Love Island USA Reunion Refused to Tackle Microaggressions in Favor of Rehashing Irrelevant Drama
Love Island USA Reunion Refused to Tackle Microaggressions in Favor of Rehashing Irrelevant Drama
Love Island USA Reunion Refused to Tackle Microaggressions in Favor of Rehashing Irrelevant Drama
In this op-ed, writer Ayan Artan unpacks the Love Island USA reunion episode, reflecting on the wrap-up to season 6 of the popular reality dating show.
A couple of hard truths all us Brits could use seeing in print: men’s side football is probably never coming home, culturally significant artifacts in our museums are definitely stolen, and Love Island USA may have finally surpassed the OG UK version in season 6.
It may be getting attention like it’s the first season of the show, but the spinoff of the iconic British dating series that has had our little island in a chokehold since it first premiered in 2015 has been on for five previous seasons. Where the previous US editions struggled to connect with audiences conditioned to clock into a dating show only if there was marriage or an engagement promised at the end of it à la The Bachelor, this time around the combination of stellar cast chemistry and the recruitment of Vanderpump Rules’ Ariana Madix as show host injected some much-needed life into the series.
And what a series it’s been: dramatic re-couplings, toxic bromances, iconic one liners, sumptuous fashion moments with Tokyo Ghoul bikinis and gold grills (shout out to the ever fly Serena Page for putting on for the streetwear-touting, anime-watching Black girls). You name it, this cast delivered. Weeks after Page and Kordell Beckham were crowned the winners — the first time a Black couple has won the show, a milestone the UK version of the show also marked this summer — last night’s reunion gave us this wonderful cast of characters back for a single night to dissect all the drama, and hopes were high.
But the Aug. 19 reunion, especially in the context of a thrilling season, was in many ways a disappointment. Despite a few sweet announcements, the night was an oddly edited amalgamation of moments that felt too intimate to be on camera or too disingenuous considering that everyone seemed to be avoiding the many elephants in the room. Part of that may have been thanks to how short the episode was in comparison to how much they actually filmed; there’s no doubt that moments fans would have loved to see were cast aside with the producers prioritizing the wrong ones.
In the leadup to the reunion (it’s been nearly seven weeks since the season ended) fan favorites and new franchise villains had been crowned online, with thousands gathering on TikTok and X to give their two cents on what they thought would happen. PPG, or The Powerpuff Girls, is a friendship trio so good it feels like Leah Kateb, JaNa Craig, and Page are the main cast of a Sex In the City-esque show of their own at any given point; they’d also been marked relatively free of any critique going into the reunion, with the fandom mostly on their side. Their beaus, Miguel Harichi, Kenny Rodriguez, and Kordell Beckham had also been marked safe mostly because even when their heads weren’t screwed on correctly in the villa, their women were capable of checking them themselves.
The reunion saw PPG, their men, and other notable cast — Nicole Jacky and Kendall Washington, Aaron Evans, Rob Rausch, Kaylor Martin, Andrea Carmona and Daniela Noelle Ortiz-Rivera – dressed up in their finest clothes ready to defend their honor. (As well as a bunch of Casa Amor castaways whose faces I didn’t even recognize.)
There were rare moments of note. The fandom’s favorite trio of couples — Page and Kordell, Craig and Rodriguez, and Kateb and Harichi — had all made their relationships official, which was lovely to hear considering how cursed the show’s top couples usually are. Despite that though, we spent very little time with the people whose love stories even made this season of the show worth watching, focusing instead on the most unserious drama.
And when the drama did get serious, the reunion didn’t know how to handle it. The most uncomfortable moment belonged to Jacky and Washington. A sex tape leaked without Washington’s consent made the rounds online last month in what was a horrifying violation of privacy, and the aftermath was messy. Jacky spent most of her screen time at the reunion dragging a visibly uncomfortable Washington for not telling her the truth about the tape (he had initially come forward and said the video had come from a trusted ex because he’d felt “embarrassed to admit he had sent it to a stranger” on a dating app a few days before he was due to fly to Fiji to join the show). Jacky seemed to have very little sympathy or understanding to spare, instead choosing to make the moment about herself. It was clear that the experience was traumatizing for Washington, considering that he hadn’t been able to fully open up to her about it. It was hard to watch, and I’m not even a Washington stan.
Most of his behavior in the villa had been snakey and side-eye worthy (from encouraging the boys with more glee than necessary to be unfaithful at Casa Amor to being a bit of a bully when it came to his treatment of Page). Instead of letting him be pressed on it, we’re left feeling sorry for him because he’s being wrongfully villainized for being a victim by Jacky (when he should be villainized for being a menace). It felt like a manipulative attempt to garner sympathy from him, but all it really did was push to the forefront a traumatizing event that he would probably rather forget. Jacky got her “bad b” moment, but at what cost?
That was the theme of the night: the reunion only seemed interested in righting the wrongs done to a select number of the islanders, prioritizing a second look at drama nobody was really interested in — like what exactly was said by Kateb at the dramatic recoupling that sent Carmona home (Kateb had claimed she’d taken a “back seat” in dumping Carmona from the island, and the recorded footage played at the reunion suggested otherwise). Carmona wasn’t an important enough islander in my eyes to warrant twenty minutes of vital reunion time and anyone with working eyes and ears could see that Miss Kateb hadn’t been as passive in making that decision as she led some of her fellow islanders to believe. That time should have been spent digging into important issues, like why the boys had felt comfortable piling on microaggression after microaggression onto the two Black girls in the cast.
Page and Craig spent most of their time in the villa trying to convince the likes of Evan and Rausch that they were in fact people and not robots without feelings. Various men rolled their eyes when Page and Craig talked, threw out accusations of aggression and plate-throwing when that actually didn’t happen, and Washington even cornered Page in a scene that still makes my skin crawl. Most of it went unaddressed. It may have been the most diverse season of the show, but the treatment of its cast members of color — the constant attempts to misunderstand them on purpose, whether that be online or in the show — were jarring to watch, and by not addressing that head-on, production is failing to condemn it.
Where the boys’ misdeeds were brought up, they were only in reference to the white cast members they had crossed. In a rare moment of honesty, Evans finally admitted to getting physical with Ortiz-Rivera at Casa Amor after lying about it and gaslighting her for weeks. The kicker? His primary love interest Kaylor Martin had apparently asked him several times outside of the show if anything else had happened and he’d lied about it, meaning that the first time she’d heard the truth was in front of everyone else at the reunion. The pair are no longer together (we thank God) but that hasn’t stopped Evans from apparently trying to worm his way back into her good books — we rebuke it. Here’s hoping she does, too.
Though Madix has been a phenomenal addition to the show thus far, it felt like she took a step back at the reunion, not pressing the former islanders to address so much of what the fans wanted answers to. It’s further proof that sometimes you’ve got to let journalists do their jobs (though Craig came prepared with her own physical receipts, so maybe production should have handed over the reins to her instead).
Regardless of how unremarkable the reunion was, the show has finally cemented itself as a reality show worth fiending over. PPG have cemented themselves as a friendship trio to add to the pop culture hall of fame, Kordell has accomplished his long term goal of getting a Cheez-It sponsorship, and Page is now rumored to be collaborating with Beyoncé’s Cécred hair care line.
Whether you like them or loathe them, this cast gave us an iconic season of TV the network will surely try to replicate for years. It’s just a shame the show just couldn’t quite stick the landing.
