Megan Thee Stallion's episode of Love Island should be submitted for Emmys consideration

Dear Gossips,

Last night’s vote on Love Island USA has us all in shambles, as usual, but what I liked about it was that it was a showcase of mean boy mess because, yes, boys are messy and mean too. Sometimes they’re even messier and meaner. And you’ll note, they’re holding back on the footage of the islanders deliberating who they’d vote off, presumably because they’ve saving it for Movie Night. I get it. But it’s been obvious for weeks that Ace, who thinks he’s a puppet master, has it in for Jeremiah, supposedly because he smells a fraud.

But why aren’t we talking more about the grudge Ace has clearly been hanging onto from the first episode? This, I think, is the origin of Ace’s hate for Jeremiah. Remember when Jeremiah curved on Yulissa right off the top of the show after Huda had already chosen him? Yulissa went in for a kiss, Jeremiah passed, and the camera went right to Ace who went all in with Yulissa, even though Chelly was standing right beside him, and right away Ace was like, “I f-cked up”. Later on he would characterise Jeremiah’s swerve as sus, but in the moment, Ace was embarrassed, because he thought Jeremiah made him look bad. And he’s been hanging on to that sh-t since then!

Anyway… Casa Amor is tonight, no one is locked in, and this time the girls are leaving. Also, the internet has been highly anticipating the arrival of Zak Srakaew – British by way of Thailand, and a former contestant on Big Brother UK.

Can I just run it back a few days though? Because Megan Thee Stallion’s episode on Love Island USA season seven has to rank as one of the most well-produced episodes of reality dating television ever, and while I’m not exactly an expert in this genre of TV, I do know something about TV, period, since I work in the business and I’m telling you, this was first class production on multiple levels.

First of all, consider their timeline. They’re basically editing this show on the fly and that episode was a tight hour that did everything it was supposed to do, coming after several tough days during which the villa had turned toxic, the mood was bleak, islanders were in disarray. Bringing in Meg was exactly the right answer and she performed the sh-t out of her role (we’ll get to her in a minute) but you still have to pull it together in the edit. Editing can save a show when it needs to but editing is also there to turn what’s already very good into something outstanding.

Love Island USA’s editors allowed scenes to breathe when they needed to (in the makeup room), they turned up the comedy with slow motion and closeups and music choices to hype up the twerking competition, and they dialed up the intensity of the puzzle race to enhance the audience’s curiosity and urgency to meet the new bombshells. Seriously, as far as I’m concerned, this is the episode they should submit for Emmys consideration next year – I said what I said!

After all, they had an assist from a superstar, a bad bitch, the hot girl coach herself, Megan Thee Stallion. And it made perfect sense on paper, right? Meg’s just launched her own swimwear line, the girls on Love Island spend most of the day in swimwear, the show often does in-show sponcon… but we have never seen sponcon this smooth, this organic, and this well played!

Megan showed up in the villa prepared, right away signalling to viewers that she’s one of us. She knew all the girls, she understood all the drama, she was kind and supportive and FUN. So it felt like she wasn’t just there to promote her products, and this is why the sponcon was seamless – Meg didn’t just breeze in and out after a few minutes, she hosted the f-ck out of that game, to the point where I thought she might have been after Ariana Madix’s job, LOL. But also the BFFs we never saw coming.