If there is one thing that I have learned in my life is that when watching any sort of drama, there will be things that happen that I will disagree with, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. If we’re talking about To Romeo, With Love, I would tell you that I enjoyed a large part of the series, but there is one thing that I absolutely hated.
Hated so much that I found it offensive.
Hated so much that I was taken out of the series and offended.
I will be very honest – if you’re sitting down to watch To Romeo, With Love, please understand that the synopsis doesn’t tell you everything. It doesn’t actually prep you for anything that is about to happen, and both the anger and the happiness that you may feel.
Also, the disgust.
It’s a story that actually feels like verticals answer to A Walk To Remember. However, we’re not talking about a preacher’s daughter here. Mason and Penelope have been besties for a long time. They’ve lived next door to each other forever and have seen each other through the best and worst of times.
Penelope was there for Mason when his Mom passed from cancer. She’s been the person that he could count on. The two have a solid friendship – one that a lot of people envy. But when faced with the biggest shift that the two may ever face, it’s the push and pull that keeps this story moving forward.
The two have fallen in love over the years, even if it is the one thing that neither one of them wants to admit to each other. It’s her love for Mason that makes her want to protect him and shield him from everything that could hurt him.
I think it’s interesting in vertical dramas, we’re always dealing with a lot of people who think that lies of omission are what can make everything okay. They chalk it up to lies of omission, and that is protecting someone else. I also think that in this, they are protecting themselves.
Penelope, though, I can’t blame her for wanting to keep her cancer diagnosis under wraps. As a teenager, I would never have let that out. No matter the age, if my best friend experienced his mom’s passing from cancer, I would never want him to experience that pain again. But in that protection, I do also get that I would be denying my best friend time.
Because isn’t that what a lot of life is? Time. We’re always looking for time to spend with others and time to create what memories we can with others. Time is a thief, and trying to get it back will be one of the trickiest things. Why? Because it isn’t something that you can get back, and you’re being delusional if you think you can reclaim it. So yes, it’s tricky because you have to judge people’s delusions.
And you also have to judge people’s pain. What about time can increase or take away people’s pain?
As Penelope does her battle with push and pull, and giving Mason time, I have to think that she’s taking something from herself, and I hate that for her. As she gets sicker and sicker, it gets harder to push Mason away. He’s fighting harder and harder to stay.
Mason doesn’t see that something is really happening to her and accepts all of her excuses as to why it’s happening. Every time she pushes him away, he keeps coming back. He loves her, and loving her means that he’s filled with forgiveness for her. I think that one of the most beautiful things about their relationship is that they never forget the love that they have for each other.
She wants to just do one thing before she passes – star in Romeo and Juliet with him. Of course, there is the girl who likes Mason and is determined to make Penelope’s life miserable. She tortures her and brings her little minions along to help her do just that to Penelope.
What killed me was that Valerie – the girl who is the spawn of the devil – tried to shame Penelope in front of everyone and tell the school that she’s a victim, not Penelope. It pained me to see her act as though Penelope had done something wrong and that the only reason Mason cared at all about Penelope was that she had cancer. It took me out of the whole situation.
And it made me angrier than I have ever been.
Sometimes verticals take it too far. I get that there is a formula, and I understand that. But what I also understand is that there needs to be a line that isn’t crossed, and this whole thing should have been a line that wasn’t crossed. Valerie’s whole thing wasn’t needed. There was plenty of other drama in the series that kept a person engaged.
Now, all of that being said, if I removed Valerie from the entire thing, it would be a lot better. The relationship that these two have – Mason and Penelope – would have been enough.
His figuring out that she has cancer and being there for her – well, that was the sweetest part. These parts of the series, as well as the chemistry between Christopher Quartuccio and Cayla Brady are what make this series what it is.
But it’s the final scene that will destroy you. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
