Let me start by saying I enjoy series with underlying meaning, which I find more rewarding to watch and more memorable. This is one of those, so maybe it appeals to me more than it does to most other people. If you're looking for fluff and cuteness, this is not the place - although if you want to see some of the best-acted love between two people you can find in BL, you'll get it here, and a lot of it. I don't mean sex, although Jesus Christ, I thought my monitor would burn out.

When I first started this, I thought it was going to be soft-core porn, which I was totally down for because the main pair are both smoking hot, and even hotter together. It's refreshing every once an a while to see an ML (Man Love!) instead of a BL - BLs don't usually display any raw male sexuality - it's usually the chaste fairy-tale kind of love, which there's nothing wrong with - but variety is a good thing.

So I was suprised not far in when all the layers starting slowly peeling back. It would be boring if I cover all of it, but one of the most common criticisms I've seen is that the stories of the inhabitants of the building don't intertwine, so I'll focus on that, but one point about the political undertones, which I've seen a lot of people describe as obscure: remember that this is for a Filipino audience, and for them, the Marcos era is not at all obscure - they are still living in the shadow of those times.

Regarding the residents: The purpose of the COVID couple is to underscore the transience of life - one moment a man has a beautiful and happy family, and the next they're gone. We have no time to waste - we shoud embrace love wherever we find it and don't let it go.

The purpose of the trans character is show us a person that has had a far more difficult and brutal life than the main pair, and whose self-actualization is much more difficult than theirs (because she has to transition to achieve hers), and yet she accomplishes this, putting aside what everyone else and society says while embracing and integrating her faith, and by drawing strength from her self-love and not depending on anyone else to become who she is.

These are lessons that Emil and Benjo fail to learn, and that's why they can't be together. They let external forces guide their decisions - is it wrong in the eyes of God? Society? Are they gay? Do they want to be gay? At one point they even receive the tacit blessing of Emil's mother and they still don't absorb the right lessons. They are not bad or stupid people, far from it - but they are not ready to be together at this point in their story.

The cinematography was excellent, the acting first-rate. There are long scenes with no dialog, where everything is expressed with just the way they're looking at each other - it's a breathtaking exercise in the power of subtlety, and it brought me to tears. They even got the legendary Beverly Salviejo to play Emil's mother to give the message extra power. She is wonderful, both moving and funny. The overall production quality is very good considering the budget.

The style is theatrical - it feels like a play. This is intentional, and it worked well for me, but some people found it distancing. This is a COVID story, but the pandemic is cleverly used to explore the themes of the series (mortality, the prisons we build for ourselves, et. al. Note that the quarantine is no barrier for Emil's mother and what that means) rather than being an end in itself (or worse, an excuse not to have to have any gay action) like in so many other BLs.

Give this a shot - if you aren't into it by the end of Ep 3, it probably isn't your thing.