Blue
This review may contain spoilers
Mindless Entertainment
The Good:Gun, as per usual was lovely to watch. I mean, there's not much to say other than that he's a truly good actor. His character, Run, was interesting too. He wasn't morally grey, his whole thing was not agreeing with Home School's new goals, but he definitely had more depth then a lot of the others, which was nice.
I liked Film's acting. I haven't seen loads of opinions on it; it was stiff at times, but towards the end of the show I think she shined. Jane as White was good as well. I adored her in The Gifted so was excited to see her here, and I don't think she disappointed. Chimon - do I really need to say anything? I think he was second the Gun (although Khaotung in the those last 30 seconds lowkey out-acted the whole cast) and I loved his character, Pennueng, too.
Hugely unpopular opinion, but Maki was my favourite character. She had some questionable moments for sure (''Home school has changed. They aren't teaching us anymore.'' Babe when have they ever?) but I'm such a main character person, honestly. It annoyed me when she got shot cause a student death would've been super interesting but I didn't want it to be her lol.
A second unpopular opinion - I didn't like Hugo and Jingjai, but!! I do admit that they brought some much needed complexity to the show. They were flawed and did bad things but ultimately they were just young kids with bad parents (their treatment of Pennueng really got on my nerves though) and did the right thing when it really came down to it.
As much as he irritated me, Master Prasat's whole thing was exactly what the show needed. All the other Masters as 'villains' (even if they didn't turn out to be bad in the end) were flat and just plain boring to watch. He really ended up saving the show and bringing the much needed intensity.
The Average:
The romance was extremely meh. Firstly, did the writers have to couple - or in Fuji and the twin's case, throuple - every character up? Pennueng and Pheng were so cute as a platonic thing, I didn't even consider them being a couple till Pennueng confessed - like it came out of nowhere for me. Hugo and Jingjai made sense, I'll give the show that. Tibet and Maki were... okay, I guess. I will admit, I'm a huge romance girl, and the really subtle moments between the two of them I enjoyed, but overall they were just awkward. Nai and White were a slight improvement, although not by much. I liked their energy better, but I think Jane carried their dynamic, while Dew struggled a bit.
Tibet, Nai, Jean and Biu were weird to me. Tibet - where was his personality? Nai kept switching from being super serious and angry to randomly playful and silly. Jean had like, three lines the whole show. Biu was introduced as super bubbly in the first episode but then turned mean and unlikeable. I didn't hate them, I just think the writers introduced too many characters and then couldn't keep up.
The majority of the acting was just fine. I preferred Nani and Dew in F4, they just didn't fit here. Everyone's parents were just terrible. I mean Jingjai's mum's acting when Jingjai was trying to kill her was appalling; no emotion whatsoever. Only reason I'm not putting them in my 'bad' section of this review is because they had like 5 scenes total.
The Bad:
Draggy. This should not have been 18 episodes, it could've been done in 12. I mean, apart from setting up the plot in the first few, and then getting super intense and interesting from episode 14 onwards, what actually happened? They played games that were meant to teach the students meaningful lessons but in reality just made me laugh in disbelief at the stupidity. Was that musical chairs game really necessary? I can't even remember what the point of it was, that's how irrelevant it ended up being.
There were a lot of things that didn't make sense to me, either. Am I just being dumb, or did we never actually find out what Bodin did to Maki? I get that he was abusing her and Run, but why did they build up this massive thing that he did to Maki that never ended up actually being revealed? The whole conflict of her not remembering took up like an entire episode I'm pretty sure - maybe even two. If I'm being stupid and accidently skipped over the reveal then please tell me because it's all that's been running through my head when thinking about this show.
Another thing that didn't make sense were the drugs. I'm sorry, but the fact that there were drugs that could turn someone into a mindless killing machine was a little ridiculous. They had zero explanation from what I remember - no science, no scene of them making the drugs, nothing. Also, wasn't there some dialogue between the Headmaster and someone else (probably Master Prasat) where she said that the drugs didn't work on her? Why not? Why do they work on some people but not others? I just don't get it.
The hypnosis stuff? I mean come on, that really came out of nowhere. You're telling me with a couple of pen clicks Run was able to hypnotise someone so completely they were rendered useless. And that Master Amin wasn't actually a bad person, he was just under hypnosis? Yeah, no.
I didn't like a bunch of the dialogue, either. Most of the time a character was literally just repeating what a different character said 10 seconds ago. It was repetitive and boring, and when it wasn't either of those, it was cringey.
I know that with what I've said, my rating should probably be a lot lower, but the truth is for all its faults, the show was entertaining. It dragged, yes, but it was mindless entertainment and that's all I really wanted to be honest. It was intense when I wanted it to be, and I was rooting for the main characters throughout. If you're looking for something that's fun to watch with half-decent acting, then Home School is perfect.
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