What can I say about Playboyy? It has some of the best thriller plot writing I've seen in a bl. It has horrible dialogue and scene blocking. I watched every single episode rapt with attention. I actually screamed aloud (derogatory) at one sex scene. Every time they made those poor actors speak English I wanted to jump out a window. Recounting what happened in any given episode to my friends took at least 500 words, and that was usually just the last 15 minutes of that ep. There are like five sex scenes in each episode of varying quality and I think I actually learned something about the characters from each one. I don't think anyone takes their underwear off possibly ever because they had an underwear sponsorship.

Look, I can't in good conscience recommend this show. I don't even know if I really enjoyed it. But I was fascinated, and I was intrigued. When the last episode ended and revealed there was going to be a season 2, I resigned myself to the fact that I will watch it, even if some of the events toward the end made me go wtf was that.

To actually provide some sort of review, it's a thriller-mystery featuring a twin swap. Nont/Nant was actually the best part of the show for me--I was surprised both by how much I liked the character and by the performance given by Dech, who I think did a solid job with a difficult role. Out of the...seven?? I think?? couples in this show, Nont and Prom were by far my favorite, both because I think the actors bounced off each other well and because I enjoyed the dynamic of Prom assisting Nont in his revenge. Did I think the part where they were pointing guns at each other and then started making out sexy? Yes, because it was.

It's funny, because the show kind of presents itself as being about Zouey, who is pivotal to the story, but honestly faded from my attention early on--though given events at the end of the season, this might have been intentional. If I ever manage to rewatch, I'll have to keep an eye on him, because I can't tell if they had his arc fully planned from the beginning or if they adjusted it as they went along. Him and Teena were largely uninteresting to me but also did have the sex scene that made me scream. Take that as you will.

As I said, I found the plotting/structure of the thriller really compelling in how and when it revealed information about the characters. The first few episodes are incredibly confusing because they present you with almost the entire main cast at once and for a long time, you won't know why some of them are important. Did I think some of the writing choices were absolutely batshit? Sure, but sometimes that's just how it goes in a thriller. What it was good at was providing all the characters with layers of motivations and interpersonal relationships to complicate the mystery.

Also, when it says they use sex to solve the mystery, they weren't joking about that. There was a point in like episode 4 where I went oh my god...they're actually using sex to solve the mystery...

As for the characters themselves, I appreciated that very few of them were one-note, even the ones who I thought were underwritten. I think some of the relationships were more compelling due to a combo of relevance to the main story and performance. But with this many couples, there's kinda something for everyone.

I don't know, gang. It's a hard show to review. I felt like it was something that happened to me more than it was something I watched. If you do decide to watch it, know that it takes a couple episodes to really get going (not with regard to sex--they start that right away) and that the list of content warnings at the beginning is no joke. It isn't an entirely heavy show--there are a lot of comedic moments, some intentional and quite a few that were probably unintentional--but your brain will feel scrambled. I'll see you when season 2 airs.