Trigger Warnings for sexual assault/r*pe, physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, homophobia/transphobia

This show was just all kinds of messed up; and not in a good way. I enjoy a good dark, twisted, maybe even a little questionable drama as much as the next person, but I was almost without words with this one. I honestly do not know how I managed to watch the full thing. People questioned why I was doing it to myself, and all I can say is I honestly do not know. I think I just wanted to see how bad the show could get.

It’s not even the plot that’s bad, really, but the characters themselves. First we have Type, a guy who seems to think the reason he was sexually assaulted as a child is because of the gays. Not because a man was a paedophile, but because of the gays. (It’s never even stated that the man who molested him was gay.) Next up we have his friends who aren’t homophobic, yet defend Type when he says slurs and insults lgbtq+ folk, saying ‘he must have his reasons’ (they know nothing about his traumatic incident). Then we have Tharn, the roommate and love interest, who is out and proud gay and more or less because a sexual-harassment-case-waiting-to-happen as soon as Type begins his bullshit. The dude literally kisses and touches Type IN HIS SLEEP. He more or less forces Type to accept oral sex in the shower. (Yes, I know the scene is meant to seem as if Type gets into it, but let’s be honest, that was assault.) Tharn continues to be a very uncomfortable character with his refusal to give up on a man who claims to be straight, defends said man’s homophobia, and puts up with physical and emotional abuse from stated man. It would be pitiful if it wasn’t so uncomfortable.

Moving on to the inevitable falling-in-love-with-the-gay-roomie and as much as we all love this trope (I mean, that why we watched the show, right?) we find that not only is Type still a raging homophobe, but a vocal one…using the ‘f’ slur, alienating his childhood best friend, before going home to TALK TO HIS BIG GAY BOYFRIEND. This man ‘hates gays’ but CHOSE to be a bottom, and seems to really love gay sex…but hates the gays. I mean, I know we’re supposed to be watching him grow and accept himself and the community BUT COME ON. It was like whiplash.

We also have Tar and Tum, who are a complete mystery for 80% of this show. I eventually got fed up of random scenes with these characters who apparently had nothing to actually do with the show, and I spoiled that part of the storyline for myself. Really, they should have been tied into the plot better if we were supposed to have any emotion towards them. By the time they were involved I’d already grown bored and unsympathetic. (Then again, there are few characters you can be sympathetic to in this series.)

It’s absolutely HORRIBLE what happened to Tar, but it was still so difficult to feel bad for him. Like, I know most of his behaviour was because he was being blackmailed, but it was still

Tum could have been likeable, but really there was nothing there but an older boy lusting after his step brother. It had so much potential! Alas, it was wasted.

We also have Thorn, Tharn’s brother who…well, I actually liked him, but I have questions about why he was okay with his best friend banging his 14 year old brother. I mean, he punched the dude, but personally, I think continuing the friendship is a weird vibe. I know that if one of my mates came to be and confessed to having sex with my under age brother I’d be burying their body in a shallow grave. Thanya, the little sister, was a queen though.

Then (YES, THERE IS MORE), we have Technic, the younger brother of Techno, who swaps illicit photos of his older brother with his friend for movie tickets. Yup, kid is taking sneaky photos for his obsessed pal without the consent of his brother. I’ll be honest, though, Techno was probably my favourite character in the whole show.

Lastly, we have Lhong, who was the surprise for me. When I discovered he was the antagonist all along I did have to give props for that because I did not expect that from him. What he did to everyone was just despicable; especially Tar, who was a literal child. However, I feel like the character’s real self was hidden really well for the better part of the show, and it’s the one thing I didn’t expect - the jealous-in-love-with-main-character-best-friend, and I appreciated that little shake up. He really was a master manipulator, right under our noses. The ‘I wasn’t loved as a child’ motivation is tired and overdone, but you know what? I’m gonna let it slide because of how impressed I was with them sneaking Lhong in as the bad guy. (I’m genuinely shocked I managed to say something positive about this show.)

I admit, shamefully, that I did enjoy Type when he informed Lhong that he knew about what he’d been doing; there’s just something in me that gets giddy when a guy somehow protects his boyfriend’s ex? I know that makes no sense, but when Type shows how disgusted he is at what happened to Tar, I liked him for just that one second; he knew Tar’s pain, somewhat, and found common ground. Finding out that Type had known for so long what was going on and was biding his time…that was a nice touch. I also gotta say, Champ is a champ; he had no idea what was going on and stepped up to help his friends, going as far as to get up in the face of a man he’d just discovered had had young boy gang raped. Kudos to him wanting to bash heads.

I need to ask if there was any point in bringing Tin/Can/Pete into the last 3 minutes of the show; I had to googled who they were! I think there’s gonna have been a lot of people that perhaps have not seen Love By Chance, and since almost all the characters were recast before being included in TharnType, not many are gonna connect the two.

I feel like there was a real issue with tying up loose ends in this. Suddenly, there's no more homophobia from Lil Type, like he just accepts who he is (which is great!) but there's no mention of it. No mention of the friend he pushed away or all the horrible things he'd said about his lover and 'his kind'. There's nothing about how his parents are (though upon my silly searching on MDL, I understand this gets covered in the Special). Also, did no one report Lhong? The boy literally had a child raped, tried to kill a guy, and they're all just like, "okay"?!

What I really hate most is that despite everything I have said here, and the fact I literally rated this a 4.5 (the lowest I've ever rated anything), I know for a fact I'll watch the Specials and the damn sequel, because despite how much this show bugged me, I want to know how it ends (and if it can get any better). Apparently, I am a glutton for punishment. (I'm also hoping for more Khlui/Seo content because they were ROBBED of screen time.)