A Compromise Between a Fairy Tale and a Shakespearean Tragedy - Worth your time

(I made an account just to write reviews lol, so here's my first one.)

Spoiler-free part:
Whenever a series starts with some silly, weird, and just generally strange thing, like for example in this show, Mando dreams about how he's Rapunzel trapped in a tower and they do that overacting thing, I usually lose faith in the writing because it's usually just some throw-away gag to draw the local audience, and apparently piss off people like me-- But anyway, I was pleasantly surprised how relevant it was. If you like coherent stories that actually uses themes and narrative devices, then this is worth a shot. It's only 6 episodes long anyway. If you just like watching hot guys, then I definitely recommend it. Alex Diaz is so damn sexy here - he must have been bulking because he looks a bit bigger here than on Instagram - and episode 5 is a bit of a treat (I'm going to hell for saying that). Just beware that there are scenes of self harm and suicide as well.

Spoilers section:
I'm going to assume you've seen the show already.
This show is basically about how society fails LGBT people in the Philippines. I don't want to call any character here a villain because ultimately, societal pressures were the key driving force in all the conflict that happens.

Let's start off with the teacher: Mr Siwa, or rather Ms Siwa. She is transgender, but only found out later in life, and was ALMOST forced to quit by the school for her identity. Thankfully, she actually doesn't make any mistakes or anything. She's just sort of the iconic drama teacher. But I think her little bit of story is a nice addition to the themes at play and is worth mentioning.

Next, Mando, and by extension, his mother. In case it wasn't obvious, him being trapped in a tower was an allegory for being "in the closet". His hair being cut off by dream Krisha symbolized that he's cut off any way out of that closet by being with her. And of course, in the end, he did eventually escape the tower after he was fully out and accepting of himself.
The whole thing with Mando having a gay affair while being in a relationship with Krisha clearly mirrors his mother's very similar mistake as well, which Mando initially resented her for. The common denominator here IS societal pressure. Mando's mother was pressured by her parents, and so was Mando. This is pretty much the only reason I can understand what happened. I was a bit afraid that they were going to gloss over the affair, but nope. It was actually taken very seriously.
To be honest, with the affair, Barry was the most at fault. He was the one that made it happen. He could have just been like "Oh. But you're with my sister." and just left it there. I mean I get it, he just got through a breakup and he's lonely, but he REALLY should have known better. And he did at the end, begging his sister never to forgive him.

Now it's interesting that the play they perform is Romeo and Juliet, which is as much a tragedy as it is a romance. I guess you could say that the author wanted it to be both Shakespearean in nature but also a fairy tale - instead of people dying to settle the karma, people continue living and forgive each other, and Mando and Barry even try to start over. And tbh, I can't think of a reason why not since conflict only happened because of society. If Mando had known his true self from the start, then there would have been no drama.

But anyway that's just my thoughts on it. I don't think I'm 100% accurate in the interpretations but all I can say is that I did enjoy watching it, and I'm sad it was so short.

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You're better off pretending it doesn't exist

I'm just baffled by how bad it is. I mean I was willing to put up with it at the start. Like it was cute how campy it was but there was SO much filler. Like could they not have been more concise about setting up Ace of Cakes' situation regarding it's position in the market? Did it really have to be that long, with pointless chatter? Did we really need AN ENTIRE scene where the maid serves food to the dogs? Do we need that blatant ad placements? At least with Thai media it wasn't as bad. For the love of god, at least have some focus in your writing. If this was an ADHD allegory, it would be a masterpiece.

At pucha naman, who wrote the episode where Chukchuk went missing? You'd at least expect that since the "main character" (whomever that may be since there is SO MUCH disconnect with what's happening that it becomes loose) would work hard, maybe even pray that Chukchuk would come back so that he wouldn't get fired. Maybe if they set it up properly, about how important the job is (which they did, but Sky just ends up neglecting it anyway, despite having a hard-working background - the antithesis to Ace, who was born into a rich family), and how important it is to satisfy Ace, he could have been portrayed as being more invested in finding him. And then, when the sun starts to set, and the gang starts to lose hope, Sky makes a last desperate attempt at searching for Chukchuk, maybe with some internal monologue or whatever about how his life is over, but he keeps going. No luck. He breaks down on the ground and closes his eyes. He might even start to cry. Suddenly, Chukchuk appears right in front of him. HE'S the one that finds him. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED INSTEAD? SOME RANDOS FIND HIM, JUST SO THEY CAN ADVERTISE ANG PUTANG INANG G-CASH SPONSORSHIP NILA. GAGO.
But back to my re-imagined scene, Sky comes back to the house by himself to return Chukchuk. He admits he messed up, and tells Ace that he understands if he wants to fire him. Ace notices how dirty Sky's uniform has become from searching all day. He shows his good side, and allows him to continue working for him, albeit in a stern, kind of tsundere way. But he's just glad that his dog is back, because he's like family to him (if they had set that up in the first place), and he's impressed that Sky cared that much about his dog, even though he, and the maid were the only ones that do.

And oh god don't get me started with the camera-work. They made it looks so fantastical in the trailer but it ended up being shallow as hell. It's like when I learned fancy tricks on photoshop but had NO idea how to execute them right. I'd just apply it to every situation even if it didn't really fit, just because I couldn't think of anything else. It's amateur. At least naman with the lower budget series, they don't need cheap tricks. They know what they're doing. I'm not even going to blame any of the talent because I'm almost 100% sure it's the director's call almost all the time, and they were probably told to do all that. It was just managed so poorly. Which sucks because really the only thing we're missing in pinoy gay dramas is the typical rich-and-spoiled/poor-and-hardworking trope that's centred around businesses and adulthood. Yes we've had rich/poor couples like Vlad x Karl, Barry x Mando, and Rocky x Judah, but not in the same way I'm talking about because that part of their identity isn't really considered to that extent.

Lastly, for the love of god, how many times do we have to hear that the main characters are gwapo? YES. WE GET IT. WE CAN SEE IT. I know that's part of Filipino culture to value good looks but MY GOD WE DON'T BRING IT UP THAT MUCH.

AND LASTLY AGAIN FOR LAST, MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE. Why, oh, why, are queer characters always just there for comedic relief? Why are they always ugly? Pretty much every bakla I've met, besides me (but I'm already handsome no matter what I do so :3 jokes), cares about their looks. Why is Jelai and Sky's brother not allowed to look good? (Seriously though Sky's brother isn't even ugly but they're making him as ugly as possible for some reason by making his hair and wardrobe choices weird). It pisses me off because it's such an old fashioned trope that only made it okay for other people to make fun of gays in public, because that's what they're portrayed as. As clowns. We're not clowns, okay? We all have our own stories to tell. So don't just fill up your characters/cast with them just to compensate for the fact that you've made a trainwreck of a show.

That's all I'll say. Just don't even bother giving it a chance.

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