The 'Love Island' Power Ranking: Week Two

Welcome to week two of Love Island 2022, where all anyone knows is eat protein pancake, get a semi on national television and lie. There was screaming and deception aplenty this week, which began with two new boys entering the villa and ended with a new girl and a HDR (highly disruptive recoupling). Along the way we got to see people in their late twenties crawl around the terrace like tigers on the brink of extinction being monitored in infrared, as well as Davide beginning to refer to himself in third person as the Italian persona slowly eclipses the Italian man.

We go again.

The most powerful force in the villa this week, by quite a large margin, was barefaced lying. The main course was a three-pronged campaign of misinformation from Ekin-Su, who decided to get to know Jay via illicit kissing meetings on the terrace instead of just pulling him for a chat like a normal person, and then lied about it twice. This lie was so powerful that it prompted a series of knock-on lies, as several of the girls lied to Ekin-Su about her behaviour being “understandable” and “fair”. Then, Ekin-Su started lying to herself about her reasons for sneaking around (because Davide wasn’t being flirty enough rather than, say, for fun), and proceeded to weep in a performance that would have seen her clean up at the Turkish TV awards.

In addition, there are a selection of side dishes offering various flavours of deceit. Before the big lie that led to Davide shouting the now-immortal line “LIAR, ACTRESS, GO THE FUCK OUT!”, let’s not forget that Jay tried to convince Tasha that her relationship was unstable. Luca and Gemma are constantly negging each other to the point where the line between textbook Year 9 flirting and genuine resentment is blurred, I’m convinced Ikenna fancies Tasha based on his reaction to the dancing challenge, and some of the cast members are concealing a vibe between Dami and Indiyah that’s being hidden from Amber. If any of this is resolved calmly and diplomatically, it will be a bigger disappointment than the tiramisu McFlurry.

Two messy bitches who live for drama. This pair deserve to appear together in the ranking even if they did part company in the kind of argument you would be buzzing to witness on a package holiday; an argument over a karaoke song that leads to one person lobbing a flip-flop and the other dumping an entire suitcase full of clothes into the swimming pool. In this case the fallout was entirely verbal and mostly involved Davide shouting "I DON'T SHAG YOU THE THIRD NIGHT!!”, but still.

Let’s start with Ekin-Su. After wriggling on her hands and knees in bodycon for a snog, an act as iconic as it was debased, this woman has entered the Love Island hall of fame. During a week that has by the standards of previous series’ been quite dull and uneventful, she has flirted, kissed, cried, shit-stirred, said “I do not know where Jay is" in the same stuttered manner as Bill Clinton when he denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. She can’t seem to commit to being coy or a baddie, but she entered the villa with one motive and one motive only: to entertain, which is the only respectable reason for going on reality TV in the first place. Salute.

Meanwhile, Davide has gone from a stoic Gillette man in the making to the most entertaining person on Love Island in recent memory. From pretending to be Ekinu-Su and Jay’s little waiter when they were having their first chat (I’m very moved by his passion for cuckoldry on both sides) to emerging from his Ekin-Su era with a new curly hairdo to tell her “karma is a bitch”, this man is truly living up to his initial role as the replacement female bombshell, having joined the leagues of “hurricane” Islanders before him. Maura, Anna, Faye, Davide. It is my medicine, now, tuning into ITV2 at 9PM each night to see Davide wearing an open shirt and a pair of 2009 hipster glasses saying something deep like "I don't know bro I am very confused for myself".

This woman emerged from a clam, introduced herself by saying "sorry, I'm so small" and then stole the biggest wife guy in the villa. Let’s all hope she stays in for a few weeks because the idea of her roaming the real world this summer is enough to make even the most secure bitch sign up to a heels class to ensure we still have boyfriends by September.

This is the first year I can recall Islanders’ Twitter accounts being run in such a deliberate, banter-first manner while they’re actually on the show. Considering a good chunk of people’s reason for going on it in the first place is to amass Instagram followers, that’s typically where the focus is in terms of engagement. Unless they become a discourse warrior like 2019 winner Amber Gill, their Twitter accounts are usually left to gather dust under a handle like @Lukeyboy1994, posting contractually obligated brand announcements a few times a year. 

Now the accounts are interacting with fans, with each other, posting endless memes… It’s almost like we’re seeing the contestants as well as the show itself acknowledge that Love Island commentary is as big a part of the show as what’s actually happening on screen. Sometimes more. It’s quite weird that fake Ikenna and fake Indiyah have more sauce on Twitter than they do in the villa, creating two avatars that operate completely independently from the people they actually represent, but that’s how Twitter functions for everybody so fair play. Come one, come all, to the Thunderdome of Posting.

I mean, I think we would all like to see it.

Hard to say how legit the spark is between these two since they’ve barely been on screen this week on account of having decent conflict resolution skills, but they are currently the strongest couple. So. Good for them!

In addition to a lot of crochet mesh attire that will at some point leave half the islanders looking like they’ve slept on a waffle iron, this year there has been a large import of statement shades. Perhaps this is the work of Big Top Gun, but I’m quite into the fact that everyone looks like they’re about to mount a jet-ski air-sprayed with the American flag like Kenny Powers cutting about the Florida swamps. More of this, please. Next year, I’d like to see a villa glimmering with wrap around Oakleys.

This man with tanks for arms has done well for himself this first week, securing a position in the villa despite being sent in at a time when most couples were getting settled. Unfortunately he’s tethered himself to Ekin-Su, a wiley and unpredictable force who had him squat-walking in a pair of skinny jeans within 15 minutes of arrival. My brother in Christ, stay vigilant. 

Several men allegedly flew at half mast this week thanks to the Sex Sea challenge, which saw arses shaken, Ekin-Su essentially waterboard herself, and Tasha crowned the sexiest girl in the villa. If it’s not bordering on a turn of the millennium Eurotrash segment, is it even Love Island? 

@emmaggarland