I have a lot of trouble rating this series. I think it did some things okay, dropped the ball on some, made some really poor choices on some things and tried to talk about rarely discussed topics. However, the series as a whole lacked focus in a big way which resulted in it not doing any of the things it was trying to do particularly well.

Playboyy attempted to be dark and edgy by dealing with the sex industry, for which I applaud it. However, there were too many moving parts. Some people had a problem with the sheer size of the cast and felt they could not connect or understand many characters as a result. I didn't share that issue, personally. However, the show simultaneously tried to have a murder mystery, a commentary on the sex industry, commentary on drug use/addiction and how that can overlap with said sex industry, the reality of being gay in a society where discrimination for being part of a sexual minority is the norm, power dynamics, grooming/sexual abuse, and normalization/acceptance of different types of sex and sexualities. I'll address what was supposed to actually be the plot of the series last.

The focus on the sex industry only felt present in the beginning of the series. We see the main sex worker characters all get out of the profession for the most part. Soong does this back and forth dance with continuing sex work and having his relationship with First, Ultimately the relationship wins over the sex work and while I give them some credit showing his struggle to make money in legitimate ways this portrayal feels so inauthentic and unrealistic. We have no idea what happens with Teena. At the start of the series there's a sense of Zouey being a sort of mark and him planning to continue to work as a sex worker like the rest but ultimately he just become's Zouey's boyfriend. Jump keeps up the sex work as much as he can until he's blackmailed by Porsche. They could have done a lot with this pair and how sex workers can be taken advantage of so easily without any protections or recourse, but they didn't. We never see sex work from Prom's perspective. Phop is saved from sex work by Nuth by becoming a drug dealer. Again, this could have been a very interesting thread to explore but the writers failed to do so. That leaves Aob and Puen, who characters who are relegated to the backburner much of the series.

The plot line of First abusing sex workers at Playboyy would have been great to focus on more if the writers actually wanted to talk about how sex workers are abused because they are seen as disposable and without any way of stopping said abuse. Especially when Zouey gets pissed at him and points out Soong used to be one of them and yet First chose to treat people in that same industry that way. However, aside from Aob threatening First and Keen taking Puen when he's injured from First's paid abuse, this is all brushed under the rug.

The most we really get about sex workers or the sex industry is a) how it makes relationships difficult with what I am going to call normies and b) competition for clients. The treatment of both of these lines of discussion feels shallow and cheap.

The drug angle is almost incidental to both the sex work thread and the murder mystery thread. It feels like it is there mostly to give us a legitimate means by which we can bring down our villain. In the very last episode we get some discussion of trying to get out of that line of work and how to survive without it, but of course this isn't really explored. The drug trade is mostly used as a catalyst for Nant's problems which lead to the supposed plot of the series.

Adjacent to sex worker thread we have the illegal sex tape trade angle. This is predominantly explored through Captain and his private facebook group. Adjacent to this is Nant, who was supplying Captain with material for that group. We do get some repercussions from this. Keen is initially expelled because a video Captain posted (and recorded) without his consent is sent to the university. Keen is initially very angry with Captain. But, again, this is all brushed under the rug with Keen seemingly forgiving Captain because he loves him. (I cannot roll my eyes any harder at this.) Yes, there is some underhanded work on Keen's end that gets his place in the university back and gets Captain kicked out instead but that video is never posted for the public.

The sex tape trade then connects into the rugby team and the homophobia we see there. I will say, the politics of the rugby team in terms of their homophobia and hazing was decent but it was a pretty small part of things overall. However, this does feed into showing the realities of being gay in a society where it is not acceptable. These guys can haze and bully anyone they think is gay and get away with it just fine. (I have a suspicion they are the ones who sent the video of Keen to the Dean or whoever. Captain jumps through hoops to prove his straightness to them to avoid bullying and willingly throws Keen to the wolves to save himself from them. Beyond this, we don't get much on trying to be gay in a largely homophobic or at least unaccepting society. I could point to First's father but his objections to Soong and First seem to be rooted in the type of sex they enjoy and Soong's position as a sex worker, not necessarily because First is with another man.

The abuse in the series (Porsche's abuse of Jump; First's abuse of the guys at Playboyy; Jason's abuse of Porsche, Zouey and Aob; the revenge abuse we sort of see in that edited episode from Jump to Porsche and from First to Soong; that insanely out of character moment when Teena ignores Zouey withdrawing consent; Captain recording Keen and Tutor/Jump without consent and posting it; Captain's abuse of Nant and Zouey -- yes the bullying and manipulation is abuse; probably more I'm overlooking right now) is almost all completely glossed over. Teena has some consequences, Jump gets revenge on Porsche, Keen breaks things off temporarily with Captain, Jason gets outed for abusing Porsche and First gets threatened by Aob. Yep, that's it. That's all we get.

I think Zouey as a survivor of rape was well done at the beginning of the series and I think Korn actually handled that character really well. However, his character ultimately seems to fall into the "love fixes trauma" trope which I despise. Knowing now why he didn't want to have sex, Teena ignoring his withdrawing of consent and the sort of quick turnaround from anxiety (near panic attacks) at the idea of trying to have sex with someone to out of nowhere wanting to do it feels so cheap. This may be how things go for some survivors, but it feels like they wanted an easy answer to something that was much more deep and difficult than they thought it would be when they started that plot line.

As much as this series tried to make "deviant" sex (mostly kink related) okay, it also never reprimanded Captain who pushed the idea that Nant and Zouey needed to have sex. In some ways we see critique in that in Nant's fall but that's it really. The depiction of kink is what I expect of young teenagers just learning what kink is for the first time. I have zero problem with characters being into sadomasochistic sex, roleplay, power dynamics or bondage (the main kinks I recall from this series), but this is a caricature of kink at best. First comes off as a little boy with tantrums being indulged. Every sex scene between First and Soong was so cringy that I don't know what they were trying to accomplish with it. What we see between Prom and Nant or Nont is done much, much better than what we see from First and Soong.

I absolutely despise the "I like kink but can't control it, I'm a monster" thread they broke out with First. Just...what? That's right up there with portrayals of people who like kink being abuse survivors who just need to heal and then they won't "need" kink anymore. This adds to the feeling of First just being a brat with a tantrum, to be honest. And they never address it. He spirals for a couple episodes, abuses the hell out of people and justifies it by paying them to be abused (abused, this wasn't bdsm/kink). And then he gets Soong back so it's okay because HIS Dom is the only person who can keep him in line? I don't know because that entire thread abruptly drops once he has his Daddy back (they may not have a Daddy/baby boy dynamic but it sure as hell feels like it in some ways). Overall, it feels like the writers don't know anything about the kink community or how people who are part of that lifestyle participate in it. Did they just watch 50 Shades of Grey and then try to apply it to these characters?

The plot. Oh gods, the plot. I'm pretty sure the writers forgot they were supposed to have one for much of the writing of this series. As I said before, they had no idea what they wanted this series to be. Perhaps because they were given space to make a more mature, darker series they tried to stuff it full of all the things they wanted to make a series about and got lost and overwhelmed in the process. The actual plot about Nant wasn't terrible, it just wasn't there for most of the series. It went in unnecessary circles considering how convoluted they decided to make it. They took too many episodes to start the actual murder mystery plot and stuffed things in at the end which should have been in the middle of the series.

This was clearly written with the intention of a second season, which is why they stuffed important plot points into the last episode (many after the credits) and didn't worry about wandering off on other tangents whenever they wanted. However, as a result, what they gave us isn't good enough to warrant a second season. Another season would likely be just as messy, disjointed and poorly handled as the first. Maybe worse. Okay, likely worse.

(plot discussion below)