Episode 13
Season 8
Episode 13
Editor’s Rating
4 stars
****
America’s matchmaking didn’t last long. The couples torn apart immediately got back together in a recoupling ceremony that involved giant mailboxes.
Photo: Peacock
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.
As I was saying, the heart wants what the heart wants, and no amount of well-intentioned matchmaking on America’s part is going to keep these Islanders from sleeping with the people they want to sleep with. At this recoupling, everyone was actually allowed to choose who they wanted to couple up with — with the exception of Caleb and Sol, who were forced into a consolation couple that the public is, for some reason, allowed to vote for as the favorite couple. We never know exactly what the consequences of America’s votes will be, but, based on history, it’s likely that the lowest-ranked couples will be at risk of dumping, which means that Caleb and Sol could still be saved by the fans.
I know we just had a recoupling like five minutes ago, but things move fast in this villa, so try to keep up. For tonight’s ceremony, Love Island brought back the oversize props: giant mailboxes that Zach probably imagines are what real American mailboxes look like. The game is a little reminiscent of last year’s “Stand Your Ground” exercise, but significantly less mean-spirited. The Islanders are tasked with writing a love letter to the person they want to couple up with, and then the letters go into the appropriate recipient’s mailbox. If an Islander doesn’t get any letters, that means no one wants to couple up with them, a bit like fourth-grade Valentine’s Day.
Most of the couples stay exactly where you expect: Jen and Gabe, Zach and Kayda, Aniya and KC, and Trinity and Bryce. Their letters to each other are written with varying degrees of eloquence. Aniya brought KC to tears, and I’m coming around to Trinity and Bryce after Bryce’s opening line: “Dear Trinity, when I first kissed you behind the doggy-style door, I knew we had something special.” It’s Sol, Sincere, Caleb, Kenzie, Melanie, and Corbin who remain the theoretical wildcards, even as Sincere and Melanie and Corbin and Kenzie recouple, leaving Caleb and Sol to match by default.
Personally, I’m satisfied with how everything worked out. Everybody gets to be with who they want to be with, and we got to hear some real emotions from the Islanders, some of them (ahem, Jen and Gabe) for the first time. The only thing I don’t love is that Caleb and Sol are still here. They both seem like perfectly nice people, but after failing as bombshells, shouldn’t they just be dumped from the villa or at least left single? How many chances does a bombshell get these days? Plus I still have not forgotten the injustice done to Bea, no matter how much sex Gabe and Jen are currently having under the covers.
You could feel trouble brewing in paradise from the moment Zach asked, in the darkness of the hideaway, if Kayda would kill him for cracking on with a bombshell. Unless you’re Kayda, that is, who is only feeling increasingly confident and secure. “Do you love kissing me?” she asks Zach on the daybeds. “Did you think you’d come in here and find this right away?” After learning about the love-letter recoupling, Kayda says she is feeling “ecstatic!” But with less than a week until Casa Amor, I can’t help but feel we are being primed for heartbreak, because Zach, meanwhile, asks the group aloud, “Can I write to Bryce?”
For the first week or so, Zach was completely obsessed with Kayda. But now that she seems equally obsessed with him, I get the feeling he feels like he’s missing out on something. Obviously, he still writes his love letter to her, because what else is he going to do, but putting two “who would have thoughts” into one short note doesn’t have me convinced that he’s giving this his all. Mark my words: Casa Amor is going to come for them hard.
Corbin and Melanie may have spent their first night together and actually kissed in bed (!), but we all knew where this was going when Corbin made a special, extra heart-shaped pancake just for Kenzie in the morning.
Kenzie tells Caleb she wants to focus on growing their connection, and she thinks watching him fix an elevator might be hot, but I’ve seen her make out with enthusiasm before, and this is not that. Corbin, for his part, can’t think of a reason not to write his letter to Kenzie other than it might provoke a temper tantrum from Melanie, who he says (unfairly, if you’re asking me) will cry and threaten to leave the villa if she’s not chosen.
So, it is exciting, but not entirely shocking, when Kenzie opens her big mailbox to find two letters inside. The first, from Caleb, is very sweet. The second, from Corbin, includes the line, “I knew we had something that was not worth giving up.” Caleb, sadly, opens his mailbox to find it empty because Kenzie has likewise written her letter to Corbin.
“I miss our time together, but most of all I miss you,” she writes to Corbin. Corbin and Kenzie are officially back on. Corbin triumphantly says, “America can’t break this shit up!” If you still think Corbin and Melanie are a better match after this, then I don’t know what to tell you, because Melanie didn’t write her letter to Corbin either.
One has to feel for Sol, who spends the entire morning telling everyone how honest and up-front Sincere is and how much he’s been reassuring her and how close they’ve been getting. Only for him to return to his one true Bad Romance at the end of the day.
When Sincere opens his mailbox, there are two letters: one from Sol and one from Melanie. The letter from Sol is a sort of poem that rhymes, and the letter from Melanie is long and emotional, because it is filled with all two weeks of their history. I think Sincere honestly believes himself when he says he is always upfront with people, but he has been telling both Melanie and Sol how much he cares for them, so both have a right to feel confident in this moment.
And yet, when Sol finds her mailbox empty, she tells Ariana her “woman’s intuition” told her that this would happen. Personally, I don’t think it was a woman’s intuition so much as it was she heard Melanie’s stage-whisper to Kayda about her conversation with Sincere in the speakeasy. But all is not lost yet, Sol. America may yet vote for you and Caleb for their favorite couple.
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