Welcome to my Saturday blog post, where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching, whether at the beginning, middle, or end. Whatever I want, because I’m petty that way.
This week, I recapped episodes 17-18 of The Prisoner of Beauty. In these episodes, we learn that Liang is better at romance than Wei Shao. Also, comas cure poison.
I also recapped episodes 9-10 of Khemjira. These eps are romance-lite, but the show has plenty of other things happening, like Naga.
What did I watch this week? The unifying theme here is… CEOs? Let’s start in Thailand:
Harmony Secret – Harmony Secret ดีลลับฉบับเล่นเล่ห์ – 2025
Recently aired Thai Enemies-to-Lovers-but-still-Enemies GL with 8 episodes.
Two heiresses scheme against each other in business while also engaging in a game of romantic cat-and-mouse.
This show was vague on details, dropped any plot points no longer useful, and characters were motivated purely by knowing they were in an enemies-to-lovers story.
But you know it takes more than that to kill my enjoyment of a show. For about 6 episodes, I was still along for the ride. Then the crying started.
I’m getting ahead of myself
Let’s talk about the set-up. We’ve got two women battling it out over a bid for their daddies’ companies. The companies are… hotel companies? I know this because the internet told me. Other people also want the bid, but they are bad people. Don’t worry about it.
The bid is super important because if they get the bid, it’ll… be good for their companies? And also their daddies will love them more and maybe let them work harder for their companies. One of their dads is a vile, abusive, hateful man. The other seems kinda nice except that he lies to manipulate his daughter into trying harder or something.
Both women are entirely eager to make their daddies happy, but the real question is, how far will they go to win this bid?
And this is a GL, so the women knew each other in high school
A single incident was enough to make one of them totally in love, and the other totally in hate.
Despite all the obvious weaknesses, I was enjoying the kind of 80s nostalgia of it all, even how their motivation boiled down to their worthless fathers.
One of our leads was jaded, but vulnerable underneath. She had a cool lesbian bar they could meet up at. The other was perfect sugar-and-spice. She seemed sweet and vulnerable, but could be vicious and cold if needed.
There were enough fun power dynamics between them, watching to see who would do what, who would get the upper hand, and how low they would go to get it, that I didn’t care why they were doing this to each other.
They also each had a cute assistant, and surprise, surprise, the assistants got to know each other.
I liked our two couples and the silly, nonsense of it all for about 6 episodes.
Then came the last two episodes
I’d been hoping against everything I know about these dramas that our leads would abandon their fathers and join forces. That is not what happened.
Because the writer seemed to be under the impression that to get a happy ending in a story, our characters need to forgive their dads and cry a lot. For like two episodes.
I like my nonsense fun, and as soon as characters spend significant amounts of time crying over their own decisions, it’s hard to have fun.
Even then, I still enjoyed our assistants for a minute. They were at least motivated by something more emotionally deep than money and their fathers. Eventually, though, they too had to be heartbroken because it was what was written in the script.
So yeah, this one isn’t getting much of a recommendation from me
Maybe watch the first 5.5 episodes? Or maybe you really like watching characters cry their hearts out regardless of the reason. I get it, we all have our things. Otherwise, I’d give this one a pass.
Speaking of CEO’s, I also finished:
A/B/O Desire – 垂涎 – 2025
Currently airing Chinese Omegaverse BL with 16 episodes.
Two hot, mean S-Class Alphas who are also CEOs of pharmaceutical companies both have love interests hiding big secrets.
I give an initial review and write about pheromones here.
I really, really enjoyed this show despite all its obvious weaknesses. I credit my enjoyment of this show to my obsession with the lead couple and lack of interest in the second couple.
Because if you are in this for the second couple, you will not be happy
I don’t entirely understand the strangers on the internet who love the second couple. They are two attractive men who have nice chemistry together. But of the 4 people in our 2 couples, there is exactly 1 decent human being, and he is in the second couple.
And while I can enjoy a nice guy/evil villain combo, this poor guy seemed to feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. He wasn’t the cheerful, bounce-back type. Every bad thing that happened to him, and there was plenty, seemed to hit him hard. I have never seen a more depressed PPL moment than this guy provided.
On top of that, he was in love with a sarcastic, cold, mean jerk. This was the rare time I wanted to see a character escape their fated pairing, and remember, I liked My Stubborn.
But if, unlike me, you do find something compelling in them, and I know plenty of people did, their ending is super weak. Like, we-hope-there-is-a-special-episode weak. To be fair, this matches the novel (which you can find fan-translated online). Which is also weak.
Also, if you are in this for the mpreg, my guess is you won’t be satisfied. There is mpreg, but it all happens pretty fast with few details. Those longing for a baby bump will need to keep looking.
But if, like me, you are in this for a beautiful little psycho, you might enjoy it
I love tropes, and I love things that subvert tropes. This is the latter. We’ve got a beautiful, delicate-looking monster in our main couple. He’s manipulative, he’s rich, he’s a liar, he’s toxic, he’s unrepentant, he can’t cry, and he’s violent.
And he’s so, so, so in love with his kinda average-CEO-but-sorta-has-morals partner. A real, true, devoted love. Not declaring you love someone in one scene only to break up in the next episode because it’s episode 11 love. But obsessive love that will do anything for the other person, anything to keep the other person, and never give up.
In fiction, this kind of love is very appealing, but don’t do this at home, kids.
The poor victim of this obsessive love handles it all with a kind of annoyed exasperation that hides his true pleasure at being the center of this attention. He puts up with a lot, and he’s very patient with his partner’s more extreme behavior.
The show is a semi-self-aware, toxic fantasy that doesn’t go too deep into anything. Characters and conflicts come and go. Things don’t make sense and go nowhere, but unlike the previous review, everyone was motivated by their own twisted love, and it stayed fun. One of our leads can’t even cry for multiple episodes if he wanted to.
If you want a toxic romance and have low expectations, you too might enjoy this show. Just don’t get too invested in that second couple. Or pray for special episodes.
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