News 
This review may contain spoilers
Gelboys’ second season left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed parts of it, particularly the new characters, but I was disappointed with the direction of the main storyline. The season raises important questions about toxic fan culture, yet its treatment of Baabin’s obsession feels far too forgiving. Its final explanations also left me with a bitter aftertaste.
The story opens twenty years after the events of the first season, introducing Baby and Gelz, the children of the original couples. They are now the same age their parents were in season one. As their relationship develops, Baby tries to discover why his parents separated, and the narrative moves between the two timelines to gradually reveal their history. I liked this premise because it connects the younger characters to the original story while giving them something of their own.
Much of the earlier timeline revolves around 4Mod pursuing his dream of becoming an artist. As his popularity grows, he attracts fans whose expectations interfere with his personal life. Some treat their favorite artists like babies who need constant protection, while others become invested in the fantasy of someday dating them. That attachment crosses a line when fans believe they have the right to dictate whom an artist can date and how he should live.
Baabin, who runs 4Mod’s fan club and helps support his career, participates in maintaining that illusion. He advises 4Mod to hide his relationship with Chian because revealing it could destroy the fans’ romantic fantasies. Meanwhile, Chian becomes increasingly jealous and possessive as 4Mod receives more attention. This creates a potentially interesting conflict about the pressure artists face when their careers depend partly on appearing romantically available.
My biggest issue, however, is how the season handles Baabin’s involvement. Supporting 4Mod becomes his entire purpose. His emotional well-being depends on promotional goals, fan activities, and even whether he can secure a place close to the artist at a concert. His devotion affects the people around him, particularly Bua, his boyfriend, with whom he lives.
When Bua also becomes an artist, this imbalance becomes even more apparent. Baabin finds himself divided between supporting his boyfriend and continuing his work for 4Mod, but repeatedly prioritizes the latter. His former crush on 4Mod adds another layer to that dynamic. The season does not explicitly confirm that he still has romantic feelings for him, but their history left me wondering whether something remained unresolved.
The birthday sequence captures this problem particularly well. Baabin organizes an intimate surprise celebration for Bua, complete with photographs and a carefully decorated space. During the celebration, 4Mod’s relationship with Chian is exposed online. Fans who believed he was single turn against him, and a promotional tuk-tuk event falls apart as attendees cancel. Baabin must choose between staying with his boyfriend on his birthday and going to help 4Mod. He chooses 4Mod.
Helping a friend through a crisis is understandable, but this decision belongs to a larger pattern in which Bua consistently comes second. That pattern becomes even clearer when Baabin secretly takes on extra work as a manicurist to buy tickets for 4Mod’s upcoming fan meeting and distribute them to other fans. He treats the event’s success as his personal responsibility, spending his own time and money while hiding his actions from Bua. Their breakup during this part of the story grows out of that accumulated secrecy, neglect, and imbalance.
Chian’s response to the scandal was another writing choice I found poorly conceived. He publishes a fabricated thread on X, using photographs of himself with 4Mod to portray himself as an obsessive fan who followed him around, rather than his actual boyfriend. The fans believe him, forgive 4Mod, and return to supporting him. I found it frustrating that restoring 4Mod’s reputation involves denying their relationship and presenting Chian as a stalker.
By the end of the season, 4Mod finally posts on Instagram confirming that Chian really is his boyfriend. The fans who genuinely support him stay, while those unwilling to accept his relationship leave the fanbase. I appreciate the principle behind that outcome: an artist should be able to acknowledge his partner and accept that some fans will walk away. However, the resolution felt too neat after everything that preceded it. The elaborate lie and its implications deserved more attention before the story settled into the idea that things were now fine between them.
Bua’s decision to fake a romantic relationship with 4Mod also made the season’s emotional message difficult for me to connect with. When fans become interested in them as a potential couple, Bua sees an opportunity to help revive 4Mod’s career. Eventually, we learn that he did not do this to make Baabin jealous. He did it because he cared about Baabin and wanted him to be happy again.
I understand the intended sentiment, but this is where the season really lost me. Bua has already been hurt by Baabin’s obsession with supporting 4Mod, yet his expression of love becomes another effort to sustain the very thing that damaged their relationship. To me, the narrative starts presenting that obsession as something beautiful: a form of unconditional devotion that the people around Baabin should understand and accommodate.
I do not find that romantic. Being a fan can be meaningful and enjoyable, but there should be limits when it starts consuming someone’s money, emotional energy, relationships, and opportunities to build their own life. Intense fan culture has existed for decades; Beatlemania is an obvious example. I wanted the season to explore how that enthusiasm could develop into something healthier once its consequences became impossible to ignore.
Instead, I felt the series kept making excuses for Baabin. It criticizes fans who believe they can control an artist’s romantic life, but is much less critical of someone whose devotion becomes self-destructive and hurts his partner. The consequences are shown, yet the emotional framing often seems to ask us to admire the behavior behind them. That inconsistency weakened the commentary for me.
The final explanation for Baabin and Bua’s separation in the future timeline was another major disappointment. After spending the season building a mystery around why they were no longer together, the last episode explains that one became jealous because the other was giving their child more attention. That could have opened up a meaningful discussion about parenting, insecurity, and how a relationship changes after having a child. Instead, it is barely explored and largely left at that.
This also means that the conflicts surrounding fandom, which occupy so much of the season, do not provide the full explanation for the separation Baby is investigating. The eventual answer introduces a different issue without giving it enough development to feel convincing. For a mystery that helps structure the entire season, the payoff felt underwritten and emotionally unsatisfying.
Some of the earlier conflicts also felt immature and repetitive. These are young characters, so immaturity is understandable, but I wanted the writing to take those situations somewhere more thoughtful. If the intention was to explore two characters becoming artists and the pressures surrounding fandom, I think there were more compelling ways to develop those themes.
The highlight, for me, was Baby and Gelz. They have great chemistry, and I enjoyed watching their feelings develop before they fully understood them themselves. Their affectionate scenes felt convincing, and their relationship gave me something to look forward to throughout the season.
I do wish their romance had been a little less of a slow burn. The repeated moments of pulling away from a kiss became irritating, and some of those delays felt unnecessary. Even so, I liked their dynamic and thought their growing affection was one of the season’s strongest elements.
Overall, I had some fun watching, but I was not satisfied with where the story went. Its commentary on toxic fandom had potential, yet its forgiving treatment of Baabin’s obsession weakened that discussion. Combined with the rushed explanation for Baabin and Bua’s eventual separation and the overly tidy resolution of 4Mod and Chian’s public relationship, the ending left me with a bitter aftertaste. Baby and Gelz were a welcome highlight, but I finished the season wishing its central conflicts had received the same care as their romance.
The story opens twenty years after the events of the first season, introducing Baby and Gelz, the children of the original couples. They are now the same age their parents were in season one. As their relationship develops, Baby tries to discover why his parents separated, and the narrative moves between the two timelines to gradually reveal their history. I liked this premise because it connects the younger characters to the original story while giving them something of their own.
Much of the earlier timeline revolves around 4Mod pursuing his dream of becoming an artist. As his popularity grows, he attracts fans whose expectations interfere with his personal life. Some treat their favorite artists like babies who need constant protection, while others become invested in the fantasy of someday dating them. That attachment crosses a line when fans believe they have the right to dictate whom an artist can date and how he should live.
Baabin, who runs 4Mod’s fan club and helps support his career, participates in maintaining that illusion. He advises 4Mod to hide his relationship with Chian because revealing it could destroy the fans’ romantic fantasies. Meanwhile, Chian becomes increasingly jealous and possessive as 4Mod receives more attention. This creates a potentially interesting conflict about the pressure artists face when their careers depend partly on appearing romantically available.
My biggest issue, however, is how the season handles Baabin’s involvement. Supporting 4Mod becomes his entire purpose. His emotional well-being depends on promotional goals, fan activities, and even whether he can secure a place close to the artist at a concert. His devotion affects the people around him, particularly Bua, his boyfriend, with whom he lives.
When Bua also becomes an artist, this imbalance becomes even more apparent. Baabin finds himself divided between supporting his boyfriend and continuing his work for 4Mod, but repeatedly prioritizes the latter. His former crush on 4Mod adds another layer to that dynamic. The season does not explicitly confirm that he still has romantic feelings for him, but their history left me wondering whether something remained unresolved.
The birthday sequence captures this problem particularly well. Baabin organizes an intimate surprise celebration for Bua, complete with photographs and a carefully decorated space. During the celebration, 4Mod’s relationship with Chian is exposed online. Fans who believed he was single turn against him, and a promotional tuk-tuk event falls apart as attendees cancel. Baabin must choose between staying with his boyfriend on his birthday and going to help 4Mod. He chooses 4Mod.
Helping a friend through a crisis is understandable, but this decision belongs to a larger pattern in which Bua consistently comes second. That pattern becomes even clearer when Baabin secretly takes on extra work as a manicurist to buy tickets for 4Mod’s upcoming fan meeting and distribute them to other fans. He treats the event’s success as his personal responsibility, spending his own time and money while hiding his actions from Bua. Their breakup during this part of the story grows out of that accumulated secrecy, neglect, and imbalance.
Chian’s response to the scandal was another writing choice I found poorly conceived. He publishes a fabricated thread on X, using photographs of himself with 4Mod to portray himself as an obsessive fan who followed him around, rather than his actual boyfriend. The fans believe him, forgive 4Mod, and return to supporting him. I found it frustrating that restoring 4Mod’s reputation involves denying their relationship and presenting Chian as a stalker.
By the end of the season, 4Mod finally posts on Instagram confirming that Chian really is his boyfriend. The fans who genuinely support him stay, while those unwilling to accept his relationship leave the fanbase. I appreciate the principle behind that outcome: an artist should be able to acknowledge his partner and accept that some fans will walk away. However, the resolution felt too neat after everything that preceded it. The elaborate lie and its implications deserved more attention before the story settled into the idea that things were now fine between them.
Bua’s decision to fake a romantic relationship with 4Mod also made the season’s emotional message difficult for me to connect with. When fans become interested in them as a potential couple, Bua sees an opportunity to help revive 4Mod’s career. Eventually, we learn that he did not do this to make Baabin jealous. He did it because he cared about Baabin and wanted him to be happy again.
I understand the intended sentiment, but this is where the season really lost me. Bua has already been hurt by Baabin’s obsession with supporting 4Mod, yet his expression of love becomes another effort to sustain the very thing that damaged their relationship. To me, the narrative starts presenting that obsession as something beautiful: a form of unconditional devotion that the people around Baabin should understand and accommodate.
I do not find that romantic. Being a fan can be meaningful and enjoyable, but there should be limits when it starts consuming someone’s money, emotional energy, relationships, and opportunities to build their own life. Intense fan culture has existed for decades; Beatlemania is an obvious example. I wanted the season to explore how that enthusiasm could develop into something healthier once its consequences became impossible to ignore.
Instead, I felt the series kept making excuses for Baabin. It criticizes fans who believe they can control an artist’s romantic life, but is much less critical of someone whose devotion becomes self-destructive and hurts his partner. The consequences are shown, yet the emotional framing often seems to ask us to admire the behavior behind them. That inconsistency weakened the commentary for me.
The final explanation for Baabin and Bua’s separation in the future timeline was another major disappointment. After spending the season building a mystery around why they were no longer together, the last episode explains that one became jealous because the other was giving their child more attention. That could have opened up a meaningful discussion about parenting, insecurity, and how a relationship changes after having a child. Instead, it is barely explored and largely left at that.
This also means that the conflicts surrounding fandom, which occupy so much of the season, do not provide the full explanation for the separation Baby is investigating. The eventual answer introduces a different issue without giving it enough development to feel convincing. For a mystery that helps structure the entire season, the payoff felt underwritten and emotionally unsatisfying.
Some of the earlier conflicts also felt immature and repetitive. These are young characters, so immaturity is understandable, but I wanted the writing to take those situations somewhere more thoughtful. If the intention was to explore two characters becoming artists and the pressures surrounding fandom, I think there were more compelling ways to develop those themes.
The highlight, for me, was Baby and Gelz. They have great chemistry, and I enjoyed watching their feelings develop before they fully understood them themselves. Their affectionate scenes felt convincing, and their relationship gave me something to look forward to throughout the season.
I do wish their romance had been a little less of a slow burn. The repeated moments of pulling away from a kiss became irritating, and some of those delays felt unnecessary. Even so, I liked their dynamic and thought their growing affection was one of the season’s strongest elements.
Overall, I had some fun watching, but I was not satisfied with where the story went. Its commentary on toxic fandom had potential, yet its forgiving treatment of Baabin’s obsession weakened that discussion. Combined with the rushed explanation for Baabin and Bua’s eventual separation and the overly tidy resolution of 4Mod and Chian’s public relationship, the ending left me with a bitter aftertaste. Baby and Gelz were a welcome highlight, but I finished the season wishing its central conflicts had received the same care as their romance.
Was this review helpful to you?
