I know most people are getting bored with HPL by now, and there’s little interest in my rambling monologues…
but I kind of need to get these thoughts out of my head. feel free to ignore

For me this story is all about love. Just love, pure and simple. That of lovers, but also the love of a fan, of a parent, of a sibling, of a friend… even when it’s neither pure, nor simple.

Art is also a manifestation of that love; straightforward for mum’s art or the photographer’s last piece, but less obviously so for Ryan too. RG described his paintings as his means to receive love, which he lost when seeing the bubbles and recovering the memory of him being abandoned. DM is giving him back painting by returning to him the certainty of being loved. And it is all beautiful.

And I love DM’s insistence that art is valuable in itself – for it makes people’s internal worlds richer, facilitating this kind of emotional connection. Not to forget an honorable mention for Ryan’s 3-piece black suit; now that’s a true piece of art. 😛

HPL also gave me one of the most balanced couples in recent memory, people who individually are strong, smart and emotionally intelligent, yet still are better together. So often romantic stories as pitched as love fixing whatever is wrong with the hero/heroine, rather than two people who are perfectly fine on their own, but who still chose to share their life together. I like the show’s balanced take on love much better – there’s a lot of give and take in their relationship, a union of equals.

I especially like the recent developments in that the story quietly subverts traditional gender roles. Ryan is the vulnerable one, the one who is struggling and who needs protecting. DM is the doer, the one who rages against the world (clenched fists included on request) to protect him. And I find that kind of awesome.

About the last two episodes: I thought narratively it was close to perfect, although some things worked much better than other in execution. Mum’s emotions did not hit the right notes for me for some reason; Ryan’s responses on the other hand hit me straight in the gut. When he sees SA at his door and it finally hits him that this kid that he was reluctantly growing fond of is actually his brother and you can see how the realization completely shuts off his brain… that was powerful. The couple interactions lost a bit of the rawness and realness of last week (probably the cost of live shooting, with the media attention their skinship got last week and filming going straight down to the wire), but there were some moments that were done really well, like DM coming to find him at the gallery and the very last scene. When he kneels in front of her to hug because he’s so overcome with feeling… that “I love you” came at a perfect moment and the buildup to their taking the relationship to the next level was very well done (although I did not completely love the way to was shot, and found the editing a bit choppy). Still…the writer hasn’t put a single wrong step yet and I am looking forward to see how is going to wrap it all up.

[Told you it would be long and rambl-y…]