I can’t think of a more enjoyable and angst-free hour of television than episode 17 of In a Good Way. It was an episode solely around dating, ranging from doing interesting activities together and even an unexpected overnight stay that yielded the most laugh out loud moments ever in this drama. I actually had to stop the video because I was laughing too hard to watch properly. Nothing about the way Jia En and Liu Chuan behave in a relationship veers away from their personalities as we’ve gotten to know, other than they are dipping a toe into that brave new world called attraction and awakening. It’s all so very sweet and sultry without them even trying to make the moves on each other. It’s by restraint that they deliver more oomph than even the most raunchy sexy scene out there. The day trip to Jiufen took up the majority of this episode and thankfully Ren Wei’s lame plan to interject on a happy couple’s date ended up backfiring on him. I don’t find Ren Wei annoying but I’m disappointed that he’s still resorting to harebrained and half baked ideas for every challenge in his life. He’s allowed to like Jia En as more than a childhood friend, but he’s not handling it in a way that has any real emotional weight.

If he’s going to keep his feelings for her a secret, then he can’t be trying to interject himself into Jia En and Liu Chuan’s relationship. Not to mention his future plans are nonexistent and it’s rather frustrating to watch him muck around in romantic angst when he has more important things in his life to focus on. I felt this episode played a lot of Jia En and Liu Chuan’s feelings for each other for laughs such as in the hotel room scene when we watched each wrestle with desire and restraint. But it did so in a way that made them feel so realistic and not just too innocent or too rational lovers who are in full control of their wants. Jia En’s jumpiness and Liu Chuan’s tightly wound tentativeness around her, that made me feel like I was a voyeur almost and really needed to leave them alone and not intrude on their awkward sweetness around each other. I loved how this episode brought back music as a way to comfort Jia En whenever she’s a bit out of her element, and Liu Chuan singing all the songs to her was a lovely indicator of how far their relationship has progressed since as her boyfriend now he takes personal responsibility to keep her safe and make her happy. While there ended up not having any full blown kiss in this episode, there was a quick forehead peck and a stolen cheek kiss that delivered the IAGW patented satisfaction.

Episode 17 recap:

Ren Wei wanders around Rui Fang station still waiting for Jia En and Liu Chuan and finally the rest of the group can’t stand it anymore and vote to leave first. Just then Jia En and Liu Chuan walk out of the train station and everyone just misses seeing them. Ren Wei keeps trying to force them to keep waiting but they are all hungry and tired and fed up. Ren Wei purposely trips and feigns an injury to get them to stay but only Bai Xue stays and everyone else takes off to have fun. Stupid Ren Wei, just give up already. After everyone heads off, Bai Xue confronts Ren Wei with his odd behavior. She think his invitation for them to come out today was strange to begin with but Ren Wei claims he just wanted to have a fun outing with everyone. Bai Xue goes to get him something to eat while he continues waiting pointlessly.

Xiao Wei and Ri Qi are snacking around the train station and Ri Qi brings up how Xiao Wei’s drawings all sold out last time and he didn’t get to keep any. She offers to sketch him right now and the boy adorably brought along a sketch pad handy. Heh, Ri Qi’s got game, subtle but still got game. Xiao Wei tells Ri Qi to sit still and she starts sketching him. Some girls walk by and peer at her sketch and find it so adorable. They ask if Xiao Wei can sketch them as well and Ri Qi becomes her manager and sets a price for her. Xiao Wei ends up sketching and making money and she can tell Ri Qi is purposely helping her but she’s not sure why he’s so good to her.

Liu Chuan and Jia En walk by a creek and he points out that this area is famous for panning for gold dust. Some supplies have been left by the side of the creek so they head down to roll up their jeans and pan for gold. Liu Chuan shows Jia En how to do it and explains his grandfather used to bring him here during the Summer when he was a kid to pan for gold. He reminisces about how happy those days were and Jia En smiles wistfully to hear him speak of a more carefree time in his life. They work together to pan for gold and Jia En is so excited when they find the first fleck. Liu Chuan collects the dust to put in a little glass jar.

Tracy and Ah Qing are walking through Jiufen and she’s in a bad mood so they find a place to sit down. He wants to know why she’s not feeling well and she doesn’t want to explain until he pushes since he’s her boyfriend. Tracy finally reveals that she needs sanitary napkins and whether he’s willing to buy it for her? Ah Qing gets up without a word and goes to a pharmacy to buy some for her. He brings it back and reveals that this is the first time he’s done this for a girl he likes. He helps Tracy up and tells her to go take care of herself.

Ren Wei and Bai Xue are still waiting outside the train station with Ah Di and Jacky. Tracy and Ah Qing come back announcing that they are heading back to Taipei since Tracy is tired. Xiao Wei and Ri Qi return and want to head back as well, and Bai Xue, Jacky, and Ah Di all concur. Jacky points out that Liu Chuan and Jia En are likely out on their own date and even if they run into them, why be third wheels? Bai Xue suggests Ren Wei head back with them since it’s going to get dark soon.

Liu Chuan and Jia En finish panning for gold and take away their souvenirs when Liu Chuan notices that it’s getting dark. They start heading for the rocks when Jia En suddenly slips and falls into the shallow water. She gets soaked and Liu Chuan quickly fishes her out and helps her on shore. She’s not hurt other than her pager is now broken after getting wet. Liu Chuan says it can be fixed but then when he hands it back to her he notices that her white shirt is now see through after getting wet. He takes out his jacket for her to put on but she declines since it’s harder for her clothes to dry if she’s wearing something on top of it. It forces Liu Chuan to tell her directly that her shirt is now transparent so Jia En quickly puts on his jacket. Jia En notices fireflies starting to emerge since it’s dusk and Liu Chuan explains this area will be swarming with fireflies after dark. The sun sets and they sit there watching all the fireflies come out, though Liu Chuan is content to mostly watch Jia En. Ren Wei gets back to the teahouse and waits around for Jia En to come back.

Jia En and Liu Chuan head back to catch the last train but they just miss it. The last train leaves the station and the entire station shuts down for the night. Liu Chuan checks the departure board and finds out the next train isn’t until 5 am tomorrow morning. They go sit outside the train station and Jia En apologizes for her wanting to watch the fireflies which is why the time slipped. Liu Chuan says it’s no big deal since he didn’t notice the time as well. They sit down and Liu Chuan takes out two jars with their gold souvenirs and they each take one. He says they need to come back next Summer again and she agrees with a smile that they have to come back together.

Jia En tells Liu Chuan that she really wants to hear him sing, any song will do. Liu Chuan smiles and sings their song “Still” for her and she joins in. It’s the song that he played when she spent the first night in his dorm room that calmed her down. He then switches to “Crazy for Love” and then to “You on My Mind” and Jia En puts her head on his shoulder as he keeps singing for her. She falls sleep and Liu Chuan shifts so he can hold her tightly and omo swooning forever and ever. Ren Wei waits by the phone and finally picks up to page her and leave a voicemail that it’s 1:30 am so why is she not home? Did anything happen? She needs to call him right back when she gets this page.

Liu Chuan worries that Jia En will catch a cold sleeping outside and she murmurs that she really wants to take a hot shower. They go to a hotel and awkwardly contradict each other when asking for one room versus two rooms. The hotel only has one room left so they take it. They go to the hotel room and Liu Chuan offers to go wait outside while Jia En takes a shower since the bathroom has a frosted window. She tells him not to go out since it’s cold and she’ll be scared all alone. Liu Chuan promises he won’t peek and goes to watch TV. Jia En points out there is a mirror so he scoots really close to the TV and promises he won’t look.

Jia En goes into the bathroom and starts undressing while poor Liu Chuan sits outside taking deep breaths and trying to focus on watching the TV. Jia En gets into the shower and yelps when the cold water hits her first. Liu Chuan hears her and asks if anything happened? She quickly explains it was just cold water and he’s not to get close to the bathroom. He tells her to be careful and sits back down in front of the TV. Jia En starts showering and we’re treated to a cross-cut of Jia En showing while poor Liu Chuan is totally mentally angsty outside. I swear the faces he makes are priceless!

Jia En washes her undergarments and then she walks outside wearing just a bathrobe while we all know she’s completely nekkid underneath. She tells Liu Chuan that she’s done so he can shower now. He tells her sweetly that she looks very pretty like this and they smile like moony kids at each other before Liu Chuan walks past her to go into the bathroom. After Liu Chuan goes in, Jia En goes to dry her underwear with the hair dryer while trying not to peek at Liu Chuan. He calls out that the remote control is stuck so she needs to press harder if she wants to change the channel. She tells herself to finish drying her clothes before he comes out. Liu Chuan comes out and notices her underwear on the bed and she quickly grabs it and runs into the bathroom to hang it up to dry. She walks out and sees Liu Chuan watching TV and he asks if she wants to watch the baseball game. They sit down and Jia En notices that Liu Chuan appears really into the game.

Suddenly devil Tracy shows up wrapped in a bath towel and pulls Jia En aside to ask what base she wants to get to tonight with Liu Chuan? A home run would be a “whole new world”. LOLOLOL. She tells Jia En that there are no good or bad students in love, just a guy and a girl. She points out that the man in front of Jia En is the dream lover for every girl in their college, with hard abs, strong arms, handsome face, and a soulful nature. Angel Xiao Wei arrives dressed like a nurse and tells Jia En that she can’t go there with Liu Chuan since they haven’t been dating long. Plus she’s so innocent she can’t have such “desires”. If Jia En keeps thinking impure thoughts, nurse Xiao Wei will smack her with the hands of love. Ahahahaha!

Devil Tracy shoves an apple in Xiao Wei’s mouth to keep her busy and pushes her aside. She tells Jia En to listen to her, and then points out that Liu Chuan clearly thinks the same thing. Jia En looks up and Liu Chuan suddenly has his bathrobe off and the baseball game on TV is calling out the batter rounding third base heading for home. Liu Chuan turns around gives Jia En a totally sleazy look and then starts crawling on all fours across the bed towards her. I have no clue how Lego and Kirsten can film this scene without laughing their heads off. He gives her the sultriest look ever and says in a desire-laden voice “Joan, let’s run across home base together.”

Jia En starts stammering and then Liu Chuan looks over and asks what she is talking about? Clearly that was just Jia En’s fantasy and she tells Liu Chuan it’s nothing. He asks if she wants to watch something else and then wonders why she hasn’t dried her hair yet. He gets up and grabs the hair dryer to dry her hair for her. Awwwww. Jia En sits there and Liu Chuan asks what daydream she was having just now. She quickly demurs and then asks if he doesn’t have daydreams as well. He smiles and tells her to keep on daydreaming while he dries her hair. Jia En gets up her courage and asks Liu Chuan if he is concerned about the progress of romance? He’s not since he doesn’t think romance has to have a certain progress speed. Jia En is relieved and reveals that Tracy told her all about the bases and said all guys really care about it. Liu Chuan doesn’t care and says love isn’t a baseball game. He continues drying her hair and then notices her bathrobe has fallen open and a large expanse of her neck is revealed.

Liu Chuan stares and then devil Ah Qing wearing just a bath towel wrapped around his waist walks by and asks if Liu Chuan is dry mouthed from all that staring. They walk aside to talk and Ah Qing says Jia En is clearly disappointed that he’s not more proactive. Jia En cares about their romantic progress which is why she asked but Liu Chuan has such low romance EQ that he answered wrong. Ah Qing asks if Liu Chuan doesn’t know what to do but Liu Chuan doesn’t want to over think what Jia En said. Ah Qing shakes his tumbler of whiskey and tells Liu Chuan to think carefully about what Jia En said. Suddenly Ri Qi walks over and drinks the whiskey. He then says that romance is more than just desire which Liu Chuan totally agrees with. But then Ri Qi rips off his shirt and screams that the most important thing in love is hitting a home run! Liu Chuan wonders why he has two devils and no angel and Ri Qi says “You’ll only meet an angel after you reach Heaven!” (i.e. after sex euphoria). Jia En gets up and walks over to Liu Chuan and pulls open the front of her robe and says “it’s hot”.

Which is when Liu Chuan snaps out of his daydream because the real Jia En is screaming “it’s hot” because he’s holding the hair dryer to close to her head. She asks why he didn’t answer when she called him a few times and assumes it’s his turn to daydream. He asks if she’s concerned about their romantic progress and she says no. He confirms she doesn’t care and then puts the hair dryer away and then sits down across from her. Liu Chuan reveals he’s not very good at reading girls so if she has something she needs to tell him. They awkwardly discuss whether it’s time to sleep and Jia En wants to keep watching TV but she yawns and can barely stay awake. Liu Chuan watches her nodding off and then tells her to go to sleep.

Liu Chuan sits down on his side of the bed and Jia En stares a bit before getting in on her side. She immediately turns her back to him and wraps the covers tightly around herself. Liu Chuan turns off the lights and Jia En turns around to find herself face-to-face with him. They quietly stare at each other and then Jia En turns her back to him again. Liu Chuan turns to lay on his back and then asks Jia En if she’s asleep? She’s not and he asks if she’s nervous? She lies that she has no reason to be nervous so he asks why she’s sleeping with her back to him then? Jia En turns back towards him but she keeps herself wrapped up tightly. He offers to sleep on the ground if she’s uncomfortable but she tells him to sleep on the bed. He asks if she’s sure, isn’t she scared he’ll do something to her? Jia En asks what he plans to do to her and he laughs before calling her an idiot and then leaning in to quickly kiss her on the forehead and tells her to go to sleep. Liu Chuan turns on his back again and goes to sleep, but not before reaching out his hand and grabbing Jia En’s hand to hold. They fall asleep chastely and sweetly like that.

Jia En wakes up the next morning with her bathrobe half falling off and she quickly covers herself before noticing that Liu Chuan is gone. She goes to the bathroom to grab her underwear and then hides it behind her back when Liu Chuan walks back in. He asks if she’s alright and checks her forehead to make sure she’s not sick. She finds out he went out to return a page from Ren Wei who was worried about where she was all night. Jia En goes to change and her student ID falls out in the hotel room. Jia En and Liu Chuan take the train back to Taipei and she falls asleep on the train so Liu Chuan puts his arms around her so her head is resting on his shoulder. He then falls asleep and then Jia En wakes up with a smile to see his hand holding her hand. She leans up and sneaks a cheek kiss on him before nestling back on his shoulder.

Ren Wei is talking to his Jia En tamagotchi about how badly behaved it was to stay out all night. The real Jia En comes home and wonders why Ren Wei looks so tired? Ren Wei says he stayed up because someone stayed out all night when her parents wasn’t home, and he paged her all the time but she never returned his pages. Jia En points out Ren Wei would often stay out all night and not return her pages. He claims that was the old him and now he’s changed. Jia En explains her pager broke after it fell in the water but she was safe since she was with Liu Chuan. Ren Wei says that is why it wasn’t safe since they were alone. Jia En asks Ren Wei to keep this a secret from her parents and he agrees in exchange for her making him breakfast.

Ren Wei sits down to eat after being hungry for so long and she wonders why he didn’t buy food if he was hungry? Ren Wei wanted to eat her cooking and then probes Jia En for what she did with Liu Chuan last night? Jia En casually says they watched TV and then went to sleep. Ren Wei says “sleep?” and then asks if it was together or separately? Jia En says he’s been really annoying and doesn’t want to answer him until he threatens to call her parents. She reveals they slept on the same bed but nothing happened because Liu Chuan isn’t that kind of guy. Ren Wei then gets his appetite back and wolfs down the rest of the french toast before asking for some salty food. He keeps threatening to call her parents so she agrees to go shrimp fishing with him.

Liu Chuan goes home and his dad asks where he went last night? Liu Chuan answers Jiufen but doesn’t offer any more information. The housekeeper brings in a letter for Liu Chuan and it’s his passing the lawyer’s exam notification letter. His dad is thrilled and wonders if Liu Chuan wants to intern at Ah Qing’s dad’s law firm this Summer? Liu Chuan has his own plans and reminds his dad that he still has another year left of freedom. Liu Chuan’s dad lets it go.

Jia En and Ren Wei are shrimp fishing and he teaches her how to put the bait on the fish hook. Ren Wei is a pro at it and keeps hooking shrimp after shrimp while Jia En mopes since she can’t even get one. Ren Wei notices she’s having no luck so teaches her some of his tricks and lo and behold Jia En catches her first shrimp and she starts to have fun. They pack up their catch and put it on sticks before grilling it fresh right in the store to eat. Jia En burns her fingers trying to peel the hot shrimp and Ren Wei notices so he peels her shrimp for her. She wonders when he became so considerate and Ren Wei smiles sadly that he’s changed but she hasn’t noticed it is all. Jia En takes a bite and says it’s so tasty. Ren Wei keeps peeling her more but she tells him to eat some as well. He doesn’t and she thinks it’s weird that he’s not fighting with her for food.

Ren Wei gets a page and Jia En peers at the number and immediately goes to call Liu Chuan back. Turns out she told Liu Chuan she was out with Ren Wei so Liu Chuan paged Ren Wei to find her since her pager is broken. Jia En calls Liu Chuan back and hears he passed the lawyer’s exam. She is so happy for him. He asks what she is doing and hears Ren Wei took her out shrimp fishing. He pauses for a moment before asking if it’s fun? Jia En says it’s fun after she caught more shrimp and says they should come another time. She ends her call with Liu Chuan and runs back to tell Ren Wei that Liu Chuan passed his lawyer’s exam. She also notices that this place also serves other hot dishes and Ren Wei tells her to order whatever she wants and he’ll treat. Jia En orders a few other dishes and they chow down. After eating Ren Wei goes to pay and he has just enough to pay for this meal but his wallet is completely empty afterwards.

Xiao Wei and Ri Qi are out together and they are feeding fishes by a pond. Ri Qi reveals that scientists have said fish have very short memories, some even as short as 7 seconds, so even if they live in a small pond its still forever interesting for it. Ri Qi points out that he always has something to chat with Xiao Wei about. She asks what he thinks is the difference between platonic friends and romantic friends? Ri Qi says romantic friends need to be platonic first, but platonic friends might not progress to being romantic friends. Ri Qi then puts his arms around Xiao Wei and she quickly moves aside and says they are not suited for that in this stage of their relationship. Ri Qi apologizes but thinks to himself that it’s clear they are already dating so does she think he’s moving too fast? Xiao Wei thinks to herself that they are not dating yet so what does he think of her? They stand there and awkwardly feed the fishes.

Ren Wei goes to the ATM and checks his bank balance to discover he only has a pittance left in it. He decides to use his credit card to pay for all of his friends purchases and they can pay him in cash but he gives them all a discount. Ri Qi calls loverboy Ah Qing out to ask him a question about romance. When can a boyfriend hold hands and hug a girl? Ah Qing says girls are not as conservative these days and if she’s not happy with his skinship efforts then he’s doing it wrong and needs to be more smooth about it.

Jia En and Liu Chuan are walking home after going to multiple stores to try and get her pager fixed. The pager means a lot to her since she won it at her first treasure hunting club event, plus it brought her luck all semester. Liu Chuan counters that even if she gets a new pager the number is still the same, and he can always reach her on the same number. People’s exterior can change but they stay the same inside. Jia En asks him what he’ll do if one days she changes outside and inside? Liu Chuan smiles at her question and we’ll have to wait another week to see what the genius will answer to such a hypothetical conundrum.

Episode 17 BTS:

[youtube id=”tvVgwCQ8nq0″ w=”625″ h=”445″]

 

This episode had THE funniest BTS so far. It starts with the crew filming the Ren Wei fantasty Jia En-Liu Chuan kiss from episode 16, and watching Lego ham it up in repeated takes when he’s dragged away from Jia En is brilliant stuff. He tries to makjang it and even attempts to jump over the bridge when Jia En listens to Ren Wei’s jokes instead of noticing her boyfriend is doing all sorts of things to get her attention. Then the panning for gold sequence yields a magnificent moment when Kirsten slips into the water for real and the way Lego flies over to help her up is the stuff of shipper dreams. But the best part is of course the hotel room filming. Starts with Lego getting a front and center seat to watch Kirsten film her shower sequence, and he even digs up their BTS from episode 1 when Kirsten told Lego that if he was trying to sneak a peek at her filming her shower scene in episode 1 he might as well openly watch.

Well Lego remembered which is why he is now openly watching, and he even admits that he’s worked so hard to come to this point in his career where he can perch right there and watch his leading lady shower. LOL. Then Kirsten returns the favor and watches him do his shower scene, and then the director suggests giving Kirsten a couple of NT100 bills so she can slip it into Lego’s underwear, alluding that she’s watching a male stripper show. Heh There is a claw scene where Lego has to control his errant hand from trying to paw Kirsten in a bathrobe as he walks past her, suggesting that she’s just too darn attractive all wet and in a bathrobe that he can’t control his manly urges. Followed by Ri Qi and Ah Qing arriving for their scene and everyone generally going crazy as the clothes come flying off. It ends with Lego actually raising a tamagotchi pet given to him by Ren Wei (while eating oranges peeled for him by Jia En) and telling everyone not to buy their pets in the future but adopt them since pets have feelings, too, and we shouldn’t be buying and selling our best friends.

Click here to watch In A Good Way.