What I Want To See On Love Island This Summer

And it's definitely not Joey Essex

Last summer was kind of a big summer for me. I moved back to Brooklyn after a couple of years of solitude on Long Island, I was embracing the freedom of being in a walkable city again, going out to bars to meet people as it was my first single summer in the city in a decade, and enjoying long walks through Sunset Park every evening. I guess you could say in a way, I was a new bombshell entering the villa. But in this case, the villa was a beautiful NYC park full of elderly people in community, dancing and doing tai chi.

And as much as I loved taking in the gorgeous sunsets each night, I rushed to get back to my sublet as soon as the sky turned to twilight. Not because I would turn into a werewolf, but because I had to watch the new episode of Love Island.

As a lifelong Love Island UK purist who had given a few seasons of Love Island USA a chance but felt ultimately unfulfilled (the accents are half the reason to watch the show!) I never expected myself to be captivated by Love Island USA Season 6. But a couple of weeks in, I went from catching up on the daily episodes the morning after release or batch-watching on the weekend to knowing exactly what time Peacock aired the new episodes (usually a good 24 minutes before the advertised time of 9 P.M. EST.) and tuning in right away, live-watching with my friend Grace and texting each other throughout. It was a ritual I thoroughly enjoyed and felt committed to. And I got a huge return on investment because I was ENTERTAINED every night (except for Wednesdays) by the incredible cast and their antics.

On the flip-side, I found myself not caring about the new season of Love Island UK. I would typically watch it in the mornings as I got ready for the day, but I let episodes pile up and watched half-heartedly as the season fell into a predictable and boring formula that not even the witty commentary of Iain Stirling could save.

What happened?

In the last few years, Love Island UK went from a show that cast relatively normal people who auditioned for the show (I mean, anyone who willingly signs up for reality TV isn’t exactly normal but they are a kind of unhinged that is entertaining) to casting well-known influencers by scouting them. They’re not the only show to resort to this kind of method–Love Is Blind reportedly has casting agents scout their cast members on Instagram. But Season 11 of Love Island UK went full throttle, casting a known UK reality star, Joey Essex. I had no idea who the lad was, but apparently he’s quite known over there.

The 11th season started off innocuously enough, with most of the chatter about the new season discussing how much filler the women on the show had, making them look years older than they actually were. But a couple weeks in, it became very clear that the show was now completely overproduced in an effort to revolve around pre-planned storylines for Joey Essex. What made it so clear was his piss-poor acting. If you’re going to completely rig a reality show, at least make it believable? You’d think someone with his experience could do that! It seemed that every decision made in the villa: the games played, bombshells brought in, eliminations, etc. were decided by Joey and the plot surrounding him. They were doing things they’d never done before, all for the sake of Joey Essex. And no one watching at home gave A FUCKKKKKK about this man.

plz enjoy my editing skills

Meanwhile, over in Fiji, Love Island USA Season 6 was going off the rails with wild antics from its cast. Sure, they were not all a bunch of nobodies plucked from obscurity–many were well-off influencers and nepo siblings (we love you, Kordell) and one was also a former reality TV show contestant (we hate you, Aaron)–but they were real people, behaving in real ways, not unwilling participants in a script centered around a has-been reality star. Plus, they brought in Iain Stirling, the best part of Love Island UK, to narrate the season. And Ariana Madix really came into her own as a host during this season, forming genuine bonds with the cast members. The result? Riveting reality television!!! I don’t think they predicted how wildly popular the season would be, and they surely didn’t predict who the fan favorites would be, as evidenced by the producers’ clear grudge against people’s princess Leah Kateb. They surely expected white girls Kaylor and Liv to be the ones stealing our hearts, but one was a whiny idiot and the other was a suspected closeted lesbian who had a little too much heat for the women of color on the show. Neither were as charming and fun as PPG–the power trio of Leah, Jana and Serena. Another way this past season of Love Island USA won fans over was by having people from the UK, New Zealand, and other accented countries in the cast. Love Island needs British or British-adjacent accents!

I once posted these on Twitter to highlight how Aaron looks like a cartoon character whose features are exaggerated so the viewer knows how stupid they are

A brief history of Love Island

I could talk about Love Island all day if you’d let me, but I’ll keep it short and sweet for now. Love Island UK watchers have their favorite seasons, but I would say it’s an indisputable fact that Season 5 is the best season of the show. Sometimes when I think of an iconic moment, I can’t believe that it took place during Season 5, because there’s no way so many iconic, show-defining moments all occurred in the same season, but somehow, it’s true!

A short list of what made this season so great:

• Molly Mae and Tommy. A love story for the ages. Honestly, I watched her new docuseries on Prime Video and I saw how much their adorable baby looked just like Tommy and I really understood why Molly was so pressed to make her family work again. I am also a hopeless romantic and think they’re both so young, were so young when they got together, and that growing up together can lead to some rifts and messes but if you put the effort into cleaning them up and learning from them, a second chance is worth it. Partying with Chris Brown in Dubai was really a bad look for Tommy, though.

• The epic Amy and Curtis debacle–after lovebombing this poor girl into believing they were a match for life, he immediately tried to risk it for all for the beautiful Casa Girl, Jourdan, who made it clear from the start she wasn’t even interested. Embarrassing!! And that’s why Amy is married and employed by Love Island, and Curtis is a series regular who makes everyone cringe with his weird drunk uncle comments and neck-popping dance moves!

• Maura Higgins–she was annoying when she tried to steal Tommy but a legend for how she shut down that idiot after bragging that he was going to sleep with her by talking shit about her. And she coined the term fanny flutters!

• Ovie Soko–the finest man to grace the Love Island UK screen in any season.

• The beef between Anna and that dumbass Jordan. She’s stupid for fumbling Ovie in the first place, though.

And last but certainly not least…

• Amber hating men and turning out to be a lesbian!!!!!

There are also a lot of unsavory things in the history of Love Island UK, like the multiple former contestants and hosts who died by suicide: Sophie Gradon (who appeared in Season 2), Mike Thalassitis (Season 3) and Caroline Flack (former host.) Sophie was the first openly bisexual woman on the show and was bullied and harassed by viewers during her time on the show and afterwards. All three people were relentlessly covered in the British media and struggled as a result. Their deaths all called for more mental health support protocols surrounding reality TV shows, before, during and after.

Love Island UK also has a notoriously racist and colorist fanbase, and contestants on the show have also been called out for their racism towards their fellow contestants.

It is also an incredibly misogynistic environment and a total boys club–I wrote about that for Primetimer last year.

But, when the show is good, it’s great. It’s always been my favorite dating reality series because the stakes are low and not forced, like on The Bachelor, Love Is Blind, or The Ultimatum. No one is forced to stay together or get married or find their perfect match. They are encouraged to explore connections with different people, which means the ones that stick are often quite genuine. A number of couples who met on the show are still together, some for a decade at this point. Some are married and some have children together. This Reddit megathread details it all, for anyone curious.

There is a cash prize of £50,000 for the winners, with a ceremony that offers them each an envelope: one holds the prize, one holds nothing, and the one holding the prize is asked if they want to keep it all for themself or split with their partner. It was the show’s way of seeing people are coming on for love or for money, but the answer since at least Season 5 is neither: they are coming on for followers, fame and brand deals.

Sidenote: I find it funny that the two seasons I opted out of watching because I wasn’t gripped in the first few weeks, Season 4 and Season 6, are the only ones that are considered “total wipeouts,” as in–no lasting couples resulted from the show.

As for the history of Love Island USA, there isn’t much to say. It started off with filming in Fiji and airing on CBS in 2019. That first season did boast my fav queer Love Island girlie, Kyra Green, who returned for Love Island Games in 2024. The second season, in 2020, took place instead in a Las Vegas hotel where the cast was (obviously) quarantined from the public. The third season took it to Hawaii, neither were exciting. The fourth and fifth seasons moved to Peacock and Sarah Hyland replaced the previous host Arielle Vandenberg, an actress I had never heard of. Season 4 filmed in Santa Barbara, and the fifth took the show back to Fiji. Iain Stirling, the cheeky voice of Love Island UK, signed on to narrate when the series moved to Peacock, which changed the show massively. But Ariana Madix replacing Sarah Hyland as the host in the sixth season really made it take off.

What’s next?

Going into this summer, I’m not sure what to expect from either iteration of my favorite dating show. USA has big shoes to fill, and UK needs a complete revamp. Will USA flail by going the overproduction route? Will they be able to measure up to the cast and drama of Season 6? Will UK heed fan complaints and return to its roots? Or will it get even worse until it renders itself fully unwatchable?

Maya Jama posted a video this week teasing the upcoming season, saying she wants “more twists” than ever before. I’m not sure what to make of it, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little wary.

Here’s what I’d love to see:

UK

• I want to see Joey Essex sacrificed to the Love Island gods. Put him on a spit roast over the fire pit. He should pay for his sins (ruining the show, being awful to Grace, robbing Samantha of a true Love Island experience, etc.)

• Since Aaron is a Brit, you could also sacrifice him, even though he was on the USA version.

• Molly Mae and Tommy on Aftersun, or in the villa offering couples advice. Maybe they aren’t the dreamiest couple to you but I still love them!

• Georgia Steel as a bombshell??? I know people hate her because they find her annoying but she’s so fucking hot and I really loved getting to see her in a bikini every day on Love Island All Stars S1 🥵

• Eliminate the prize ceremony for the winners. As previously stated, it’s pointless now! Even if someone did actually just want the money, they’d never admit that and become hated by the British media and those who consume it, as evidenced by the amount of couples who were totally performing PR relationships from All Stars (*cough* Ekin-Su and Curtis)

• A return to form!!! I don’t need chain-smoking and blatant sex under the sheets scenes like in Season 1, but can we get some fucking normies in the mix? I want people with personality!

• No more contract disputes or Hulu upload errors or whatever it was that caused us to go weeks without new episodes.¹ And can we get them available even earlier so I don’t have to dodge spoilers all summer?

• If there are going to be more twists, can one of them be higher stakes for Casa Amor? Perhaps they can follow Netflix’s Temptation Island² lead and introduce a light system that lets people in either house know when people in the other house are hooking up. Then again, the shady and vague postcards sent between houses and mind-melding that occurs during the competitive games, which issue challenges like “The shortest boy must kiss 4 girls” and pick a winner based on speed, are perhaps better at raising the stakes and making people spiral about what their beloved partners may or may not be doing.

USA

• Please cast Kendall’s fine sister. I want to see her flexing her abs in the villa and making the girls question their sexuality like my fav Kyra Green did in Season 1. A cast reveal is expected to occur soon, and if she’s not there, I’ll riot. Or just hope for her to appear as a bombshell.

• Keep casting Brits–we need the accents! And please find one as sexy as Miguel again.

• Should another Leah and Rob-type situation arise, I hope the producers have learned from their mistakes that no matter how much they tried to give Leah a villain edit, we saw through it and hated Rob more. Listen to your audience!

• Better quality episodes of Aftersun! They’ve really nailed it in the UK and made it a fun show to watch, but even with Maura Higgins hosting, the production value was so meh last season. I hope they juiced it up.

• More homoerotic heart-rate challenges–and this applies to both the UK and USA versions! In Love Island Games, when the stripteases were performed for the challenge, they were done as couples which invited women to dance on each other and men like Eyal to tease other men. It was HOT. We need that again!!!

I thought I’d have more demands of the show, but honestly? I just want drama that feels real and isn’t obviously manufactured, funny contestants, people to root for, and hot people to ogle.

But I would really like to see Joey Essex sacrificed.

Love Island USA S7 premieres on Peacock on June 3, while Love Island UK S12 will premiere on June 9th on ITV.

Last season, episodes appeared on Hulu a few days after airing in the UK, so I expect that (less than perfect) model to continue.

Do you have a favorite season of Love Island?

1. I did resort to pirating but it was not fun because then I had to watch on my laptop and I am a TV watcher!!

2. I have a whole draft about how the show’s move to Netflix made it watchable and how it was the best/worst reality show I’d watched since Love Island USA S6 but I never published it. I do recommend catching it, tho.