The "container" for Chance to Love, the sequel to Love by Chance is family dysfunction.
Hints of the family dysfunction occur in the first season. The second season starts the Can-Tin romance over, softening some of their confrontations but seriously ramping up the family problem.
And it is very smart writing, very nearly meriting all thirteen episodes.
The first smart issue is that the two brothers are messed up without being evil.
Tul and Tin were not physically abused, but they were pitted against each other by the grandmother and the second mother. That is, both young men have emotional and psychological hang-ups; neither is particularly trusting of, well, anyone.
But they have no blueprint for how to behave instead (so the son/nephew is somewhat spoiled--until Can comes along). The psychology is quite intelligent here: children from dysfunctional households may know "Well, that didn't work" but without outside families or role models to provide a counter, they lack the answering "Well, here's what to do instead."
In fact, when Tin begins to court ("hit on" in his parlance) Can, he states outright, "I don't know how to [court] you." Years earlier, Tul married the woman he got pregnant--and lost the love of his life. Tin's relationships tend to end before they get started. So neither brother is exactly aces when it comes to dating and relationships.
Hence, the amusing and insightful sequence in Season 1 where Tin meets Can's mother and sister--with whom Can has a good relationship. A bright guy, Tin immediately begins to adopt the mother and sister's behavior patterns. His attitude towards Can alters at this point as he realizes that it is possible to challenge Can--without being adversarial--and Can will respond positively, even reassess his positions (Can is very much a live-in-the-present kind of guy).
In Season 2, without this initial meeting, Tin takes longer to mirror Can's blueprint of behaviors. And he falters, such as the first time Can receives misinformation about Tin from Tul. When Can asks him about the misinformation, Tin throws up his hands in a move that reminded me of Chandler's reaction to Chandler and Monica's first fight on Friends: "We had a disagreement. Okay, the relationship is over!" Can chases him down and yells at him. He wants an explanation. He believes Tin. Once he gets the explanation, he will continue to believe Tin.
The second smart psychology writing move is the father's misreading of his sons.
Because he lost the first wife, whom he loved, and had to marry again for family reasons, the father assumes that he is doing Tin, the second son by the second wife, a favor by leaving him to his own devices. He understands his sons to a point but not substantively. So he believes that family-oriented Tul benefits from his position in the company and maverick Tin benefits from being pushed away to do his own thing.
He has miscalculated and his speech at the end, partly to Can and mostly to Tin, is heart-breaking. He has produced two incredibly unhappy sons. He wants to set things right. He doesn't know how--
So he trusts Can's analysis of the family dynamics and puts the matter into Tin's hands, relying on Tin's fundamentally moral nature to clear away all the brush. And Tin does--in his own way and after piecing together multiple memories, some buried in Tin's childhood.
The psychology here is also quite insightful. Tin and Tul are at odds, mostly due to Tul's actions (though not entirely). Tin has little reason to trust him. However, Tul's flailing about (which takes the form of lashing out in calculatingly cruel ways) is entirely based in his longing for the lover who will keep him balanced. Hey, Tin can relate! The brothers have, at least, one thing in common.
Tul gets his lover back (when his wife divorces him to marry someone else) and Tin gets to be his father's right-hand man. The series' ending is entirely believable: Tul brings his new family to join Tin and Can at the seaside while the final scene shows Tin and Can spending time alone after Tin's recent return from an overseas trip for the family business. The sons have obtained what they desired and what best fits their personalities. The best psychology, of course, is that repairing the family dysfunction dovetails with Can and Tin's successful relationship. Tin is drawn to Can immediately for Can's honesty.
That honesty isn't mere truthfulness or even (merely) a belligerent pronouncement of opinions. Unworldly Pete is truthful and Tin was never truly interested in Pete, no matter what he said (however, the fact that Tin is friends with Pete indicates that he values certain traits). On the other side, Can's confrontational reactions only get him so far. More usefully, Can not only says what he thinks, he revises what he thinks while he is talking.
Can values consistency, evidence, and moral action, and he tries hard to bring himself into alignment with those values--out loud. Tin consequently has absolute proof that Can has no other agenda. I discuss the Can-Tin relationships more in Better in Fiction Than in Real Life: The Mean Lover.
In sum, although Chance to Love is considerably lower key than many other Thai dramas (soap operas), the "container" for the romance is robust enough to carry the series.
Okay, sure, I still think it could be cut.
But not by much.
