It’s been a long, depressingly familiar, few days for Love Island viewers this week. The return of Casa Amor has seen heads turned, eyebrow-raising excuses and ‘nice guys’ proving themselves anything but. But last night, we seemed to witness a sprinkle of real empathy from one of the boys on Love Island: Will Young does actually feel guilty for kissing Layla Al-Momani.
Well, kind of - he still got into bed and flirted with her despite his supposed epiphany that he ‘loves Jessie’, so we can’t give him too much credit. That being said, Will’s guilt served as respite from an otherwise merciless lack of empathy we’ve come to watch from some of boys this week. The weirdest part? No one has held them accountable for it.
It wouldn’t usually be weird on a show like Love Island. Season after season, Casa Amor has seen the male contestants turn into a band of merry arseholes, cheering each other on to cheat without a care in the world for the women they’ve previously been love-bombing for weeks on end. But this time, we expected things to be different – namely because they had been at the beginning of the show.
When Ron Hall screwed over Lana Jenkins not once, but twice, the other boys were quick to condemn his behaviour. Shaq Muhammad pulled him on more than one occasion, and Will himself told Ron numerous times that how he was behaving was hurting Lana. In fact, the boys were so disgusted with Ron entertaining other women despite flirting with Lana for *checks notes* two weeks, it caused a deep divide in the boy’s friendship group for weeks.
Ironically, the instigator of such a divide was Casey O’Gorman, who openly despised Ron’s womanizing ways and had the audacity to utter the words ‘nice guys finish last’ when Lana still chose Ron over him. Fast forward to now, when Casey has kissed not one, but two Casa Amor bombshells despite getting to know Claudia Fogarty, and those words sit bitterly in the mouth.
So, what’s happened? How did the boys go from holding Ron accountable to encouraging each other to explore new connections? Will, Casey, Tom and Kai have all made plays for new girls, despite Will being ‘in love’ with Jessie, Casey dubbing his connection with Claudia ‘strong’ and Kai acknowledging he’s liked Olivia Hawkins since they entered the villa. More than that, they also happily sit and entertain sly digs from the new Casa Amor girls about their current partners – which, even if not for the sake of their romantic connections, they should be nipping in the bud purely out of respect for their friendships with the girls.
Don’t get us wrong, the girls aren’t exactly guiltless in their Casa endeavours either. Tanya, Olivia, and Claudia have all explored new connections, with only Lana and Jessie confirming that their hearts are closed. But only Tanya and Olivia have dared kiss their new crushes, Samie ending her flirtation with Ryan after missing Tom and Claudia even crying over Casey after one day in Casa Amor.
Ultimately, viewers have been left wondering where all the respect went from the boys to be so brazenly ‘on job’ when half of them have partners desperately missing them in the other villa. Will, for one, has done more damage to his relationship with Jessie than Ron ever did with Lana. He spent weeks at her side, telling her he was falling for her, never straying at the sight of a new bombshell and now suddenly, he’s jumping at a kiss from a girl he's known two days.
Boys, we’re begging you to keep the same energy for Will that you had for Ron – it’s not holding your friends accountable if you pick and choose when to condemn them.