The best way to describe this series is to define it in terms of a psychological disorder. It is schizophrenic. It has all the symptoms of this condition. It is befuddling, full of mood swings, capricious, shows severe personality changes, weird periods of agitation with obvious emotional disorders as well, and psychological instability throughout. I could go on, but you get the point. It is not tethered to thinking, operating, or behaving clearly. The story is an incoherent mess yet sometimes just a lot of fun to watch. It was entertaining for some time but then lost its direction in the end as it did not seem to know how to conclude the story.

There is so much to unpack in this series, honestly. There are side stories to side stories that needed explanation, for which we were not given. One review would not be enough to dissect this series.

Simply, this is a saga about a relationship between the male heir of a sardine company owner from Zamboanga, Philippines and a fisherman. THAT alone would have made a great story. Given the dynamics and nuances of Filipino culture and its rich ethos, just this premise alone could have been an absorbing and enchanting story. Yet there seemed to be a need to convolute the story into a mess that not only was ugly, it became morally challenging and deeply flawed ethically. Unfortunately, the telling of the story got so deep into the weeds that it lost sight of what it was truly after. It decided to meander through the obfuscations of the relationship between Kyle (Sebastian Sy), the heir, and the fisherman, Andres (Justine Kelly Sese).

From the beginning, the story presented Kyle as an untrustworthy, flippant individual who is shallow, a milquetoast with no moral or ethical compass or backbone. And he continues so throughout this series. Time and again, he remains a dishonest individual who is afraid to be himself and succumbs to the darker side of his inner demons and blames it all on being a ‘flawed human’. He is disingenuous. Thus, Kyle decides to run away from Manila and escape to Zamboanga to his father’s home. Their familial relationship is quite strained, unsurprisingly. Kyle is incapable of acting and being an adult while his father is equally incapable of acting and being a parent.

Since Kyle’s natural mother was the one who started the fishing business, the father asks him to finally take over. Reluctantly, Kyle decides that he will but wants to know more about the process of the industry. (Mainly as an avoidance and escape from responsibilities in Manila). Therefore, Kyle does a stint of the fishing boat named Hermoso, which in Spanish means ‘Beautiful’. (The Philippines was a colony of Spain for some time and the Spanish influence in the Philippines is woven into who they are).

While on board, he falls hard for a fisherman named Andres. Initially although it certainly appears as if they are not compatible, it does not take long for them to fall in love. Andres, being the more trusting, and frankly gullible, falls deeply in love. To the point that he breaks off a relationship with a woman he has agreed to marry who carries a child that is NOT his. Yet, he has agreed to be the father. If there is one individual in this series who deserves an award for being the most altruistic individual in a series, it is certainly Andres. Because of his kindness, humanity, and compassion, he has promised to be in a marriage that he does not really want and succumbed to a man who defiled the sanctity of what integrity is and what the meaning of honesty stands for. I have seen some sad figures in BLs, but none frankly more undermined and rueful than Andres. Truly heroic and noble, he is an honorable individual. Open, honest, and completely giving of himself. He represents pure love if one could truly define love in human form.

There is very, very good screen chemistry between Sebastian Sy and Justine Sese. In terms of ‘acting’, both these young men, besides being deliciously handsome, do a commendable job of portraying the characters of Kyle and Andre in a light that gave them depth and considerable intensity. I also completely accepted their romantic development and their relationship. Only from the perspective of what was being projected, however. Andre was real; Kyle was not. He was immature and pretending to be righteous. His whole life has been posturing. While Kyle does on occasion rise to the occasion to do the ‘right thing’, he soon slips back into a mode of behavior that he cannot help himself dissolve into. Unfortunately, he is one of those gay individuals who used his gayness to never want to grow up and accept responsibilities for his own shortcomings. If Kyle had simply told the truth from the beginning and dealt with it maturely, perhaps so much would have been different….

Unfortunately, this story concentrates on the ugliness of relationships. Kyle had a previous relationship in Manila with Bill (Gian Carl) that was blisteringly toxic and sick. Rather than deal with it honestly and in an adult manner, he runs away from it. Only for it to catch up with him and envelop him again into more toxicity in Zamboanga. Kyle is simply incapable of learning or changing. And in that weakness, he has damaged and hurt a lot of people in return. Kyle’s father is also a toxic individual who proves to be as homophobic as Kyle thought he would be. Bill is not only immoral, but he is also sociopathic as well. I am sorry to say that Andre’s supposed girlfriend is also among these unscrupulous individuals. I had no sympathy for her. She too would see that a miserable life for Andre is a fair exchange for her justification for marrying him to provide for a child that was not his, rather than her also being an adult and going after the real father. None of that makes or made any sense to me. These are just some of the individuals who I found to be despicable.

There is a plethora of other characters in this series. Lots of eye-candy and scenes close to soft-porn as well. All well done as a matter of fact and are not only a part of the story but also part of the reality of living on a boat. However, I am sure some will take offense. However, who really stands out for me in this series is Kylie Roxas as Pedra. While Pedra is male, she projects herself as a female and has for a very long time. And is thought of in society as ‘female’. Pedra and Kyle have been friends since early times, and she knows that Kyle is gay. However, she keeps that to herself. While she works at the fishing company, she has managed to shield Kyle from his father’s wrath for years and does so even now. Being Kyle’s protector and confident, Pedra has also tried to steer him into making more logical and adult decisions that, for the most part, have gone unheeded. Of course, she is not without her flaws as well. For the sake of the friendship with Kyle, she tends to be talked into doing unscrupulous undertakings for Kyle. Meanwhile, she also develops a quasi-relationship with Joshwell (Justine Lascano), another fisherman that is not only realistic and frank but later turns sour because she simply does not completely want to be or act like a woman sexually. Kylie’s projection of Pedra is just fascinating. It was hard to imagine him as male as he projected being a female so convincingly that I had a hard time believing otherwise. It is both fascinating and unexpected. I thought one of the highlights of this series was their relationship and did not expect their sexual encounter to be so upfront and straightforward. This series is worth watching simply because of how that confrontation between Joshwell and Pedra is handled. Admittedly, Justine Lascano as Joshwell is convincing and brutally honest, even with his intoxicating boyish charm and good looks. He is comfortable being a young man always horny. That is immensely refreshing and palpable; his focus is fulfilling his sexual needs and lust. It clashes with the more mature nature and focus of Pedra. While brief, it is the first time I have seen this topic even remotely hinted let alone actually shown.

While I do not want to give the ending away, it is unquestionably ludicrous. The story began to unravel and flounder when Kyle leaves the Hermoso. It lost its way and frankly began to drone on too long. Finally in the last episode, everything is wrapped up in a not-so-neat ending. While I am NOT a fisherman, I am a realist. There is no way, without giving too much away, that ANY boat, especially in the Philippines, would go out to sea in a typhoon. Not for money or love. Not even because the story called for it. Frankly, the ending simply destroyed the credibility of this series. No one would have taken those actions. No one. It completely lost its frame-of-reference. It is an unsavory ending, and the editing simply drops off the story entirely! It is as if the story fell off a cliff. Recently, the production added a Special Episode that wrapped up some loose-ends of the series in a rather ridiculously saccharine fashion. Did it resolve the main predicament? It does in a rather absurd fashion leaving, I am guessing, the door open to a Season 2.

This series started out so promising. And I enjoyed a goodly portion of it. The screenplay and directing did them all wrong. The development of the relationship between Andre and Kyle on Hermoso was heartily entertaining and rather sensually done. Frankly, Justine Kelly Sese and Sebastian Sy are a hot and erotic couple together. Their love-making scenes were not only quite sensuous, but they were also steamy and racy. (And in my opinion, it was refreshing to see shades of eroticism again in a BL). The machination of the relationship between Joshwell and Pedra was titillating, if not downright erogenous, and, if fully developed as a secondary couple, would have been ground-breaking. Unfortunately, it was not. It just seemed to have abruptly ended.

This series IS entertaining – for a while. I would recommend you watch it until Kyle returns to Zamboanga from his stint on the Hermoso. Yes, I know that is unrealistic, but you may be disappointed with the rest of the series after that point. Why not end it on a high note? I wish I had.

Rating- 3 out of 5

Streaming on- Oxin YouTube Channel