It’s amazing how much fast forwarding I’ve done in this weekend’s episodes of Love in the Fresh Food Market and still have a grasp of what is going in the storyline. There are good and bad aspects of that, good because I get to watch only Thong and Kim-Lang’s scenes, bad because that means majority of the scenes are taken up by side characters and uninteresting subplots.

Silliness and secondary characters do not appeal to me, especially Nada and Chai, whose storyline about revenge and rape takes over the spot light and screen time for our main characters. It is a total miss for me, unfortunately. I’m begging P’Off to go easy on the subplots and give me more meat. I know he wants to showcase the nature of the “fresh food market” business, but it’s such a shame to have Mario and Margie together in a lakorn, and to not make it totally about them.

Because when they are together, they are so sweet. I can appreciate their love story despite how quickly it has developed and their insufficient screen time: at least their misunderstandings and angst are resolved fairly quickly. This is the case because the main problem is not making the two fall in love with each other, but making her mom, Kim Hua, accept them as a couple. And I can see this stretching out until the finale.

It’s an easygoing lakorn, with mild cases of irritable characters that can be remedied by fast forwarding, but it makes me wish the pra’nangs had a larger role in the overall plot. What a waste. We are at episode 8 and despite the exchange of “I Love You’s” between Thong and Kim-Lang, we haven’t seen much in the romantic department. Let’s not be so stingy with the hugs, kisses and the spasm worthy moments.

Maybe they’ll give Mario a better lakorn next time? I know Margie will be working with Chakrit in her future project, so that will be interesting. For the rest of Love in the Fresh Food Market, I shall be complacent to discovering how Thong and Kim-Lang will find their happily ever after, minus the irritating, unreasonable mother, Kim-Hua.

With Mario’s charismatic acting and a better focus on his role in the overall plot, this lakorn could have been so much more. At least Mario and Margie scenes together gives me reason enough to persevere. And then there’s the FF button. I should be happy for small favors.