This review may contain spoilers
Ugh. Painful.
Like many Filipino BLs, this one preached at us in an incredibly heavy-handed way in order to teach us life lessons that we really don't need.
The plot centers around Mario, yet another 12-year old girl trapped in a man's body who meets Jethro, a narcissistic asshole who lives in NYC at a party who is horrible, but because this is a BL, we know he'll instantly transmute into a wonderful guy and everyone will forget his inexcusable borderline-psycho behavior at the beginning.
Which of course happens. They go on, I believe, three dates, and thenJethro goes home and Mario pines for him for THREE YEARS, because he's an emotional infant and is unable to get over someone he barely knows. Later on, they get in contact, and Mario dumps his wonderful boyfriend Arnold in order to go visit Jethro, who, incidentally has a long-term boyfriend, in the hopes they will get together. It's not in the cards due to an almost ridiculous tragic external circumstance that involves someone who's into style and fashion not just shaving his head like a normal person would, and Mario goes home, years pass, and it's implied that Arnold shows up at the end to take him back.
Arnold is played by Ron Angeles, who has what I would have to call "it". He's attractive without being gorgeous, nice body without being chisled perfection, charming but unassuming personality, that adds up to a very compelling sum - it's hard to find people that don't love this guy, and he always seems to steal anything he's in. Jomari Angeles is adorable and a decent actor, but stuck in a terrible role playing a character so irritating you WANT him to suffer for his stupidity and immaturity.
Jethro is... there. The writing made him too awful at the beginning and the series wasn't long enough nor was the couple complelling enough (or at all) for me to ever care what happened to them.
The love scene was the worst I've ever seen. Jethro unhinged his jaw and attempted to swallow Mario whole, while Mario, oblivious to the danger, looked like he'd just chugged a bottle of pure lemon extract. It was about as sexy as either love scene in Pink Flamingos.
So what's the moral of the story? Seize the day and if you develop an unhealthy infatuation with someone you don't know who lives halfway across the planet, drop everything and abandon all your life goals to be with him. Otherwise you'll regret it and dump your perfect boyfriend to fly halfway across the world for no apparent reason to have a discussion you could have facetimed, but you were hoping to steal him from his long-term boyfriend because your a narcissistic asshole who hurts everyone around you. I guess the unintended moral of the story is that there is no God, or a comet would have struck the party in the first episode and spared everyone the misery of this story.
Story: 3 - pretentious and unbelievable, might have worked if Mario were 14, but not man in his mid-20s. Heavy-handed moralism that backfires.
Acting: 6 - Both Angeles were good, with Jomari stuck with a terrible character that he did his best with, probably about as good as anyone could have done with that material. Andrew Gan was very convincing as an asshole, but a little dull as a nice guy.
Music: 6.5 - not intrusive, but didn't really do much to enhance the series.
Rewatch: 1 - you'd have to threaten to electro-shock me slowly to death to force me to rewatch this. Fortunately it's short enough that I might survive a second viewing, but I'd still have to think about it.
Overall: 4.5 - I want to find something positive to say about this, but other than that they cast Ron Angeles, I can't think of anything, and even there they mutilated his hair.
The plot centers around Mario, yet another 12-year old girl trapped in a man's body who meets Jethro, a narcissistic asshole who lives in NYC at a party who is horrible, but because this is a BL, we know he'll instantly transmute into a wonderful guy and everyone will forget his inexcusable borderline-psycho behavior at the beginning.
Which of course happens. They go on, I believe, three dates, and thenJethro goes home and Mario pines for him for THREE YEARS, because he's an emotional infant and is unable to get over someone he barely knows. Later on, they get in contact, and Mario dumps his wonderful boyfriend Arnold in order to go visit Jethro, who, incidentally has a long-term boyfriend, in the hopes they will get together. It's not in the cards due to an almost ridiculous tragic external circumstance that involves someone who's into style and fashion not just shaving his head like a normal person would, and Mario goes home, years pass, and it's implied that Arnold shows up at the end to take him back.
Arnold is played by Ron Angeles, who has what I would have to call "it". He's attractive without being gorgeous, nice body without being chisled perfection, charming but unassuming personality, that adds up to a very compelling sum - it's hard to find people that don't love this guy, and he always seems to steal anything he's in. Jomari Angeles is adorable and a decent actor, but stuck in a terrible role playing a character so irritating you WANT him to suffer for his stupidity and immaturity.
Jethro is... there. The writing made him too awful at the beginning and the series wasn't long enough nor was the couple complelling enough (or at all) for me to ever care what happened to them.
The love scene was the worst I've ever seen. Jethro unhinged his jaw and attempted to swallow Mario whole, while Mario, oblivious to the danger, looked like he'd just chugged a bottle of pure lemon extract. It was about as sexy as either love scene in Pink Flamingos.
So what's the moral of the story? Seize the day and if you develop an unhealthy infatuation with someone you don't know who lives halfway across the planet, drop everything and abandon all your life goals to be with him. Otherwise you'll regret it and dump your perfect boyfriend to fly halfway across the world for no apparent reason to have a discussion you could have facetimed, but you were hoping to steal him from his long-term boyfriend because your a narcissistic asshole who hurts everyone around you. I guess the unintended moral of the story is that there is no God, or a comet would have struck the party in the first episode and spared everyone the misery of this story.
Story: 3 - pretentious and unbelievable, might have worked if Mario were 14, but not man in his mid-20s. Heavy-handed moralism that backfires.
Acting: 6 - Both Angeles were good, with Jomari stuck with a terrible character that he did his best with, probably about as good as anyone could have done with that material. Andrew Gan was very convincing as an asshole, but a little dull as a nice guy.
Music: 6.5 - not intrusive, but didn't really do much to enhance the series.
Rewatch: 1 - you'd have to threaten to electro-shock me slowly to death to force me to rewatch this. Fortunately it's short enough that I might survive a second viewing, but I'd still have to think about it.
Overall: 4.5 - I want to find something positive to say about this, but other than that they cast Ron Angeles, I can't think of anything, and even there they mutilated his hair.
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