[In view of Single’s Day (11/11) tomorrow, I decided to publish this draft that has collecting dust since March when WAIL 2 first aired]

After releasing the We Are In Love Season 2 Special episode on 14 Feb 2016, the first episode is finally here on 20 March 2016!

The first one we are introduced to is Shawn Yue (Yu Wen Le), a hongkong actor! Shawn Yue declares that he is on the show because he wants to get married and have babies and act coquettishly to the production team. I have never seen him before but he seems pretty easy-going and cute, even though with a big-baby personality. I baidu-ed (that’s the chinese version of google) him for a bit and realised he indeed shared that he wanted to get married and have children soon in a 2011 interview. Guess he’s a bit passive but at least he feels sincere so that’s good.

Eddie Peng is also with him. (Yay! Bonus points.) Shawn Yue is given a phone to select the female partner he wants. The first picture shows Bea Hayden Guo Biting (from Tiny Times movie franchise) and Shawn Yue seems to be pretty happy with it… Until he sees the next picture, Song Ji Hyo. Now this got him really happy but he pouted, “But I don’t know Korean.” Eddie, being the buddy he is, supported Shawn Yue and quipped, “It’s okay. Love transcend language,” to which Shawn Yue replied, “Like you and me?” Hahahaha. Too cute. They are going to make me ship the wrong couple! Eddie then asked, “Why is my photo not in the phone?” This two need to stop!

When they scrolled to Zhou Dongyu’s photo, both Eddie and Shawn Yue went, “Can’t be this. This is impossible.” Shawn Yue even added, “This is like a younger sister.” Hmm, I think we know how this will turn out. Hahaha.

Next, we cut to Zhou Dongyu. She is also given a phone with 5 pictures to select from. The first picture is Chen Bolin and Zhou Dongyu told us how she likes ‘Da Ren-ge’ (Chen Bolin’s character in In Time With You). But when she saw that Shawn Yue was in the next picture, her reaction was seemed to be more positive and she said, “Yu-laoshi, I also like” while giggling and blushing like a young fangirl. What I’m most weirded out is that she called him ‘Yu-laoshi’. Laoshi actually means Teacher in mandarin and in China, they will usually add this honorific to senior veterans. This immediately shows the age gap and difference in level between the two but well, I guess, true love transcends age too.

Well, Zhou Dongyu makes her final decision… And it’s Eddie Peng! Whoops. On the other side, Eddie told Shawn Yue to make a random choice and secretly helped him to pick Song Ji Hyo. Then, the first CP begins by chatting online. Disappointment as both realise that the other party did not choose themself after seeing their profile picture. Shawn Yue is especially heartbroken when he realise the other party cannot be Song Ji Hyo and didn’t want to continue the conversation. Fanboy dreams dashed. Can’t imagine how would it be like when he sees Chen Bolin with Song Ji Hyo.

They reach an indoor basketball court for their date. Shawn Yue is puzzled by 3 basketballers instead of ‘his girl’ standing there waiting for him. He has to win them before he can meet his girl. After realising who his partner is, his first reaction is, “She is almost younger than me by a zodiac cycle?” (A zodiac cycle is 12 years. They are 11 years apart.)

Zhou Dongyu was really nervous and kept on stuttering. As she was finding a topic, he directly asked her, “How old are you?”. She hesitated a bit before answer, “24.” After seeing him not having any answers after a moment, she immediately changed her answer, “28.”  Hahahaha. Indeed gimmicks only young girls would do. Which woman would want to be older than they are? This reminds me of the first scene in We Are In Love Season 1 where Kimi Qiao was also shocked at how young his partner (Xu Lu) is.

The conversation between the two is really funny. Zhou Dongyu is extremely cautious because she did not want to accidentally rub salt in Shawn Yue’s wound by mentioning their large age gap. She eventually decided that a safe ground will be to say that she loves Shawn Yue’s films, only to be rebutted, “Please don’t tell me you grew up watching my shows. That will be too much for me.” Hahahaha. Zhou Dongyu then claims that she only watched his shows when she was in university… But the truth is revealed in a backstage interview that she actually watched them when she was in Senior High. A beautiful lie… until Shawn Yue forces her to swear on it and Zhou Dongyu pretends to not to be able to control her fingers and hence, unable to swear. Too hilarious.

They then decided on the names to call each other. Zhou Dongyu eventually decided on calling Shawn Yue ‘Liu-shu’ which directly translate to 6th Uncle because ‘six’ in cantonese sounds similar to ‘Le’ in Shawn Yue’s Chinese name. A lot of arrows shot at Shawn Yue as he accepts the fate of being called ‘Uncle’. He then decides to call Zhou Dongyu ‘Little Tadpole’.

Zhou Dongyu then shares that she is actually very insecure about her small eyes and Shawn Yue immediately tries to comfort her by insisting that he likes small eyes. Zhou Dongyu then softly says… “Liu-shu, I think you are someone with very good taste,” causing both to instantly burst into laughter. Great way to warm up the atmosphere.

They decide to change their phone profile picture to each other and Zhou Dongyu took a cross-eyed picture and asked, “Am I pretty?” right after that. A lot of getting used to by Uncle 6 is needed here hahaha.

They then play some basketball and he lost the bet so he threw away his idol baggage and did an imitation of some high pitch female MV. After that, they went to a date at some event where they had to do a live voice recording for silent films. Zhou Dongyu said that she was very excited but during the premiere, it just looks like she was bored. This feels like it is too much work for it to be a real date. But the two managed to have some positive interaction there and built a pretty good start to their relationship.

That’s the end of this segment! The preview shows Shawn Yue being unable to stand Zhou Dongyu’s male BFF and wants to break up. There’s also a snippet of Zhou Dongyu saying, “We can’t film the next episode anymore.”

There is this random snippet of two random non-artiste going through the same ‘We Are In Love’ process. I’m assuming this is just for the program to meet SARFT requirements of having ‘normal people’ in variety shows so I’m skipping it.

Next up, we have Wei Da Xun who is approaching 30. I recognise him from the drama, ‘One and a Half Summer’ (which also stars Xu Lu from Season 1), and the movie, Forever Young. His designated spot to meet his girl is in the bus. While he is on the bus….

Xu Lu appears! Wei Da Xun is surprised. He exclaimed, “didn’t you already appear on Season 1?!” but appears to be pretty excited. Xu Lu ask if he is glad to see her and he replies in the affirmative. Xu Lu then starts asking him about his love history and allows him to ask her about the same too. Wei Da Xun then asks about Kimi Qiao and her only to be scolded by her.

Xu Lu then goes on a crazed mode and start being a crazy demanding girlfriend. Da Xun learnt very quickly and behaves like a ‘perfect boyfriend’ even though Xu Lu was overdemanding. Very sweet and lovely, but it also feels like he is doing this just for the TV cameras. A bit too fake. But then again, I guess he is pulling the same stunt as Kimi Qiao from Season 1, just that I was too blinded by Kimi to care hahaha.

As it turns out, Xu Lu reveals her identity, she is NOT his partner. She’s here on a mission to train Da Xun into becoming an ideal boyfriend for her friend. Pretty funny but Da Xun has indeed passed the test. Da Xun then immediately tells Xu Lu, “You know, I don’t like you at all actually.” Hahaha.

A lot of romantic buildup and anticipation as the real couple is about to meet. The female lead is Li Xin, mainland actress. She’s a sucker for romance and first impressions. After a long while, the two finally see each other… only to realise they have met on a friend’s wedding! That was a complete killjoy for Li Xin. After all these suspense, he turns out to be someone she already knew.

The two didn’t seem to start off very well. Li Xin thinks that Da Xun talks too much and is not amused by him even though Da Xun claims that Li Xin is his type. It was only when she received his present that she seemed to relax. But that was only temporary as he lied that he never had a girlfriend before.

Another random couple but this was quite funny because the guy mistook another lady for his partner and thoroughly embarrassed himself hahahaha.

Next, we are at Korea with Song Ji Hyo! She is given 5 pictures, one of them her boyfriend. All of them are chinese actors and she’s afraid of cultural differences. On the other hand, Chen Bolin appears and he is given 5 pictures as well! He seems to be pretty excited knowing that his girlfriend will be Korean.

The two are in the same room but separated by a screen. They cannot see each other but can pass stuff through a vent. Ji Hyo is very excited because Bolin voice is lovely. Bolin talks about being cold and Ji Hyo sweetly passed a heat pack to him. These two are very cute and seems to be the most natural and chemistry-filled couple thus far.

Bolin prepared a series of really fantastic gifts ranging from a stethoscope (for her to listen to his heartbeat), pineapple tarts (which both of them love and immediately bonded over), a smart-robot (which unfortunately failed him after a while but even the failure was very cute). The first gift that Ji Hyo gave was a candle and Bolin happens to be a candle-lover. And they immediately clicked. Quite surprised that this pair actually clicked the best.

Ji Hyo then passed a childhood picture of her to Bolin and he immediately recognised her. She then passed the photos she has to guess which was him and he cheekily took away all the photos and refused to return it to her. Super cute and funny.

The light then dims and they can see each other’s shadows on the screen. Basically, they have some fun together and I feel that this couple has the most potential thus far.

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This was written when it first aired in March 2016. This was the first and only episode that I watched for this season. When I was watching this, Kimi Qiao was still alive. Reading this post brings back memories of him. However, even though all these memories of him are pretty and lovely, that’s not how he felt about this reality show. An interview 9 days before his death showed that he had wanted to erase the WAIL part of his life. Even though the show brought him to higher levels of popularity, he thought it was something that was distracting people from seeing his true abilities. He did not want to be remembered as ‘the guy who dated Xu Lu on We Are In Love and should date her in real life’. After his death, his company also removed ‘We Are In Love’ from his portfolio. I can only imagine the nightmare this show was to him because as an audience, I thoroughly loved (the 5 episodes I watched) and I never expected it to cause so much frustration to him. Once again, we learn not to judge a book by its appearance and not to believe everything we see on TV. By supporting trashy shows and being delusional, we are ruining lives of these people we claim to love. Thank you, Kimi, for the lesson once again. I still miss and love you.