(Please take the spoiler warning seriously, as there will definitely be major spoilers in this review. tldr: I hated almost every part of this show until halfway through episode fourteen when I finally enjoyed it for all of five minutes. Feel free to watch if you - like me - have an addiction to watching trash and ranting about said trash or if you just have a ton of patience.)

I have never in my life been more relieved to finish a show. There are so many things wrong with this it’s not even funny. I won’t go into all of them because if I did this review would take an hour to read, but basically my problems are as follows:

- at the beginning of the show thada was the biggest asshole on the planet. like holy shit he acted like sandee was his property and, um, that’s not okay??

- literally the only characters i liked the entire time were chacha, noina, pete, kao, june, and tew. everyone else i wanted to punch multiple times. except maybe sandee, who i can kinda forgive for being irrational due to the pregnancy scare. also, i know good characters should be flawed , but it shouldn’t be to the point where they’re unlikable. sandee was a good way to have a flawed character, but even she bordered completely unlikable sometimes due to how much they dragged it out. so yeah, I’m not mad the characters had flaws, i just think it should’ve been done better.

- i literally couldn’t care less about sanrak’s story. i hated her as a character. i hated the sudden shift she did in the last few episodes, which didn’t make any sense (yes, ik the cheating is bound to have an effect, but i think it could and should have been done better), and i hated her even more in the beginning episodes. the only thing that kept me even semi-sympathetic to her plight was the fact that first absolutely emotionally abused her, and i understand that sufferers of abuse aren’t always able to make the most rational choices due to whatever reason. also i was entirely neutral (leaning towards dislike tho) with na. he treated sanrak like a child and while she was extremely childish it was still gross. also, though i don’t like ella, i hate the way he treated her. it was shitty, and he wasn’t clear with her at all until he finally said outright that he didn’t like her. but then he led her on anyway??? what the fuck? everyone insisted that he was so much better than first, and yes, first was a grade a asshole, but na wasn’t that much better. this section is long af, but ugh, i hated this entire storyline so much and had to forcefully stop myself from skipping their parts just so i could give an in depth review.

- the entire time i wanted tew and sandee to break up. this is less of a criticism and more of a personal thing, but ugh, he deserves someone who genuinely likes him. and i felt like sandee was really selfish in letting him fall for her all while knowing she still wasn’t sure of her feelings. yes, he pressured her, which isn’t okay, but also, he had a right to know how she was feeling; if he hadn’t pressured her, she likely never would’ve answered. so yeah. glad he broke up with her at the end, not because i cared all that much about sandee and thada (they were alright, nothing spectacular), but because i really want him to be with someone who a.) can tell him he needs to slow his roll instead of falling so hard so fast and b.) actually likes him. so yeah.

- the pete thing. i’ll be honest. unlike most of the other comments, i actually wasn’t all that mad with pete. this is probably because he’s my favorite character and i adore both him and tay. but i just didn’t get furious. barring the fact that literally no real person would ever do that, pete is so stupid that i can’t be mad at it. for me, it’s was “look, i forgive you, but you deserve to have your ass kicked a few times before we’re even” sort of thing, and i thoroughly enjoyed thada looking like he was gonna beat the shit out of pete. mildly disappointed they didn’t follow through with that :’). i know that whole part of the episode probably wasn’t supposed to be comical, but i found it hilarious. and i’m glad they didn’t drag out the drama with pete.

- the characterization was pretty inconsistent. mostly with ms. jane and sanrak. both of them changed tunes out of nowhere, especially ms. jane, and i hated how they kept excusing sanrak’s huuuge mistakes because she’s a main character. in reality, she would’ve gotten fired immediately and rightfully so for making such a careless mistake that literally impacted everything else that happened with the company throughout the show. there’s genuine accidents, and then there’s employees being incompetent. sanrak’s whole bs was the latter. also, i hated how the ceo, na, made basically every decision with his emotions. how am i supposed to believe he runs this successful company when he has just as much trouble as sanrak does controlling his emotions? yeah, likely story. but whatever, that’s just a personal gripe.

Overall, I think this show was extremely long and stressful. Parts the didn’t need to be dragged out were extremely long, and parts the should’ve been solved within seconds were dragged out beyond belief. Most of the characters were unlikable, and I was way more invested in the side characters than anyone else. Noina and Chacha are my spirit animals btw. The only reason i watched it all the way through is because I wanted to know what Pete did (actually pretty predictable as well if you’re familiar with storylines like these, so i guessed it in three seconds, but their reactions made it entirely worth watching his confession) and also, I wanted to be able to review it thoroughly. I also think I held out some hope that it’d get better. It didn’t. It was extremely annoying start to finish, with only a few good things sprinkled in in the form of the side characters.

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Okay, wow, this drama. I didn’t expect to hate it in any case, but I definitely love it way more than I thought I would. It’s absolutely one of my favorites, which - admittedly - isn’t saying much considering that I’m rather new to Asian dramas, but whatever, we’ll go with it.

I don’t have too too much to say about this without spoiling it a bit, but holy shit. Everything about this was for the most part pretty good; nothing really stood out to me as completely awful. However, there were a couple of things that stood out to me as really, really good.

One, the set. I know this probably isn’t what you’re looking for, but the set is wonderful imo. The color palette is beautiful, and it’s just a really gorgeous show to watch. It’s sometbhing you can’t help but noticing either; the difference in the rooms of Third and Khai, the unique colors of each individual set piece, the colors of sad scenes versus happier ones, all of it. Absolutely gorgeous. I just had to acknowledge that.

As far as the storyline goes, it’s a pretty simple one. Guy’s in love with his best friend but best friend is straight/a player/ oblivious/ all of the above. Not many complex things going on here. I’ll admit there were a couple of times I got confused, but for the most part, it was a simple storyline that was easy to keep up with.

That being said, even within such a simple premise, the acting and the characters still managed to blow me away. The one thing that really got me was how easily my emotions were manipulated by this show. Generally with shows like these, I’m very critical of the main character. I don’t tend to understand why they refuse to try and get over their love interest, and I end up disliking the show because it just doesn’t make sense. But with this one, they did it amazingly imo, esp in getting me to feel what Third was feeling.

The entire time I completely understood everything Third said and did and felt, and I felt the same exact way. Yes, Khai could be a bit of a dick sometimes, but the show did a wonderful job of showing the times where he wasn’t; it made me fall in love with him in the exact same way Third did, and I could easily get why despite Khai’s mistakes Third couldn’t help but forgive him. I couldn’t help it either; he was just one of those characters. I cried when Third cried, I felt hopeless when he felt hopeless, and I was happy when he was happy. And that right there is what will keep me watching this show. I adore how easy it is to understand and empathize with Third, and I his relationship with Khai is portrayed perfectly, though I’ll admit there were times where I wondered if they had anything keeping them friends other than their shared love for film. Luckily this was rectified almost immediately.

10/10 will definitely continue watching, and I can’t wait to see the next episodes and what becomes of Third and Khai. Only reason this wasn’t 10 across the board is because I don’t want to jump the gun too soon. If you’re hesitant about watching this, I say go for it.

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