Analog Squad follows a middle-aged man who hires three people to pretend to be his family as he visits his hometown to reunite with an ailing father after twenty years. The series is currently streaming on Netflix.
Story
Pond hires his ex-girlfriend Lily to pretend to be his wife, a call center guy Keg to be his son Mon, and a videostore owner Bung to be his daughter Mag. He’s reuniting with his ailing father and doesn’t want to look like a complete loser to him.
He has a resentment for his father because he was a stickler for truth after Pond lost his friend to a fire with no concrete evidence for him to not be incriminated for his death. He ran away and was on the run for the entirety of the duration needed for the statute of limitations to be over.
His real wife Mam left him, taking Mon and Mag with her. His father is now on the death bed but miraculously survives. When Bung learns that her father is hospitalized after an accident, they all have to pretend to return to their home in Bangkok.
Bung later learns that her father had a second wife who just died and a son who’s over ten years old.
Meanwhile, Lily keeps being loose and free with her remaining days, having no will to battle her stage 1 breast cancer. Keg loves her mother Pupae, a famous nude model, but has always lied to her about being comfortable with what she does.
He has a mentor and best friend in the colleague Ruk, who turns out to be his father who left Pupae when Keg wasn’t even born. Now he’s back in her life and has been with Pupae for three years, ready to reveal to Keg the truth about himself.
Keg has feelings for Bung and tries to impress her and also lends genuine emotional support during a tough time. When Grandma Sodsai comes to Bangkok to meet her son’s family, Keg and Lily have to resume the charades.
Bung goes to Grandpa Kew and Grandma Sodsai’s house, meanwhile, and bonds with Grandpa Kew, failing to tell him the truth about her and others pretending to be his family.
Grandma Sodsai is happy with her family and passes away in her sleep. Bung and Keg go to retrieve Pond, who’s forced into servitude and labor by a mafia type who lent him money in the past, money that Pond lost due to external circumstances.
Pond comes back and they all attend the funeral. Meanwhile, his real daughter Mag learns about his efforts at trying to be in her life and heads off to reunite with him to invite him to her wedding. The family is reunited.
Pond reunites with Mag. His lender sends violent goons to beat him up and Grandpa Kew helps him out, giving up his own money and assets to pay off his debts.
Bung doesn’t feel romantic feelings for Keg and tells him that, as he learns about Ruk’s identity and his relationship with him. He confesses his real feelings to his mother and encourages her to keep working, as he shortly leaves for the US.
Bung begins working on her broken relationship with her father and also acts as an older sister to her step-brother. Lily goes for the surgery, overwhelmed with warmth and happiness as she pretends family is there to support her.
They all later attend Mag’s wedding, and Keg calls from America to update others about his life, as Analog Squad rolls the credits.
Performances
JJ Krissanapoom Pibulsonggram portrays an innocent Keg with all his insecurities, romantic feelings, sensibilities, resentment, and frustrations in a very animated yet convincing fashion.
Primmy Wipawee Patnasiri has unending charms as the video store film nerd Bung. Her emotional beats and convictions are integral to the success of the story and why it works.
Peter Nopachai Jayanama is convincing as this deeply hurt man who’s been plagued by feelings of inadequacies all his life. His mostly stoic composure early on in Analog Squad only makes his emotional outburst later on that much more effective.
Namfon Kullanat Preeyawat as Lily is very easy to empathize with and connect to. Namfon gives one of the best performances in the show and her scenes with Took Viyada Komarakul Na Nakorn are gut-wrenchingly emotional and sweet.
Positives
The characters are incredibly well-cast. The actors do such a great job that it’s very easy to feel for them and to root for them.
Aside from the central plot, the standalone stories of the individual family members are really touching and it’s a nice detour every time their stories are explored separately.
The runtime is a bit too long and yet the pacing remains alright for the most part. The narrative also unfolds in a complex and non-chronological manner which is still very easy to follow.
Negatives
Bung’s story with her father isn’t as fleshed out as it could have been. The closure on that is a positive one but a better confrontation between her and the father, who doesn’t even get reprimanded all that loudly, would have been a lot better.
Keg’s closure with her mother also rubs the wrong way. His feelings are framed in the way that they’re the right ones or the emotionally mature ones.
He loves her mother which is why he allows for her continued profession, not because he’s worked out his own issues or figured out the source of discomfort being the regressive people and gawkers, and not his mother.
Ruk being Keg’s father seems unnecessary, especially because the runtime is already a bit bloated. Analog Squad also indulges in the tired trope of characters refusing to communicate directly and in turn, giving way to unrealistic and unbearable melodrama.
Verdict
Analog Squad is a heartfelt and heart-rending drama that’s peppered with light and comedic moments and drizzled with a Y2K nostalgia that may appeal to many. The characters are multidimensional and easy to connect to, but the lengthy runtime sets the show back by a smidge.
Analog Squad
Director: Ton Nithiwat Tharathorn
Date Created: 2023-12-07 13:30
3.5
Also Read: Analog Squad summary and ending explained