JerePete: How this Beach Bros Side Couple Captured Our Hearts in 2022

LGBTQ Philippines

2023-02-20
09:32

Last year, Beach Bros released on the streaming service iWantTFC over the course of 6 episodes and gained a respectable following in its home country of the Philippines.

The titular Beach Bros, consisting of Dave, played by Kyle Echarri, his cousin Billy, played by Lance Justin Carr, Jason, played by Brent Manalo, Pete, played by Raven Rigor, and lastly Jeremy, played by Sean Tristan, a group of young boys from the beachside town of Baler who have been friends since childhood. Joined by the wonderfully talented Chie Filomeno, who plays Nicole, Angelica Lao, who plays Yasmine, and Kira Balinger, who plays Erika, this coming-of-age story has our cast of characters struggling with romance, worrying about their lives after high school, and navigating familial relationships all while being faced with mystery and danger after Dave encounters a mysterious tourist at a party.

Beach Bros is not a BL series and does not pretend to be. The series’ primary couple consists of Dave and Nicole, and their exciting dynamic is made even more intriguing by the air of mystery around Nicole. The series also chooses to focus more on the friendship of the five Beach Bros and how much this group of friends has grown to love and trust each other over their years growing up together. However, this series has a BL side plot revolving around two of the friend group members: Pete and Jeremy.

In each friend group, people will naturally be closer to some friends than others. For Pete and Jeremy, that would be each other. Little does Jeremy know, however, that Pete’s feelings for him are a little more than platonic. Played by Raven Rigor and Sean Tristan respectively, collectively known as SeVen, this pairing displayed electrifying chemistry and would make excellent use of the spotlight whenever the camera was on them. With clips of these characters’ conversations going viral on social media, it’s hard to deny the audience’s appeal. One particularly iconic scene was Jeremy, a novice vlogger, asking Pete to do a compatibility test with him for his channel, resulting in Pete getting flustered thinking about it and fumbling over his words, while another would be the duo exchanging friendly banter about the possibility of leaving Baler for the urban city life of Manila while working at a local hotel.

Another part of their story is Pete’s struggle with his own sexual orientation and the fear of how others will react once they know the truth. This very real storyline gave viewers a glimpse into the struggles of closeted LGBT people, especially in conservative countries like the Philippines, which only made the character even more loveable. That’s enough spoilers, though! If you want to know more, you’ll have to watch the series for yourself.

This lovely couple was a definite highlight of this series and it’s clear as day that Sean and Raven work excellently together on-screen. Who knows, perhaps a future JerePete spin-off or a new series with them cast as leads could be on the way? Until then, they will be remembered as the two boys who stole viewers’ hearts with their undeniable charm.

Sources: (1) (2)