The 'Love Island' Week That Was (2024)

Too hot to write intros, sorry! It’s simply too hot for preamble! Just cut to the chase! Love Island content, studded with memes! Last time we ever have to do this, before a double-shift of it next year! Your favourite column is over! Bye!

HOT. IT’S HOT

It is unarguable this week that everyone in the villa’s head fell off one way or another. But before you judge Jordan too harshly……….. hath your head not fallen off, too? Consider the temperature outside. Think how little work you got done yesterday, and how many erratic texts you sent. How much water you drank and how unutterably horny you got for a Calippo. Think how much your brain slowed down in the heat and turned into putty.

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Now consider: that’s broadly been the conditions the Islanders have been living in for weeks. It absolutely makes sense that Jordan, under such heat and pressure, would ask Anna to be his girlfriend, then – seconds later, when India walks past in a sort of wicker-woven bra – have his head turned entirely and decide that he fancies her now instead.

If you’ve ever seen SAS: Who Dares Wins on Channel 4, and the state all the recruits are in after weeks of being shouted at, sleep-deprived and physically dispirited, then you will understand how Jordan has been feeling this week, because the shows are the same, just the outfits are different. Yes, he acted like a f*ckboy. But doth a f*ckboy not live inside of you, too? Doth the heat not make that boy leak like dark slime out of your wretched heart?*

*Probably not, but I tried!

CRAP NOW, INNIT

I want to caveat this with: if they send in Tamer Hassan to violently interrogate Anton and Tyson Fury, to intensely baffle Molly-Mae, before trying to put Curtis in a headlock (“Where’s that soft prick?”) then I take it all back, but: crap now, innit?

The last few days of Love Island are always crap, because it’s just eight knackered people tiptoeing to the finish line, waiting for the day off before the final where they get full spray tans and final glamour calls, making HD footage of them on dates, twirling in front of a harp player or drinking prosecco joylessly on a boat. Tomorrow we’ll get a bit of Tommy trying to say something emotional to Molly-Mae (“You are… my heart. My heart is… right. And that’s— no, because. My heart is… and you are my heart”) and then loads of gatherings round the fire pit where Anton sobs and says he’s made friends for life.

CURTIS’ BAD ADVICE

There’s a reason Jordan kept going back to the spoiled well of Curtis Pritchard for advice over India: he was the only one who was endorsing such bizarre, erratic, self-sabotaging behaviour. Before Jordan’s now-infamous, “Yeah, I just really like seeing you round the villa” anti-chat, he checked with Curtis two, three, four times to see if what he was thinking about India was correct, and every time, Curtis – who, since entering the villa, has gone both dummy thicc and insane – kept telling him his heart was right all along. It wasn’t. Hearts have no thought process to them at all. You were just horny, Jordan, and now look what happened. Look what happened when Curtis Pritchard rubber stamps your horniness. This.

I think it’s important to mark Curtis’ character arc since entering the villa, because it’s been fascinating: in his first few days, gleaming ballroom smile and chilling serial killer camp, he was intensely unlikeable; then, as he slowly felt out Amy for a relationship and became the house healer cum undercover therapist, he was arguably the most vital male cog in the machine. And then the wheels fell off completely: the Jourdan wobble at Casa Amor, the heart exploding Amy break-up, the few days spent single and lonely in the heat of the sun, the baffling will-he-won’t-he between Maura and Francesca, and now here he is, deranged and wearing his socks on the daybed, half a handjob beneath an undulating duvet.

This is the man you’re asking for advice, yeah? And you’re wondering why things went wrong?

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME THE ACOUSTICS IN THE GARDEN PLEASE

Is it like the IMAX or one of those ancient amphitheatres where some quirk of acoustics means everyone can hear everything at all times? I just don’t understand how every conversation can somehow be heard across great distances and in perfect, 360° surround sound. How does this place work? What dark magic guards the villa’s astroturfed exterior? Will someone explain! Will someone explain!

CURTIS’ REFUSAL TO SHAG

Real banner week for Curtis Pritchard, here: first, he gave Jordan such bad advice the man had to leave the island about it; then Anna took him to one side and systemically unmade his personality so nervelessly, I think, that if the producers cared about the wellbeing of their Islanders at all, he should have been quietly guided to one side for a double-session of aftercare therapy. Then, under the hot horny covers in the still-grieving shared bedroom, he absolutely refused to shag Maura despite her practically begging him to do so.

Listen: I’d be a bit nervous about shagging on TV, too! But I’d be much more nervous about Maura, straddling me with an energy that borders on violence, and what she might do to me if I refuse to satiate her in any way at all.

@joelgolby