(This will contain heavy spoilers for KinnPorsche the series.)
In 2022, Thai production company Be On Cloud released a show that rocked the BL scene, gaining both local and international popularity and almost instantly becoming a classic in the genre. This show was KinnPorsche: The Series.
KinnPorsche is definitely the kind of show that you’d explain to someone as if it were a particularly juicy piece of gossip; it’s a mafia themed show with a bizarre sense of humor that clashes uncomfortably with its darker themes. Each episode comes packed with jarring tonal shifts and enough toxicity to rival your typical Wattpad mafia romance. That said, despite all its flaws, its storylines have never really left my mind. At the time, I had never really seen anything like it — and haven’t since then. There’s one particular element that I want to discuss in this article, but first, what even is KinnPorsche about?
The series follows Porsche Kittisawa, a struggling bartender who’s raising his younger brother, after he ends up rescuing mafia boss Kinn Theerapanyakul who was being chased by assailants. Unbeknownst to Porsche however, helping him comes at a price. Kinn recruits an unwilling Porsche into his bodyguard team after his head of security becomes injured. Desperate to care for his brother, Porsche is thrust into this violent world the mafia inhabits. He grapples with the implications of the atrocities he will become complacent in, as well as the growing affections between him and his seemingly uncaring boss. The show is relatively short by Western media standards, capping off at 14 episodes each around an hour long.
Despite being the main couple, Kinn and Porsche weren’t really the couple I was most invested in. Their romance was interesting enough, but if that was it, the show probably wouldn’t have stuck with me the way it did. Enter Pete and Vegas.
Pete is Porsche’s perpetually smiley friend and fellow bodyguard. He starts out being your goofy best buddy type character. He’s the head bodyguard for Tankhun, Kinn’s older brother and probably the one beacon of light Porsche had when he first started working for the Theerapanyakul family, and that’s all we really know about him. He’s very competent at being a bodyguard, but his personality seems to clash with the job description, leaving you to wonder: who exactly is this guy?
Vegas, on the other hand, enters the show with a charming smile that screams danger and attempts to steal Porsche away from Kinn, somehow almost succeeding at least once. He takes the role of Kinn’s antagonistic cousin. He’s vindictive, petty, and jealous to a fault; all around, Vegas just kinda sucks as a person. He spends the majority of the show trying to sabotage Kinn in everything he does in what is a borderline obsessive manner.
Now, Pete and Vegas had met before. Having worked for the main branch of the Theerapanyakul family for years, Pete was incredibly familiar with Vegas and the minor family’s attempts to sabotage the main family, but they had never really properly talked. In fact, for around eight episodes in the series they only really have sparse interactions, none of them even hinting at any sort of a romantic connection. Then, Kinn sends Pete on a mission in episode nine. He’s to go into the minor family’s home and steal information from their databases. Pete agrees, fully knowing what might happen to him.
It’s not a meet-cute. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as Vegas’s men find Pete, and suddenly he’s tied up in a torture dungeon with a gleefully angry Vegas holding jumper cables hooked up to a car battery. What proceeds is probably something that’s more at home in a true crime documentary than a show labelled as “romance,” and it produces one of the most egregious cases of Stockholm syndrome I’ve ever seen in fiction. I won’t go into too much detail as it’s somewhat disturbing, but, at some point, Pete ends up in a safe house with Vegas who is now on the run from the main family. No one knows Pete is missing — Vegas makes sure of that.
If you think that sounds like something straight out of a horror movie, you wouldn’t be wrong. Their story isn’t an aspirational one like the kind you’d see in any other romance.; It’s not healthy, and it’s certainly not one you would root for, but it draws you in nonetheless. My friends and I spent half the time they were on screen yelling at Pete to leave Vegas, and cheering when he knocked him out and finally escaped, but there were times when that wasn’t the case. The show makes you care for them — crying while realizing that they’ve changed each other’s lives irrevocably. Watching their dynamic unfold is like a trainwreck you can’t look away from. Your morbid fascination keeps you glued to the screen as they tear each other’s worlds apart. For better or worse, Vegas and Pete can’t be separated once that crash happens.
This brand of toxic and deeply messy dynamics is a thing you’ll see a lot in BL, even in shows that aren’t trying to do it. It’s the sort of dynamic that makes you want to punch a character, but you also can’t help wanting it to go on a little longer, just to see where it goes. However, it rarely ever becomes this interesting.
To compare, in early 2024 a show called My Stand-in aired. It followed a similarly messy relationship, kidnapping and all, but I never really understood why these two characters needed each other so badly. Joe, our protagonist, gives us a reason by claiming Ming, his horribly toxic boyfriend, was the one person that fulfilled his wish of “coming home and having the lights be on.” This is a thing that is said, but we don’t really see it. His relationship with Ming had no other clear reason for being, other than the fact Ming is obsessed with Joe and Joe has no self respect. Seeing this in contrast to VegasPete (their ship name), I start realizing just why they work.
VegasPete portrays this uncomfortable dynamic effectively. Vegas and Pete’s bond is a codependent one: there’s this air of “you’re the only one who truly understands me” coming from the both of them, but especially from Vegas. They have both been on the receiving end of parental abuse, something that they bond over in the beginning, and something which makes Vegas cling to Pete as the only person who’s really shown him empathy.
Even after Pete eventually escapes, they can’t stop orbiting each other. Pete doesn’t tell anyone about what happened to him, not his boss, not even his best friend. He’s completely and utterly alone after Vegas, despite being surrounded by his peers. He has trauma bonded himself to Vegas, unable to truly break himself away from the man, even after having escaped him. At this point in the story, Vegas no longer has any real power over anything. He’s in hiding, his father only really ever visits in order to berate him, and Pete is gone.
But Vegas still can’t let Pete go, and he seeks him out, a horrible move on his end, meeting him on more neutral ground. Pete pulls a gun on him, Vegas screams at him to shoot him, and when he can’t, Vegas uses it to remind Pete of the nature of their feelings for one another and that they are too far gone.
I think, ultimately, this is why me and so many people find them so fascinating. They have a deeply unhealthy bond that exists in such a specific context, and you know for a fact the two are not going to walk away from it. By the end of the show, Vegas almost dies, and Pete resigns as a bodyguard to stay with Vegas. The show ends with them together, and it’s implied that they will continue on with a regular life, or as regular of a life as two ex gangsters could. In a perfect world, the two’s relationship wouldn’t take another turn for the worst, even if realistically it would be very difficult for this to be the case. Thankfully, KinnPorsche is not a realistic show, and Vegas and Pete do not exist. Their dynamic stays behind the screen, at a safe distance for us to dissect like some sort of bug in a laboratory.