I Wish You a Very Love Island Christmas

Between Rupaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4 and my weekly disappointment watching Riverdale, I thought I was pretty well-covered on the telly front. But then, lo and behold, a Christmas special of Love Island was brought out. Because what’s more festive than watching a bunch of talentless, botoxed ninnies prancing around a house that’s far nicer than one I’ll ever live in, drinking watered down cocktails and arguing about their various petty relationship problems. What do you mean ‘literally anything’?

Maybe ‘Christmas special’ is a bit of a grandiose term for what was essentially just a reunion with this year’s cast, but as the holidays are coming they did try hard to make the episode Christmassy. I was ready to have a good snicker/eye roll at the tacky Christmas-themed bikinis the girls would be forced to wear – which I’ll admit puts me in as bad a light as the producers who make this show – but instead viewers were treated to the tacky eyesore of cheap Motel Rocks outfits (apart from Laura, who I thought looked pretty lovely actually. Not being sarcastic there). Meanwhile the lads donned their best circulation-cut-off jeans and teeth whitening kits to bound around that villa like young gazelles in the early spring.

You may be wondering why I didn’t write a blog post about this year’s cohort considering I couldn’t stop banging on about last year’s. And there are a few reasons for that. Largely, the cast was far inferior. There was no Kem, no ‘I used to be in the Blazing Squad’, no Liv screeching like a banshee and blowing her top just because someone looked at her the wrong way, and most importantly, there was no Kem. I loved Kem. This year’s cohort weren’t love-to-hate-them bad, they were just pure hate-them. Dr Alex George’s general eau-de-despair (that you could somehow smell through the TV screen) and ahoihoihoi-ing made me feel a bit sick. Dani Dyer’s shrill voice gave me a headache, Georgia’s “I’M LOYAL I’M REAL” mantra gave me a headache, and watching Megan’s self-satisfied smirk and plastic forehead for twenty minutes a day was taking me beyond headaches and straight into an aneurysm. I didn’t have it in me to write about them, to be honest. But, as a Christmas gift to nobody, I’m going to throw in my two pence about the reunion.

I was actually pretty grateful for Iain Sterling’s ‘previously on Love Island’ intro because I’d completely forgotten that poor Laura basically had ‘kick me’ stamped on her forehead the whole time she was in there, and I'd forgotten that Sam and Georgia had their 'you can stay in the villa but not as a couple' dramatic storyline. Oh, and Kendall existed. I also thought it was a nice tacky touch that they’d added sleigh bells to the show’s jumpy theme tune, and for all of the cast to be driven to the location in white limos. But it wasn’t long before my eyes were rolling.

It was weird seeing some of the people come back – largely, Kendall, whose unusually small face was only in it for one uneventful week – and Hayley ‘what about the trees when we leave the EU’ Hughes. Seeing the reunion was vaguely reassuring at times, which sounds odd, but it was that reaffirmation that some things never change; Kaz is as smug as ever, Jack and Dani are still easily the most likeable people there, and Caroline Flack’s stylist did yet another bad job.

There was bound to be some kind of a ‘Jack Frost’ atmosphere as a lot of these couples had split up. Ellie and Charlie’s relationship appeared to come to a grisly end – I don’t read enough gossip magazines to know of the specifics – and the two of them being in the same room was unbelievably awkward. Great telly. And they weren’t the only ones whose relationship ended on a sour note. “I mean, whatever, it was his doing,” Laura said about the end of her relationship with Paul. I love Laura, I do, but she is completely devoid of charm sometimes.

It was nice to see them catching up about their lives. “I’ve actually been dating a girl for a little bit,” Dr Alex said about a girl who’s now going to change her name and move to another country. Kendall and Eyal (the pretentious model, rah, with great hair who just likes it when people have a good aura and vibe yah) had a snog on a night out. “How cute,” Laura described it. I wouldn’t use ‘cute’ to describe tonsil tennis in a grotty night club but each to their own. The two of them awkwardly flirting got a lot of screen time – probably the producers’ way of apologising for how short Kendall’s stint on the show was. Thank you, next.

I’m pretty angry the episode was an hour and a half long, too, because it meant things were unbearably dragged out. Georgia wasn’t brought in for ages, but of course her arrival was unnecessarily loud and had be cringing myself into an early grave. Legend has it her “THE PARTY DON’T START TIL I WALK IN!” could be heard from space. “Are you giving me attitude already, Sam?” she asked her ex in an impressive display of attitude. Just a thoroughly unlikeable girl.

“Did you or did you not cheat on him?” Dani asked, a fair question.

“Oh come on Dani babes, if you know me you know me, are you really asking me that, I can't believe you asked me that,” was the gist of the response.

So...that’s a ‘yes’ then. Nobody who's telling the truth dances around a question like that. Unbelievably cagey. Not that he’s a saint, reading private messages on her phone while she was asleep. Both as bad as each other...Well, no, she's louder and more aggressive, so she's worse. Definitely worse.

She went round to her ex’s house at 4am to ‘collect some stuff’, which yeah, you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that’s dodgy. “I was loyal,” she insisted, with no substantial evidence or coherent argument. “Stop shouting at me,” she whined at Sam, who I actually thought was pretty calm considering how infuriating Georgia can be, before marching off. Because, you know, it would have been too adult of her to hang around to hear fair reasons as to why their relationship came to an end. It appears she can’t even be loyal to herself, believing all her own lies. #Deep. In short, it’s a good thing they broke up. They did not belong together. And to be honest, I did have a good chuckle at how bored the rest of the cast looked.

Ellie and Charlie talking to each other was sufficiently awkward. Ellie bringing up Charlie not saying hello was unfair – he was right to point out she didn’t either. And that is as far as I’ll go defending that little scrote. What a vile man. He lied. He admitted that, true, but he still lied in the first place, and he only admitted that once she had the proof that he’d been ‘partying’ with other girls. And he didn’t even check with her before announcing the end of their relationship on social media? AND her parents saw that before she could even tell them! Horrible.

But ho ho ho, it’s Christmas! Deck the halls with a heartbroken girl's crying, right? Fa la la la la...Oh. Oh, yeah, that was horrible to watch.

The last section of the episode showed them all eating an ok-looking Christmas dinner, but they were all getting along and it was nice enough. They played a funny game where they were given headlines about people with blanks to fill in, so ‘Doctor Alex George is actually a bit of a blank’ – the blank being ‘player’. Hayley once again continued to present a case that the British education system is failing. “I was learned,” she said, and the others had to tell her she meant ‘taught’. And she thinks the title ‘Dr’ makes someone sound like royalty. Just honestly, get her off my screen. Permanently.

The exchange of presents was quite nice, too. I had a snicker at Hayley receiving the future prime minister hoodie, and Meg and Wes being given the karma sutra, which was a nice sly dig about how grossly overly-sexual they are on TV (don't argue with me, they were far too happy to share what they got up to in the bedroom). And Jack and Dani getting Mr and Mrs dressing gowns was pretty cute.

So what did I think of the Christmas special? It was entertaining enough. Could have done with being half an hour shorter, so don't go out of your way to watch it. But if you want to watch it, be my guest, because it isn't time wasted. And at least they played Elton John's Step Into Christmas, aka the best festive song ever. If you disagree, fight me. I love it.

Now we just have a gruelling 6-month wait til the next series. *Casually starts to count down the days*

Image belongs to ITV2.