As a huge fan of ITSAY, I will say that I had conflicted feelings about IPYTM, and all of it comes from the story.


SPOILERS AHEAD-

Story: I understand the whole point is to portray realism. In ITSAY, the reason why Teh’s character is “controversial”, and some of the people who have watched the show strongly dislike him, is because he’s a complicated character who is selfish at times but is struggling a lot with his self identity. In IPYTM, a similar approach is done and he’s still a selfish character who has trouble figuring out what he wants. Therefore, I understand the decision the directors made and do think it’s realistic for Teh to cheat on Oh Aew the second that their relationship faced conflicts, especially with someone else appearing at the seemingly perfect time.

With that being said, just because I understand why the show did that, does not mean that I agree with it. To me, the ending in ITSAY was meant to demonstrate how Teh and Oh Aew overcame their obstacles and ended up together despite their struggles. IPYTM does practically the same thing and ends with Teh and Oh Aew reuniting and overcoming the cheating, which is my main problem with the story. I felt that the decision to be realistic by including cheating but still keeping a somewhat “good” ending does not work because, in my eyes, that already removes some of the realism. Including cheating in a second season just to be “realistic” has always seemed lazy to me, because there’s many other alternatives that would make the story realistic. However, what I think is even worse is if a show decides to include cheating, has the character forgive the other, and still acts like there’s hope for the characters. My main issue wasn’t even that Teh was forgiven, because that’s not necessarily unrealistic, but the fact that the story was hopeful at the end is what made me not like it. If the characters were going to reunite at the end after one of them cheated on the other, it doesn’t matter what the directors do, the ending will never be a good one because there’s always going to be doubts and part of the original trust they had for each other will be gone.

There were many other options to be realistic but not include cheating, such as having them break up because of their differences or conflicting feelings. That way, it would’ve been more natural if both of them realize that they still love each other years later. Or if it’s going to have cheating, I personally don’t want to see the characters get back together.

Therefore, although I understand why the story went the way it did, I just did not like it and felt like there were other ways for it to be realistic and not take the typical cheating route. And if they are going by the cheating and forgiving route, I don’t want the story to seem happy or hopeful at the end because that removes the realism for me.