Khaotung was adorable. He usually plays the quiet, wise support buddy in my experience and here he really showed a bigger box of acting tools. He managed to give Chon the perfect tone of sweet, innocent and smitten without him seeming like a pushover. In fact, Chon came with spunk! (And a good right hook!) I was pleasantly surprised by the way his role was written and Khaotung did a great job.

Pod did a really convincing job with the whole "I'm oblivious to the fact that I'm gayishly bi, under the illusion (delusion?) that I'm utterly straight" trope. Even though it turns out the truth of Tonhon is a lot more complex than that, Pod brought a genuine sense of cluelessness to the character. He also sold the whole toxic masculinity thing pretty well. So, overall, his performance was solid.

Pod was also just a perfect physical foil for Khaotung. Khao looked small and cute next to Pod, who was absolutely hot in this. And somehow it managed to avoid being weird and ended up working with their dynamic.

The theme song was nice at first, but ultimately not anything special and after a while it was plain annoying.

The comedy was well timed and though it was a little heavy handed, I laughed a lot.

The sets were varied enough to keep me oriented. (Something lacking in BL's occasionally. Hello 'Manner of Death'. I'm looking at you.) Overall the visuals were best described as predictable but very solid. The ocean scenes were gorgeous. I think my favorite set was Chonlatee's home. And is it me or do most BL's use the same white sedan and black SUV in every damn one? LOL.

The villainess was just as awful as any out there. Really terrible. More so than usual it seemed, in fact. You really got an endorphin kick out of hating her. Happily, it's her own personality that's the rock in her road to getting the hero, not her gender. She really is a repulsively narcissistic, bitch. She was so entitled I wanted to strand her on some place desert Island, without a cell phone. Just for a day or so, until the polish was gone off that bad apple.

There were some really unexpected things in the show, like Chon's upbeat mom, whom he was utterly "out" to. She was a lovely fount of wisdom. (With a pretty voice!) Really just the best sassy mom character! The overall abundance of fun female characters was nice. Chon's best friend, Pang. The villainess, Amp. Miriam. Oh, and the sweet prostitute turned nail technician! Lots of great female characters.

The momentary stop-over to get Chon laid "to man him up" was a first for me in a Thai BL and was hilarious. The side story of Tonhon's brother-in-law was uncomfortable but in an interesting manner that added to Tonhon's not-so-new gay crisis.

And most importantly perhaps, I was impressed that non-consent was addressed as actual NON-CONSENT! Too often lack of consent is fetishized in TV. I know a lot of people think it's BL's only, but if you think that, you didn't watch the same Game of Thrones I did.

It was also really kind of adorable to see Toptap and Mike back together in the same BL again. Sigh... They need to be a main character pairing together in some drama.

And Na was simply adorable. I never rooted for him but I can understand why other people watching the show might have. He was cute, ready to absolutely be there for Chonlatee and underneath the fronting he was very compassionate.

What didn't I like? I think they wrote Ton and Chon's first time having sex as really rushed. It was abrupt and verging on trivialized and not the least bit romantic. It came across as Tonhon resolving his sexuality crisis so suddenly he shot himself at Chon like a Chippendales' Stripper bullet.

The only other thing I feel was missing was the character Nueng paying for his part in things. That's my biggest complaint. He was a villain sidekick who didn't really end up having to deal with any consequences for his downright scary behavior.

I will say it was interesting to see how SOTUS was employed in the plot. As a whole, it's a system primed for abuse and we get a mild taste of that in this drama with Amp.

So overall I thought this was abundant in pleasant surprises, Comfy BL tropes, solid performances by actors I've grown nostalgically attached to, some great sassy girl-power moments, and a few less unresolved toxic behaviors than I've seen in some BL's (or even your average male targeted fantasy genre piece in Western media).

Watch this one. And then watch it again with a friend. Bring hot chocolate and your favorite lap quilt. It's a fun series to unwind to.