“We Best Love: Fighting Mr.2nd” Ep.5 Episodic Analysis

There are towers, and then there are towers. The fifth episode of Fighting Mr. 2nd is all about these towers.

Fairytales may be for children, but adults relate to them because they have very adult themes told in a childlike manner. And most of them have happy endings. However, if you look beneath the surface, the harsh reality that leads to these endings is darker than the stories imply.

Which takes me back to my tower.

My favorite fairytales have towers that have to be scaled. Maybe that’s why the We Best Love series has become one of my favorites. Each character has a problem they are attempting to overcome, an internal tower only they can climb. But each relationship is also a tower, with each couple trying to scale each other’s walls.

It is apparent by Episode Five that Shu Yi and Shi De have managed to overcome their personal towers, fighting the demons that kept them at the bottom for so long, staring desperately at the top. They’ve even managed to scale each other’s walls, smug smiles on their faces as they face each other, bare and ready to slay their demons together. But does that mean they’re done climbing towers? Does that mean they’ve conquered everything? Anyone who has ever been in a relationship, especially a serious, long one, is laughing right now.
The towers never disappear.

I think one of the most significant truths about relationships is that there are always towers. When one wall is scaled, another one appears. The only difference is that Shu Yi and Shi De are now prepared to conquer them together. No relationship is perfect. All those happy endings in fairytales are only happy because the story ended. Now, Shi De and Shu Yi are ready to move into the inner sanctum, that path in a relationship a couple walks together. It’s like a never-ending video game where things get shoved in front of you. Shu Yi’s father still stands in their path, even though, personally, I don’t think he is going to be a major wall between them. They are also currently on that rocky road called love. Some obstacles will be more like small hurdles. Tiny annoyances, like the way one folds a shirt or organizes his socks. Other barriers will be much larger, from work to how they deal with their emotions. But at least they have each other. That’s a happy ending in itself. Just like in video games, where you achieve points and rewards each time you eliminate an obstacle, the rewards in a healthy relationship each time a wall is scaled is worth it.

This brings us to the personal walls surrounding Shou Yi and Zhen Xuan, as well as the massive tower keeping them apart. The tower standing in front of these two characters is not only tall, but it is also full of spikes, the kind that makes you bleed.

That tower is mental illness.

There isn’t a single person out there who has faced mental illness, whether personally or with someone they love, that doesn’t know how unscalable that wall seems. I know a lot of people who couldn’t do it at all. I know many people who have walked away from loved ones because of it. I also know people with mental illnesses who have completely fallen off their own towers because landing at the bottom felt more manageable than trying to climb out of it.

I am one of them!

Molested as a pre-teen and a victim of physical abuse and bullying, I turned to self-harm and an eating disorder. Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder swallowed me whole. The tower before me was full of fire-breathing demons, dark pits, and monsters I didn’t want to face. This tower is why I relate so much to Zhen Xuan. I understand the safety he must have found in Shou Yi, and the need he has to hold onto that safety. I understand why he handcuffed himself to the rail in the police station in Episode 5 because being handcuffed to that rail felt safer than being inside a world full of judgment and darkness. Because being handcuffed to something can be the same thing as being hugged for someone afraid of noise and drama. While I don’t suffer from Aspbergers, I am the aunt of an autistic niece, and I find the way she deals with her surroundings fascinating. It’s like she’s taken the tower she’s living inside, and she’s padded the walls of it. She’s created her own world inside these padded walls, and only certain people are allowed inside of it.

Shou Yi is that specific person for Zhen Xuan.

However, Shou Yi’s tower stands between them. Shou Yi’s tower keeps him outside of Zhen Xuan’s safe space, and Zhen Xuan has to defeat the demons making Shou Yi afraid in order to bring them together.

Affective Disorder is one hell of a tower for Shou Yi to scale. I’m not even going to pretend I understand the way Shou Yi deals with things. Although I fight depression, I react to the world around me in a very similar way that Zhen Xuan does. I lash out rather than hold it in. I’d rather feel the pain than close it off. Shou Yi seals it inside, barring his heart from the world. It’s true that he keeps shoving Zhen Xuan away. It’s true that even after five episodes, he keeps pushing. But to be honest, walls made out of mental illnesses are never meant to be scaled quickly, and I think it would be less realistic if Shou Yi and Zhen Xuan’s love story resolves that fast. I wouldn’t mind an open ending for them, as long as we have a season three that opens up their worlds, that takes us up the sides of their towers. Because there is one thing I am certain of. Once these two manage to scale their towers, what they are dealing with will make them one serious force to be reckoned with once they come together.

Those who know darkness are scary when they become heroes. They don’t fear things the same way those who have never been touched by darkness do. Shou Yi and Zhen Xuan have the potential to take the world by storm.

Heroes. The We Best Love world is full of them. In Episode Five, Shi De says, “All I want is to be there for you.” That, for me, is the entire theme of this series. It is also the hero of it. The word hero generally denotes a person, but are heroes really people? Heroes aren’t the people charging forward; they are the emotions and actions that take those people forward. In We Best Love that hero is the resolve to be there for someone else. No matter what demons all of these characters face, no matter the towers they are all scaling, they are still there for one another even when it seems like they aren’t. Even Shou Yi. He may constantly push Zhen Xuan away, but when it counts, he shows up. He’s there when Zhen Xuan handcuffs himself to the rail in the police station. He may seem like the least likely hero of this entire show, but I think Shou Yi is going to prove to be both the biggest hero and the biggest person needing saving in the series, and I think it’s going to break us when his walls come crumbling down. The tallest and most challenging walls always have the softest people inside of them.

Bring on the finale, Fighting Mr. 2nd. I understand you. I see your towers, and I want to climb every single one of them.

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