BLISS RATING: ★+
“Friends with benefits are neither.” – Jason Evert
This BL series was simply pure drudgery to watch. While slogging through this mess, I wanted to drop it at so many points. Its story is chaotic, and the characters so cartoonish that it was hard to take them seriously. Let me make something clear, however. It is NOT badly acted; merely badly directed with a very poor storyline. It is one of the most unfocused BLs I have ever seen, which by its very nature makes it difficult to understand its value. The reason it is unfocused is because it traversed all over the place trying to find a point.
It starts out with a rather pompous and arrogant office worker named Uea (James Wongwisut). He is a delicate flower who sees the world only through his eyes and his perspective. He is a repellant character and remains so throughout the series. His personality never changed throughout the story. What I mean by that is that he never shows any growth. He is needy and demanding and remains so throughout. I disliked the characterization intensely, almost viscerally. His holier-than-thou attitude is directed at King (Net Manithikhun) who is a bit of a player and is continuously trying to lure Uea to being with him. But it does appear that King, while playful, seems to have a more intense interest in Uea. Of course, Uea spurns his gestures but always manages to be in the right place to continually get King’s attention. Finally, Uea succumbs to the temptations feigning to be drunk, and both are pleasantly surprised at the level and intensity of their sexual prowess and want more.
But true to form, Uea is resistive. Manipulatively, he then lays out conditions for both to be ‘friends with benefits’. The rules are patently silly, capricious, and a smokescreen for what is really going on. And that is? Both are falling hard and in love with each other. King is way more demonstrative about it and reaches a level of desire to be with Uea at an early stage in their ‘relationship’. Uea continues to foster disdain for King and essentially manipulates King much like a puppeteer to his puppets.
For some unknown reason, King seemingly is agreeable to this manipulation and acquiesces to each of Uea’s demands and conditions. Uea continues to use his sexual prowess to draw King closer to him as if the ultimate aim is for him to fall so madly in love with him that he will be unable to leave him.
Perhaps that scenario is not as devious or manipulative as I make it out to be, but the outcome is the same. Uea, however, has buried a deep, dark, and profoundly vulnerable trauma that he never got over as a child. Uae was an acutely sensitive boy and apparently gave off vibes that he was somehow ‘different’. When some overtures by his stepfather were proving to be too much for him, Uea goes to his mother and explains what was happening, she immediately accusing Uea of falsifying or embellishing what occurred and proceeds to punish him by locking him alone in a room without light. Uea is permanently scarred by this incident and crumbles when he is left alone in the dark. Uea’s mother recognized early on that he was ‘different’, and has ever since rejected, abused, bullied, and emotionally tortured him to the point he become a broken man and a ‘victim’.
All of this is unknown to King until Uea is accosted by a supervisor in the office who attempted to rape him, which flooded Uea with the same feelings he had as a child. Finally, Uea informs King of his background and his need to seek psychiatric help with his emotional and mental issues. King, so deeply in love with him, yet again proves his loyalty and commitment to Uea, almost blindly.
Having worked in the field of mental health for years, I tend to pick apart what I am seeing. Maybe more so than the average person. What happened to Uea is tragic, sad, and profoundly wrong. And he deserves our sympathy and understanding. Uea’s behavior is a direct result of his experiences. While I applaud his steps to seeking help and taking medication for his mental health, he still remains Uea. Weak, vulnerable, fragile, and manipulative, arrogant, and snobbish. Always frightened that he will lose what he has and always needing to protect himself.
Understandable for sure, but for the development of a long-term relationship, toxic. Perhaps not so now, but if he does not and will not see the connection to who he is now to what has happened, he will fall apart and never take the painful necessary steps to deal with his traumas. To be sure, he has taken baby steps, but this series only deals with these issues superficially. Equally and profoundly important is that King also needs to recognize and understand that he cannot and should not always rescue Uea by giving in to all his demands. If so, then at some time you do not have an equitable or functional relationship and resentment will build. THAT is not even addressed in this series, even tangentially. Their relationship is so superficial and only presented from the side of Uea being wounded. Which he was! But THIS is also about a relationship that needs a lot of support, intervention, and introspection for it to be real.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Acting is not an issue in this series. The meandering story is. Wrapping your brain around a senseless story became difficult. The supporting roles were more caricatures than people. Admittedly, I fell in love with Jade (Yim Khansawa). He was a friend to both Uea and King but more so with Uea. Loyal to a fault but so adorable in being so. He made his unbelievable character believable. I wish he really existed. I would love to have him as a friend. His antics were comedic, and his innocence was breathtakingly sincere. In addition, he was just so cute and adorable that he came across as a human teddy bear. How could you not fall in love with him? But who really gave it her all and is deliciously wicked is Uea’s mother (Tom Phanmanee). She unhesitatingly is cold, calculating, and consistently ugly towards her own son. She never waivers and is embarrassed and ashamed that she had a gay son. Yet is evil enough to continue to manipulate him into giving her money. A classic case of victim acquiesces to the abuser. What I also appreciated was that she remains unrepentant and even in the end, they did not make her saintly. She was, is, and undoubtedly will be iniquitous towards Uea for the rest of her life. I appreciated the honesty of that character and how ruthless she played it. She never gave us one iota that she was a ‘mother’ to him. Kudos for taking on a very unlikeable role and running all the way with it. I appreciated the honesty of it. That role seemed so real to me.
Rarely I have ever wanted to drop a series, merely based on storyline. But this is one of those times that I should have as I felt this series was so toxic and never got to a point of any clarification.
Let me explain. Here are the reasons why I think this is a bad series:
1. Uea NEVER changed. He was arrogant, self-righteous, and irksome from the beginning through the end. His ‘delicate flower’ status wore thin for me, and he used that as I crutch and sword at the same time. I detest conscious manipulators especially to only meet their needs.
2. He used King. King is blinded by his love for Uea and Uea knows that. Eventually, King is going to realize that and maybe begin to see the reality of this relationship. I just hope that Uea will grow into adulthood. King ALWAYS gave in to Uea and that is not a good precedent or foundation for a lasting relationship. It was all given by King and all taken by Uea.
3. What happened to Uea is traumatic and perhaps even destructive. While it was good and positive that this series actually dealt with his issues in a professional manner, it was done so too quickly and episodically and way too superficially. A few sessions with a psychiatrist will not erase years of abuse and emotional bullying.
4. The ending of this series was pure dribble. While we all want happy endings, one is presented with toxicity throughout with no real resolutions to anything and except the audience to accept this happy ending where everyone now cheers their relationship with compete openness. Rubbish. Did they not have any issues in the year we did not see? Is he still seeing the psychiatrist? Does King’s family know of Uea’s issues? Why did we not see even a modicum of growth with Uea in this interim? You cannot give me sugar and spice here without a counterbalance of salt and vinegar.
5. The production seemed off to me. Some of the scenes seemed to have insufferably long pauses between them, which I did not understand. Was it for effect or emphasis? I was not sure, but it was annoying. The poor editing and time references and changes were hard to follow. I found Episode 9 and most of 10 completely irrelevant and unnecessary. The ending was laughably absurd. This is also the only series I have ever fast-forwarded through ‘lovemaking’ scenes. I found them overused, way too rehearsed, felt unnatural, and completely unbelievable. Besides, who makes love when nearly fully clothed? I found those scenes to be overly dramatic and contrived and way too gratuitous. I never believed once they were having sex. Sure, it was rehearsed well, but a believability factor was missing.
There is no chemistry between these two actors. I did feel more from Net Manithikhun as King though. He tried to make this work and managed to provide us with a multi-faceted individual. I felt deeply sorry for his character as he just does not see what is happening around him as he is literally blinded by love. His parents did try to warn him, especially his mother, and I agree with her. There is a lot to unpack in this relationship and I saw more of that than perhaps I should have. Yim Khansawa as Uea never changed and that for me is the saddest analysis. As damaged as he was in the beginning is exactly as damaged as he is in the end. He remains a delicate flower, comfortable in his own skin, and unwilling to see anything else except his own wounds. And what is worse is that no one has the guts or courage to confront Uea for who he really is and be honest with him. While he suffered a lot and WAS abused, he needs to own that and see how that is now controlling his life and dictating his actions with others. It is just never the abused who suffer from being abused; it is all those around him or her. You must not only treat the abused but the closest people around the abused.
This series had so much potential, and it squandered it all. It made what should have been a sympathetic story, an unsympathetic one and only showed us superficialities. Abuse must be taken seriously. Bullying must be taken seriously. Therapy and support for the abused and bullied must be taken seriously as well. This story is so shallow and presented with no amplitude that you are left to wonder why these characters are doing the things they are doing. For example,
1. Why would King pursue an individual that finds him detestable?
2. Why would Uea want and need King as a bed friend, if he detests ‘players’?
3. Why would King constantly give in to Uea’s irrational demands?
4. Why is Uea now as an adult so afraid of his mother as he now sees and understands her abusive behavior? Or does he? It seems so unclear.
5. Why is this love affair so one sided? Why is King always having to prove his love for Uea while Uea simply remains the delicate flower having to not once show any kind of reciprocity in love, except for sex? And if and when he does, he does so with hesitancy and grudgingly with a cynical smile on his face? In other words, why is Uea such a snob and why is that so tolerated?
I wish I could say this was a hot mess, but I cannot. The story is unfixed, confusing, superficial, with shallow characters surrounded by caricatures with the only one with any persona being an evil mother. What bothers me the most is that there is no growth in these characters, and it was deliberately directed that way. That cheapened the series and merely glossed over the real issues.
Since this series’ theme was abuse and bullying, I encourage production companies to note hotlines on where to get help if anyone is a victim of abuse or bullying.
Leave a Reply