I watched Bad Buddy trend on Twitter every single day while it was airing and heard people praise it like it was crafted by the hands of God.

Watching BB was actually one of the worst experiences of my life. The first few eps were corny but okay, and I thought I might genuinely enjoy the show until the randomly rushed angst that served no purpose other than a vehicle for the first kiss and avoidance phase between the 2 leads. I don't know how you manage to simultaneously delay a kiss while also making it feel unnaturally rushed and set up. The writing only fell apart from there, and the plot between the first kiss up until the reconciliation with the stupid xylophone scene actually changed my life for the worst. Every plot line and tonal shift in this show was written by an AI generator. The editing makes it even worse. I thought I was going crazy.

Pat is supposed to be a typical himbo character but he's so pushy that you can't believe he, or any of these characters, are college-aged students. His pushiness after the initial kiss is borderline uncomfortable. Pran is characterized as reasonable, orderly, and not an idiot, so he should be the most likeable character on screen at any given moment, but for some reason Nanon is always a hair's width from fully integrated into the character. Every new role I see him in is less convincing than the last, and he seems to have fleeting moments where he embodies a character perfectly before the performance turns towards entirely unconvincing. I wonder how many other people came to BB after watching My Dear Loser because they were impressed with his performance, just to be left scratching their heads by the end.

For a romcom, there was plenty of romance and comedy, yet somehow ticking all the boxes doesn't stop this show from being a disaster. I can't tell if the abrupt whiplash-inducing tonal shifts and ridiculous plots were crazier than the product placement scenes, but you could argue that the product placement scenes were so crazy that they were camp enough to temporarily distract from the rest of the show. Over-the-top product placements aside, BB could almost pass for fetish content with the amount of times Pat's stench was mentioned, how often he was shirtless or sleeveless, and the entire framing of the "first person to confess loses" arc. What the fuck is ever going on in this show.

The conflict-resolution in every part of the show serves no real purpose other than as a direct shift into the next conflict. The whole show can be broken up into three distinct parts, and the problem isn't that every part is so entirely different from the rest -- real people in real life experience distinct chapters in their lives -- but there is absolutely no fluidity between parts A B and C. The scene where Pat shows up like fucking Superman and saves the day with the power of xylophone while heartwarming music plays in the bg and we're given a montage of scenes that somehow transport us to Pat and Pran as an established couple is a scene that will infuriate me for years to come. I hate you Bad Buddy. You make no fucking sense.

I watched this show with two other people and I think I was the last person still standing by the time the final episode ended. I grinded the ending of the show by staring blankly at the screen or scrolling through Twitter when it was too painful to keep watching. When the episode was over I think I felt the heavens open up and an angel come down to touch me on my shoulders. I almost cried. I almost cheered. I laughed and smiled. It was over.

There aren't enough words to describe the psychological effects that bad writing, useless side characters, and terrible pacing can have on the human brain. Not to mention the lingering reminder of who the actors are playing in the back of my head whispering "he's homophobic" every once in a while. Sometimes these elements aren't detrimental on their own, but altogether Bad Buddy is shit-in-a-blender, a cocktail of disappointment and confusion. I hope God can transport me back to the universe everyone lives in where Bad Buddy is allegedly a good show.