December 8, 2025 • 18 mins
In this episode, Meg reviews the series 'Bound by Honor' on ReelShort, focusing on the characters Aria and Luca, their development, and the themes of love and personal growth. She discusses the adaptation from the book, character dynamics, and her overall impressions of the series, concluding with a rating of 8.5 out of 10.
(I do know his name is Rhett and I swear I said that. For some reason it sounds like I am saying Rent. I tried to fix it, but my software wouldn't allow it.)
(I do know his name is Rhett and I swear I said that. For some reason it sounds like I am saying Rent. I tried to fix it, but my software wouldn't allow it.)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to my vertical obsession. And today we are talking
about Bound by Honor on Real Short and this stars
Savannah Caffy as Aria and Rerent Wellington as Luca. So
the synopsis is trapped in an arranged marriage to the
cold and dangerous, seductive air of the New York Mafia Luca.
Eighteen year old shelter mafia princess from Chicago. Aria must
(00:22):
decide if surrendering her body and maybe her heart to
the man born of violence is her greatest betrayal or
her only chance at survival. So, like I said, had
been some of my other ones, I've done like a
little kind of character analysis for Maria and Luca. So
for Aria, we have a shy shelter girl who was
(00:43):
never allowed to date or do anything, thrown into a
marriage with a man she doesn't know, a man that's
known to be cruel. So of course she's scared because
she doesn't know what to expect and being thrown into
a life that could kill her. While she is scared,
she so refused to let this life break her down.
The more time she spends with Luca, the more she
(01:04):
sees a different side to him that he doesn't force
her and protects her from others. She sees he isn't
the beast everyone thinks he is. That beast is in
protection of those who matter. As she helps him open
himself up, she embraces the mafia queen inside herself. She
fights to stand by Luca's side and not be sidelined.
(01:24):
So she starts off being very shy and sheltered and
unknowing of what to expect being thrown into this marriage
with Luca, to slowly coming into herself and being more
confident and fighting back against Luca and his need to
sideline her to the point where she finally just embraces
this mafia queen role that she's been given. And I
(01:47):
really love seeing Savannah in these roles because she does
a really good job of playing that shy girl that
slowly comes into her own and becomes more confident and powerful.
So I really love when we get to see some
band and play those rules. I loved her as Aria
so much I was glad that it was her. As
for Luca, he is a ruthless mafia bas who doesn't
(02:09):
like when people touch what is his. He stands by
a rule of not hurting women. He was taught at
a young age to be cold and ruthless by his father,
but his mother's compassion left a mar Even after her death,
he acts like he doesn't care about Aria, but refuses
to let anyone touch her and hurt those who mess
with her. He also respects her boundaries of not wanting
(02:30):
to be intimate or having sex, waits for her to consent.
He would both kill and be killed for her. He
wants her to feel safe with him and with his touch,
and he continues to show her she is the one
he wants and she is perfect as she is. I
really kind of love that about his character. Even though
he's like this ruthless and dangerous mafia boss, he was
(02:52):
still very respectful of Aria, her boundaries, what she didn't want,
and he wasn't going to cross those. So I really
kind of like that. And also to the fact, like
I said, he cared about her and he loved her
as she was. That was another thing that was really
nice about him because he didn't try and change her.
He wanted her to stay the same person she always was.
(03:14):
He didn't want her to change for him. He didn't
want to try and change her. So I really kind
of like that. Aspect, and I know this is a
series that was adapted from a book, and I have
not read the book or the novel, and I know
there are plenty of fans out there that have read
it and can probably compare the two and tell whether
or not it was a good adaptation or not. Me
(03:36):
I sometimes like to separate adaptations because they're not always good.
And I think I've kind of mentioned this in the past,
like when I was talking about The Unwanted Bride of
Atticist Fond, because I know there are certain series out
there that just changed the story completely or take things
away and don't always follow the book or novel, so
(03:58):
I don't I can't say whether that this one does.
And going back to the actual point I was making
is it's why I kind of separate them from time
to time because to bring up an example, for once,
the movie The Last Song, which is a Nicholas Sparks book,
I had seen that one before I had read the book,
and when I read the book, I was so disappointed
(04:19):
that the whole story was basically completely changed. And I
think for that one, the script might have been written
before the actual novel was finished. I don't remember for sure,
but I just remember like how different those two were,
the book and the movie. I had never been more
upset by that one because I'm like, it changed so much.
(04:41):
Whereas if to bring up another Nicholas Sparks book, for
the most part, those are the ones that I know
off the top of my head, and I can say that, oh,
I've read those, and I've seen the movies, so for
like the Lucky Ones or the Lucky One, I think
that's what it actually is. I loved the book, I
also loved the movie. There is big differences between the two,
but I still love both of them just as separate entities,
(05:04):
even though it is like an adaptation, the same with
a Walk to Remember. They're completely different stories, but the
main story is the same. It's just the way the
movie adapted the story is different from the novel or book.
So I enjoy them both as different entities. But if
Bound by Honor is anything like this one, I will
(05:25):
definitely try and check it out and read it and
see different because yeah, because I've mentioned that with Candy Jar,
I know that for their series they have series that
they adapt a little bit different than the actual novel
or book on their novel app so adaptations tend to
change things basically, so I can't comment on that for
(05:45):
this particular one, but I would kind of be interested
to see what might have changed from the book to
the series. So now for this one, I wrote two
different things. One is just kind of like the overall
story that I had written thing where it's a story
of a girl forced into a marriage she didn't want
to protect her sister and family. Maria is believed that
(06:06):
she was given to a monster will only hurt her.
Only too fine, He's not the guy she thought he
was when it comes to her that he would do
anything to protect her, also to prove to her he
is not to be feared, but to be trusted, that
he is putting her safety and comfort first, even if
she can't always see it. He was taught to be cold,
(06:28):
but she found a way to soften him. She is
the one to open his heart and show him that
he is more than just a mafia boss. And I
think that's kind of like why I really enjoyed this
story is definitely the chemistry between Wrent and Savannah. They
had really good chemistry. He did a really good mafia boss.
I really truly believed in his Luca character, and he
(06:51):
always kind of like gave me this whole sense of
what are you going to do next? When I was
watching it, Even though you knew he was very respectful
of aria, I still kind of sat there going like, well,
he's a mafia boss, maybe he's going to change his
tune and be a little bit more vicious. But he
was never like that. And I think, going back to
(07:12):
one of the things I said about his characters, that
his mother's compassion kind of stayed with him. So that's
what made him very respectful of women, is the fact
that he still had that compassion from his mother, like
that side of his family that his father wasn't egal
to completely corrupt him into this killing, evil machine that
he wanted. So I really kind of liked that they
(07:34):
played off each other so well, and I wanted more.
Definitely wanted more as it continued. It was sad when
it ended. I was like, no, I need more of this,
So it was it was definitely a fun one to watch.
I know mafia stories in series can be a little
bit I want to say, tricky, but also repetitive too,
(07:55):
so I really kind of liked this one didn't follow
the norm, but again most I think because it was
an adaptation from a book, so I think that kind
of helped make it stand out from the normal Mafia
vertical series. So some of the things which I really
didn't have many with this one, it was just really two,
and they involved when Luca cut his hand and when
(08:19):
Luca was shocked. So when it came to the beginning,
when it was the wedding night between Aria and Luca
and Luca cut his hand, I happened to notice that
the cut vanished multiple times. And again I think this
stems from me noticing some of these things a little
bit more so, and I think I mentioned it once
before that that's more because I had studied production and
(08:43):
video editing, and ever since then I kind of picked
up and noticed things more than I used to. Let
me put it that way, there were sometimes when I
noticed out there things, but ever since studying production and
editing and doing my own editing, I've kind of picked
up on like these little mistakes every now and again.
And sometimes I don't have people to talk to about them,
(09:05):
and sometimes I just kind of mention them and or
I just keep them to myself, but I do happen
to notice them a lot more, and it doesn't take
away from the series or anything. Is just fun for
me to be like, oh, I totally notice that. But
it's also one of those things where I also go
on the back of my mind it's like, did they
do it like that because that was the better of
(09:26):
the shots or that flowed better for the scene type
of thing. So I kind of also have that question
in my brain too when I notice these, because I
know that can sometimes be a factor to why it's
like that, or I don't know if that can be
a thing, because I know sometimes when everything's done, they
do like pickup shots, so if they needed to reshoot
(09:47):
a scene or something like that, So I don't know
if that is a factor in it as well. But anyway,
so as I was saying that the scene after the
wedding where they're in the in the room where everyone's
waiting for them to have sex consummate the marriage, and
Luca cuts his hand to make it seem like they did,
I noticed every so often that when it cut to
(10:08):
him his the cut on his hand just wasn't there.
It would appear and then disappear, and it all depended
on how his hand was showing because there were times
where it's hand wasn't showing as much you would, but
you could still see it. It wasn't there other times
it was a little bit more prominent you could see it.
But I just noticed that from time to time that
(10:29):
it's just like it'll cut back to him and his
hand was up and you wouldn't there would be no
cut on his hand. But also that same cut kind
of vanished after a while too. I think it was
shown once more in what was supposed to be the
next day shot where he was like, well, you know,
I cut my hand for you, and they showed the wound,
but I think we never really saw the cut on
his hand again after that. And then the other one,
(10:51):
like I said, was when Luca was shot and he
just ended up kind of walking away from being shot
like it was nothing, Like he just got up and
was fun and nothing happened. And one of the things
that I had wrote down for this was like, oh, well,
you know, he's in the mafia, so he's probably been
shot multiple times, so that kind of makes it seem like, oh,
it was nothing, so he's good, he can walk away,
(11:12):
it's fine, But it just kind of doesn't make it
as realistic for me, at least if he's shot and
then he just gets up and walks away like oh yeah, fine,
we're good. It's just a scratch. And probably for a
character like him, I said, he might have been shot
multiple times, so it might have been just like, oh, well,
it didn't hit anything. I'm not bleeding uncontrollably, so I'm good.
(11:35):
We can move on. I kind of noticed that in
these verticals from time to time is that if a
character gets shot suddenly, it's not always a big deal.
In some of the series, yes they make it a
little bit more of a big deal, like it's a
bigger injury, but there are some that is just not
as big a deal. And I think the majority of
that time is mostly mafia or when a character's more
(11:58):
of a criminal might not be in the mafia, but
he's still slightly a criminal. So I think that kind
of gives us this sense like, oh, well, they've been
shot multiple times, so it's just nothing. So it's just
kind of something that I've noticed, and this was one
of those instants. It would have been nice if they
made it seem more of an issue, or maybe just
had him act a little bit more hurt by it.
(12:20):
But but again, I know they can only put so
much in because they have to keep the story at
a good pace and flowing, and they might not be
able to put everything in that they want to. That
could be it too. It was just one of the
things that I kind of noticed when watching the series.
So for the overall story that I had, I said,
the overall story was good, And like I said, I
(12:41):
know it was based off a novel by the same name,
and I probably will try and check out the novel
see the difference and how good it is, because it
seems to be a very popular novel. I'm not the
biggest reader. Sometimes, so bigger novels I want to read them,
but sometimes it takes longer. That's why I'm more of
a film adaptation and TV. I'm a visual person. I
(13:05):
liked seeing things come to life for me as they said.
I loved that even though Luca was ruthless, he didn't
hurt women. That even when Grace was bullying Aria, he
banished her and didn't hurt her. He never forced Aria
into sex. He let her decide. When they finally consummated
the marriage, he had some cruel moments about it, but
He never forced her into the act, which is always
(13:27):
really great to see in a series like this. Luca
lived by a code and his word, and he stepp
by it love. Aria wasn't just the shy night girl,
but fought back when she needed to. She didn't let
Luca sideline her, but fought to be next to him.
She wasn't going to let Luca be the cold monster
he'd always been, just as he showed her she was
(13:48):
worth it. She showed him he didn't need to keep
his walls up, that love was something he could do.
And as I had pointed out, they challenged each other.
They kind of helped each other grow as characters throughout
this whole journey. Aria helped him embrace love and be
kinder in his softer side, whereas Luca helped Aria become
(14:10):
this strong, independent mafia queen and not let anyone give
her a shit. So they definitely played off each other.
They helped each other become better people and characters. It
was really fun to see that growth and how that
all worked, and it was definitely really great to see
(14:30):
Aria wanting to help Luca and stand by his side
while he was trying to work as the mafia boss.
She wanted like her inputs and to help him and
didn't want to just sit there and wait for him
to come home. And I love that about her characters
that as it progressed and as he showed her to
(14:51):
stand up for herself, she managed to use that to
as as I've mentioned, become that mafia queen, to tell
him that I'm not just going to sit there and
let you do everything. I'm going to help. We're going
to do this together. We're in this together, and his
acceptance of that too. So I really enjoyed that for
this storyline. And this was definitely a really good storyline.
(15:14):
Characters were well developed, and if it's anything like the novel,
then it's a good novel because it really played well.
Sometimes the best stories and series are when characters start
off fighting or not feeling like they're good enough or
could be good enough too, slowly coming into their own
(15:34):
and growing and realizing that they are good enough. There
you can find love. They can find love with each other,
and when done right, it can be a really great series.
And that's what I feel this one was is it's
really good. Story was good, it made me want more.
I don't know if there are like sequels to this,
I think there are, but there might be other characters involved,
(15:55):
because I think when I looked it up there was
there was some sequels, but they might have been different
characters with the sequels, but I could be wrong. But
it did definitely make me want more, and I love
when when series do that, when they make me crave more,
Like go, why I don't want this to end? I
wanted to keep going. So for this one, I gave
it a rating of eight point five out of ten.
(16:17):
And I know that doesn't seem so high when it
comes to this one, especially since I loved it so much.
There were still some things that I didn't rate high enough,
because honestly, unless this series is motion picture good, don't
think i'd give any series a ten just because it
has to be like spectacular. So I mean, I did
(16:38):
give it high ratings, and like I said, it's based
off that added together and then divided by seven. And
sometimes I'm actually shocked by what number I get after
doing my rating calculations. I'm like, wait, really, that's that's
really what I'm giving it. But I'm trying to go
by this rating I've mentioned in the past. Character atmosphereic writing, plot, intrigue,
(17:01):
and likability. And I read those one to ten and
then add those oola up, divide it by seven, and
that's the rating that I get for the series. So
sometimes it does end up being a little bit lower,
but it does not reflect on how I like the
series or not. It's just the rating scale that I'm
trying to go by to give it a bit more
fair rating. But I did love this one and I
(17:22):
highly recommend it because it was really good and I
want to watch it again and I might just watch
it again soon because I said Brent and Savannah did
such a great job as Aria and Lucas. So to
end this I had is that I would love to
hear your thoughts on the series, if you had any
favorite parts, if you had read the novel, and how
(17:42):
it compares to the series, whether or not you like
the series or the novel better, does it live up
to the series? Were you disappointed in the series at all?
And the other one was was there something different you
wish they could have done. This has been found by
Honor Real Short. I am your host, Meg, and this
has been my vertical obsession until next time.
Welcome to my vertical obsession. And today we are talking
about Bound by Honor on Real Short and this stars
Savannah Caffy as Aria and Rerent Wellington as Luca. So
the synopsis is trapped in an arranged marriage to the
cold and dangerous, seductive air of the New York Mafia Luca.
Eighteen year old shelter mafia princess from Chicago. Aria must
(00:22):
decide if surrendering her body and maybe her heart to
the man born of violence is her greatest betrayal or
her only chance at survival. So, like I said, had
been some of my other ones, I've done like a
little kind of character analysis for Maria and Luca. So
for Aria, we have a shy shelter girl who was
(00:43):
never allowed to date or do anything, thrown into a
marriage with a man she doesn't know, a man that's
known to be cruel. So of course she's scared because
she doesn't know what to expect and being thrown into
a life that could kill her. While she is scared,
she so refused to let this life break her down.
The more time she spends with Luca, the more she
(01:04):
sees a different side to him that he doesn't force
her and protects her from others. She sees he isn't
the beast everyone thinks he is. That beast is in
protection of those who matter. As she helps him open
himself up, she embraces the mafia queen inside herself. She
fights to stand by Luca's side and not be sidelined.
(01:24):
So she starts off being very shy and sheltered and
unknowing of what to expect being thrown into this marriage
with Luca, to slowly coming into herself and being more
confident and fighting back against Luca and his need to
sideline her to the point where she finally just embraces
this mafia queen role that she's been given. And I
(01:47):
really love seeing Savannah in these roles because she does
a really good job of playing that shy girl that
slowly comes into her own and becomes more confident and powerful.
So I really love when we get to see some
band and play those rules. I loved her as Aria
so much I was glad that it was her. As
for Luca, he is a ruthless mafia bas who doesn't
(02:09):
like when people touch what is his. He stands by
a rule of not hurting women. He was taught at
a young age to be cold and ruthless by his father,
but his mother's compassion left a mar Even after her death,
he acts like he doesn't care about Aria, but refuses
to let anyone touch her and hurt those who mess
with her. He also respects her boundaries of not wanting
(02:30):
to be intimate or having sex, waits for her to consent.
He would both kill and be killed for her. He
wants her to feel safe with him and with his touch,
and he continues to show her she is the one
he wants and she is perfect as she is. I
really kind of love that about his character. Even though
he's like this ruthless and dangerous mafia boss, he was
(02:52):
still very respectful of Aria, her boundaries, what she didn't want,
and he wasn't going to cross those. So I really
kind of like that. And also to the fact, like
I said, he cared about her and he loved her
as she was. That was another thing that was really
nice about him because he didn't try and change her.
He wanted her to stay the same person she always was.
(03:14):
He didn't want her to change for him. He didn't
want to try and change her. So I really kind
of like that. Aspect, and I know this is a
series that was adapted from a book, and I have
not read the book or the novel, and I know
there are plenty of fans out there that have read
it and can probably compare the two and tell whether
or not it was a good adaptation or not. Me
(03:36):
I sometimes like to separate adaptations because they're not always good.
And I think I've kind of mentioned this in the past,
like when I was talking about The Unwanted Bride of
Atticist Fond, because I know there are certain series out
there that just changed the story completely or take things
away and don't always follow the book or novel, so
(03:58):
I don't I can't say whether that this one does.
And going back to the actual point I was making
is it's why I kind of separate them from time
to time because to bring up an example, for once,
the movie The Last Song, which is a Nicholas Sparks book,
I had seen that one before I had read the book,
and when I read the book, I was so disappointed
(04:19):
that the whole story was basically completely changed. And I
think for that one, the script might have been written
before the actual novel was finished. I don't remember for sure,
but I just remember like how different those two were,
the book and the movie. I had never been more
upset by that one because I'm like, it changed so much.
(04:41):
Whereas if to bring up another Nicholas Sparks book, for
the most part, those are the ones that I know
off the top of my head, and I can say that, oh,
I've read those, and I've seen the movies, so for
like the Lucky Ones or the Lucky One, I think
that's what it actually is. I loved the book, I
also loved the movie. There is big differences between the two,
but I still love both of them just as separate entities,
(05:04):
even though it is like an adaptation, the same with
a Walk to Remember. They're completely different stories, but the
main story is the same. It's just the way the
movie adapted the story is different from the novel or book.
So I enjoy them both as different entities. But if
Bound by Honor is anything like this one, I will
(05:25):
definitely try and check it out and read it and
see different because yeah, because I've mentioned that with Candy Jar,
I know that for their series they have series that
they adapt a little bit different than the actual novel
or book on their novel app so adaptations tend to
change things basically, so I can't comment on that for
(05:45):
this particular one, but I would kind of be interested
to see what might have changed from the book to
the series. So now for this one, I wrote two
different things. One is just kind of like the overall
story that I had written thing where it's a story
of a girl forced into a marriage she didn't want
to protect her sister and family. Maria is believed that
(06:06):
she was given to a monster will only hurt her.
Only too fine, He's not the guy she thought he
was when it comes to her that he would do
anything to protect her, also to prove to her he
is not to be feared, but to be trusted, that
he is putting her safety and comfort first, even if
she can't always see it. He was taught to be cold,
(06:28):
but she found a way to soften him. She is
the one to open his heart and show him that
he is more than just a mafia boss. And I
think that's kind of like why I really enjoyed this
story is definitely the chemistry between Wrent and Savannah. They
had really good chemistry. He did a really good mafia boss.
I really truly believed in his Luca character, and he
(06:51):
always kind of like gave me this whole sense of
what are you going to do next? When I was
watching it, Even though you knew he was very respectful
of aria, I still kind of sat there going like, well,
he's a mafia boss, maybe he's going to change his
tune and be a little bit more vicious. But he
was never like that. And I think, going back to
(07:12):
one of the things I said about his characters, that
his mother's compassion kind of stayed with him. So that's
what made him very respectful of women, is the fact
that he still had that compassion from his mother, like
that side of his family that his father wasn't egal
to completely corrupt him into this killing, evil machine that
he wanted. So I really kind of liked that they
(07:34):
played off each other so well, and I wanted more.
Definitely wanted more as it continued. It was sad when
it ended. I was like, no, I need more of this,
So it was it was definitely a fun one to watch.
I know mafia stories in series can be a little
bit I want to say, tricky, but also repetitive too,
(07:55):
so I really kind of liked this one didn't follow
the norm, but again most I think because it was
an adaptation from a book, so I think that kind
of helped make it stand out from the normal Mafia
vertical series. So some of the things which I really
didn't have many with this one, it was just really two,
and they involved when Luca cut his hand and when
(08:19):
Luca was shocked. So when it came to the beginning,
when it was the wedding night between Aria and Luca
and Luca cut his hand, I happened to notice that
the cut vanished multiple times. And again I think this
stems from me noticing some of these things a little
bit more so, and I think I mentioned it once
before that that's more because I had studied production and
(08:43):
video editing, and ever since then I kind of picked
up and noticed things more than I used to. Let
me put it that way, there were sometimes when I
noticed out there things, but ever since studying production and
editing and doing my own editing, I've kind of picked
up on like these little mistakes every now and again.
And sometimes I don't have people to talk to about them,
(09:05):
and sometimes I just kind of mention them and or
I just keep them to myself, but I do happen
to notice them a lot more, and it doesn't take
away from the series or anything. Is just fun for
me to be like, oh, I totally notice that. But
it's also one of those things where I also go
on the back of my mind it's like, did they
do it like that because that was the better of
(09:26):
the shots or that flowed better for the scene type
of thing. So I kind of also have that question
in my brain too when I notice these, because I
know that can sometimes be a factor to why it's
like that, or I don't know if that can be
a thing, because I know sometimes when everything's done, they
do like pickup shots, so if they needed to reshoot
(09:47):
a scene or something like that, So I don't know
if that is a factor in it as well. But anyway,
so as I was saying that the scene after the
wedding where they're in the in the room where everyone's
waiting for them to have sex consummate the marriage, and
Luca cuts his hand to make it seem like they did,
I noticed every so often that when it cut to
(10:08):
him his the cut on his hand just wasn't there.
It would appear and then disappear, and it all depended
on how his hand was showing because there were times
where it's hand wasn't showing as much you would, but
you could still see it. It wasn't there other times
it was a little bit more prominent you could see it.
But I just noticed that from time to time that
(10:29):
it's just like it'll cut back to him and his
hand was up and you wouldn't there would be no
cut on his hand. But also that same cut kind
of vanished after a while too. I think it was
shown once more in what was supposed to be the
next day shot where he was like, well, you know,
I cut my hand for you, and they showed the wound,
but I think we never really saw the cut on
his hand again after that. And then the other one,
(10:51):
like I said, was when Luca was shot and he
just ended up kind of walking away from being shot
like it was nothing, Like he just got up and
was fun and nothing happened. And one of the things
that I had wrote down for this was like, oh, well,
you know, he's in the mafia, so he's probably been
shot multiple times, so that kind of makes it seem like, oh,
it was nothing, so he's good, he can walk away,
(11:12):
it's fine, But it just kind of doesn't make it
as realistic for me, at least if he's shot and
then he just gets up and walks away like oh yeah, fine,
we're good. It's just a scratch. And probably for a
character like him, I said, he might have been shot
multiple times, so it might have been just like, oh, well,
it didn't hit anything. I'm not bleeding uncontrollably, so I'm good.
(11:35):
We can move on. I kind of noticed that in
these verticals from time to time is that if a
character gets shot suddenly, it's not always a big deal.
In some of the series, yes they make it a
little bit more of a big deal, like it's a
bigger injury, but there are some that is just not
as big a deal. And I think the majority of
that time is mostly mafia or when a character's more
(11:58):
of a criminal might not be in the mafia, but
he's still slightly a criminal. So I think that kind
of gives us this sense like, oh, well, they've been
shot multiple times, so it's just nothing. So it's just
kind of something that I've noticed, and this was one
of those instants. It would have been nice if they
made it seem more of an issue, or maybe just
had him act a little bit more hurt by it.
(12:20):
But but again, I know they can only put so
much in because they have to keep the story at
a good pace and flowing, and they might not be
able to put everything in that they want to. That
could be it too. It was just one of the
things that I kind of noticed when watching the series.
So for the overall story that I had, I said,
the overall story was good, And like I said, I
(12:41):
know it was based off a novel by the same name,
and I probably will try and check out the novel
see the difference and how good it is, because it
seems to be a very popular novel. I'm not the
biggest reader. Sometimes, so bigger novels I want to read them,
but sometimes it takes longer. That's why I'm more of
a film adaptation and TV. I'm a visual person. I
(13:05):
liked seeing things come to life for me as they said.
I loved that even though Luca was ruthless, he didn't
hurt women. That even when Grace was bullying Aria, he
banished her and didn't hurt her. He never forced Aria
into sex. He let her decide. When they finally consummated
the marriage, he had some cruel moments about it, but
He never forced her into the act, which is always
(13:27):
really great to see in a series like this. Luca
lived by a code and his word, and he stepp
by it love. Aria wasn't just the shy night girl,
but fought back when she needed to. She didn't let
Luca sideline her, but fought to be next to him.
She wasn't going to let Luca be the cold monster
he'd always been, just as he showed her she was
(13:48):
worth it. She showed him he didn't need to keep
his walls up, that love was something he could do.
And as I had pointed out, they challenged each other.
They kind of helped each other grow as characters throughout
this whole journey. Aria helped him embrace love and be
kinder in his softer side, whereas Luca helped Aria become
(14:10):
this strong, independent mafia queen and not let anyone give
her a shit. So they definitely played off each other.
They helped each other become better people and characters. It
was really fun to see that growth and how that
all worked, and it was definitely really great to see
(14:30):
Aria wanting to help Luca and stand by his side
while he was trying to work as the mafia boss.
She wanted like her inputs and to help him and
didn't want to just sit there and wait for him
to come home. And I love that about her characters
that as it progressed and as he showed her to
(14:51):
stand up for herself, she managed to use that to
as as I've mentioned, become that mafia queen, to tell
him that I'm not just going to sit there and
let you do everything. I'm going to help. We're going
to do this together. We're in this together, and his
acceptance of that too. So I really enjoyed that for
this storyline. And this was definitely a really good storyline.
(15:14):
Characters were well developed, and if it's anything like the novel,
then it's a good novel because it really played well.
Sometimes the best stories and series are when characters start
off fighting or not feeling like they're good enough or
could be good enough too, slowly coming into their own
(15:34):
and growing and realizing that they are good enough. There
you can find love. They can find love with each other,
and when done right, it can be a really great series.
And that's what I feel this one was is it's
really good. Story was good, it made me want more.
I don't know if there are like sequels to this,
I think there are, but there might be other characters involved,
(15:55):
because I think when I looked it up there was
there was some sequels, but they might have been different
characters with the sequels, but I could be wrong. But
it did definitely make me want more, and I love
when when series do that, when they make me crave more,
Like go, why I don't want this to end? I
wanted to keep going. So for this one, I gave
it a rating of eight point five out of ten.
(16:17):
And I know that doesn't seem so high when it
comes to this one, especially since I loved it so much.
There were still some things that I didn't rate high enough,
because honestly, unless this series is motion picture good, don't
think i'd give any series a ten just because it
has to be like spectacular. So I mean, I did
(16:38):
give it high ratings, and like I said, it's based
off that added together and then divided by seven. And
sometimes I'm actually shocked by what number I get after
doing my rating calculations. I'm like, wait, really, that's that's
really what I'm giving it. But I'm trying to go
by this rating I've mentioned in the past. Character atmosphereic writing, plot, intrigue,
(17:01):
and likability. And I read those one to ten and
then add those oola up, divide it by seven, and
that's the rating that I get for the series. So
sometimes it does end up being a little bit lower,
but it does not reflect on how I like the
series or not. It's just the rating scale that I'm
trying to go by to give it a bit more
fair rating. But I did love this one and I
(17:22):
highly recommend it because it was really good and I
want to watch it again and I might just watch
it again soon because I said Brent and Savannah did
such a great job as Aria and Lucas. So to
end this I had is that I would love to
hear your thoughts on the series, if you had any
favorite parts, if you had read the novel, and how
(17:42):
it compares to the series, whether or not you like
the series or the novel better, does it live up
to the series? Were you disappointed in the series at all?
And the other one was was there something different you
wish they could have done. This has been found by
Honor Real Short. I am your host, Meg, and this
has been my vertical obsession until next time.
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