Episode 32
Season 8
Episode 32
Editor’s Rating
4 stars
****
America and the Islanders’ family members are in alignment: Brinity forever, Kenzie is innocent, and Melanie needs to dump Sincere.
Photo: YouTube
Family Day is one of the most beloved Love Island traditions — probably because every person who has ever watched this show has thought, at one point or another, What must their parents think? The event, when each Islander is visited by two loved ones, is our opportunity to check in with those parents firsthand. How do Kenzie’s mom and dad feel about her emotive splits-ing, for instance? Did Kayda’s dad watch her in the Hideaway with Zach? Does KC’s mom approve of Titi? That kind of thing.
In most cases, I find parents tend to give their kids a lot more grace than the audience, which is understandable, if occasionally disappointing. Very rarely do you get a dad flying all the way to Fiji for the express purpose of really parenting. Which is what makes Sincere’s father, Benjamin, the real MVP of Family Day (sponsored by Coffee-Mate). Bryce’s grandma, however, is in a close second place.
Functionally, Family Day can do a lot to confirm a relationship’s authenticity or to poke holes. Aniya’s and Carl’s families are ready to start planning group vacations (which feels especially right on a morning when Carl is left slack-jawed by Aniya’s beauty). KC’s and Titi’s mothers’ mutual soft-spoken interactions with each other do a lot to explain why their children seem to click so effortlessly. However, Kayda’s mom and sister do not seem 100 percent sold on Zach — even with Charlie there to vouch for him. But I’d say there were three major highlights to Family Day this year.
The first visitors to arrive at the villa are Trinity’s mom and sister and Bryce’s mom and grandma. Clearly, when KC called Aniya “grandma,” he had not met Anne, who wants to know when they’re going to send these kids to the Hideaway. “Come on, you’re fighting nature here!” she tells the beach hut. Immediately, I would die for her. She interrupts the conversation about Bryce’s loveliness to shout to Kenzie, “Even if he has turtle tongue, right?” Paradise Cove comes up, and his grandma observes, philosophically, “Somebody gets underserved in a three-way.” I’ll bet no one is more confused by the Islanders’ use of the word “lustful” than Bryce’s grandmother. Obviously, Anne and Bryce’s mom, Keri, love Trinity because, as someone said earlier in the day, “It’s very hard not to like you, Trinity.” Trinity’s mom and sister approve of Bryce in return, having become convinced of their love connection at the same time as the rest of us — when Trinity cried over him during Casa Amor.
Now Bryce and Trinity get to spend the rest of the day watching everybody else’s home visits and providing commentary like sportscasters. Mostly, this is Bryce observing how beautiful everyone’s family is because I don’t think Bryce has gotten even a whiff of a bad vibe from the moment he returned from Casa and found Trinity waiting for him alone. You know what, I don’t care if there’s only a couple of days left — I’m with Grandma Anne. Send these kids to the Hideaway!
I, for one, have been eager to get Dylan’s mom’s verdict on Kenzie ever since he said he wouldn’t really know what to think until he got his mom’s approval. Turns out, Kenzie put in way more effort than she needed to because Dylan’s mom, Carrie, was on Kenzie’s side the whole time. Dylan explains his reservations about Kenzie to his mother, and she tells him the same thing everyone in America has been saying: “I don’t really think she did anything wrong,” Carrie tells her son. And even if Kenzie hurt your feelings, Carrie continues, “She did apologize.” Kenzie takes the extra step of pulling Carrie for a one-on-one chat, and Carrie basically says, Seriously, don’t even worry about it.
Dylan seems to be reassured both by his mom’s dismissal of his concerns and the fact that Kenzie has a real family. As long as we’re here, we should take a minute to mention Kenzie’s video call from her dad, which was sweet. “The beauty of love is you only have to get it right once,” he tells her.
I mean, I still think Kenzie and Dylan are going to break up before the reunion, but it’s nice to know they have supportive and reasonable parents.
All day, as families come and go from the villa, dispensing hugs and kisses and requests to “Take good care of my girl!” everyone is anxiously anticipating how Sincere’s and Melanie’s family visit is going to go down. Except Sincere and Melanie, who think their families will see how in love they are and forgive everything that came before. Well, the first thing we see Sincere’s dad say to Melanie’s family is, basically, that he’s sorry for his son. So you already know this is not going to be the wholesome, lovey-dovey meetup everyone else got.
The real talk begins almost immediately when Melanie’s sister Stephany says, “We have a lot to talk about, especially about my ‘beloved.’” (Bryce, still using his sportscaster voice, tells Trinity from a few daybeds away, “This is a very important conversation. Melanie is so close to her mom.”) Benjamin quickly jumps in to back up Stephany, saying his family is “rooting for you,” as in Melanie. “The shit he did … I didn’t travel 7,000 miles to support that.”
Once separated, Benjamin proceeds to give his son the business in terms that rival some of Melanie’s greatest one-liners: “I would never let someone sit at a table with me that moved like that.” “You have this beautiful woman standing on ten toes waiting for you, and you’re still out here exploring.” “To lead these women on and then cut ’em down? … These are grown women!” Meanwhile, Stephany is in tears, begging Melanie to please just leave this guy because she doesn’t deserve this and he’s not treating her right. Then Zoila tells her, in Spanish, “Your heart is sacred.” She adds, “Why are you gonna give him a second chance when there are so many waiting for their first?” Melanie, honey, baby, angel, love, if you won’t listen to America, your friends, Sincere’s family, or your sister, please listen to your mother.
Alas, at the end of the day, once everyone has gone, Melanie says, “I think I’m just gonna be true to myself and not listen to everyone else.” I can’t wait for this train wreck to be over.
Now, with only two episodes of the season left, we wait for America’s votes to determine which two couples are getting dumped ahead of the finale. In a just world, the public would save Melanie from herself by voting for any couple but them. Unfortunately, this is not a just world (which we already knew, since we are apparently not getting a fake-baby episode either), and Melanie’s personal winsomeness is probably going to carry her and Sincere into the final four regardless of their relationship’s clear toxicity. Since Trinity and Bryce and Aniya and Carl are all but guaranteed to go all the way, it is now a battle between Kayda and Zach, KC and Titi, and Kenzie and Dylan for the final spot.
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