EPISODE 23

Love Ben, hate Vincent, poor Jess, jittery Ling.



Kinda sums up today's episode. Details to follow right after ...





Ben successfully found the witness Ling said she saw when she was walking into that path that starry night when she witnessed her best friend Mabel molested and murdered. Ling remembered the man as a drive since he has a cap and in uniform. And amazingly 7 years later that man is still here and is even willing to testify. His testimony is crucial because





1. he was he defendant's ex driver driving the defendant to that secluded place (the cree said he wanted to pick up some things.. yeah like raping and murder I guess)



2. he remembered the time, the date, the details perfectly



3. he saw his young master's bloody hands and bloody swiss knife looking jittery just 15 minutes of so after he went up and came back down



4. he remembered teh girl died there



Vincent got hold of this witness by seducing Jess, yes he hinted how he missed home cook food and Jess ran up to cook for him and talk talk talk she revealed the witness which will be revealed in the list Vincent will get tomorrow anyway.



Vincent went to see witness who was reluctant to lie or disappear before the hearing date. Right at that moment Ben saw Vincent. Ben ran after Vincent and there was their confrontation, possibly the best scene in tonight's episode and one of the best in the entire series. Basically Ben warned Vincent not to go over the line because he promised Cheuk Sir to take care of Vincent and Vincent turned back and started scolding Ben, saying Ben was the cause of Vincent's misery, for putting his dad away, for taking away Ling making himself look like a hero in front of Ling and Vincent the loser. Gentlemanly Ben looked guilty and even said he wished life was like before where all 4 of them are close friends. Vincent challenged Ben to do something about it and Ben said he will give up Ling if Vincent was willing to return to the righteous path.



Right at that moment I love Ben the most for his selflessness and his self sacrificing attitude, that nothing NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is more important than freindship. Of course Vincent laughed and walked away. Actually he smirked, sniggered, and left.



Ben told Ling about Vincent and Ling, as usual in a very dismissive tone dismissed Vincent as long gone, cannot be saved anymore whilst Ben said in a tiny voice Vincent is not a bad person, he will come around. Jess of course refused to believe she was used as Ben told her what happened and she confronted a drunk Vincent at his house and guess what happened? Vincent actually confessed that he knew Jess loved him and he used her and that Jess was so stupid to believe him and she was so lucky it was Vincent who used her who in a way did not use abuse her physically but well Jess was very very hurt. Bastard!



Anyway, then that creep defendant's other lawyer (I think more like assistant) gave Vincent a cheque supposedly to give to one guy who will give it to that driver so that the driver will take that money and run. Vincent reluctantly did it when he heard he will earn loads of money. And the end.



Guess what? Next episode as predicted driver died! Interesting.



Tonight I find Ben a very interesting character for his view on friendship. Whilst many may say nice guys are the boring ones, tonight no one is more exciting in my eyes than Ben. I love him. And Raymond Lam gave Ben such layers of emotions as he quietly said to Vincent he will leave Ling if Vincent was willing to be good again. Right at that moment you knew Ben was filled with remorse and guilt as he actually believed he had some part to play in Vincent's descent into unreasonabless (I do not agree of course) and that he actually valued his friendship with Vincent. You could see Ben was desparate to get Vincent to back away from underhanded tactics. Raymond Lam basically conveyed all that without yelling, screaming or even crying. But you knew his heart was breaking into thousands of pieces.



Vincent himself is really becoming a caricature of his former self confident self. Now he's just self possessed, thinking everybody especially Ben wronged him. He channeled his entire dissatisfaction into Ben, making Ben his enemy numero uno. In a way I can understand why Vincent changed, but in a way Vincent has always been the jealous type, but under control because dad was there. The fact that Vincent used Jess was just too much, and at least he had the guts and the conscience to confess to Jess. He was right about one thing; another man would have used Jess' extreme naiveness and goodness to his advantage which will hurt Jess even more. But Jess was already too hurt for words. I feel in a way Vincent was more honest when he was with Jess than with Ling or Ben. Even if I could hate him for what he did, right at that moment he told Jess to go away was perhaps a scene which shows a bit of Vincent's humanity, that he still can be saved because he actually felt guilty for misusing Jess' trust. I am between liking him and disliking him.



Ling basically had less and less to do whilst poor Jess, felt used.



Performance wise, Sammul Chan today displayed all his inadequacies as an actor as he unconvincingly tried to play a drunk guilty man confessing his guilt (in a way) to Jess and also that scene where he confronted Ben.That scene was supposed to be explosive, it was supposed to be Vincent's moment of telling Ben why he felt miserable, who made him miserable and successfully making Ben feel miserable. It should have more anger, more angst, more jealousy, more hatred, more arrogance and dismissive tone. Sammul Chan had very little of these, probably because he in real life may be a soft nice guy. Perhaps Raymond should have slapped him a few times before filming that scene. I remember in Golden Faith Raymond's Oscar had more anger in him when he channeled all his entire energy into hating Gallen's Ivan. That is what I call anger. None in Sammul Chan, well not convincing enough. He just looked like an angry pissed little boy. He should be a very angry MAN.



Overall a good episode, a bit melodramatic, a bit lacking in pace, a bit not like the first few episodes. Luckily it is ending soon because TVB has a tendency of screwing the story as it goes. Characters are all already screwed up anyway as Ling does not resemble Ling, Sister Na does not resemble herself and Vincent ... the problem with this series right now is it does not have a real villain we can actually hate. Reason is simple; they want to redeem Vincent and save the friendship so Vincent can't go overboard. I kept expecting him to do something unethical to the point of no return, something mean, something bad but thus far I may disagree with his tactics but I won't say they're morally wrong. I was hoping to see Oscar you know, hopping mad and doing many many bad things to his brother, I espect to see Changing Lanes' main protaganist who rapes, commits attempted murder, cheats, lies and manipulates his way to get what he wants. This would be great because then viewers will question themselves how can this scumbag redeems himself because you know this is the main character, he has to redeem himself somehow.



Remember Flaming Brothers? That kid brother was such a nice kid, greed turned him, he did many many many bad things but in the end he redeemed himself as he laid dying, crying, and if I remembered correctly asking for forgiveness. You can't forgive him but at least you feel what a pity such a good young man had to turn out like that.



I expect that for Vincent from episode 1. Disappointingly thus far Vincent is essentially an unreasonable angry jealous being but nothing overboard,nothing malicious.