Only Friends: Dream On Review — When the Stage Is Set for Chaos and You Absolutely Love It

Thai BL drama | GMMTV 2026 | 12 Episodes | One31 / GagaOOLala / GMMTV YouTube

Photo Credit: https://mydramalist.com/photos/mOXgDQ_4

There’s a specific kind of drama that doesn’t just entertain you — it unsettles you in the best possible way. It makes you put your phone down at 1 a.m., stare at the ceiling, and ask yourself what exactly you just watched. Only Friends: Dream On, GMMTV’s 2026 standalone sequel to the beloved Only Friends (2023), is exactly that kind of show.

It’s messy, it’s theatrical, it’s emotionally bruising — and I could not look away.

What Is Only Friends: Dream On About?

Set in a university arts department, Dream On drops us into a world where drama, dance, and music students are tangled in a production of Romeo & Romeo — and honestly, the performance happening offstage is far more gripping than anything on it.

The central web involves:

• Jack and Dean — an ex-couple forced into proximity when Jack directs Dean in the lead role, while Dean manipulates his younger stepbrother Rome to push Raffy out of the picture.
• Rome and Raffy — the slow-burn pairing caught in the crossfire of Dean’s scheming, navigating trust, jealousy, and the very complicated question of whether love can survive being weaponized.
• Tua and Arnold — the sweet, slightly quieter couple offering a friends-to-lovers breath of fresh air amid all the toxicity.

The series stars Pirapat Watthanasetsiri (Earth), Sahaphap Wongratch (Mix), Way-Ar Sangngern (Joss), Gawin Caskey, Thanaboon Kiatniran (Aou), and Tharatorn Jantharaworakarn (Boom), with Neo (Trai Nimtawat) reprising his role from the original series.

The Elephant in the Room: Living Up to Season One

Let’s be honest — Only Friends (2023) set an extraordinarily high bar. It arrived like a grenade thrown into the polished, wholesome world of Thai BL: raw, morally complicated, sexually frank, and almost aggressively real. Three years later, people are still talking about Boston. That alone tells you something.

So how does Dream On measure up?

Compared to the drama and spiciness of the first season, it’s somewhat lacking — but seen as its own show, it’s messy enough to be genuinely entertaining. That’s actually a fair way to frame it. Expecting a carbon copy of season one’s chaos would set you up for disappointment. What Dream On offers instead is a different flavor of messy — one rooted in artistic ambition, ego, and the particular cruelty that people who love each other can inflict.

What Dream On Gets Absolutely Right

The Standout Couple: Rome and Raffy (Aou & Boom)

This is where the show truly earns its keep. The star couple who stole scenes every time they appeared was Aou and Boom — they did a terrific job and were one of the main reasons to keep watching.

Aou brings an unexpected magnetism to Rome — a character who begins as a pawn in someone else’s game but slowly, quietly becomes the emotional anchor of the entire series. Boom’s Raffy is volatile and vulnerable in equal measure, which makes every reconciliation feel genuinely earned rather than convenient.

Mix’s Performance as Jack

This is the performance of the season. Mix ate everyone up. That’s not hyperbole. Jack is a director who is simultaneously controlling, broken, in denial, and achingly human — and Mix navigates every contradictory layer with the kind of quiet precision that makes you forget you’re watching acting.

The JackDean Dynamic

Toxic is an overused word, but Jack and Dean are its poster children — and that’s the point. Joss Way-Ar and Gawin Caskey portray complicated emotions with real depth, especially in the more emotional and confrontational scenes, bringing their characters to life in a way that feels genuine. Their history bleeds into every interaction. You don’t root for them. You can’t look away from them. There’s a difference.

The OST

Thai BL has always understood the power of a good soundtrack, and Dream On is no exception. One of the strongest elements is the OST, especially “No One Can” by Gawin Caskey — raw, haunting, and incredibly memorable, capturing the emotional tension of the series so perfectly that it feels like an extension of the characters’ inner worlds.

Where It Falls Short

The Pacing Problem

Here’s where I’ll be honest with you: the middle stretch of Dream On loses momentum. After starting strong, the messiness was still present but not as strong as expected, with certain issues being handled too quickly — giving it the feel of more conventional BL dramas rather than the bold, sustained drama of the original.

It’s like watching a theatrical production where Act 2 doesn’t quite live up to the explosive first act. The bones are there. The talent is there. But the pacing occasionally lets the tension bleed out before it can boil.

Tua and Arnold’s Arc

I wanted to love this couple more than I did. They’re sweet, genuinely so — a palate cleanser between the heavier storylines. But their friends-to-lovers journey is a breath of fresh air, even if this pairing also has the weakest acting among the six main leads. They function more as a tonal counterpoint than as a compelling narrative in their own right.

The Villain Doesn’t Suffer Enough

Without spoiling specifics: the main antagonist this season wasn’t dealt with to full satisfaction — the situation was resolved, but the character didn’t face adequate consequences. For a show that prides itself on consequences mattering, this feels like an uncharacteristic soft landing.

Boston’s Return and the Shared Universe

One of the most quietly satisfying elements of Dream On is how it handles continuity. It was nice catching up with characters from Only Friends, especially Boston, who appears to have turned over a new leaf — no longer the character audiences knew and loved (and loved to hate) from the first season.

Seeing Boston choose differently — without the show making a big speech about it — is the kind of character development that rewards long-time fans without alienating newcomers.

Should You Watch Only Friends: Dream On?

Yes — with calibrated expectations.

If you come in expecting a beat-for-beat recreation of season one’s anarchic energy, you’ll leave underwhelmed. But if you approach Dream On as a companion piece — a story set in the same emotional universe, exploring different textures of desire and damage — you’ll find something genuinely worth your time.

The performances are strong. The music stays with you. Rome and Raffy will break your heart in the best possible way. And the theatrical setting gives the whole thing a self-aware quality — these characters know they’re performing, on stage and off it, which adds a layer of meaning that the show earns.

If you enjoy relationship-focused dramas with great acting and memorable music, this is absolutely worth watching.

Only Friends: Dream On is available on GagaOOLala, OneD, and the GMMTV official YouTube channel. 12 episodes, completed May 2026.

Did this review help you decide whether to watch? Drop a comment — I’d love to know which couple wrecked you the most.

By: Kenuuu