Finally, we come to Absolute Worst. Again, this is no shade on Tayme Thapthimthong’s performance. One assume we’re feeling precisely what we’re supposed to feel about Gaitok, who started off the season as a sympathetic lovelorn gate guard and has turned into embodying a host of unappealing qualities, and whose errors might even lead to the shooting teased in the season’s cold open.
First, Gaitok’s pursuit of the lovely Thidapon (Lisa Manobal) quickly went from boyishly romantic to please-just-leave-her-alone cringe as he ignores his co-worker’s polite resistance and keeps push-push-pushing. He’s an interesting comparison to Saxon, who makes so many comments about chasing women, but can handle rejection (“It’s a numbers game!”). Second, Gaitok is terrible at his job. It’s one thing if somebody is bad at something they don’t care about. But Gaitok desperately wants to succeed at the resort and earn a promotion, yet can’t even handle the very modest responsibility of minding a gate.
Now, in the most recent episode, when Gaitok was yet again pestering Thidapon for a date, a distraught Timothy stole a gun from the gatehouse. For all Gaitok knows, Timothy is about to go murder his entire family, and/or other guests. A vacation guest stealing a gun certainly is definitely planning something bad. Does he immediately alert the other staff? Nope! He’s too worried about getting in trouble. Instead, he asks Timothy for the gun back in the most passive and ineffectual way possible (because passive and ineffectual is his whole deal). This, of course, doesn’t work.
Gaitok might actually turn out to be the hero of this season — the nebbish guard stopping a rampaging shooter, exposing who committed the smash-and-grab robbery (which seemingly isn’t hard to figure out), and winning over Thidapon would be the most traditional arc for his character. But as of right now, this dude is the worst.
