coffee. Did I mention how perfect JS's hair is throughout this disaster?
Nark is awake, and appears to be faking blindness as she bumbles around the room and yells for help. Realizing the trash bags won't answer, she starts looking around for anything to help her. Oh look! She finds a cell phone. And it's working!
I want that phone. I want most of the phones in dramas because they seem indestructible half the time. How is she even getting service down there. I can't even get service in the stairwell in my apartment building.
They are indestructible, yes, but they tend to have that annoying battery that runs out 7 seconds before you actually need it.
I
love that LLS's cell phone must have also went the cheap route since it is not at all dinged or broken. I promise you if my phone went on a
flume ride with me, that thing would be broken beyond use. I glance at
it wrong and the screen breaks.
She tries to call JS. Actually it's LLS's phone! (how did this happen? I never remember the set up for this switch) Grumpy Guy doesn't want to answer his own phone, since he lost it. JS answers it but can't hear Nark at the other end. Nark! Try texting!!
Well, at least we know why there isn't very much trash down there. How else would she have found that phone?
LLS can't imagine who might be messing with his phone. Well, nobody ever said he was the geeeenius of the scooby gang.
Nark tries again, and this time JS hears her! (because he is THE geeeeenius of the gang) LLS snatches the phone and the two lovebirds talk. LLS assures her that he is safe, but Nark can't say the same. They manage to figure out that she may be in the garbage room. JS sends a couple of guys with shovels to move the tons of debris that separate them.
That is one well built garbage room. Everything else is total rubble.
Nark comments that it's getting hard to breathe; no wonder, when you are surrounded by smelly piles of crap. Nevertheless, she slowly collapses to the ground while complaining of dizziness. LLS orders her to endure and stay awake, but it's for naught as she drops the phone and falls to the floor.
She's using up a lot of unnecessary energy here: her own and the cell phone.
Aboveground, LLS is panicking, and our boys do their best to get the crews to dig faster.
He's distinctly unhelpful. And if he is so worried, he'd have some of those guys with guns help with moving debris. Why are they looking around like they're going to get attacked. There are police there. Isn't that their job?
Looking at the police in this show, would you trust them?
Nark isn't exactly unconscious, but she's very weak. And in case we weren't sure, the words "TRASH CAN" in Chinese are painted on the wall. She wanders around, wasting the cellphone battery using the Flashlight feature, and bemoans dying in a trash compactor.
Bemoans being smelly on her way to the next world.
ShukNote: This is the worst rendition of a rescue site I have ever seen. There's one guy using a metal chisel against one rock, a couple of people random poking in the mud with rebar, and a couple of guys looking like they are plotting ship movements on an old WW-II map. And I know there is at least one giant excavator onsite. What are these hand tool guys gonna do??
The entire time, I was thinking, "Who hired these people?"
I was just wondering if LLS was going to kiss Nark when they found her. Considering the smell and all. Obviously, my level of investment is not as deep as yours.
There appears to be a locked door inside the garbage shoot, but despite her pounding on it, there is no response. She manages to find a partially-filled water bottle in the garbage, which she sniffs and then drinks. Not only that, she sprinkles some of this dubious H2O on her face.
Why? Why waste good water that you need to drink?
I am starting to question that genius moniker.
LLS asks the foreman of the Saddest Construction Crew Ever LLC about the progress. He says there is some sort of solid metal beam that's blocking their attempts to gain access to the area Nark is in. If they can't find a solution, she could suffocate! (If she doesn't die of sepsis from whatever she splashed on her face).
There are so many diseases you can get from rotting garbage, sepsis was the least of my worries--salmonella, typhoid, gastroenteritis, and let's not talk about the flies or the rats. I can't believe they didn't show one rat.
They paid the orchestra too much to be able to afford an animal wrangler.Heck, they couldn't even afford enough fake garbage bags to make this really look like a trash filled room.
She waits against the door, hoping for anyone to save her. She thinks about all the events of the last 15 episodes, including glimpses of Mei Jin interacting with LLS, and shots of her sister. Thankfully we don't see any flashbacks of BadDad.
LLS, JS, and Chat the Foreman pour over blueprints of, yunno, the destroyed building, but can't seem to find any better location. Eventually they get an idea of drilling through a waste water pipe instead of accessing the building directly.
Not "they" but JS, the geeeeeenius because all the professional guy can say is no to everything they point out on the map and can't think of anything himself even though that's his job. Sigh many people need to be fired.
LLS calls Nark and is worried about her weak voice. He begs her to hold on and endure a little bit longer. When she doesn't answer, he orders her to live; that brings a ghost of a smile to her face before she finally goes unconscious.
It is now dark outside, and a construction worker is standing in knee-deep water, pickaxing a huge piece of concrete. How long have they been pecking away at this?
Well, it is only ONE guy despite all those people they have around. You're telling me they had time to get all those lights but only time to get one pickax. Pfft.
It doesn't matter. Those garbage doors open, and Nark opens her eyes to a clean and dry and gloriously backlit Lin Lan Ser as he steps in and glows before our heroine. She's saved! We spend endless limits with the female love ballad BGM while they stare at each other. Well, exactly three minutes worth. As LLS dips close to her lips, her eyes finally close. There's a switch to the duet love ballad BGM, as the camera pans back to find her...by herself and unconscious?
Because they are going to force us to listen to their love theme ad infinitum.
All I want is a sketchy kiss between a high school student and her principal. Is that too much to ask?
So it was all a dream, darn it. You knew it had to be. They were clean. The real action is in the rubble, as everyone stares at the muddy hole and the lone pickaxing dude. Finally he shouts that the 'drill' made it through.
What drill?
I was actually thinking a drill would have been faster as I sat there watching the pickax go up and down. Glad that someone was thinking next level, even if we were not able to actually see it.
LLS immediately jumps from a drippy backlit tunnel entrance, into a wide, clean, but damp concrete tunnel. So does JS, and a couple of other people. It suddenly opens up to a nice clean dry hallway. Maybe rather that a drainage tube, it's a quirky back entrance to the employee parking lot or something.
Seriously, where did all that water the pickax guy was standing in go?
Unerringly (of course), he finds the correct door and pulls it open with unlocked ease and finds Nark's unmoving body. Grabbing a BVM, he attempts to blow room air into her lungs. When that doesn't seem to work, he tries the old yell-and-hug you-can't-leave-me method. That does the trick much better than pesky lifesaving medical equipment! She coughs and wakes up.
LLS grabs her hand in a awkward position and brushes her hair back. Water is dripping down his face faster than the Hin Ta Ngo reservoir, but Nark doesn't notice. Instead, she demands answers to a series of questions: Does LLS love Mei Jin? Doe LLS love her Nantaka? Calmly he denies both questions.
Finally they both smile. Is this the moment when our geeeenius figures it out?
I assumed she was delirious.
Who knows, she falls unconscious again before saying anything more. Time to hustle her out of there! Wait, not yet. You forgot to say how they call for the doctor. They JUST NOW call for the doctor to come. Like they had to go get her from a snack even though someone should have gone to get her as soon as they broke through the pipe and everyone and his brother decided to go through the (very dry) tunnels.
Our motley assortment of rescue and construction people cheer as LLS carries Nark across the rubble, already surrounded by his MIB's and their weapons.
There was clearly space to bring down a stretcher (and a entire cub scout troop), why didn't they bring a stretcher?
Danny shows up by the ambulance. Whut?
How did he get there? I guess he saw it on the news. It is the next day.
Anyway, she's placed on the stretcher (finally); LLS and JS head for another vehicle, but Nark suddenly wakes up and bolts upright. She needs to ask the question: Is it okay that she loves him? She lists all her shortcomings: not cute, not sexy, always in trouble, always annoying him, etc. etc.
(**Cough** her age!!!)
He grabs her wrists and demand that she be responsible for everything she has ever said to him, especially that she will stay by his side forever. Everybody, and I mean everybody is waiting for her answer.
This. Takes. For. Ever.
This episode would be so much shorter if they didn't have these eternal stare offs.
They want maximum BGM time, too, don't forget.The answer is yes, of course. Staring, cheers, a hug and a cheek kiss while we get another duet love ballad.
It's more than just that. While she confesses and gives a literal paragraph of the kind of woman she is not and then finally painfully asks her question and he stares blankly forever and then finally answers her--at one point even yelling at her, because she doesn't speak for a long while in response to her questions, we get a rendition of their love theme by the female singer, then the instrumental version, then by the male singer. I watched the clock. This went on for SEVEN MINUTES. Is this the longest confession in drama? Half of it is one of them just staring.
It kind of reminds me of those staring contests I would do with my siblings back in the day. You stare and the one who blinks first loses. That is exactly what this confession felt like.
Meanwhile, in some boring industrial building, Patrick and Hippy Hair grind their teeth as they step out of an elevator. They arrive in a (huge) room with a couple of MIB's, and both JS and LLS. Err, and a body. Everything is quiet and solemn, except the car-chase BGM blasting our ears.
Patrick sneers at the cloth-covered figure; he is here only to observe Ruthainark's body. We all know it's a ruse, especially since LLS isn't wearing a tie. Still, he growls at the Interpol agent to behave.
The agent lifts the shroud, frowns, looks down, looks up, frowns some more. LLS couldn't be any stiffer if he was from Madame Tussaud's, while JS maintains eye contact with Patrick every time he looks over. This goes on for a while until, finally, JS sports a fleeting sh&& eating grin, knowing Patrick can't refute.
Again. This. Takes. Forever. The staring to speaking ratio? 2:1.
He does insist on talking to a doctor to confirm the corpse's identity, but that's really just a formality. The convenient nearby doctor (who acts as though he wasn't in the same room the entire time) conveniently has a convenient report confirming the DNA of the body conveniently matches that of the girl.
Suddenly, our Interpol agent gets a thought and runs out of the viewing room. He stops our boys in the hospital corridor. He's straight to the point: why would LLS handle the remains of some dead girl he claimed to not even know?
I love JS and his pure snarkiness. What right does an honorable international agent have to interview an HK citizen that hasn't been accused of any crimes? And asking questions about a dead girl that also hasn't been accused of any crimes?
Patrick and Hippy Hair get chivvied out of the hospital. Hippy looks ready to give the hospital the middle finger, and asks his boss if the case dead-ends here. Nope, Patrick barks, only Ruthainark's case is closed. He still plans to pursue Carlos to the ends of the earth.
But Hippy Hair had three lines! He must have been excited.
Hippy Hair might have been the best performance of this lakorn. Or, more specifically, his hair flips were. That hair had charisma.
Through another exit, the Chaihong entourage gets a moment to strut. Officially, Nark is now dead in HK, and so is more or less safe from danger.
But still not safe from stupid people because look who we have to see next.
At Chaihong's hospital, JS explains the situation to Nark's family. He assures them that she is safe. It will be a few days before anyone can see her.
JS pointedly talks to BadDad and demands he explain everything to Nark about...everything. Nan also wants to know, so BadDad just blurts it out to the idiot. Wait, you haven't told the one person who should know, but you'll tell all to one of the dumbest female characters of all time?
At least it makes sense now. There's no way Nark could be blood related to these two doofuses.
Anyway, Nark is in a hospital room, surrounded by flowers and fruit, looking all glamorous and pretty. (Her hair looks FANTASTIC!) She's still asleep when LLS walks in. He flashes back to their various conversations where she calls herself ugly but smart, as well as that final convo, where she finally admits she likes him. Do we get a kiss? Nope, just a head pat and a 4th wall soliloquy.
I now have this image of Nark sleeping and LLS doing her makeup and hair while she sleeps. No one looks that great after being stuck in trash rubble and being pulled out through water pipes. She better be careful or one morning she might wake up with flocked hair.
LLS states aloud he would never have chosen her and put her in such dangerous stuff. Still, he's happy, and leans over to give her cheek a kiss. His nose touches and then...
Cockblocked! Danny is at the door, beatboxing and making all these oddball gestures and things.
This is LLS's fault. He had SO MUCH time. He could have kissed her, arranged their wedding, and got witnesses in the time it took him to get his nose near her face.
Honestly, Danny, can you stop with all the weirdness? Snarky Danny offers to close his eyes so LLS can "get closer" to Nark, but then continues his awful beatboxing.
It just doesn't make sense. Not even when he's here to tease LLS. But clearly even the subber hates it, too. I laughed out loud when I saw this.
HAHAHAH!!!
LLS asks the question we all want to know: why are you even here??
The only positive is that he isn't dancing, too.
The boy gives some stupid comment that they are friends, so why can't he visit. Just then, Nark wakes up. Danny tells her that LLS is being a possessive caveman. Nark is understandably confused as the two Y chromosomes face off.
I'm distracted because LLS's jacket looks too small. Just unbutton it!
Nark ultimately choses LLS to stay, so Danny has a tantrum and storms off.
It seems like everyone has forgotten that she was trapped in a collapsed building just a little bit ago. You'd think they'd have patience. Danny can't have that many friends with all that random beat boxing to give up on Nark. I think LLS would have even been fine with them being friends once he and Nark are more established as a couple, too. But we are at at the last episode, so . . .
She's upset at the argument, but LLS reminds her of the ambulance confession. She hides under the covers, all shy, but he insists on her facing the fact that she loves him.
LLS cuddles up to her in order to put his ear close to her mouth. She pauses a moment, then whispers. "I love you." We get a cute shy moment before LLS demands to hear it again and again. Hey, you lump of facial blankness, what about you? He strokes her face and kisses her cheek, but doesn't say anything.
This was cute even though LLS's smile makes him look sort of demonic.
Aw...this is adorable. I have to admit that I do like them together even though this show is so crazy.
Instead, he bullies her into kissing his cheeks several times. They end up smiling at each other. Ugh.
Later, HKP and Mina Mouse show up at the hospital, Mina ready for some gossip about the whole shooting. We get a flashback starting where Ruthainark convinces Chin Fu to assist in taking down Little Flock, by ratting her out as Cubic to gain trust, to feed Little Flock disinformation, then staging the events at the conference with LLS. So it appears that Nark created the plan in its entirety.
This whole bit was like a review session for an exam. I wondered if there was going to be a quiz at the end and I realized that I had just been studying the Stare Acting and was distracted by the music.
The only fly in the ointment was Little Flock and the bomb.
Mina muses that she would like to be brilliant like Nark. HKP states (correctly I might add), that if Mina was any smarter she wouldn't like him. SO true. Probably the truest thing anyone has said anything show that hasn't come out of the mouth of JS. Why is it that a cuter moment happens between side characters than the main pair? HKP leaves so the girls could chat, but not until he asks Nark not to say anything to make Mina dislike him.
And it turns out the goofy couple is already engaged!
Of course they are. That whole plunger scene would have been a waste otherwise.
They talk enough to bring each other up to the present. Nark asks Mina Mouse for advice on how to behave around a boyfriend. She tells the younger woman to just be herself, since that's who LLS fell for anyway.
Nark gets all blushy and cute talking about how much fun being in love is. They hug as the love theme plays.
Why?!?! For God's sake, why is that theme playing AGAIN?!?!
Finally Nark is released from her hospital room, and is escorted around the hallways by a couple of MIB. She is wearing what is easily the worst outfit to date, which is saying something after 16 episodes of blah baggy outfits.
No! I loved her cute hair. Why are we back to orphan hair?
Makes no sense that she has this lustrous hair while she is lying in bed, but then she looks like she stepped out of the forest after being lost for a couple of days as soon as she gets up.
Anyway, she visits BadDad, who is still there recovering.
I'll ask the question again: Why isn't he dead?
Nark is exceedingly happy to see the most useless family members in the world. It's only a few seconds of greeting before BadDad tells her that she's not their biological relative. Well that ruined the atmosphere. At first Nark doesn't want to believe it, but BadDad explains everything.
BioDad had asked BadDad to take care of her and protect her(well, there goes that failed promise. BioDad must have been desperate. Really? There was absolutely no one else? Rumpelstiltskin would have been better.), since he was the previous ChaiHong Shadow. This is why he sold abandoned traded gave her to Lin Lan Ser. He apologized and explained that LLS knows too. Nark is more worried that she can't keep these two miscreants as family anymore than she is about her biological parents.
Nark cries with happiness when BadDad and Nan promise to love her every bit as much as they did before. Blech.
This scene totally made me gag.
Not really difficult since they barely loved her before, so . . .
Nan pouts that Nark now loves someone more than her family. BadDad promises that LLS will formally ask for her hand.
Just then, the man in question shows up with JS and a couple of MIB. And a Happy Trail tie. LLS wonders if Nark will agree; JS says since she's not a normal girl her reaction might be unique.(Because JS is the only person with sense in this entire show)
This doesn't reassure Loverboy.
I'm going to be honest. I'd be mad, too, if it seemed like EVERYONE else knows that LLS wants marriage after only being officially dating for less than a day. Nark has spent all this time thinking that he couldn't even like someone like her, plus, isn't she still in high school? I'd be like "I love you and all, but dude, I've got stuff to do first."
He's just mad because she's messing up his plans. He even wants to know how she can say no after he's already given Nark to LLS. Really dad? He has NO SHAME giving away this person like she's his property.
Nark heads back to her room, but bumps into LLS in a hospital corridor. He is slightly smiling; she looks angry and upset before spinning around and striding off. Jong Sing tells him he is on his own.
You make it sound like this was quick. We had to listen to that damn song for a full minute while watching them stare at each other first!
The Fast Forward button is an amazing invention. So is the mute!
The Fast Forward button is an amazing invention. So is the mute!
LLS chases her down and demands she stop and talk to him. Since she loves him, it should be simple for her to agree to a marriage. But she is adamant. She. Will. Not. Marry Him.
He's so dense. No wonder JS decided to check out and leave him on his own.
Why, he asks. She replies that she hasn't gotten his gift. He thinks for a moment, and offers to get JS to get anything and everything she wants. Really, Show? At this late time you're gonna pull this stunt? Nark has to spell it out in small monosyllabic words. Do. You. Love. Me?
Idiot has basically confessed to everyone BUT the woman he wants to marry.
He's nonplussed. Didn't he show his caring through his actions? Nark understands but she wants to hear it from LLS's own lips. If he can't say it, she won't believe it.
He finally finally says the words. "I love you." Without any expression of course. She asks for a bit more...sentiment. Like what? She wants the whole proposal thing, with kneeling and handholding and rings and stuff.
Please just put us out of our misery.
Somewhere Mei Jin is having a cocktail and roaring with laughter. I'll put up with this misery if it makes LLS beg. He deserves it. (raising a glass in Mei Jin's memory)
He refuses and she walks away. Thirteen minutes left, geez.
LLS yells at her to wait, so she stops and turns around. We get more staring with love theme song. He then walks towards her with a fierce expression, then kneels in front of her and takes her hand. No ring but she's happy enough. He loves her! He asks her to marry him. Yay! They hug and grin.
Forehead kiss, staring, hugging. And now there's an audience as JS, the MIB, HKP, Mina Mouse, and her stupid family provide applause.
This took so much time, I'm surprised they weren't all sitting around in the back eating snacks they had delivered to the hospital for the show.
And now we are back at the GC temple. Lin Lan Ser is in his usual sartorial splendor. Ruthainark is in her usual supreme frumpyness. Together they kneel and bow to the altar, then end up at the Chang Kaishek Tower again. Maybe for the magnificent staircases?
So they walk down, hand-in-hand. LLS plans to send her to England to avoid Interpol Patrick, since she's officially dead. At least for four or five years. He promises to see her every day whenever possible. How is that even possible? Isn't that a 12-hour flight at least? BadFam will be sent back to Thailand, where he will take care of their useless selves forever.
About the wedding; does she want a Chinese, Farang, or Thai wedding? She slowly stutters that she doesn't want to get married. At least, not right away. She wants to finish college, so around four years. LLS is not a happy camper. He agrees, but wants the marriage certificate now. Just in case she changes her mind.
Ha!
She agrees. And we get the final Staring On Stairs with Theme Song BGM and MIB. They hug and stare some more. Forehead kiss, and that's a wrap!
I was sad that we didn't get a real kiss but at least it ended in true Cubic fashion... Randomly staring on stairs. It is the Cubic way.
Completely consistent. I would have been shocked if we got anything close to what we might want.
FINAL FINAL COMMENTS
Holy schnikes! It's hard to believe that this project started with Trotwood's inaugural Cubic post August 2017. I think this is the longest time it's taken for a recap, even including my personal ones. It's not the most painful though. That title still remains with Blood. Cubic is bad, yes, but is also good in its own way.
I'm sorry for taking so long, too. Thinking about how the world and even my life has changed since 2017 makes my head spin.
I'm still pretty angry about Mei Jin's death. She was that very rare character; the strong female who isn't a jealous biatch. And Jong Sing deserved a happy ending too! Boo, Show, boo!
That is really the pair that should have been together. They could have run LLS's businesses for him while he spends all his time in planes trying to see Nark "every day."
I do find it interesting that, despite how ridiculous this lakorn was, many, if not all, the major actors and actresses have gone on to springboard to great heights of popularity. Not Hippy Hair, though.
Thanks to everyone who stuck it out right to the very end!
