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Shasha

Stuck in....

Shasha

Stuck in....
Love Sea thai drama review
Completed
Love Sea
0 people found this review helpful
by Shasha
Sep 10, 2024
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.5
Story 7.5
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 4.5
Rewatch Value 3.5
This review may contain spoilers

MAME's Bed Friend

Those who had seen Bed Friend, will have a terrible feeling of déjà vu while watching this one since the plot set up seems to be practically the same.: a no nonsense guy gets into a contract binding sex relationship with a fairy like writer saddled with some serious family trauma. I know that in fiction the topics (tropes: enemies to lovers "Pride & Prejudice", revenge "Monte Cristo" etc...) have been invented a long time ago and that it is just the writer's role to make it stand out with the way they deal with it. So MAME going with the plot similar to Bed Friend did not bother me very much. So much so, that this became the first Mame's drama I actually finished since Tharn Type. I really enjoyed the spin on the friends with benefits trope! Moreover, the actors reminded me very much of James and Net, same type of actor for the same type of roles!

Rak suffering from writer's block goes to an island to rest where he is taken care of by Mut, the local man of all trades. While Rak piles on injuries on Mut, he just laughs them off, playing along. Until, a few days into the stay, they find that they cannot keep their hands off each other. After the two week honeymoon period, Rak offers Mut to pay him if he accompanies him back to Bangkok.

I loved the character of Mut: he is honest to the core, does not gossip and respect other people's privacy, he has a solid moral backbone, a very unusual trait in dramas! He is of course a cliché seme: strong, masculine, often wearing dark colours and definitely a domineering presence in spite of being a younger character. He does not change much throughout the drama.
On the other hand, Rak is on the surface smooth, elegant, strong and rich man. But lightly scratch that surface and out come all the traumas and insecurities from his childhood. His character develops backwards somehow: when we first see him he is a mature, strong, smart, confident and cocky adult all dressed in black but as the drama progresses he changes for the worse becoming, insecure, weak borderline child, pouting and hiding. The ending sees him all dressed in white and talking in baby voice! How about that for development? From the onset of their relationship it was perfectly obvious that Mut is the more mature person there. The relationship dynamic is very much a classical BL trope.

I did not mind the pay to love theme of the drama because it was not the important part. Mut has seen that Ruk has many insecurities hidden and that he tries to hide behind the money so he accepts to be bought in order to try to break down Ruk's walls behind which he has been hiding. The payment he accepts is just means to an end!

I wish they had delved deeper into the trauma part, it was very superficial and the very person who could have and should have dealt with that trauma and its causes (Ruk's mother!) is nowhere to be seen. Why? She stays in the beckground and acepts not to see her children in years? There is so much story there that they should have explored more. Or really explained the reasons behind Prim's (Ruk's cousin) extreme jealousy: that whole subplot was badly developped!

The music is the usual thai bl music: funky and forgettable with the obligatory a cappella beginning of the song in emotionally charged scenes (kissing etc.). I wish they would at least try to be original and stop giving us a copy paste original soundtrack.

And yet, in spite of all these flaws, I enjoyed this drama very much: the chemistry was solid, the bickering relationship fun to watch, the best friend Vie and the part of the second couple GL was perfect (for once there was no second BL couple but only one GL) and the GL story was cute even though the actress playing Mook grimaced too much!

I liked this drama more than I thought I would!
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