TV's Greatest Relationships Live on Love Island
Summer TV is, at best, a gamble. While we wait for the likes of The Good Place to triumphantly return from their seasonal slumbers, we need something to bridge the gap between standard TV seasons. I can't think of a better show to watch while you hide from the sun than the new season of Love Island (U.K. edition), which, I kid you not, features some of the most beautiful and wholesome relationships you'll find on the entire small screen.
Last year, the show fully broke into the American culture landscape, and with good reason: It's addictive and trashy, yeah, but overall it's incredibly satisfying television. Other writers have crafted introductions and explainers to the show better than I ever could, but the salient details are these: The show begins with five women and six men thrown into a gaudy Spanish villa and forced, immediately, to form couples that complete challenges and share beds together. Some of these will turn romantic, some will be chaste alliances while the contestants wait it out for someone more their "type" to be added to the show. Periodically—approximately once per week—there is a "recoupling" ceremony, in which either the women or the men must decide who to "couple up" with. It's all very fast-paced and fraught for a show purporting to help people "find love" but the thing is: it works.
Not in the traditional sense, obviously. Literally every couple from last year's edition has broken up by now, their partnerships lost to the sands of time and old Instagram photos they forgot they were still tagged in together. But despite the format, despite the fact contestants are allowed to say "fuck," despite the show's implied encouragement (and airing of) mostly hand stuff, Love Island manages, year after year, to bring some of the most wholesome, if short-lived, relationships to the small screen.
Its closest relative in the U.S. (besides the actual U.S. edition of Love Island, which just began airing and is still finding its feet) is probably ABC's Bachelor in Paradise, which is overproduced with more of a focus on "sexiness." The temporarily naturalized citizens of Love Island are sexy, too, as TV requires, but the hands-off, frugal approach to reality TV that Love Island producers subscribe to helps the couplings (and break-ups) feel more organic.
Not only that, but this is a show, above all, about watching the kind of people we think we "love to hate" get slowly acquainted with feelings and concepts not normally experienced by Instagram influencers in their early 20s. Humility, hardship, and rejection crash against these fragile souls with the all the impact of your first high school crush starting to date your best friend. This year alone Lucie, a professional surfer and one of the most beautiful women in her majesty's United Kingdom, staggered through various ill-advised couplings before deciding her future was with Tommy, a very dumb, very hot boxer with a heart of gold. He let her down gently, happily coupled as he is at the moment, leaving Lucie to somewhat short-circuit within the confines of the villa for a few days before leaving for good. To these infallibly-sculpted people, rejection must feel like some kind of prank; that their expressing desire in a forward, healthy way and it not yielding immediate, sexy results must be some kind of clerical error. Scottish housemate Anton seems to be under this impression, too, having spent weeks being relegated to "great friend" material by every new arrival, yet expecting the next one to finally be the girl for him, regardless. He has the mind of a goldfish, does Anton, and I will protect him with my life.
Aforementioned boxer Tommy and Mollie-Mae seem to have this season in the bag thanks to their ridiculously well-matched, adorably uncomplicated personalities. I can't get this clip of Tommy invoking Shrek to ease Mollie's concerns about their doubters out of my mind:
Nevertheless, the real love on Love Island, to borrow a phrase, is the friends we make along the way. Battle lines are quite firmly drawn between the girls and boys, but there's not a whiff of homophobia about the homosocial alliance of the lads, who frequently gossip on a swinging chair and give each other massages to while away the hours. Similarly, the girls lounge on beanbags and objectify their own (and others') partners while they work out, trading compliments on each other's taste. This is a ditzy, heteronormative show to be sure, but you'll be hard pressed to find a "reality" dating show with hornier women and bitchier men.
It's still a competition, though, and as lovely as these peaceful moments are to indulge in, drama still reigns. Love Island punishes nothing as harshly as it does letting your guard down, and for as many islanders endear themselves to the public, just as many are outright villains who find themselves subject to the arbitrarily-arranged challenges, eliminations, and twists devised by the producers. Need to sow discord among several happy couples daydreaming their way to the finish line? There's, in all likelihood, a chap for that.
Originally Appeared on GQ
