Love Island USA Recap: The Heart Rate Livestream Was a Great Twist

Love Island
Episode 15-17
Season 8 Episodes 15 - 17
Editor’s Rating ★★★★★
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Each season of Love Island USA is approximately 1 million episodes, and we are recapping all of them. Check back for morning-after recaps of weekday episodes and a Monday roundup of the weekend’s shenanigans. 

I can’t believe I get to watch this show professionally. Sometimes I don’t think I appreciate my blessings enough. While I’ve been critical of some production choices this season, especially when it feels like the Islanders’ decisions are being overly manipulated, I’ve overall been enjoying the pace. Taking the time to let couples establish themselves, weather the bombshells, and work out the early kinks in their relationships is all worth it for moments like this: a twist that combines the Heart Rate Challenge with Casa Amor and a secret livestream. 

Every year, the Heart Rate Challenge is one of the most embarrassing rituals this show puts the Islanders through. They are all stuffed into selections from the adults-only section of a Spirit Halloween store and made to perform amateur strip teases for their fellow Islanders — all strapped to heart-rate monitors — to see who can raise whose heart rate the most. Those who cannot twerk usually fall back on sticking their tongues down each other’s throats, because this is Love Island, after all. But, unlike most challenges, such as yesterday’s fairy-tale-themed obstacle course, there is no food transfer or slime dunkings, making it automatically classier. Kenzie, the former competitive dancer whose most comfortable seated position is spread eagle, has been looking forward to this challenge for “her whole life.” But all the girls are excited, practicing their twerks in the mirror and running through potential lines.

You can imagine their disappointment when they descend the bedroom steps and, instead of finding their guys similarly arrayed in tighty-whiteys and firemen’s helmets, there is a giant white gift box on the lawn, because their guys (tighty-whiteys and all) have all been taken to Casa Amor. Inside the box is a giant television, from which the girls will merely be watching the livestream of the Heart Rate Challenge happening in Casa (even though there are no actual heart-rate monitors this year). 

The Casa livestream twist is an inhumane form of torture that the girls are not taking lightly.

Now the girls, with their useless prop hats drooping sadly over their foreheads, are forced to watch strangers in even cuter outfits than theirs (according to Jen) doing body rolls all over the boys the main-villa girls have only just managed to wrangle into something like a relationship. So now, not only are their asses out and cooters shaved for nothing, the boys don’t even seem to care what they’re missing. 

How would you react? Kayda shouts into the night air at the injustice, “Where the fuck are the boys for us!” Melanie, face grim, tells the girls they must continue to “watch them,” like they are bearing witness to a war crime. Kenzie, overcome with righteous fury, cannot resist punctuating her “Fuck you!” screams with an angry split right there on the lawn, with no one but her girls and a couple of dozen hidden cameras to see and appreciate. There is nothing more evocative of a pure Love Island experience than a heartbroken rage split in costume. I love this.

Some of the girls have more cause for anger than others. On only the second Casa bombshell — Parmida, dressed as a self-described “Persian cat” — Corbin is saying he’s definitely coming back to the villa with somebody new, which leaves Islanders on both villas wide-eyed with shock. None of the other boys go that far, but KC seems close. In fact, none of them are shy about their glee, leaving Kayda crying, Trinity snarling, and Melanie calculating. Even Jen, out of solidarity, I assume, snaps for Caleb to put his hand down. 

Casa Amor, as a concept, is traditionally structured like a prisoner’s dilemma, with neither the main villa nor Casa Islanders aware of what their counterparts are doing while they’re separated. Letting the girls see what the boys are up to while the boys are unaware that they’re being watched goes against this principle, but, in this instance at least, it is way more fun. I did not tune in to this villa to watch every single one of my girls, with their pure and trusting hearts, get taken in by these men and their big promises about “catching feelings.” I’m watching to see Melanie and her hottie army rain hellfire on those disloyal little jerks. Because, in the wake of the Heart Rate livestream, Mel has taken on a certain Khaleesi energy that I, for one, would like to see more of. Like a call to arms, Melanie says if the boys are acting like this now, they’ll be 30 times worse when they’re out of the villa at the club, so they should know now.

The girls needed this wake-up call after the double dumping.

As devastating as these developments may be, there have been established cracks in the Islanders’ connections for those with eyes to see. Let’s rewind a moment. There is really only one thing worth discussing from Friday’s episode, and it is not Bryce declaring that Gabe’s dumping was “the most slut-shaming thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” It is Zach revealing himself to be the whiniest little Harry Potter ass this side of the Atlantic. 

The first signs were his dramatic overreaction to the girls dumping Gabe. The next was his minor hysterics over Caleb’s interest in Kayda. Yesterday, or maybe it was a few days ago, time is meaningless in the villa, Zach jokingly suggested to Caleb that he pull Kayda for a chat — clearly not expecting Caleb to actually do it. Suddenly sensing competition, he’s now accusing Kayda of “gushing” and “loving it” when Caleb kissed her during that Fairytale Knight Challenge. Caleb and Kayda spend a few minutes chatting in the Say Less nook, and Zach torments himself with mental images of them making out just outside of view. (They were not making out.) I’m pretty sure Kayda is only entertaining this because she’s young and still thinks wild jealousy is a sign of affection, but Zach has worked himself into such a lather by the time he is sent off to Casa Amor that he’s about to destroy their connection altogether. 

Kayda is not the only one who’s been missing warning signs. Aniya and KC, for instance, are having the same argument they’ve been having for a week now, and it ends the same way. KC tells Aniya that he was into Sol and that she has nothing to worry about. These are two contradictory sentences that she is made to feel crazy for acknowledging.

Corbin has been playing a similar game. One minute he’s telling Kenzie he’s catching feelings, and they’re getting French fries in bed (all I really know about “French fries” is that it’s sexual and it’s wetter than kissing, per Trinity), and the next he’s annoyed with her for saying she likes it when he takes the initiative to kiss her. 

Speaking of Trinity, we know now that her relationship with Bryce has progressed to the point where she has seen his penis (her very first white dick) and she finds it “cute.” She was certainly not expecting to watch him tongue down her own dupe in Casa Amor, and I feel for her on that point. Briefly, I have been avoiding talking about the Zach and Bryce romantic side plot because it feels cheap, but they’re leaving me no choice. Two days ago, we had Zach stretching out Bryce’s hamstring. Now we have Bryce giving Zach a peek at the goods for no reason whatsoever. Is this how straight men are together? Because viewed from a post-Casa lens, it’s starting to feel like Trinity has gotten no closer to Bryce than Zach has. 

All of which is to say that the girls really deserve the 12 (12!) new bombshells coming their way while the boys are at Casa. And I cannot wait to see this villa truly turn up, now that there are feelings involved. 

Quotes of the Week

“If it’s missionary, yeah, suck these toes.” — Trinity 

“In high school, I had, like, two big posters of myself in my room.” — Kayda 

“I don’t think they have turkeys in Fiji.” — Sincere 

“Ima be real: I’m not getting ugly.” — Trinity 

“Y’all wanna see some theatrics? A bitch about to perform.” — Aniya 

“What do they call southern belles for boys?” — Trinity 

“Zach’s tongue’s always out, so I hope he put that to use.” — Melanie 

“I felt like a candy cane, like Candy Land.” — Kenzie