Teri

Started promising, ended up disappointing me

Honestly, this drama is so overhyped.

I was trying. I was trying so hard to keep my hopes up. I was optimistic. I wanted this to be good so bad. But it still ended up being slightly more than average thing. I will finish writing this review and then hopefully forget about this just like the writers of this series forgot how to write a decent story.

The writting is terrible. Especially when it comes to the romance part. Kamin and Jade's relationship comes out of nowhere, the progress is questionable and it's so unnatural. Especially since the romance is forced in scenes where it's so unnecessary and/or unfitting. I literally couldn't care less about them as a couple, because the series totally failed to sell it to me as a viewer. For the first time I had issues believing JoongDunk their love. And I believe their love irl. The writing here was so bad that it made JD romance uninteresting.

You blink and suddenly they are together. Jade is way too whipped, pushing the intimacy everywhere (including medical examiner's office or literal crime scene), which just feels out of place. Way too many times are Kamin and Jade way too busy flirting instead of focusing on the murders (the plot manages to conveniently forget that Kamin got 7 days to solve the case). It makes it feel like the romance is in the way of the murder mystery, to which I just desperatly wanted to get back to, but had to sit through Jade and Kamin's tenth couple moment.

But to be fair, JoongDunk have incredible chemistry and if you separate the scenes from the plot, they are lovely, cute and enjoyable moments. If only they weren't happening while kids were being murdered on daily basis.

That brings me to the murder mystery part of this story.

It started really good. The Truth or Dare thing worked, we had 7 kids and wondered, who of them killed their friend Fai. I was hooked. Then came letters and more deaths and it was awesome. The deaths were creative and chilling (especially Bell's, I needed a few minutes to recover, I was shaking and it really gotten to me). Slowly uncovering the truth worked at the start too.

But then we lost focus. We got lot of unnecessary romance (I did not expect to yell "skip the flirting and give me the murders" at my screen during a JoongDunk drama, but here I was, doing exactly that), for some reason focused on a drug dealer way too much (we could've linked it to Phut way more easily than with two eps worth of bs) and we got AouBoom for some reason (and don't get me wrong, I love AouBoom, but what was that, they were so unnecessary here, especially in the last ep where they just straight up third-wheeled).

The plot also seemed to want me to turn my brain off with that, because a lot of plot holes and issues started popping out. Let me name a few here:

1) Why was Time totally forgotten during the initial investigation? He was the most sus during the first interrogation and Kamin with Jade didn't talk to him at all.
2) When Jay didn't come home in the evening (the night he saw Kla's death), Jade nor Kamin were alarmed and went to sleep calmly, even though they were aware he (Jay) could be the next target.
3) Jade and Kamin never saw Fai's body nor never wanted to (despite doing so with other victims). Phut gave them the "autopsy" results in EP 2, yet later when they were looking into the ketamine, they had to visit Phut again to let him run tox screen (even though he supposedly did that, since he told them about the other meds in her body).
4) Kamin being suspended but then the drama acts like if that never happened, he just keeps investigating.
5) They haven't found the secret cameras in victim's places until the plot allowed them to.
6) The whole idea of Champ's plan being orchestrating Fai's rape to make her his girlfriend. ... ... What?
7) The biggest mystery of this series being if Jay was or wasn't shot and him being quite chill despite being shot. My guy was acting as if that was nothing but a bruise and Kamin with Jade taking it so calmly as if GSW was a minor inconvenience,
8) Them saving Champ (who somehow survived despite losing a limb) and leaving Fai behind (even though she was just stabbed in her shoulder blade and should have been way more okay than Champ).
9) Phut somehow survivng despite standing right next to a bomb when it went off.

I could go on and on.

The final big reveal wasn't really revealing, since I figured out the killers (yes, both of them) by episode 5. Never felt this awful for using my brain, because it made me enjoy the ending even less.

The last issue is the production.

The audio engineer took a vacation and their 5 year old child took over. That's the only way I could explain the sound issues. Sometimes the audio is so quiet you need to boost up your volume to 200% to be able to hear what the characters are saying. Another time the audio is so boosted it blasts off your roof. Sometimes the characters sound like they are underwater.

The director was probably very tired and done with their job because the consistency was inconsistent. As I mentioned above, throughout the plot, there is a lot of issues. But the inconsistency was even within the scenes. I understand that there are multiple shots, but director should be able to make sure that people's hands are not rapidly changing postitions each cut.

The cameraman also had their issues, because why were completely static shots shaking as if there was an earthquake?

CGI was also low quality, but honestly, that wouldn't be a problem if the rest was good. Sometimes the budget is not there for flawless CGI and that's fine.

The acting was carrying this all. JoongDunk are amazing (though Dunk did struggle with the English lines a bit) and their chemistry is undeniable. I totally adored Ohm and can't wait to see more of him. Sing and Pahn absolutelly killed it in the last episode and were honestly the highlight of this series. The other actors did a great job too, which is admirable, since they were given such a terrible script to work with.

If this wasn't a JoongDunk series, I'm pretty sure the overall MDL score would be definitely lower.

I watched Goddess Bless Your From Death along with this and let me tell you, that was a good murder mystery. Not this. I am very disappointed.

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This was not Only Friends, this was a disaster

I absolutely loved OFTS and was excited when OFDO was announced. I regret it now.

Not a single right thing about this, maybe except casting AouBoom and letting Mark Pakin write the BostonNick scene.

They labeled this Only Friends and that's what I expected - the mess, the chaos, crazy hook ups, no boundaries, lot of borderline illegal issues. But I never got anything like that. That crazy mess was the charm of OFTS. As some lovely moot on Tumblr.com said, it was not about finding the goodest character, it was about picking your favorite asshole and rolling with it.

The problem of OFDO is that the characters are shallow, they have nothing going on and you don't develop any strong emotions towards them. I only somehow liked RomeRaffy, but not because they would be written that well, but because AouBoom did pure magic when they brought them to life on screen. But I gotta admit, they also have decent development going on and grow as characters, though the writing was very questionable (like why did we not get the scene where Rome tells Raffy about Pete???). It only kind of scares me, that RomeRaffy as we know them weren't the original plan. This series would be so much worse if AouBoom weren't here. Because honestly, RomeRaffy in AouBoom's hands had the biggest Only Friends potential had they been given the proper script. They had the tension, the chemistry, and definitely could pull the angst and more fights, were they given the chance.

Arnold and Tua are empty shells, they have nothing going on and hell, how I wish I would actually love them, because I am a big fan of JG. But they fell so out of place in this series, as if they took their part of the script from different series. Especially Arnold was so empty, we know nothing about him even after the 12 eps, hell we never even get to see his place and only characteristics he got was that he is kind and gets along with everyone. Tua is not much better, but we got to actually see his house and had some more character shown when he exploded and broke up with Arnold and kicked Dean out.

Jack and Dean are just awful people (and terribly written too) that did not have any character development and I was forced to believe they just happen to get together because love? It's so upseting because they were the centerpiece in this season. But no matter what they went through, they did not learn anything or grew as people. Dean showed biggest development when he geniunely apologized to Tua. But that not explains anything that happened with Jack. They just got back to square one. I will admit, I haven't seen any EarthMix work before this, but I can tell they are hella good actors (the scene in the gallery/ex exhibition was strong and emotional, though still a waste for this trash series) but the writers didn't do them justice. I understand they were very likely supposed to reflect TopMew from OFTS, but TopMew had character development and it made sense why Mew ended up forgiving Top. But that did not work with Jack and Dean. For a second they got me hoping they won't end up together, but of course, that can't happen because some people apparently are sensitive snowflakes.

Regarding that I also have to say I did not get why we had to see JackDean delivering the flowers or dealing with Dao (Dean's sister), because it did not move the story anywhere and it was just waste of our time (I mean, the whole series kinda was, but this was extra waste).

They also totally failed to connect the couples, like they did in OFTS. Mew, Ray and Ton were friends. Sand and Nick were friends. Top and Ton had history. Boeing connected Ton, Sand and Top. The whole cheating plot was TonTop sleeping together, Nick wiring the car, showing the recording to Sand, who passed it to Ray, who passed it to Mew, that caused the fight. But it also distanced RaySand because Ray thought Mew might give him a chance. It was all connected and that's why we got enough screen time for all.

In OFDO, they kept the couples separated. Yes, Rome and Jack are step brothers and Tua and Dean are friends, but the first thing barely played any role in this and the second was only used for the fight. Other than that the couples were always hanging out together and barely had scenes with others (maybe only during the play part and when it wall all of them). But the story didn't connect them so nicely like it happened in OFTS.

I also want to specifically talk about Ton. I am Ton lover. I love him and I will defend him forever. I was very excited about his return. But if you promise me Ton level of chaos, you better fucking deliver it. There was nothing of that. And hear me out, I woudn't mind this shift if they gave us the TonNick scene earlier, because Ton changing his attitude after seeing how much Nick was hurt by him would make so much sense. But what we learned from him was that he slept around in NY and it got boring there, so he went back to Thailand because in his opinion, Thai dudes are more fun to sleep with. That sounds like the same old Ton to me. But then he backs off the first chance he gets.

Which brings me to another big problem. They wouldn't let actors kiss outside of the official couples. TonTua, ArnoldTon, TonRaffy, JackRaffy, RomePete, ArnoldDean, GameplayDean ... why didn't we get these kisses? I know for sure the actors wouldn't mind (literally the reason Neo doesn't have fixed partner is because he likes to be open to anything), it's the creative team's choice. It would work much more if the kisses actually happened. Every scene of these not-kisses just felt like a slap into my face. And like it makes you not even believe in anything outside of the official couples, when they are visibly scared to let it happen. Like would you believe this is the sequel to the series that let KhaoBook kiss, NeoForce film a whole sex scene, FirstMark kiss, Mond kiss everyone he saw, NeoDrake sex scene and more? (Again, thank you snowflakes, who would cry and have tantrums if their couple kissed someone else).

Also, Ton and Pete appearing at writer's convenience was pissing me off bad. What was that writing? They both worked on the play so they should've been there all the time.

That brings me to Pete and the main "drama" of this series. The not-kiss between Arnold and Dean. It was such a non-issue, oh my god. On one hand I am pissed that they didn't let Tua get Mew-level of toxic, but on the other hand, this was such a non-issue (compared to actual cheating from OFTS) so I can't even feel that mad because it makes sense that ArnoldTua simply talked it out. JackDean were unable to just fucking explain it. Dean never gave solid arguments, just begged Jack to not leave him. And it's crazy because Dean had valid argument - he was drunk AND drugged (which btw was never addressed afterwards). But as I said, JackDean are awful characters, so why bother ranting about this. And RomeRaffy were not affected at all by this "drama" so they were just chilling together (the fact it wasn't Raffy was cleared in two sentences). And final confrontation of Pete wasn't bad, but it went by so quickly (remember what happened to Top and especially Ton after the cheating?) and once again, why didn't we get to see the conversation between Rome and Raffy about this? Because that was a breaking moment in their relationship and surely a big shocker for Raffy, who saw Pete as a friend.

I just hope that Great at the end doesn't mean the threat of season 3. If you want to do that, please let OFTS crew work on it at least, otherwise please let this series rest in peace.

In conclusion, I'm disappointed. This series shouldn't have happened. Never do this again, GMM. Thank you.

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