Editorials 
1
When obssession becomes boring
So perhaps this is a testament to my neurospicyness, but even in a story about an obsessive, all consuming one-sided infatuation, it's important for the story to have narrative texture. Which, sad to say, this 'relationship' does not have. The dry toast scenario hits a point where we're slogging through some pretty rough scenes in which we (I?) just want the scene to be over. I just want them to deliver their lines and move on. Find a different footing instead of banging their head against the wall just to get to a point where the narrative focus can widen a little bit to include peripheral characters.
Which is to say, the side characters have truly been sidelined. Even Xue Ting, who is in essence one of the most critical support characters of the show right now, is basically a chalk outline. A MacGuffin to set up the twisty push and pulls of CX and PJ. Other than catalyzing scenarios so that our two main leads can interact, we don't know what XT is doing, what his reasoning is, does he know the risks of running a treasonous spy game? Like, what is this guy made of that our female lead is willing to put herself through sexual assault for him.
PJ herself is just okay. She's naive and, for a virtuous Mother Mary trope, has a lot of trust in a man who has repeatedly gotten handsy with her. Ping Jun is generally, a nice and kind girl. That is really all that can be said about her so far.
While CX has like 31 flavors and 500 sub levels of angst, which sounds like it would be a great combo between the two, but up until episode 14, PJ has insistently stuck to the "nice, kind girl" theme and CX is beginning to look like an unhinged Cerberos with no head nor tail because…I mean, she just doesn't play the game. She doesn't make him better, and she certainly isn't making him worse. She's just... agitating him lol because lets be real, if this was a story about spiralling, he would have just done the deed. He would have sexually assaulted her and then we'd be like "oh man, yeah f**k this pairing" and then spent the rest of the show watching CX get his just desserts, but no. Here we are, feeling vaguely intrigued but also mildly turned off.
TLOA definitely has the vibes and the aesthetics down though. I've already made it to episode 14 so I kinda sorta want to see how they hit breakpoints and where the characters diverge but I thought I'd be unwell over this drama and was bracing myself for a storm. Sadly, the feelings have cooled off pretty hard.
Which is to say, the side characters have truly been sidelined. Even Xue Ting, who is in essence one of the most critical support characters of the show right now, is basically a chalk outline. A MacGuffin to set up the twisty push and pulls of CX and PJ. Other than catalyzing scenarios so that our two main leads can interact, we don't know what XT is doing, what his reasoning is, does he know the risks of running a treasonous spy game? Like, what is this guy made of that our female lead is willing to put herself through sexual assault for him.
PJ herself is just okay. She's naive and, for a virtuous Mother Mary trope, has a lot of trust in a man who has repeatedly gotten handsy with her. Ping Jun is generally, a nice and kind girl. That is really all that can be said about her so far.
While CX has like 31 flavors and 500 sub levels of angst, which sounds like it would be a great combo between the two, but up until episode 14, PJ has insistently stuck to the "nice, kind girl" theme and CX is beginning to look like an unhinged Cerberos with no head nor tail because…I mean, she just doesn't play the game. She doesn't make him better, and she certainly isn't making him worse. She's just... agitating him lol because lets be real, if this was a story about spiralling, he would have just done the deed. He would have sexually assaulted her and then we'd be like "oh man, yeah f**k this pairing" and then spent the rest of the show watching CX get his just desserts, but no. Here we are, feeling vaguely intrigued but also mildly turned off.
TLOA definitely has the vibes and the aesthetics down though. I've already made it to episode 14 so I kinda sorta want to see how they hit breakpoints and where the characters diverge but I thought I'd be unwell over this drama and was bracing myself for a storm. Sadly, the feelings have cooled off pretty hard.
Was this review helpful to you?
