Honey, Don't Run Away 2 (2021)

The badly needed recasting and rewriting needed to save this show

As an avid iQiyi viewer, I was disappointed when I watched the first season because 1) the plot was more on csi than romance, and 2) the leads barely had time to develop chemistry even though they tried. I didn’t even plan to watch this because the gap between S1 and 2 is so big and unlike the gap in other iqiyi shows like fantastic mr. Right, and lovely swords girl.

|New FL brought life back to the OTP|
The previous FL was pretty but her take on the somewhat spoiled heiress was not endearing enough for me to tolerate her. But recasting the FL with He Nan is probably the first best decision because He Nan just fit the role of a pretty, spoiled heiress perfectly! She might be a bit whiny, but she’s also endearing because she was able to clearly show her weaknesses and her awareness about her shortcomings. Add to the fact that He Nan just complemented Qiu Shi Lun so well in terms of their looks — she looks like a ray of sunshine, while he has a scowl fit for Hades king of the underworld. Their chemistry was also very believable and their kiss scene was passable. I think the FL was the only one changed, so I’m glad that her chemistry with the other original cast is also there.

|Rewriting that saved us from the boredom of crime solving|
I like CSI and Under the Power, but it’s because they had the perfect ratio of crime solving and romance — HDRA S1 DIDN’T. So having the script refocus on what really maters — the story of the FL and ML — we get to see more of how the leads fall for each other without dropping the ball on solving the FLs and MLs twisted fates. There was some moments that I got scared they will drag the angst but thankfully everything was solved in a reasonable amount of episodes.

The ending was ok with a bit of open ending giving more room for S3. As it is I’m ok with the ending because we already have 36 episodes (12eps+24eps) but I saw that there’s a 12 episode S3 in the making so let’s just wait and see.

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