The Fixers, on Netflix: "A mismatched pair...." Good enough for me: let's find some gay subtexts.
Episode 1: "The Swamp Eel."
Scene 1: A chubby eyeglassed guy awakens in the hull of a ship, chained to a bed. A young guy (Jun Shuo-Lou) tells him that they've been kidnapped because "Your boss found out that you were sleeping with his wife."
"But I'm just his accountant. I never even met his wife."
What other reason would he have to kill them?
He has evidence of money laundering -- the Boss must think that he's going to leak it. But it's hidden in his study.
"They're in the study," Driver says, tossing him the key to his chains as he walks out. Huh?
He wasn't in a ship after all; he was in a truck. We see the Driver changing clothes beside his ritzy car, while his partner is eating a sandwich. "We just kidnapped you to get the location of the incriminating evidence. You're free to go."
As they zoom off, the driver, who turns out to be a fixer named Gold, calls the Boss to say that they're on the way to get the ledgers. His partner complains that they keep doing jobs for the police.
Scene 2: Establishing shot of a poor neighborhood. A dice game. Uh-oh, Swamp Eel (Christopher Ming Shun Lee, right) uses a device to cheat, then gathers his money. "My beautiful wife has made me dinner, so I have to go." Heterosexual identity established immediately.
Some gangsters led by Milky enter. Swamp Eel asks "Coffee, tea, or me?" An old stewardess joke that implies gay/bi identity.
"Your debt's overdue. Time to pay."
"Um...er...uh...business is slow. Let's play a dice game for it."
Milky (Sam Lin, left) bets a huge amount. Swamp Eel uses his device, but they catch him.
"Now we're going to cut off your most valuable body part!" No, not his p*enis, his finger.
Swamp Eel runs away, across the housetops, and into a secret hole in a wall, across another rooftop, into an open-air market, where he swings a swamp eel like a lasso. They pellet him with cabbages. He jumps into a police car and blows them kisses.
Scene 3: He arrives at home to find "Scammers go away!" signs all over his house. His son Howie reveals that his wife is live streaming about being scammed. She used the house as collateral to take out a loan for five million Taiwan dollars ($16,000 USD) to invest in cryptocurrency, expecting to get rich. Instead, she lost everything.
The IMDB says that Howie is played by Chen-yu Sun, but he is voiced by Sebastian Sero. Must be the English dub.
Swamp Eel yells at her for losing the money. "You're obsessed with getting rich!"
"Well, what do you do all day? Nothing! I think you have a lover."
"Ok, ok, I'll take care of it. I'll get the money back."
Scene 4: A girl enters Chiu Cha Temple, a second-story the Xinzhuang District of New Taipei City. She prays, then fills out a consultation card and selects a fortune stick. In a hidden room, the monk looks up her information online, comes out, and tells her that Mr. Chao should go to a different temple, Ching He- by himself.
Cut to the middle-aged Mr. Chao (Jui Hung Ma, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) with an unbrella walking up steps in the rain to reach the fictional Ching He Temple. A Monk leads him through several rooms to a meeting with the Head Monk, who asks "How can we help you?"
Scene 5: This is confusing. Mr. Chao is seeking re-election, but his son's drug arrest is ruining his chances. But then another extremely important guy appears at a re-election fundraiser, and while he is being photographed by the press, his estranged son appears. Everyone is shocked. But it's not Mr. Chao and his drug-bust son. It's someone else. Why confuse viewers like this?
Scene 6: The Eel gets a phone call from his Friend Jung: Gangster Milky is telling everyone that his games are rigged, and everyone knows that they're out 5,000,000 NTD, so he needs money, right? Friend Jung has a debt collection job that pays 300,000 but he'll have to flash a gun around. The Eel refuses: "I don't do that anymore," but changes his mind and retrieves the tin box with his gun.
Left: Random Taiwanese guys.
Cut to the fundraiser, where the New Guy is schmoozing. His estranged son, whom everyone was surprised to see, turns out to be the Driver from Scene 1, actually Louis Hsieh or Fixer Gold, who works for the monks of the Ching He Temple (where Mr. Chao asked for assistance). He approachesd a girl at the bar, flirts with her, talks her into drinking, then invites her up to his room:
For an interrogation: "I can't believe that a woman with a Ph.D. had to hook up with her boss's husband." Hey, that's the line he used in his first scam. Turns out that she works for Mr. Chao's opponent, Lu Shu-Jung (not listed in the IMDB), who hired a tough named Noobs to frame Mr. Chao's son, thus ruining his campaign.
"Why did Tough Noobs agree to do it?"
"We promised to get his own drug charges dropped. But we're going to frame him for kidnapping and human trafficking. He's going to prison regardless, evil laugh."
"Ok, I recorded the conversation. You're free to go." So Fixer Gold wasn't really into her.
More after the break
