Here’s the thing - I was extremely vocal on feeds and while talking to my friends about how this will be my favorite adaptation of the story and how much they improved with making it more realistic and less over the top toxic. And then, slowly, with every episode my enthusiasm started to drop. A show I started with genuine love, I finished as a hate watch. I cried watching the last episode, cried from laughing so bad.

Rich guy with family issues falls for a poor girl with financial issues - we all know the stories like that, most of us watched at least one adaptation of F4. Was this a fresh and groundbreaking take on this cliche plot? No. It started really well with a more realistic approach to the characters - Gorya was less in your face superhero bully fighter and Thyme, while still rude and cruel, had some type of limits to how far he is willing to go. I truly enjoyed how it was more grounded in reality - they managed to make me like the female lead more, and hate the male lead less. Then it lost that spark as it played into all the toxic over the top semi-makjang ideas.

Honestly speaking, the biggest issue was Thyme. To people saying he got amazing character development, where? There was one episode left for the drama to end and he still needed his friends to tell him what is good and moral and what is not. Dude literally threw a chair in Gorya’s direction when he was angry. How was I supposed to root for him, when I saw close to zero improvement in his behavior - every time things got tough or he got angry, he went back to his old abusive and impulsive ways.

Saying it’s realistic that he did not change so easily would make sense if the drama was realistic as a whole - it was not. They clearly did not care about realism, so why try to excuse the character with that logic?

Gorya was fine during all scenes, except the ones with Thyme. They both used violence against each other and sometimes it was played as a fun little comedy bit. On the other hand, she strived for better and grew as a person when she was with Ren.

And here we face the biggest issue - they made Ren too good to be true. Yes, he made one mistake and acted rather toxic towards Gorya with the misguided actions based on his good intentions, but he learned from that and never did that again. He was so fine. That’s that.

Then we have that completely useless and not developed romance between Kavin and Kaning. I am not going to lie, the side couple was my favorite part of the Korean version - the story was interesting, the conflicts were well built, the resolution was satisfying. Here, we’ve got none of that. They made zero effort to convince me why Kavin was hesitant to start things with her. They were just in the background, occasionally being cute.

I don’t even want to talk about M.J. getting his plot thanks for KFC commercials at the end.

I did enjoy the friendship of F4 a lot. Their scenes, excluding the bullying ones, were fun to watch. They always had each other’s back and tried to solve issues as a team - well, the 3 of them tried to solve Thyme’s issues while he acted like a moody toddler either turning them down or running away.

Putting characters aside, the show did attempt and made some good remarks about the social differences, the responsibilities and struggles people might have depending on their social status. I appreciated how it was not all black and white - rich people have all the privileges and no real issues, and poor people are the only ones struggling.

Acting wise I don’t really have complaints. I’m not the biggest fan of Bright’s acting, but he was truly born to play this role. Thyme was rather dumb of a character, and the faces this guy was making just elevated it, making me crack a smile quite a few times. Tu did an amazing job as Gorya - I bought everything she was selling on screen. I would say, the only performance that was questionable was Win as Kavin - his delivery was a bit on one note and the lines just did not sound natural at times.

Production wise though, probably one of the best quality we have seen from Thailand for some time. The show was simply beautiful. It was impossible to watch even one episode without taking countless screenshots. They played with angles, depth and light and I appreciated that alot.

Music was fine? I honestly cannot remember one song from it. They were not that memorable, but if they were bad, I would for sure remember them not fitting the scenes.

Overall, what a journey it was. By the end I was rooting for Thyme’s mother to keep them apart. What a badass she was. Might be evil, but with a class. The most terrifying mother of all the adaptations.

I don’t regret watching, I enjoyed it a lot during the first half, and had fun making fun of it during the second half. It’s like, slightly better than Boys Over Flowers? In some aspects… but not all.