Today’s daily helping is a bit of a weird one, because I’m still not entirely sure what to think about the Thai drama Love in the Air. And yes, I watched yet another BL show. This one came to me through a rec specifically because of my love for KinnPorsche. Basically, they said if I loved KinnPorsche, I’d love this show. And I can understand the comparison, to a certain extent. But whereas KinnPorsche had all the plot, Love in the Air is fairly straight forward. It tells the stories of two couples getting together and falling in love. And yes, there’s a lot of plot shenanigans to get to that point. But where I’d say KinnPorsche is equally balanced between the mafia plot and the romance plot, Love in the Air is predominantly a romance, complete with all the requisite angst and misunderstandings these types of stories usually feature.
Which brings me to why I can’t quite figure out where I land on this show. It’s clearly trying to portray a great romantic arc for each of the couples. But both of these relationships are not exactly what I’d call healthy. Neither relationship is great in terms of consent, and both have the hallmarks of the problematic trope where one interested party relentlessly pursues the other uninterested party until they capitulate. This is often presented as proof of one character’s love and devotion, when in reality, it’s just stalking. So I found myself not exactly rooting for either couple in Love in the Air. Instead, I mostly just wished that the two pursuers would back off and learn how to respect boundaries.
And yet, at the same time, I couldn’t stop watching this show. Mostly because the four leads are all ridiculously adorable and charming, and the two couples do have fantastic chemistry. So even though I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the actions of their characters, I still couldn’t help but watch to see where they ended up. It was a bizarre viewing experience, to say the least.
One last thing. For reasons that are beyond me, this show had the worst sound quality of any television show I’ve ever seen. Bar none. Which makes no sense, because the show looked fantastic, so clearly they had a budget to work with. But apparently zero percent of that budget went into the sound department, because I’ve heard better sound quality in high school student films. I still kept watching though. These two couple were just that adorable.
Suggestions for artists I should check out? Please contact me with your ideas. I hope you enjoyed your daily helping of art!
