Little Stories 319: Healing in Episodes

I don’t usually share this kind of thing, kan. For years, I couldn’t consume anything “enjoyable” in any form. Then this month, I found myself actually having fun watching not one but two light series. Maybe I’m healing and moving on. Maybe I’m slowly shedding off my gloomy skin and taking more steps toward enjoying life again. Kalau tak semua nk serius black, letih dah la.

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The Summer I Turned Pretty:

So, did you finish watching TSITP? I did. And was the finale what I expected? Yes, because I knew the endgame would be exactly that sooner or later. What else would you expect from a YA series, kan? At first, we all started watching just to fill the time (back in 2022). Slowly, the whole world split into camps: Team Conrad, Team Jeremiah, or Team never bothered to know who those two siblings are.

What fascinated me was how a YA series, meant for teens and young adults managed to hook us millennials into layan-ing it week after week. I wasn’t alone. The whole world tuned in every Wednesday to see what would happen next. And here we are, millennials in our 30s and 40s, screaming at Belly for all her stupid decisions. I still don’t understand how we got here.

So I asked ChatGPT: why?

It answered: TSITP is nostalgia therapy. That’s why millennials and older Gen Z are showing up for it—it’s not just Belly’s story, it’s a mirror for our past selves. It’s closer to a coming-of-age melodrama than a rom-com. TSITP is basically a 2020s re-skin. It hits the same emotional nerve: messy love triangles, beach houses, the feeling of being 16 and thinking every heartbreak is the end of the world.

It is different than the other Jenny Han's YA series (you know which one), it was light, fluffy, and feels like a YA rom-com. TSITP is layered with angst, family drama, divorce, death, grief, betrayal, identity shifts. It’s heavier, more layered, less about the teenage fantasy and more about the messy reality of growing up. 

And I guess, we all had those messiness in our teen/early adulthood kan, kan, kan. So we understand those stupid decisions, or immaturity, or blindness towards what's obvious, we understood the drama, the need to make these mistakes, the time needed to grow. Macam tu lah. 

Tsk, tsk. 

Also, I only subbed to Prime to watch the whole series. Already unsubscribed.

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Glass Heart: 

2 years ago, I had First Love. I’m a sucker for eye-candy J-dramas, and I’d been waiting for another one. This year, we got Glass Heart. Great cast (seriously, a very attractive bunch), cinematic aesthetic worth studying, and music that made every episode a treat. I had a lovely time watching this :)

But, I have to admi, the shōjo filter and those too-perfect Japanese moments made me cringe a little. Kuat berangan orang Jepun ni. They really love that trope of the innocent girl surrounded by abang-abang, kan? I even asked Sofi which band member she liked most. She said the drummer. Ok lah, still innocent.

And get this, they’re even on Spotify as a real band (Tenblank). The final episode, which turned into a full concert, was epic. I watched that one with Sofi.