2
cdvmty
Mexico
This review may contain spoilers
Probably one of the worst written BLs I've seen
After part 1 ended, I was left with some hope because the story between Kaitoon and Valen was at least going somewhere. If you remember, Valen tried to rob Kaitoon in episode 1 of part 1 to pay some goons money he owed. Then, out of a miracle, Kaitoon ended up working at the restaurant owned by Valen's sister, Nisa, and Valen was forced to work there by her, he met Kaitoon again and eventually started falling for each other. The six episodes of part 1 had some sort of development because the relationship between Valen and Kaitoon started to blossom and the side couple of King and Pete provided some odd moments after arguing a lot at first but, it was going in some direction as well. Pete left King due to an apparent bout of depression and King was feeling like crap and after some episodes he decided to give Pete a chance and were back together when part 1 ended. As I said before, I was left with SOME hope that part 2 will really develop these two couples with the usual clichés introduced in Thai BLs of low budget companies (GagaOOlala airs the show internationally but I doubt they had any influence in the budget of it) like an unexpected ex-girlfriend, or parents trying to sabotage the relationship, or a love triangle. Then came "Love Area 2" and all hope of at least the usual plot twists, went to hell.
This has to be one of the worst written BLs in many many years, and I've seen disasters like "My Tee" with Frank and Drake that had a plot that was simply not plausible or "Love By Chance 2" that had 6 episodes that worked as a "recap" of season 1 only to compensate for Saint's absence. "Love Area 2" takes these two series and raises the stakes of poor writing by providing us with confusing scenarios, unneeded actors in useless scenes, choppy editing and an ending that makes me fear there could be a part 3 in the works.
I'll summarize part 2 with a WTF! and here is why:
1. Kaitoon is one of the most mature (sometimes, as he does have a few childish moments as well) characters I've seen in a Thai BL as he tries to deal with the volatile Valen and his never ending moody behavior through 8 pain-inducing episodes. Valen can be warm and caring like when they take the day off at the beach or when he buys Kaitoon new tennis shoes or dries his hair with a towel. But, Valen can be a mean bitchy whining immature baby like when he thinks Kaitoon somehow is involved in the Pete affair with Sean and decides not to listen to Kaitoon, throw a tantrum and end their relationship and then start flirting with a girl when he sees Non and Kaitoon together. I don't know what the writer and the director were thinking but they over-complicated the relationship by having so many messed up plots around them which, sadly, weren't properly done and ended up with a writing mess.
2. King and Pete are polar opposites as King acts like the suffering martyr through all of part 2 as Pete is cheating on him and lying about his depression only for him to reveal that he already knows about the depression part but didn't say anything and kept trying to live like a happy couple. I mean, you know the guy lied about being depressed and still tried to be together? And, we actually never know the REAL reason for Pete to leave in part 1, come back, try to win King again, and cheat... was it his relationship with Sean? was it something else? Pete, on the other hand, is just a manipulative and borderline sociopath who tries to control King by making him not talk to Ice, by taking away the puppy both Ice and King were taking care of, by getting angry if King doesn't do what he wants, etc.
3. Non is simply such a bland character, he likes Kaitoon but always has bad timing and things never really go his way... and Kaitoon sends him to the "friend-zone" in episode 8. That's it... he never fights for Kaitoon, we never see if he has other friends, family, nothing, just plain boring and dull scenes when he was in them... and even his facial expressions barely changed during scenes.
4. The other characters don't provide much either. Nisa tries to make one of his employees play the role of her boyfriend (what??) when Nisa and Valen's father visit the restaurant but nothing develops there. She also knows that Valen likes Kaitoon but barely interferes and when she does, in episodes 7 and 8, is to scold Valen and tell him to fix things with Kaitoon, but no more advice, no nothing. Sean suddenly appears as Kaitoon's classmate and even more suddenly, he appears as the one having sex with Pete. That triangle (or square if you count Ice) made no sense because there was not even a hint that he was involved with Pete until episodes 6-8 and then in the end, he tells Pete he still loves him but he is going abroad (another very used Thai strategy when having a sad/bad ending) and that's the end of that fling. Ice clearly likes King but being a junior to King and Pete, he normally doesn't voice his opinions that much and is almost as passive as Non is with Kaitoon until episode 8 when he takes some initiative to help King get out of his own depression (this one real) of Pete cheating on him... but again nothing develops between them. And the Bill, June and Sonya triangle provided nothing useful for the story as they barely interact with the lead characters or are connected to them in any way outside of all being university students.
5. The plot makes no sense. Valen/Kaitoon become Valen/Kaitoon/Non/Panggo (the girl Valen flirts with in the final 2 episodes). King/Pete become King/Pete/Ice/Sean and they add the other triangle mentioned above. But none of the love triangle/squares is fully or correctly developed because the lead one is created due to Valen's immaturity, Kaitoon's over suffering, Non's one-way love of Kaitoon and Panggo just being a bystander of Valen's insanely childish behavior.
King is lying to himself about having a good relationship with Pete as he knows he is lying but plays along, Pete is just cheating and lying without a clearly apparent reason, Ice likes King but never gathers the courage to advance their relationship, and Sean magically appears as Pete's cheating partner. Some of the side characters don't have many lines but we see one of them having a key to King's apartment and using it just to find evidence of Pete's lies... I mean, really? where did that brilliant idea came from in episode 6 of part 2 when you did nothing in all of part 1 and most of this part?
6. Acting also was a problem as Gun (playing Valen) had some issues delivering some emotions to some scenes and Pak (playing Kaitoon) sometimes tried too hard to look like the suffering type. Ohm (playing King) tends to exaggerate his dramatic scenes a bit too much, Tod (playing Pete) missed some chances to really convince me about his acting, especially in the scenes when he had to apologize... he was oddly decent in the psychopath/sociopath/obsessive guy parts which I found interesting. Even Jeff Satur (playing Sean) looked oddly bad in this series after seeing some decent acting from him in "Ingredients" with a crazy look in some scenes, which I hope was due to a directing issue rather than him being a bad actor. Chemistry was not 100% there as Gun and Pak and Ohm and Tod sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable in dramatic scenes, a bit awkward in love scenes and never really felt like they had a connection like other BL couples seem to have.
7. The final episode was a mess as well as all the couples/triangles/squares end up having nothing but sad endings (and I'm not even including the useless June/Bill attempt... Pete leaves King for good (or so he says), Sean leaves Pete to study abroad, Ice approaches King but nothing interesting happens in the 33-minute final episode as they clean King's apartment and then eat lunch together the next day when Pete appears to say goodbye. Kaitoon tells Non that they can only be friends, Non sighs, tells Valen there is nothing going on with him and Kaitoon and then just walks away and later rejects Kaitoon's offer to have lunch together. Valen tries to court Panggo but can't stop thinking about Kaitoon and then both finally meet in the same dark park it all starting back in part 1. They talk, Valen accepts he is a horrible human being but immediately wants to go back to where they were before he threw a childish tantrum... Kaitoon tells him that he can't do it now as he is hurt by Valen's attitude but leaves the door open for a future together... they say goodbye, walk away and during the end credits they run like kids to embrace, which left me more confused... all of Kaitoon's speech about being hurt and needing time to think things ends up being wasted by them hugging like that in the end.
Which is why I fear they could bring a third season of this writing wreck... let's hope "love" will no longer be available in this "area" and this series ends here and becomes a distant memory of a poorly executed BL.
This has to be one of the worst written BLs in many many years, and I've seen disasters like "My Tee" with Frank and Drake that had a plot that was simply not plausible or "Love By Chance 2" that had 6 episodes that worked as a "recap" of season 1 only to compensate for Saint's absence. "Love Area 2" takes these two series and raises the stakes of poor writing by providing us with confusing scenarios, unneeded actors in useless scenes, choppy editing and an ending that makes me fear there could be a part 3 in the works.
I'll summarize part 2 with a WTF! and here is why:
1. Kaitoon is one of the most mature (sometimes, as he does have a few childish moments as well) characters I've seen in a Thai BL as he tries to deal with the volatile Valen and his never ending moody behavior through 8 pain-inducing episodes. Valen can be warm and caring like when they take the day off at the beach or when he buys Kaitoon new tennis shoes or dries his hair with a towel. But, Valen can be a mean bitchy whining immature baby like when he thinks Kaitoon somehow is involved in the Pete affair with Sean and decides not to listen to Kaitoon, throw a tantrum and end their relationship and then start flirting with a girl when he sees Non and Kaitoon together. I don't know what the writer and the director were thinking but they over-complicated the relationship by having so many messed up plots around them which, sadly, weren't properly done and ended up with a writing mess.
2. King and Pete are polar opposites as King acts like the suffering martyr through all of part 2 as Pete is cheating on him and lying about his depression only for him to reveal that he already knows about the depression part but didn't say anything and kept trying to live like a happy couple. I mean, you know the guy lied about being depressed and still tried to be together? And, we actually never know the REAL reason for Pete to leave in part 1, come back, try to win King again, and cheat... was it his relationship with Sean? was it something else? Pete, on the other hand, is just a manipulative and borderline sociopath who tries to control King by making him not talk to Ice, by taking away the puppy both Ice and King were taking care of, by getting angry if King doesn't do what he wants, etc.
3. Non is simply such a bland character, he likes Kaitoon but always has bad timing and things never really go his way... and Kaitoon sends him to the "friend-zone" in episode 8. That's it... he never fights for Kaitoon, we never see if he has other friends, family, nothing, just plain boring and dull scenes when he was in them... and even his facial expressions barely changed during scenes.
4. The other characters don't provide much either. Nisa tries to make one of his employees play the role of her boyfriend (what??) when Nisa and Valen's father visit the restaurant but nothing develops there. She also knows that Valen likes Kaitoon but barely interferes and when she does, in episodes 7 and 8, is to scold Valen and tell him to fix things with Kaitoon, but no more advice, no nothing. Sean suddenly appears as Kaitoon's classmate and even more suddenly, he appears as the one having sex with Pete. That triangle (or square if you count Ice) made no sense because there was not even a hint that he was involved with Pete until episodes 6-8 and then in the end, he tells Pete he still loves him but he is going abroad (another very used Thai strategy when having a sad/bad ending) and that's the end of that fling. Ice clearly likes King but being a junior to King and Pete, he normally doesn't voice his opinions that much and is almost as passive as Non is with Kaitoon until episode 8 when he takes some initiative to help King get out of his own depression (this one real) of Pete cheating on him... but again nothing develops between them. And the Bill, June and Sonya triangle provided nothing useful for the story as they barely interact with the lead characters or are connected to them in any way outside of all being university students.
5. The plot makes no sense. Valen/Kaitoon become Valen/Kaitoon/Non/Panggo (the girl Valen flirts with in the final 2 episodes). King/Pete become King/Pete/Ice/Sean and they add the other triangle mentioned above. But none of the love triangle/squares is fully or correctly developed because the lead one is created due to Valen's immaturity, Kaitoon's over suffering, Non's one-way love of Kaitoon and Panggo just being a bystander of Valen's insanely childish behavior.
King is lying to himself about having a good relationship with Pete as he knows he is lying but plays along, Pete is just cheating and lying without a clearly apparent reason, Ice likes King but never gathers the courage to advance their relationship, and Sean magically appears as Pete's cheating partner. Some of the side characters don't have many lines but we see one of them having a key to King's apartment and using it just to find evidence of Pete's lies... I mean, really? where did that brilliant idea came from in episode 6 of part 2 when you did nothing in all of part 1 and most of this part?
6. Acting also was a problem as Gun (playing Valen) had some issues delivering some emotions to some scenes and Pak (playing Kaitoon) sometimes tried too hard to look like the suffering type. Ohm (playing King) tends to exaggerate his dramatic scenes a bit too much, Tod (playing Pete) missed some chances to really convince me about his acting, especially in the scenes when he had to apologize... he was oddly decent in the psychopath/sociopath/obsessive guy parts which I found interesting. Even Jeff Satur (playing Sean) looked oddly bad in this series after seeing some decent acting from him in "Ingredients" with a crazy look in some scenes, which I hope was due to a directing issue rather than him being a bad actor. Chemistry was not 100% there as Gun and Pak and Ohm and Tod sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable in dramatic scenes, a bit awkward in love scenes and never really felt like they had a connection like other BL couples seem to have.
7. The final episode was a mess as well as all the couples/triangles/squares end up having nothing but sad endings (and I'm not even including the useless June/Bill attempt... Pete leaves King for good (or so he says), Sean leaves Pete to study abroad, Ice approaches King but nothing interesting happens in the 33-minute final episode as they clean King's apartment and then eat lunch together the next day when Pete appears to say goodbye. Kaitoon tells Non that they can only be friends, Non sighs, tells Valen there is nothing going on with him and Kaitoon and then just walks away and later rejects Kaitoon's offer to have lunch together. Valen tries to court Panggo but can't stop thinking about Kaitoon and then both finally meet in the same dark park it all starting back in part 1. They talk, Valen accepts he is a horrible human being but immediately wants to go back to where they were before he threw a childish tantrum... Kaitoon tells him that he can't do it now as he is hurt by Valen's attitude but leaves the door open for a future together... they say goodbye, walk away and during the end credits they run like kids to embrace, which left me more confused... all of Kaitoon's speech about being hurt and needing time to think things ends up being wasted by them hugging like that in the end.
Which is why I fear they could bring a third season of this writing wreck... let's hope "love" will no longer be available in this "area" and this series ends here and becomes a distant memory of a poorly executed BL.
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