All the Mad Things in ‘Love Island’ That Have Us Shook

Kate Leaver
TV
TV

Three years ago, I moved to London from Sydney, Australia. Apart from this nation’s reverence for potatoes and tea, my favourite thing about the Brits is their trashy reality television. They have the most incredible dating shows here: Take Me Out, where a Lancastrian comedian of Irish descent helps one dude try to impress thirty single ladies with buzzers; First Dates, where a Frenchman employs 15 professional matchmakers to set strangers up; Naked Attraction, where real people get nude and judge one another. But perhaps the craziest, most popular show on telly is Love Island – in which a dozen impossibly beautiful strangers get stranded in a designer villa somewhere sunny and try to find love.

This year, it has become a national obsession, with 4.1 million people tuning into the first episode and more than 3 million tweets in the first seven. We started with five women and six men, who had to couple up to stay safe in the game. Since then, producers have thrown new chiseled contestants into the mix just for maniacal fun and each week, they can switch alliances and recouple. They alternate between letting the men and the women choose their partners, and the public vote to ditch someone from the island. It’s total, unadulterated madness.

As a first-time Love Island viewer, I thought I’d take you through some of the maddest moments we’ve had so far in this season.

The Watermelon-Smashing Contest

This was a helluva sight: grown women trying to smash open a watermelon using just the force of their bottoms. In a challenge on the show, all female contestants had to squat above a watermelon and try to split it open by repeatedly sitting on it. The boys were sat behind them, not exactly complaining about the view, but not entirely sure they liked it either. It was a strangely erotic, embarrassing sort of challenge that captivated the nation – but perhaps don’t try it at home.

 Since When Did Nobody Want to Date a Doctor?

Alex is an A&E (Accidents and Emergency) doctor, who is clearly used to having his patients flirt with him as he attends to their wounds. Both he and I assumed he would be a hit with the ladies – who doesn’t want to date a doctor? But straight up, he had trouble. In the initial coupling up stages, Alex was rejected by Hayley and ended up having to wait till everyone else had chosen their dates. He ended up with Samira, which is an absolute jackpot, as it happens, because she is glorious. Since then, the whole house – and indeed the nation – has become determined to help Alex find love.

Meet Alex:

 The Time Hayley Got Confused About Brexit

So this was a real head-scratcher. Professional beautiful person, Hayley, had a go at understanding Brexit (the UK voted last year to leave the Eurozone, which we call “Brexit”). Georgia brought it up as a somewhat unexpected topic of conversation and Hayley was flummoxed. “Does that mean we won’t have any trees?” she asked. The nation was silent. This made no sense at all. Conspiracy theorists think she may have said “cheese”, which is at least something we import, so makes a shred more sense than trees. Either way, it was baffling. Hayley has defended herself since, saying that she’s not the only one who doesn’t understand politics – and this time, she’s entirely correct.

The Nonsensical Lingo They Use

Every year, the contestants develop their own lingo. Last year it was all about getting “melty” (being soppy over a guy or girl you like) or getting “pied” (being rejected by someone of the opposite sex). This year, we’ve got “living it”, which just means enjoying the moment, we’ve got “laying it on thick”, which is really trying to charm someone you like and we’ve got “drop me out” which is something people from Essex say when they can’t believe something. To “chirpse” is to chat someone up and to get “prangy” is to be nervous or paranoid, usually when new contestants enter the villa.

Love island
Adam is living it.

The Existence of Dani Dyer

OK, a little British celebrity trivia is required to truly understand the gravity of this situation. Danny Dyer is a TV and movie star in the UK – he’s an East London geezer with an extremely distinctive accent who’s been causing trouble in the UK for years. He’s legit famous but he’s also, just quietly, a bit of a national joke treasure. People love him, and they also love to laugh at him. To be fair, he’s just as happy to play up to it and laugh at himself. You can find out more about Danny here.

Anyway, it was just beyond ridiculous when we found out that his daughter was in the villa. And not only that: her name is Dani. Yes, Danny Dyer’s daughter is called Dani Dyer. It’s almost too good to be true, except that it is entirely, verifiably true. Danny, bless him, has threatened to skydive into the villa to visit his daughter and her new beau.

Eyal Has a Secret Pop Career

Eyal has been making a living as a model, which is understandable when you look at his face/abs. He looks like a cherub, but as he’s revealed on the show, he doesn’t exactly behave like one. Eyal is not at all popular – not with his first partner, Hayley and certainly not on Twitter. Every time the show airs, Twitter goes into meltdown about how manipulative, superficial and unlikable he is. So you can imagine their delight when they found out that Eyal had a former life as a cheesy pop star in a band. Video has emerged of his time in EverYoung, a not-very-successful pop group. It’s just glorious, innit?

We’re only just beginning the season, really, and the show is on seven nights a week. Which means there’s plenty more opportunity for absolute madness to ensue.