Vulgar Watches: Love Island Season 7 Reunion
So many young faces plumped with so much lip filler, so many boob jobs, so many gleaming veneers. It's good to be back.
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It's time for the feature-length film that is the Love Island Season 7 Reunion.
It's been nearly six weeks since we left the Villa, and we have forgotten so much about these hot young 20-somethings who occupied our summer.
The islanders strut into the studio, and it's immediately weird to see them wearing so many clothes. In a not-so-subtle ad, Andy Cohen and Ariana Madix roll up in a BMW to descend upon the unsuspecting islanders waiting in the villa-themed set. So many young faces plumped with so much lip filler, so many boob jobs, so many gleaming veneers. It's good to be back.
The reunion kicks off with the final four: Amaya and Brian, Huda and Chris (seated apart), Iris and Pepe, and Olandria and Nic.
A chill runs down our spine as the camera pans to Huda. We've never felt more emotionally abused by someone on television.
We watch edits of the final four as they make their journey to the finale, an assault of mouths and tongues.
Andy asks Amaya and Brian where they stand after he was photographed... pouring shots for people? Amaya says something about Brian's pinky toe. They come across as genuinely liking each other, which is quite a feat, even on a show designed to make people like each other.
The focus shifts to Iris and Pepe, who claim to be official but are discussing "what dating looks like to one another," which sounds anything but official. Iris addresses meeting up with TJ after the show wrapped. As the camera pans from Iris on the set to TJ watching from the green room, their faces begin to melt into one tanned, plump-lipped, rosy-cheeked, dirty-blond-haired being.
Andy gleefully turns to Huda and Chris and is positively beaming as he asks them about the excruciating moment on the final episode when a singer starts to belt out "Moon River" at the exact moment Chris and Huda decided they're done.
Huda starts to say that she feels fine seeing Chris now, and he interrupts her in a very Trump vs. Hillary-like manner, saying, "WEIRD. Very weird on my end."
Then, Andy grins, absolutely beaming, when he asks Chris how his mom feels about Huda. You devil, you, Andy!
Chris pretty much answers that his mom hates Huda.
They address Huda trashing Chris on podcast interviews, saying that he had a "wandering eye," which is so odd on a show called Love Island, where the objective is pretty much to have a wandering eye until you find your strongest connection, but hey! What do we know!?
Huda doesn't actually answer the question and instead says, "We weren't a good match and that's OK!"
Ace cracks up from the green room, and it's refreshing to see someone laughing at Huda's insanity.
Chris says Huda reached out a few days before the reunion to smooth things over before appearing in front of millions of people to talk about what went down between them, à la Kyle to Dorit before the RHOBH season 17 reunion.
Strangely, no one seems to notice when Huda's jaw slowly unhinges as she's talking, and a cloud of black flies pours out.
Ariana gives Chris one more chance to say, "Huda's not a nice person," but he exercises mammoth restraint.
Huda says she can't comment on her relationships outside of the Villa for legal reasons because of "Netflix," and everyone is like, "Whuuuu?"
Andy is like, "Cool, tell Netflix I say they can shove it up their fucking asses."
Now it's time to turn our microscopes to Nic and Olandria.
Nic is looking damp. His goldish-brownish-yellowish suit is blending into the bench behind him. Turns out these two are in a relationship but not "labeled." What. Does. That. Even. Fucking. Mean?!
But you know what? They do have "future dates planned," so it must be true love.
Nic says, "They hate us 'cause they ain't us," and we cringed so hard our stomachs dropped right into our asses.
Ariana brings up the Cierra of it all. Nic says he hasn't talked to Cierra and doesn't have plans to.
Nic says something about having a huge dong and being called "the Big Belgian," and our stomachs plummeted further into our asses.
Taylor, Clark, Chelly, and Ace are marched out to the set, looking like a procession of couples getting seated at Chili’s before senior prom.
Andy pulls kindling, flint, and a small rock out of his pocket, deftly starting a small but mighty fire on the floor. He then rips Taylor's shoes off and holds his feet to the crackling flames, asking him if he was really as torn between Olandria and Clark as he made it out to be. Taylor's face says no, but his mouth says yes.
Andy then gently passes Taylor's feet to Ariana, who shoves them further into the flames and asks him if he feels like he owes Olandria an apology for not being honest about his feelings.
Like a gentleman, he says he was waiting for the right moment and hey! Look at that! It's the right moment, like, right now. He mumbles something and people clap.
Andy turns back to the fire, blowing on it and adding more kindling. Ariana asks Chelly and Ace, "How the fuck long have you guys known each other?!" They maintain that they met once in NYC last year. Andy then asks Ace if he is in love with Chelly, as if he would even consider saying no in front of millions of people.
Casa Amor Islanders are marched out, adding to the prom vibes. We don't recognize half of them; we're old and our minds only have room to remember so many faces.
The floor in front of Andy and Ariana begins to quake. The Josefin Sans Love Island font cracks as a cavernous hole to hell opens up. For the next several minutes, Andy and Ariana take turns pairing the Islanders up against one another to spar over shady comments made on podcasts and social media.
Once the final punches are thrown, they pull the losing Islander from their seat, drag them across the wood floor, and roll them into the great pit.
Zac and the cereal bowl on his head come on video chat to address his desperate attempt to get back with Amaya during week four, after it was revealed to the Islanders that she was America's favorite. He gives the biggest kind of apology ever and she graciously accepts it.
Austin must have taken an edible or five. He short-circuits while trying to answer a simple question about where he and Jaden stand. It's revealed that Jaden asked him to communicate with her if he was seeing other people so she wouldn't be humiliated post-Villa — a request Austin answered by ghosting her. Andy is like, "You're a fucking idiot, bro."
Chelly looks stone-faced as she watches unseen footage of Huda telling her she was going to bring Chris back for both her and Chelly.
Too much time is spent on it, nothing is resolved, but tensions are heightened.
Hannah-Banana is back to speak about what it felt like to be kicked to the curb by her fellow Islanders. We watch her watch unseen footage of the girls deliberating who to send to the guillotine, during which Chelly pulls out a massive spoon and pot and begins to stir it while chanting Hannah’s name.
Jeremiah marches out, and he looks ravenous to address the uncooked pancake incident and the toxicity that blossomed between him and Huda. Huda does the classic not-really-taking-accountability dance by saying, "I'm learning from mistakes blah blah blah." As she is speaking, her eyes slowly turn black, and smoke starts billowing out of them.
Ace and Jeremiah face off over the accusation that Ace is a ringleader and Jeremiah is a love bomber, which they cannot agree on the definition of. The other guys chime in, and Austin is asked to share his thoughts. His head wobbles until it falls right off of his neck and rolls across the floor. No one notices.
Olandria and Chelly ask Huda — the same Huda who held her castmates and the audience hostage with emotional volatility — to answer for not calling off her rabid fan base from harassing them after saying that she would. And Huda does what she does best: apologizes without actually apologizing.
We watch Huda laughing as she watches footage of herself being a terrorist in the Villa. She says at least she was unapologetically herself, as if being an asshole is acceptable when it's under the guise of authenticity.
She says she's grown as a person since then, and Andy is like, "Oh wow! After just a month! Amazing!"
We finally see footage of Huda wagging her labia right in Ace's face during the heart rate challenge.
The reunion wraps up with a friendship montage of the Islanders being all buddy in the Villa, which fails to convince us that any of them will remain friends.
As we watch them watch the montage, their heads spontaneously explode, one by one, until Andy and Arianna are surrounded by headless bodies draped in yards of polyester, fashion tape, oversized blazers, and blinding piles of sequins. Ariana and Andy are somehow untouched by the carnage. They leave the set together, Andy offering his arm to Arian as she tiptoes through the blood, skin flaps and chunks of skull that litter the floor around them.
Final Thoughts
Austin's socks and shoes are a sin.
Gentlemen, what is the issue with wearing suits with no shirt underneath?
Andy is giving off proud papa energy to Ariana.
Ace is acting like he's running for Congress.
No questions to Ace about why he was such an ass to Amaya?
These people are much less interesting when they talk. We'd rather watch them play mind games with each other in a Nickelodeon-esque Villa.