Love Island USA Recap: Last Night Was a Movie

Love Island
Episode 25
Season 8 Episode 25
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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Each season of Love Island USA contains 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. 

Some say the point of Love Island is to explore different connections, and some argue the point is to lock into your strongest connection as soon as possible. The truth is that all Love Island asks of its Islanders is for them to follow their hearts. Their hearts may lead them to kiss multiple men in one night to test for chemistry — per Kenzie, “like a handshake,” if you will. Or their hearts may convince them to close off with their day ones. A good season of Love Island gives us both types of journeys.

The girls have been following their hearts. The boys, like KC locking in with Aniya as a strategy, or Sincere insisting he owes it to every girl he meets to tell her they have something truly special, have been playing games. That is why Movie Night, Part One — an always hotly anticipated episode in which Islanders watch clips of their worst behavior from the show and hopefully expose one another’s lies — looked so much worse for the guys than the girls, no matter how many times Zach cries “dooble stand-ahds mate!” And it’s also why I can’t find it in my heart to be truly mad at Kenzie for kissing Gal, even if it did make Dylan cry. 

Carl’s approval rating is through the roof.

I can’t remember the last time a male Islander was as universally beloved as Carl, and Aniya is the lucky girl who gets to climb onto his lap in Say Less and suck his face off. Telling Sincere about this little interlude, Aniya is literally skipping as she squeals, “I’m so happy!” She says, “The shit he says, I feel like he got it from rom-coms.” Indeed, this morning, Carl has cut Aniya’s fruit into butterfly shapes because she gives him butterflies. Carl tells Gal that after their kiss, his heart feels full. Sometimes the girls just sit around watching Carl work out and tell one another how much they all like him. Even when Carl is just standing up to make the next Movie Night selection, the girls can’t help but comment on his hotness. Aniya is so drunk on Carl right now that she thinks Sincere and Melanie are meant to be and that Sincere should close it off with her. The wildest part of all of this is that I’m not even worried Carl will suddenly turn around and betray Aniya’s trust — which experience has taught me to instinctively fear about most men on Love Island.

Kenzie is making grown men cry.

I mean, yeah, Kenzie should probably stop kissing men in secret while she’s coupled up with someone else. And is she doing this in part because she likes the attention of having two men after her at once? Quite possibly. At the same time, you can’t say she hasn’t been fully upfront about all her activities with all parties involved, and she definitely didn’t expect the reactions she got from either Dylan or Jen. 

After kissing Gal in the Speakeasy, she returns to Dylan to tell him everything, including that the kiss cemented her decision to stick with him. To her surprise, Dylan’s eyes begin to well with tears, even as she’s giving him a remix of one of Sincere’s classic lines, “It made me realize my feelings for you.” Suddenly, Kenzie, a look of bewilderment on her face, finds herself cradling Dylan’s head on her chest as he sniffles that there’s no reason to keep exploring if what they had was so good. The next day, Dylan and Kenzie come to a tentative understanding that she is done with her exploring for now, and I actually have hope for them. Call me naïve. 

Jen’s reaction is, if possible, even worse. This is in part because Kayda delivers the news of the kiss to Jen before Kenzie has a chance to, and it now looks as if Kenzie has intentionally been keeping this from Jen. When Kenzie brings it up with her, Jen is already fired up. She says Kenzie is blindsiding poor Dylan just as she blindsided poor Caleb, and if this weren’t Love Island, she wouldn’t be her friend. I don’t like this at all. Especially since the true enemy in all of this is clearly Gal. This is not peak girlhood.

Movie Night, Part One, reveals very little actually.

This year, Love Island has split Movie Night into two parts, which makes sense from a drama-maximization standpoint, but I’m still deciding how I feel about it. The more movie nights we get, the more dramatic the episodes. Yet I’m tired of making Melanie cry.

First up are all the clips of Zach making out with Alannah in Casa Amor, capped by videos of Kayda sobbing after receiving the postcard, all of which Zach watches while hiding behind Carl’s bicep. We also get a montage of KC saying things in Casa Amor that hurt Aniya’s feelings. The only really revelatory thing in this video is Kayda realizing that Alannah left Casa after night two, so Zach couldn’t have brought her back to the villa even if he wanted to. Trinity, of course, is activated on Aniya’s behalf, but we’ve seen this movie before. 

Movie Night then shows Aniya getting to know Carl during Casa Amor, inspiring the boys to leap from their seats and cry out that Aniya has no right to be upset when she did exactly the same as KC. The girls, who have been aw-ing at Aniya’s love story with Carl, tell the boys to sit down. For one thing, Aniya never said anything derogatory about KC, which even the guys must grumpily acknowledge to be true. For another, and this is my own point, KC’s poor treatment of Aniya started long before Casa Amor.

Part One of Movie Night concludes with Sincere. And Sincere has so much material to work with that this montage is entirely of Sincere saying one thing to Melanie and another to Sol. (Amora requires her own separate video, apparently.) “You’re my only connection here,” Sincere tells Melanie. Cut to a video of him making out with Sol. Repeat several times. I watched this all live, and even I am shocked at how bad this behavior looks. At its conclusion, Amora is pondering the size of the bullet she just dodged, Melanie is crying silently, and Dylan is housing his popcorn while Sincere attempts to explain himself. 

All of Movie Night would be a lot more interesting if this were not already well-trodden ground by now. But I’m prepared to eat my words if this is what finally convinces Melanie to leave Sincere for good.