BLISS RATING: ★★★
“Love is something sent from heaven to worry the hell out of you.” – Dolly Parton
Overall, this is a much better series than the dribble of Part One. However, it is a task to watch this marathon because it is close to a million episodes to get through. A bit of an exaggeration, but sometimes, it honestly felt that way. In essence, it is three separate love stories more-or-less connected to one another because they are all friends. Not all three are of equal interest; at least to me. It becomes a continuation of the friendships from Part One but now moving on with love stories of several of the peripheral characters from that original premise and how their romances transformed.
Each love segment is about eight episodes of duration. The first one between Tonfah (Bever Patsapon) and Typhoon (Tonliew Methaphat) is certainly the most emotional-charged of the three and goes deep into the intrinsic development of their relationship. The second romance is between Dao (Oat Tharathon) and Thit (Ngern Anupart) which, by far is the oddest couple of the three. They certainly are quirky and their relationship is based upon the fact that they are spiritualists and are so dissimilar from everyone else. This love connection is my favorite of the three. The third, and for me the most unlikely pairing, is between Sauer (Pie Saranvut) and Nao (Golf Pasatorn). Friends for a long time, these two were in two different worlds. I honestly, not for one minute, could believe that Sauer was somehow connected to a Mafia family. His whole family dynamics were such a stretch of believability to me. And Nao’s nativeness was also simply beyond the pale as well. Although the story is so endearing, it just is not believable. It looked like nothing more than a glorified ‘after-school special’.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? For me, the most intriguing character in this whole series is Oat Tharathon as Dao. Not only was he odd in Part one, but he was also even more so in this series. Oat’s characterization of Dao was completely spot on. He was a misfit throughout yet retained just enough affinity to society to still be a part of it. He wanted to be included in but would not completely yield or conform to its norms. He had no problem being who he was as an oddity. He seemed to rather enjoy it. I just loved the way Oat carried himself. He would constantly surprise you in what the character Dao would do next. A very strong Honorable Mention has to be given to Ohm Sutthipong as Ben who was the bodyguard/friend to Leo (Aong Sittan) who was the older brother of Sauer and the heir-apparent to the Mafia-family. Ben was deeply in love with Leo and could not bring himself to merely being a ‘friend’ to him, especially after knowing that Leo had to ‘marry’. Ben could see and sense the conflict in Leo as he knew that Leo was also in love with him. He displayed some strong but well-hidden feelings for Leo that after a while could not be contained. I really found the hidden dynamics and interactions between Ohm and Aong to be quite good.
The one kudo I will give this series is continuity. It certainly ties the whole story together and there certainly is enough here, after watching this and investing this much time in doing so, to feeling like indeed the characters become your friends. It is an easy and entertaining story to watch and those from Part one did a nice job of keeping the story flowing and moving along except of course for Earth Katasmonnat whose portrayal of Ter continued to be so infantile and prepubescent as to make it completely cringey.
The reason that I did not find this series, although extensive, so memorable, is that the acting here is not challenging for any of them. They did what they had to do, and it was good. Some fit into the roles quite well while others just did not. Oat Tharathon as Dao really does stand out in both parts – in the first one for his oddity while in his second appearance for his low-key mesmerizing acting skills in pulling off an off-the-wall character with complete confidence and competency. Bas Hatsanat as North is also consistently a good actor who maintained the bubbly yet solid characterization of North so well throughout both segments. I lost count, however, as to the mediocre romance scenes. This particular series will honestly not be known for its passion. While they all did their jobs, that was it. A strong believability factor was not present. We need to believe you are in love and it was not evident. Additionally, the emotional scenes in many cases were less than stellar. One measure for a minimum standard of acting is the ability to cry in emotional scenes. If a performer cannot do that, they simply cannot act. There are no excuses for any performer who naturally cannot show tears when crying and there were a lot of no tears in this series where there should have been. Shame.
Of course, this series is entertaining. And with so many episodes, after a while, it becomes your companion. A part of your routine. And when it ended, in a way you miss them. So, like many, I was sad to see the series end. I did become invested in these characters. So, in that sense, it certainly is worth watching more so if you watched the first season.
Leave a Reply