I’ve been somewhat proud of the fact that I’ve never watched an episode of Love Island. It’s kinda like living in Perth without going to Bali. But something tells me that both of those things might make me throw up. Let’s see, shall we?
High profile islands don’t have a great reputation in recent years, so I’m interested to see what all the fuss is about with Love Island. And I’m immediately pissed off by the annoying voice over, so we’re off to a great start. The anonymous voice tells us that the villa is alongside a “moderately shark-infested coastline”. But from what I can gather, it’s the crabs you have to look out for on this show.
Within the first 30 seconds, there’s already a monk with their tits out — and by that, I mean Sophie. Due to the camera angle, you can’t see her feet, but odds are she’s wearing Ugg boots. We get a brief glimpse of the villa, and what better place to launch your bid for Instagram followers?
Sophie shows us a quick look at the “wall of power couples”, which is photos of people who have actually found love on this show. I was hoping there’d be a wall of showing pics of the ones who didn’t, but I genuinely don’t think even Donald Trump could build a wall big enough.
We then find out that “it’s the year of power moves”, and based on the small glimpses I’ve seen of this franchise on Instagram and Gogglebox, I can only assume that power moves = being able to count without using your fingers.
Alright, it’s time to meet the contestants. Long story short: a bunch of beautiful women in their early-mid twenties who look way older due to all the work they’ve had done. The first one we meet says she wants a bimbo guy with a slutty hoop earring. And honestly, I’d love to see that. It’s great seeing men in female-dominated areas. She also reckons her IQ is 145, but I think she means NAPLAN results because she’s only 23.
We then meet another lovely lady who describes herself as “funemployed”. I prefer the term “barbie-dole”. She says she once spent $18k on clothes in one month, which is baffling because she doesn’t seem to wear them much. She also has a book under her bed where she manifests guys. I wonder if it works for employment?
Shawnee is next: a ripped fitness coach who has a snake tattooed between her tits, a hand fetish, and a self-confessed title of ‘jealous bitch’. I’d love to see that on a LinkedIn bio, but something tells me those aren’t the types of connections she’s after.
I’m starting to realise that 80% of this show is just people in bathers dancing in a fluoro box from various camera angles. Can someone confirm if this ever ends?
We then meet the last two girls, and thank goodness because I thought for a second they might have forgotten to cast a Pilates instructor. Phew. One of them mentions that she loves a gym body, and my immediate thought is that maybe Jim could add that to his list of franchises.
At this point, I’m intrigued to see what the blokes are going to be like… and here they are, with some of the shittest haircuts I’ve ever seen.
I fear my face is going to remain like this permanently
The first one reckons he’s a bad boy because he’s got tatts and an earring. That’s cute. If you want to be considered bad in this country, you’ll at least need some death cap mushrooms and a food dehydrator. He’s a sparky, but I can almost guarantee those awful veneers are brighter than anything he’s encountered at work.
It turns out one of the girls already knows him – because he ghosted her. Lol. He then admits to cheating in a previous relationship, and it’s starting to feel like Shark Tank considering how shit this sales pitch is. At this point I would love for Mark Cuban to rock up and humble him, but you can’t have it all.
So, the girls get to choose whether they want to kiss him or not. To do this, they have to hold up a sign with either a clock or lips. Lips = kiss. Clock = he has to attempt to tell the time. Ah, never mind, that just means they’re not keen. As a viewer, the power button on my remote is looking mighty similar to that clock sign right now.
Now, if you vote to kiss, you get to go up on a stage and make out with the guy in front of everyone. Kind of like a year 10 social, but with no creepy teachers watching. There’s a bunch of tongue fighting, before the guy gets to choose his favourite, and the first couple is formed: Red Flag McGee and Temu Rose Byrne.
Next, we meet a Kiwi bloke who is wearing a crochet table cloth and has “YTB” tattooed on his ankle. He tells us that he wasn’t good enough to continue his rugby career and had to become a tradie instead (well, he said that he stopped playing rugby to pick up the tools, same thing though, right?).
There’s more making out, and both girls hate it. Probably not as much as me though — this is a really tough watch. We’re only two guys in and I’m already nauseous.
Then a guy walks in who starts… barking? To be fair, I wouldn’t be surprised if he pissed on a random pole and started dragging his anus on the carpet later. He immediately gives everyone the ick with this behaviour, which is honestly fair enough. And unsurprisingly, barely anyone wants to kiss him. Also, why are they putting 23-year-olds on this show? I feel like you should be off your parents’ Medicare card first.
We’re three couples in now, and I have so many questions. Most of them are “any danger of seeing a guy on this show who doesn’t refer to everyone as ‘youse’?” As it turns out, this is too much to ask, because the next guy does it too.
He proudly says he knows how to treat a woman, and I’d like to know if this is evidence-based. Probably not though, he’s a chiropractor. He also says he likes to wear the pants, but I’m personally more concerned about the shoes he’s wearing. However, the ladies buy it, and he there’s a whole lot of bacteria swapping, and even partner swapping going on.
Next up, it’s Oli from Perth, who has super long, thick hair. He reckons he looks like Tarzan/Jesus but all I can picture is his plughole. He loves talking about his emotions, and I gotta say, him and I have that in common, because this show has me feeling some sort of way (spoiler alert: mostly angry and all round very disappointed).
All six of the girls want to kiss him, so welcome to the tonsil hockey Olympics, I guess. Someone needs to tell these girls to play the long game, because if you end up with him, he’s going to use all up all your bougee conditioner for sure.
After the sixth-hand sloppy seconds is done, we officially have our couples. And between everyone, there’s a couple of tradies, some fitness coaches, a chiropracter, and some models, but no vets. This is unfortunate for me, because I’d like to be put down. Not one of these guys are likeable (in my very pessimistic, scornful opinion). Oh well. All the couples’ names appear on the screen, and I can’t help but notice that none of them are capitalised, and I think that really speaks to the lack of importance of this thing in the scheme of their lives.
Everyone then heads up to explore the house. They’re saying it reminds them of the Barbie dream house, which it probably is if Barbie dreamed of contracting chlamydia. We go to the bedroom and apparently all the couples will be sharing beds in one big room from the get go, and I have to remind myself how problematic this is because watching Geordie Shore as a teenager completely normalised shit like this for me.
They all head outside and Oli does a handstand. Honestly, it’s good to see one of these people touching grass. They then split up into their couples to have a bunch of vacuous conversations. And by conversations, I mean just saying the word ‘like’ on repeat and occasionally injecting other words in as well.
Unhinged topics include: not knowing what longitude and latitude is, not knowing the difference between countries and continents, being disappointed that none of the Fs in FIFO stand for fashion, and foot fetishes.
In fact, one of them is already wedding planning after a guy shows interest in her toes. Great. We then see the girls chatting in the wardrobes and one girl is worried that her guy’s hands are too small? Temu Rose Byrne says Jack (Red Flag McGee) is just a big green flag. Reminder: this was after he admitted that he’s cheated and also ghosted her in the real world. Girl, come on.
They then go down for drinks and I don’t know if this show is going to get better or worse with the addition of alcohol. There’s some surface-level conversation, where a girl who lives in London states that “Perth people never leave Perth”. That’s interesting, because the last time I checked, half of London is Perth people.
Anyway, everyone is having what looks to be a pleasant evening when we’re suddenly introduced to another girl. And thank goodness for that, because I was really hoping to see more vision of a self-obsessed, half-naked flog dancing in that fluoro box. She says that “coming into the villa will be like a buffet.” And I hope it is like a buffet, because maybe a touch of food poisoning will provide the humbling these people desperately need.
We’re then treated to vision of the London-obsessed girl saying that London isn’t in Europe. Sigh. Someone gets a text, which makes everyone super excited. They get the news that a bombshell has arrived, which is confusing because I can’t see the purple wiggle anywhere. It turns out that the new girl has picked one of the blokes to have a drink with her at the ‘Hideaway’, and Temu Rose Byrne is PISSED because Red Flag McGee has been summoned.
Off he goes (after saying the word “youse” about 14 times), to meet up with the new girl. It turns out she’s from Newcastle (the UK one, not the shitty NSW one), and let’s just call it here because he’s from the Gold Coast so you cannot convince me that this isn’t a match made in cocaine heaven.
Temu Rose Byrne is jealous, and attempts to eavesdrop before becoming concerned when she can’t hear anything. She admits she’s shitting literal bricks, and I feel quite bad for her, because in my experience it’s far less painful when they’re only figurative.
Finally, he emerges from the Hideaway, and immediately gets grilled by the girls. It’s kind of like a post-game press conference, except with shittier tattoos and the more questions like “does she have big tits?”
Someone gets a text again, and it’s the new girl inviting another guy into the Hideaway to get into the hot tub with her. His partner (the one with the snake between her tits) is less than impressed, especially when he leaves without saying goodbye. Oh boy. She’s quite annoyed at him for getting excited to meet a random woman on a show that you typically come on to *check notes* meet random women.
I feel like I’ve aged 15 years
Off he goes, which brings us to the end of the episode. I need a nap after that, but I’m scared that I’ve now unlocked a new sleep paralysis demon: a topless man who’s never been told no in his life, with shit tattoos, a creepy moustache, and a vocabulary consisting only of ‘youse’ and ‘tits’.
Until next time.*
*There won’t be one, I cannot put myself through this again.