Reality TV reunions are meant to bring serious drama and add a postscript to a season of wild and unhinged television and in many ways, the Love Island USA Season 6 reunion delivered. And in a lot of other ways, it left out an awful lot, and it dedicated an inordinate amount of time to things that could have moved at a faster clip. While the episode had it high points (like JaNa pulling a list of grievances from a couch cushion, and Andrea eventually copping to her “mean girl” vibes), it also has some weird, maybe even unnecessary moments, too. (Coye’s apology: clearly not even something JaNa wanted, expected, or needed.) Let’s chop this reunion up.
LOVE ISLAND USA SEASON 6 REUNION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Ariana Madix is dressed in one of her signature cut-out dresses, walking on an island and introducing what’s about to happen on the night’s episode of Love Island USA. But the island is Manhattan, and it’s been weeks, not hours, since we last heard from the Islanders. After a montage of cast members entering the studio, Madix promises, “Don’t worry, I brought the receipts.”
The Gist: I don’t normally write reviews like they’re live-blogs (throwback to 2005!), but it seems like the best way to recap this episode is to give a rough play by play (minus the timestamps because you’re definitely streaming this show on your own time).
At the top of the episode, after a brief montage of the cast of Love Island USA season 6 entering the studio where the reunion is being filmed and being swarmed by fans screaming “PPG!” and chanting the name of the show, Ariana and most of the Islanders sit on several long couches and she asks cast members like Cassidy, Destiny, Nigel, and Sierra how they’re doing, perhaps out of pity because this is basically the first and last time any of these people will speak on this episode. While it’s true this reunion has bigger fish to fry than chatting up bombshells who were on the show for essentially like, a long weekend, why even have them there if they’re not going to speak? But anyway. (It’s at this point that Hannah gets her one real moment to speak too, if only to hate on viewers who mocked her makeup.)
Liv mentions that the real beauty of this show is the friends we all made along the way, making this the first but most definitely not the last time Liv will speak tonight, and I feel like she got more air time than even Ariana. But that’s also because of how much she dominated the fire pit chat (we’ll get to that!). Kaylor then interjects “Friendship Island, baby!”
Ariana brings out the final four couples, winners Serena and Kordell, Nicole and Kendall, JaNa and Kenny, and Leah and Miguel. Leah talks about being the show’s breakout star (she has 3 million Instagram followers!) Ariana asks JaNa if she helped Kenny get dressed for the reunion and JaNa hilariously answers, “Kenny did it all by himself!” Kordell reveals he got the Cheez-It deal. Ariana asks about this even before asking how he and Serena are because, obvs, priorities.
The cast watches a montage of moments from their arrival onto the show. Rob talks about how emotional it is watching it all. JaNa announces she is pregnant – a joke! – and says she’s met Kenny’s mom already. Coye offers the first apology of the night – he gave an interview where he dismissed JaNa and Kenny’s relationship, but now he realizes they’re really good for each other. JaNa seems to not know why this man is speaking. After offering a quizzical look, she chirps, “Thank you,” to make him stop. JaNa has come to the show fully lawyered-up with a printout of talking points, by the way, so as to not forget who she wants to call out (Andrea, Rob, Aaron), and I am here for it, she and her printer paper are why we watch reunions.
Soon, we get into the first real segment of the night, Kendall and Nicole’s troubled relationship. As soon as the show ended, Kendall had to endure the very real, very serious issue of leaked naked videos that he was unaware were being publicized. In addition to getting some hateful responses to them, he admits to Nicole that amid the stress of it, he lied to her about it. Kendall is nearly having a panic attack discussing this, and Nicole is making it about her (I appreciate that many of her co-stars like Liv and JaNa offer her some tough love, telling her her feelings are valid but to show some support for Kendall).
The next lengthy segment is about the Rob/Andrea of it all. Rob seems calm and – humbled, maybe? – by what’s happened, Andrea not as much. At first she doubles down on her actions, but eventually Leah, JaNa (bringing out her typed paper!) and Liv really brought the receipts, pinpointing every mean thing Andrea did, and Andrea kind of eats shit. Rob and Andrea seem to have no relationship, I do wish they were forced to interact more on this episode.
Daia and Serena bury the hatchet and both seem to appreciate that neither of them has trashed one another on podcasts or social media. Ariana discusses cyberbullying – the cast begs fans to remember they are humans, and not to shitpost about people. *Saturday morning cartoon “The More You Know!” voice*
“Commercial break” – The cast eats Pizza Hut. I could absolutely go for some Backyard BBQ Chicken pizza from the Hut right now.
Another lengthy segment: Kaylor and Aaron’s turn! Aaron seems like a shell of a person at the moment? Kaylor really goes in on him for not being honest with her, even after they just spent three days in New York together preparing for this reunion. She calls him an asshole, and this man seems like something has broken inside him. His grandpa died and maybe that’s it, but you can’t help but feel like he and Rob and Kendall are all struggling with fallout from the show, why are they so reserved and sad? I know why Kendall is, but I’m concerned for all of them. Also, Liv keeps interjecting and it’s a lot of Liv for a segment that’s not about Liv.
The final segment of the night is the 15 minute uncut clip of the girls’ fire pit chat about whether to get rid of Andrea or Nicole. Admittedly, it is fascinating to watch, but it’s 15 minutes of an hour and twenty minute show, and it’s almost entirely Liv talking at the rest of the women, while none of them come to a clear decision about who to eliminate. It certainly absolves Leah of any “wrongdoing” but it’s a LOT of footage and I can’t help but wish we saw other footage besides this throughout, instead of this one monolith of a clip? Just me?
Another commercial break under the guise of “content” – Bombshells who haven’t gotten a chance to talk on the episode are eating Pizza Hut! Good for them, they deserve to get something out of this experience, lord knows it hasn’t been screen time.
The final segment: viewer questions! Rob defends his love of overalls, Serena defends her love of avocado toast, Ariana makes Kendall say “We’re gettin’ nasty!” and she thanks them all for coming.
Our Take: Going into this special, there were definitely several things I wanted addressed: current status of the final four couples, a conversation between Andrea and Leah, potentially an update on Kendall’s well-being after his leaked sex tape. We got all of that, but in varying amounts and levels of satisfaction. It’s not easy to stay current when this show was taped last week and a lot happens with these people on social media every f—ing second.
It almost feels odd that winners Serena and Kordell got as little air time as they did – while they received the spotlight early on in the episode (and Serena offered a few soundbites and some advice to Nicole later on), it feels like the show didn’t know what else to do with them other than report that they’re officially dating. It also feels odd that the full, uncensored fire pit chat got SO much time dedicated to it. I get that it resulted it some heavy repercussions for several people, but a 15-minute clip followed by five minutes of follow-up conversation is entirely too much time to spend on it.
I can appreciate the Peacock specifically spoke about wanting to keep things positive at the reunion – among cast and fans – but I think that there’s a way to do that even while discussing hard things, and it feels like, in an effort fill time or keep things light, a decision was made to stick to three or four plot points and, as a result, the show felt lopsided and uneven. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, mostly! But was it the best that it could have been? Not really. But if the show has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes a bombshell heads your way and you have to roll with it.
Parting Shot: Ariana announces the show’s renewal, promotes Love Island Games and peaces out.
Performance Worth Watching: Every cast member gives some great reaction shots to show clips, but especially Leah’s smirks/grimaces as she watches clips back.
Memorable Dialogue: I think the whole cast might have gasped when JaNa announced “We’re pregnant!” and then had to walk back her joke because some people weren’t sure if she was kidding.
Our Call: On the one hand, obviously if you’re a fan of Love Island USA, you’re going to watch this regardless of what’s addressed and regardless of what I say. But if you haven’t watched it yet, just know that only about half the cast actually speaks, and a LOT of the episode is dedicated to showing the uncut fire pit conversation about sending Andrea home which, I dunno, I guess I’d prefer to just watch as a YouTube clip instead of spending nearly 15 minutes squandering the time we have with assembled guests. As reunions go, considering how much we’ve learned about everyone from social media after the show, I feel like you could SKIP IT.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Love Island USA’ Season 6 Reunion on Peacock, Where JaNa Brought Receipts and The Uncut Fire Pit Conversation Took Up A Whole Lotta Show appeared first on Decider.
