We were excited for Love Island last night, thrilled in fact. Finally, after a week of subtle hinting about peer pressure in Casa Amor, it seemed as though Jake Cornish was finally going to be exposed for encouraging the other lads to cheat on their partners. It’s all viewers have wanted since watching him insidiously push the ‘lads' holiday’ narrative in Casa, only to console the broken-hearted girls on his return.
And it was the perfect opportunity: a ‘movie night’ challenge where the Islanders would actually get to see for themselves how forcefully he cheered the lads cheating on – instead of say, in other challenges where they might just read a salacious headline about it or a mean tweet that could easily be brushed off. Viewers were on tenterhooks - as was Jake, it seems, given how incredibly nervous he looked as soon as it was clear the Islanders were watching themselves back.
But no, Jake's concerning behaviour was not exposed at all... not the parts of it that should've been, anyway. Rather than give the viewers what they want by alerting Liberty Poole to him condoning cheating, producers chose to show a scene of him confessing ‘I don’t want to rip her clothes off’ in reference to his now-girlfriend. The scene, from week one of the series, had long been forgotten even by viewers.
Yes, Jake appears disingenuous at times. Yes, his feelings for Liberty may be exaggerated – but did he pay the price for that? No, Liberty did – in the form of brutal, needless humiliation. We say needless because, regardless of whether Jake is actually stringing Liberty along or not - and we're really hoping not - there were a thousand other clips to play that would showcase his problematic behaviour.
Any one of the Casa Amor clips would be more damning, and would allow Liberty to question his agenda without feeling insecure about his attraction to her. Because, as we all know, physical attraction can easily grow over time – and that will likely be his excuse, regardless of whether it’s true or not. Now, he can brush off this clip as ‘But it was week one babe!!’ and she will be forced to forgive him in order to not seem dramatic or insecure. But actually, it’s clear she’s in love with Jake already, and those kinds of words stick with you.
It’s that age-old joke, where a woman can literally be at the altar, listening to their soon-to-be husband read his vows, and still ask ‘But, do you actually fancy me though??’. Now, throughout their whole relationship - if there is one in future - Liberty will have that clip burned into her brain. Because not only did she hear his confession in the most humiliating way possible, but she didn’t have any context at all to understand that it was very early days.
The same goes for Teddy Soares, who had to hear Faye Winter telling the girls ‘Teddy might not be funny’ and comparing him to now-dumped Sam Jackson. Once again, an innocent Islander was needlessly hurt – and for even less reason than Jake. Faye clearly cares about Teddy, if not loves him, so she didn’t need to be exposed for anything. It was clear even when she made those comments – during Casa Amor week – that she was reacting to him potentially hurting her. She’s been open about having her guard up and experiencing trust issues before, thus when she thought Teddy might cheat, she downplayed her attraction to him in order to save face...it’s broken bitch 101 (I say, as a fellow broken bitch).
Challenges like this undermine attempts to protect the Islanders from unnecessary pain and embarrassment.
Teddy didn’t need to watch her in bed with Sam either, something she also did only after seeing the Casa Amor postcard, because without the necessary context he will now doubt her at a time when she’s already fragile (just earlier in the episode, she confessed that she’s feeling vulnerable about how close they’re getting.)
For all the talk of #BeKind, challenges like this undermine attempts to protect the Islanders from unnecessary pain and embarrassment. It was jaw-dropping drama, sure – but it was also incredibly hard to watch knowing just how hurt Teddy and Liberty will now be. We saw something similar with the Casa Amor postcard debacle. Viewers begged for Liam Reardon and Tyler Cruickshank's cheating to be exposed, and producers gave that to us, but they also added an unnecessarily damning photo of Teddy to ensure drama between him and Faye.
This is the thing - it's a fine line to toe when answering viewers' calls for kindness while also satiating the desire for scandal. We want certain Islanders' behaviour exposed - there’s no doubt about that - but there’s a difference between revealing that, and straight-up manipulating contestants, especially those who are already so wounded by past relationships.
At times, it seems unkind for producers not to intervene to save an Islander from heartbreak - like with the postcard pictures of Liam and Tyler - but whenever they do, and viewers get close to getting what they want from this show, it seems a line is crossed that turns it from necessary or entertaining, to excruciating. Last night was one of those moments - we just hope tonight is more forgiving.
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