Love Island
Episode 26
Season 8Episode 26
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
The rest of Movie Night results in Kenzie, KC, and Sincere going on apology tours, but there’s a glimmer of hope that Melanie is finally fed up.
Photo: YouTube
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So, now that it’s over, did Movie Night accomplish everything we hoped it would? It gave Caleb an opportunity to get some things off his chest, provoked several throaty “Oh, fuck,” exclamations from Corbin, and brought Melanie closer than she’s ever been to actually ending things with Sincere. Most impressively, it gave the boys (plus Kenzie, for something of an almost-balance) an opportunity to see and reflect on their own terrible behavior, and they actually did. In this way, I’d call the evening a success.
The only Islander who seems truly vindictive after Movie Night is Zach, for reasons that remain known only to Zach. While Zach’s sneakiness was caught in 4k, just like everyone else’s, Kayda lets him skate with barely more than an eye roll. Still, out of some sort of misplaced gender solidarity, I guess, Zach is still determined to prove Kenzie’s villainy and thus the “double standards” inherent to the girls’ worldview. But this is a comparison that nobody, not even Sincere himself, is truly buying. You really expect me to believe that Dylan and Caleb, after knowing Kenzie for two days, were left as heartbroken as Melanie and Aniya? Let’s be serious.
But it isn’t in the grand speeches, apologies, or even sneaky behavior that we learn who these people really are. It is in the small, often ridiculous moments that the Islanders reveal their true hearts. Think of Carl, shirtless and bespectacled, releasing a trapped moth into the night with his bare hands. Or Parmida asking Corbin to really get to know her, and Corbin, in response, smacking her bare bottom and giving her a kiss. It is Melanie plaintively begging the owl perched above Soul Ties to move so that she can get some sleep while Sincere sleeps inside, in the bed they usually share.
If this episode was an apology tour, consider Kenzie the opening act. Her movie showed exactly what one would expect: telling Caleb they have so much in common at one moment, then coming to Corbin for clandestine kisses the next. The boys — led by Zach, who has the least amount of skin in this game — declare Kenzie’s behavior to be just as bad as theirs, while the girls — led by Aniya and Kayda — groan, “Oh, Kenzie,” like nine not-mad-just-disappointed mothers. But unlike KC and Sincere, who must be lectured and shouted into contrition, Kenzie is immediately chastened. She tried to put her best foot forward, she says, but it’s fair of Caleb to have felt blindsided, and she’s sorry. This does little to appease Zach, who whispers to Dylan that it’s “the same shit” and “told you,” like a Zoomer Iago in a chunky knit. (As an aside, why are we wearing chunky knits in Fiji?) Dylan agrees he has been retraumatized by the video, saying Kenzie did to him exactly what she did to Caleb. His indignation is short-lived, however, as by that night, he and Kenzie are back to doing whatever it is they do under the covers after dark.
Kenzie has to “take accountability” two more times before we are allowed to let it rest. Once by the firepit, when Aniya tells her it “looked really bad,” but she’s proud of her for owning up to it. Then again, the next day, when Kayda tells her — as a friend, of course — that her video was “giving Sincere.” I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but it doesn’t look like Kenzie is going to be further pilloried, which is a relief
The upshot of all of this is that Kenzie now has little other option than to close things off with Dylan, whether or not that was her plan all along
Aniya is a stronger woman than I because if I had been in her shoes, there is no way in hell I would have apologized to KC for standing over him and yelling, especially when KC was the one who started the standing-and-yelling in the first place. But this is why Aniya is better suited to this show than she is given credit for. Because this apology has an almost magical effect on the boys, who are struck by her class, her grace, and, in KC’s case, the sudden realization that he is the asshole
I’m not one to withhold credit where it is due, and KC’s do-over apology to Aniya the following night is everything I wish the first one had been. He admits he said a lot of things he’s embarrassed of, and that he was holding onto resentments Aniya wasn’t even aware of. Unprompted, he says, “I’m sorry.” Taking things even a step further, in his beach hut confessional, KC says he never wants to make Titi feel how he made Aniya feel, admitting that it was uncool and, yes, cowardly. Which is a lot of growth for one evening! He’s not off my list, of course, but I’ll say he annoyed me significantly less than Zach did this evening.
Because Melanie has not been put through enough, apparently, Movie Night includes a second clip compilation of Sincere. This time, we get a brief run-through of everything he said to Amora in Casa Amor that he declined to disclose to Melanie. Most damning, he tells Amora that if he’d had a little more time with her, she would have been his choice instead of Melanie
Once again, Melanie reads Sincere the same riot act she’s been reading him since week two. And, once again, it’s full of bangers. “I’m tired of hearing, ‘but he chose you,’” she says. And, “I don’t fuck with a sorry.” And, “If you’re gonna pick me, then stand on that shit!” Eventually, she sobs that she “looks so stupid” and runs from the yard in tears. On the floor of the makeup room, Melanie, fully exhausted by Sincere’s emotional terrorism, begs him to just leave her alone if he’s going to treat her like this. The next day, Melanie wanders around the villa like a shell of herself, in 30 percent of her usual makeup and last night’s earrings.
Sincere still thinks the relationship can be salvaged, however, and attempts, again, to explain himself. Saying he’s going to be “really vulnerable,” he tells Melanie that since childhood, he’s always tried to be a “people pleaser,” but Mela calls bullshit. He wasn’t “people pleasing” with Sol; he was Sincere-pleasing. She gets going again, telling Sincere he doesn’t deserve her and she’s spent her whole summer crying, and I am just praying to whatever god looks over these sexy singles that she sticks the landing. Finally, she says maybe he should learn his lesson by losing her. We end on a sad shot of the two of them staring into the middle distance side-by-side, and I am hoping against hope that I can trust it.
Love Island USA Recap: Stick the Landing, Melanie
