On last night’s Love Island, we were introduced to a whole host of cast members. No, it wasn’t new bombshells, it was the Casa Amor kids we’ve barely seen speak since they entered the villa a week ago and spiced up the show far too much for our weary hearts.
Perhaps it’s the lack of scandal from our OG Islanders – save Paige and Jacques, of course – or maybe producers just felt bad, but suddenly the entire episode became about the connections between Casa Amor newbies. Particularly, Summer Botwe and Josh Le Grove.
In one now highly commented on scene, Summer and Josh sat flirting by the pool. The reason for all the commenting? Their accents – that being, their forced American accents. It came shortly after she conducted the majority of her date with Adam Collard in a hybrid US accent too. In the scene with Josh, the pair joked back and forth while mimicking Americans, and viewers found the whole conversation to be… slightly cringe. At least, that’s what they're saying online.
Naturally, some have seen the positive – that Summer and Josh’s shared love of mimicking accents could mean they’re perfect together. Others were also just confused, with 'Where is Summer from Love Island from?' trending on Google this morning. But in the main, it's Summer that is taking the brunt of the ‘embarrassing’ comments. She does do the accent a lot, that much is true, but does she deserve endless trolling about how cringe she is? Of course not. Frankly, it’s only because of the way Summer was edited on the show that we’ve missed out on her jokey personality this whole time.
In Casa, Summer was used as a plot-thickener for Dami’s storyline – we never got to see her real self beyond how attractive she was to Dami. Now, as she creates her own storyline, we’re suddenly seeing tons of her with no context of her personality or friendships with other islanders. It’s no wonder viewers have been caught off guard then, perhaps many wouldn’t have been so quick to judge had we been introduced to her more softly – built up as we were with other Islanders to better understand her quirks.
In fact, she could’ve been a fan-favourite, she’s one of the few islanders attempting to bring banter and entertainment to the villa – a necessity when all we see these days are tired arguments and circling conversations about where each couple stands with each other. With that in mind, we say, keep bring the quirks Summer – we need some fun on Love Island now more than ever.