overnights

Love Island Recap: The Rise of the Blonde Women

Love Island U.K.

Week Two (Episodes 7-12)
Season 7 Episode 2
Editor’s Rating 4 stars

Love Island U.K.

Week Two (Episodes 7-12)
Season 7 Episode 2
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Photo: ITV

This recap does not cover Episode 06 – Unseen Bits. 

What a week! There’s been makeouts, breakups, and even a literal intruder trying to figure out just how tall Liam is. The first few weeks of this show always feel like a cheap knock-off of the islanders you really know and love, but this week it’s finally started to feel like Love Island (though I fear we’ll never get another couple like Tommy and Molly Mae again). The existential questions that any recapper ponders: Will Hugo ever find one (1) singular islander romantically interested in him? Will there ever be enough blonde women to satisfy Jake? Do I love or hate Faye? Let’s find out!

Let’s Get Grafting

The competition for Rachel is on, and Brad and Chuggs furiously try to differentiate themselves despite their matching black chinos. Rachel’s a luxury travel specialist from a place called Cockfosters, and my job is really incredibly easy. She finds Brad more attractive, and wonders why none of the other women coupled up with him — girl, please take the hint! The next morning, she mentions that she isn’t excited to play footsie in bed, and says that anyone who’s into feet and toes is “sick.” Jake found shaking and crying by the daybeds.

Outside, Brad and Chuggs simultaneously compete for Rachel’s heart and a spot on the next season of Top Chef. Brad fetches her a peppermint tea, while Chuggs offers to cook her breakfast. Unfortunately, Rachel’s not a breakfast person, leaving Chuggs to sadly eat his avocado toast alone and wonder if the bump in bucket hat sales is worth all this. Brad asks Rachel one question about herself, and she admits he has a beautiful heart. I don’t trust Brad as far as I can throw him. Admittedly, this would not be far, as he’s about 200 pounds and would talk my ear off the entire time.

Kaz wants her relationship with Toby to move faster, which right now is going about the same speed as the formation of multicellular life on Earth. She wants him to kiss her outside of a challenge, but since Toby’s never had a relationship, he’s waiting for a miracle from God (or just a hasty signal from producers). Jake, in his ongoing quest to alienate the British public, says his head could easily be turned if another blonde woman entered the villa. As we speak, producers are parsing through blondes in the maritime livestock carrier where they’re holding incoming islanders. Liberty lookalike set to drop in two to five business days.

Challenge time, a.k.a. Kaz’s only opportunity for a snog! This time’s 007-themed, and the boys have to “rescue” the girls before making them a cocktail on a vibrating plate. The girls are forced to hold their boobs inside their bikinis as the boys spill orange juice and grenadine all over them. In the end, everyone looks like they’ve been sitting in the Splash Zone at the Kid’s Choice Awards, and Brad is crowned the Sexiest Superspy to make up for the fact that no one chose him at the last re-coupling.

Rachel has to choose, and she’s torn between a man who uses literary metaphors to describe their relationship and Brad. Known Anti-Brad Entity Chloe gets her two cents in there and shit-talks his rambling, before reminding Rachel that she used to have the power in the villa. At the re-coupling, Rachel lets everyone down and chooses Brad, leaving Chuggs to cuddle and hug his way out of the villa (but not before leaving some Speedos for the boys that I’m sure we’ll see in a slightly culturally appropriative Caribbean-themed challenge).

Toby looks to the stars, sees that Gemini is in the eighth house or whatever, and decides that it’s time to move things forward with Kaz. On the deck, he tells her he’s ready to jump into the deep end, which is exactly what Jake does shortly after he’s selected to go to the Hideaway. His microphone is ruined, and that’s Jake’s second strike from production.

The girls chant so loudly for Liberty that they break the sound barrier, blowing out what few microphones they have left. In the Hideaway, Jake massages Liberty’s back with strawberry lube and spills it all over the bed, forcing them to lie in a sticky, cold mess the rest of the night. The next morning, Faye tells the girls she’s worried she hasn’t connected with Liam, and Rachel tells them she and Brad dry humped all over Chuggs’s memory. At least someone’s cuddling and hugging!

At the traditional Love Island Week One Brunch, Faye and Liam sit in awkward silence while Sharon reveals that she’s a baddie who only dates finance bros and doesn’t want kids but does want a lime-green Aston Martin. Subsequently, Aaron’s worried that she’s too career-oriented, which he shouldn’t be because she’s currently a contestant on Love Island. Jake finally tells Liberty that he would jump ship if another blonde girl came in, and Liberty blames herself for falling too fast. Lib, Jake’s the one who’s falling too fast — lest we forget when he tripped down those stairs like a Real Housewife? Faye and Rachel are now also feeling iffy about their men — Rachel because Brad told her she should consider cracking on with other men conveniently right after she saved him, Faye because Liam can’t string three words together without revealing some new undesirable trait, like the fact that he’s into women in relationships.

At today’s Challenge Designed to Get Islanders to Reveal Embarrassing Facts About Themselves, all the boys disclose they would couple up with Chloe given the chance (c’mon guys, as if her ego needs this) and Hugo says his type is a leggy blonde who isn’t fake-looking. Faye and Sharon are pissed about this. They say Hugo has insulted their identities as Women with Lip Filler and he needs to be “educated” on the reasons women get plastic surgery. As a Plastic-Identifying Woman myself (thank you, Dr. Maman), this is ridiculous. Jake walks around every five minutes saying his type is blonde hair and blue eyes — this, dear readers, means white — but saying you don’t like fake boobs isn’t ok? Hugo, for his part, immediately apologizes and promises to educate himself via Instagram infographics and a pro-surgery reading list. For my part, I’m retracting my earlier comment about Faye being like Maura, I shouldn’t have disrespected her memory like that.

Aaron tells the boys he didn’t like Sharon’s reaction to the “fake” comment. He doesn’t like “fiery” women — which, does that mean he doesn’t like women who stand up for themselves? Granted, she wasn’t fighting for the right thing, but don’t fault a girl for creating content for the show!

The girls are sent out for a boozy brunch so they can be replaced by two leggy, not-fake blondes named Lucinda and Millie. Production really combed through the holding cell for these two: Millie’s legs are so long they could wrap around Jake and crush him, while Lucinda succeeds in making every man in the villa utter fish-out-of-water noises for at least five minutes. The two new girls immediately wipe Brad, Liam, and Aaron’s partners from their minds, and the mimosas at brunch are soured by a selfie showing just how quickly the boys have moved on.

The OG girls walk back from brunch hand-in-hand in an act of pure vitriol before quickly welcoming Lucinda and Millie into the villa. Sharon repeats that she doesn’t care about any threats to her relationship, while Aaron spreads rumors to the contrary to everyone with an open ear. Time for dishy dates!

Brad salivates over Lucinda over a toast, chorizo, and shrimp appetizer. Lucinda, knowing she has limited time to become a Girl’s Girl, says she needs to speak with Rachel because Brad has clearly moved on now that he’s safe from elimination. Millie, on the other hand, was so distracted by Aaron’s beauty she forgot she was eating mozzarella on bread. Just don’t get too upset if he insults your Botox! During the main course, Millie has very intense eye contact with Liam, a man she’s finally deemed tall enough for her. Because he hasn’t flirted with a woman in over a week, Hugo works up a sweat from all this grafting, but still manages to be a gentleman and grate Lucinda’s cheese (not a euphemism). He continues becoming the season’s fan favorite by feeding Millie a cookie during the dessert round, and Lucinda becomes the last straw in the short-lived ShAaron relationship.

The guys who went on dates are all into Lucinda and Millie, hinting that soon there may be an all-out war for their hearts. (Spoiler alert: It will be won by the boy who asks the girls for their group copy of The Art of War.) Aaron, in a bid to get ahead of the pack, decides to end things with Sharon, who rightfully points out that she didn’t yell at Hugo or do almost anything he could deem fiery, or even flame-adjacent. Instead she brings out the waterworks while letting the girls know of the breakup, while Aaron tells the boys she “strikes fear into every man.” Seriously, dude? Are you this intimidated by a civil servant? Most can’t even strike fear into the hearts of their colleagues to get more funding.

Lucinda decides to let Rachel know that she and Brad plan to make the most beautiful blue-eyed babies together. Rachel goes to Brad with this info, and is then forced to smile while he feeds her the exact same BS he once said about every other girl in the villa. She feels like Brad’s placeholder girl, but I can’t say we didn’t try to warn you, Rach!

On another note: when will our long, national Hugo nightmare be over? I think these girls must be actually blinded by their own boob highlighter, because why would you ever pick Brad when Hugo’s standing right there, holding a poorly-made iced coffee he whipped up just for you? Production, please don’t come out of the holding cell until we have at least three natural-looking women willing to live on a teacher’s salary!

Chloe hasn’t gotten attention in a while. That’s deeply concerning to her. She decides she’s interested in Toby, and flirts with him on the daybeds and on the swing and anywhere Kaz can see her. In the cop-themed challenge (titled “Line of Booty,” hinting that Love Island is for abolishing the police), Chloe makes out with Toby so hard he almost shows his concealed weapon. That night, Kaz confronts Chloe about the kiss in the challenge, and Chloe implies she’s going to steal her man, but she’s so sorry, she didn’t mean to hurt Kaz’s feelings!

All the girls are anti-Chloe now, except Lucinda and Millie who are forced to be pro because of some sort of a blonde hair birthright. Chloe tells them she wants to pull Toby for a chat ahead of Kaz, and Rachel walks away from the conversation because she wants to pretend she didn’t hear Chloe being snake-y. She immediately tells this to the other girls, who now have the ammo they need: when Chloe asks why they’re talking about her, Faye immediately attacks her for being nosy. Suddenly, I’m pro-Faye again!

None of this fighting has bothered Toby, who’s delighted the ladies have finally taken interest in an eighth-tier social-media soccer player. He tells Kaz he wants to get to know Chloe better, and immediately does this by making out with her on the terrace. Kaz guesses what’s happening, and cries to Sharon that she shouldn’t have put all her eggs in one basket, even though the show forces her to do just that at every re-coupling.

Meanwhile, Liberty is laying down the law. She tells Jake she’s sick of him sniffing around every woman who bleached her hair in high school, and he responds that No, he’s never even had the thought of straying! with an exaggerated wink at the cameras. Liberty notices this flag on the play, and institutes a no-contact rule until he can prove he’s loyal. Liberty has quickly become my favorite, and I want the world for her (and by the world, I mean a PrettyLittleThing exclusive).

The new girls are cracking on! Liam and Millie, towering over everyone else, stare aggressively into each other’s eyes; Brad and Lucinda kiss after he tells her about the way he literally wants to marry her after two days of knowing her. Aaron, now cut out of the picture, has gone back to stabbing Sharon with his boner at night.

Toby’s decided it’s time to tell Kaz about that kiss even though she’s already deduced exactly what happened. He can barely get the words out, but Kaz has pretty much zero reaction: she looks like she could be getting her nails done at the salon. Pretty much the same thing happens later when Liam dumps Faye, and they hug it out. C’mon ladies, where’s the drama? The yelling? Saying he mugged you off? These women need to stand up for themselves, and not on the topic of plastic surgery! Amber would never stand for this!

Liberty and Jake go on a date, and Liberty lifts the no-contact rule for good behavior. Lucinda, on the other hand, is noticing the same things every other woman does about Brad: He talks at you, not to you, and she’s not sure if he knows anything about her (but somehow wants to get married to her?). Good thing we have a sexy hunk of man-meat named Teddy slo-mo walking into the Hideaway as we speak! See you next week for the dumping of an OG girl and Brad’s reckoning (I hope)!

Love Island Recap: The Rise of the Blonde Women