Love Island 2021 review: Almost all of our villa’s couples looked set to implode

Elsewhere in the villa, things have been getting sexy

Before I start this review, I must first begin with an apology. There are times in life when you have to admit that you’ve got it wrong. Where you have to hold your hands up and say, “Friends, family, I made the wrong call.” No one is perfect. Least of all a person who routinely watches Love Island and writes about it. But today I say, I got it wrong. Not even a bit wrong – all of it. Because in the space of 24 hours, not one, not two, but almost all of our villa’s couples looked set to implode.

As we bade adieu to Chuggs, we also said goodbye to reason itself, as chaos erupted across the villa. In the time it would take to say “what the f*** is going on?”, Kaz and Toby were having The Talk, Faye was getting the ick and Brad and Rachel were dry humping.

First let us turn our attention to Kaz and Toby, a couple we have been rooting for from the very beginning. Having been coupled up from the first day, Kaz and Toby are now one of the few long-haulers standing, their relationship tiptoeing around the edges of something more romantic than friendship. After a few episodes worth of pre-empt, it was finally the time for Toby to pluck up the courage and tell Kaz how he feels, which is actually... that he doesn’t know how he feels. It was “The Talk” Kaz had been dreading. Initiated with an altogether triggering, “We should talk about me and you,” it was enough to emotionally transport me back in time to 2014, when I was dumped on a park bench in Harrogate.

As Toby broached their relationship status, the look on Kaz’s face said it all. The reassuring nod, the half-smile of, “it’s OK”, when inside you are very much not OK. Here is a woman who has “caught the feels”, and yet does not want to give away the fact that she has “caught the feels”. We’ve all been there, babe! I promise you it does get better! Luckily enough for Kaz, The Talk was not the doom-laden finale we expected. For now, they’re giving it a go, but I can’t help but wonder whether they’ll last the course of the week.

Next up on our list of car-crash-waiting-to-happen couples is Liam and Faye. Despite initial promise, the glow of new love has swiftly turned to bitter resentment. After the world’s least romantic snog, initial doubts were set in stone as Liam and Faye sat down for the lunch date from hell. Two days into their newfound coupledom and we are witnessing what looks like the death spiral of a disintegrating 23-year marriage – long stretches of conversational silence only to be broken by Liam accusing Faye’s hair of falling onto his pastry. By the end of the date, each of Faye’s cats had been personally insulted, marking what could be the death rattle of this short-lived affair.

Further cracks were beginning to show for Aaron and Sharon, who decided that Love Island would be a great and healthy place to discuss family planning. Feminists across the globe erupted in cheers as Sharon brought unpaid emotional/domestic labour discourse onto primetime ITV2, our resident girlboss rightly sensing that boundaries might need to be set. For Aaron, this could prove a deal breaker. While I am caveating this with the fact that exchanges in the diary room are often edited to add a little drama to the proceedings, Aaron’s response to Sharon’s career aspirations was a little bit... OK. I’ll say it. There was a certain scent of Eau de Misogyny in the air. Although I’m willing to believe this was just unfortunate wording, fingers crossed our favourite civil servant puts Aaron back where he belongs. On an equal footing to women that is!

Elsewhere in the villa, things have been getting sexy. Jake and Liberty were treated to an evening in the Hideaway, the two of them able to spend one on one time together without the prying eyes of their fellow islanders. Less private were Rachel and Brad who in a fit of post-coupled-up horniness got down and frisky under the duvet. You have to respect Rachel and Brad for opting in favour of the dry hump, a sexual activity that has been ruined by Noughties Frat movies and that one scene in The Inbetweeners. With the hottest people in the villa getting off while keeping their clothes on, I expect dry humping to become the trend of 2021, triumphing over the return of low waist jeans and a middle parting.

In spite of evident sexual chemistry, both these couples look set to hit the rocks. Will the arrival of two new girls cause Brad and Jake to jump ship? Will the producers send Aaron a copy of de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex? All I know is that I have cancelled all my plans and will be watching tonight to find out.