The 'Love Island' Power Ranking: Week Four

Love Island is on again, did you know? Because we have nothing better to do than watch it fervently every single night, every Monday VICE staff will separate the marvellous from the muggy, in this, the Love Island Power Ranking.

How does it feel to have lost a full month of your life to this television programme, then? We are officially four weeks in – halfway, mercifully – and I am happy to announce that Love Island 2018 is finally getting properly good, by which I mean we've finally got to the part where you go, "Oh my god, what are they doing?" under your breath when they show the nighttime bedroom footage.

The drama this week has come courtesy of the return of probably Love Island's best twist, "Casa Amor", where show-runners replicate "The Villa" by basically finding new versions of everyone who is already on the programme and letting them loose on the existing Islanders. Putting in 11 new people obviously rejigs the power dynamic quite a bit, so here is our #take on the standings as we move into Week Five (Jesus fucking Christ, there's another whole month of this):

Mere weeks ago, you could say the word "Megan" like it was just a word. You could howl it into the wind on top of a moor if you wanted to – nobody would have cared. But now everything has changed. You cannot even whisper "Megan" without attracting a colleague or friend, frothing at the mouth and screaming about how they want plastic surgery now (I am that colleague, that friend). I put it to you, then, that Megan Barton-Hanson is the most powerful person in the Love Island villa, and potentially on television. She has hypnotised all of us with her superior eyebrows; we are in thrall to her evil, sexy giggle.

Like all great artists, Megan is mononymous – she joins the ranks of Cher, Madonna, Mariah. We know what we talk about when we talk about Megan. Her name is synonymous with amazing fake tits and TOTAL, ANIMAL DOMINANCE. Her rise has been frankly entrancing. To recap, after dumping Eyal (which resulted in him literally leaving the show) because he was boring (which, fair play), Megan paired up with Wes, which split up Laura and Wes, who were largely perceived as one of the show's strongest couples (may the power of Megan In High Leg Bikini ft. Low Rise Bikini Tan Lines never be underestimated, Amen). Then the villas were split, and when the new arrivals were asked which girls they were horniest for, every boy said "Megan", and like a magic spell it cemented her power.

In Sunday night's episode alone, she snogged two (2) boys and then broke one (1) heart: on screen, Dean may have taken his slice of pie well, but inside, he was howling on my figurative moor. If she ends up being the architect of OG Islander Wes's downfall too, there's very little she cannot do. It's Megan’s villa, everyone else is just living in it.

I’m ready to go, mate; I’m fucking ready to scrap. MEET. ME. OUTSIDE. @ITV2. Direct me to the office of the person I have to headbutt to defend the honour of Danielle Dyer. I will do it. I’m cracking skulls. I will single-handedly punch the head off every Love Island producer who conspired to make her cry*, and as a largely non-violent person this is how I know that her tears possess a potency unmatched by any other known substance on Earth. They could raze an army. I personally am the Hulk now.

* *Even More Petty Bitch Than Usual voice* I do also just want to say that Ex on the Beach is already a show, and I think it is A BIT RICH of whoever has the reins at Love Island to not only ruin the only objectively nice thing on television – and indeed, in the world – but to ruin it with an unoriginal idea, but that’s just my opinion.

Samira is the most naturally beautiful woman on Love Island. Samira also has the best personality out of everyone on Love Island, and if she were my friend (and I had a completely different, much better personality) I would totally want her to plan my hen-do. Samira has also had the toughest time of it in the villa for reasons that, with depressing familiarity, boil down to blatant prejudice. Despite being put in the frankly awful position of personally reflecting the dating struggles faced by black women in general to a national audience, Samira continues to be a) a legend, b) a relationship oracle and c) unlike other contestants with "bad luck", managing to not spend every waking moment mewling in the diary room about a "connection" she may or may not have with someone she laid eyes on seven minutes ago.

Laura has had an amazing week, coming out with absolute lines left, right and centre, the best of which were "You can go now," following Wes's non-apology, and the show's most iconic feminist moment so far: "Our friendship is over, but you’re not a slag." If this is the extent of Laura’s patter, I look forward to her joining the upper echelons of Scottish Twitter as soon as she’s out of the villa: "When yer greetin oan telly on Monday but yer crackin oan wae a semi-pro footballer by Sunday 💅😂" and so on, and so forth. That is my great hope for Laura.

Jack repeatedly saying "oh my god" because someone he once DM'd prior to appearing on the show just walked into Casa Amor. Jack pushing his hair back with stress like he’s just learned some devastating news regarding pens. Jack sleeping on a swinging bed covered in bugs – which was "actually pretty nice, you know – I liked it!" – because he misses his girlfriend. Like Kem Cetinay before him, Jack is powerful because Jack is pure. He’s a tidy bloke who lives for serenity. While others may bowl about the villa trapped in a temporal loop of "closing time at Pitcher and Piano", Jack genuinely just seems interested in wearing loud shorts, having a nice cuddle while everyone else gets their pump on, and generally owning his status as the patron saint of Shall We Just Stay In Tonight and Have A Curry.

The Sun has already called Alex "hunky", and he has asserted himself by attracting Megan and presumably seeing Wes off. He is the new alpha male and I estimate that he and "Megs" (he started calling her Megs within a day of knowing her, which is such a dick move and also great) will be running things before the end of the week. I like him because Adam is probably going to fucking hate him.

Good god I am sick of Dr Alex. His desperation to get a woman to kiss him willingly is becoming palpable, and where before he may have come across as sweet-but-hapless, he’s now just another prick who’ll call you a bitch when you tell him to "get the fuck out of my Uber, you weirdo" because you let him buy you a drink. He remains entertaining, however, because he seems to have established for himself a very specific vocabulary which makes him sound like a Hugh Grant character cosplaying a rugby lad. This week alone he has called Casa Amor "a sick location" and referred to doggy-style shagging as "Doggy Fashion", both of which sounded so unsettlingly unnatural – my nearest point of comparison is when the characters speak backwards in the Red Room in Twin Peaks – that I’m still having recurring nightmares about them.

Most stunningly of all, however, he’s managed to completely reverse the definition of the word "obviously", which English speakers usually use as a synonym for "evidently" and "clearly", but which for Dr Alex – who talks about his "connection" with new girl Charlie by saying things like, "We have a laugh, obviously" despite there being no apparent laughs except for his own when he speaks to her incessantly about her West Country accent and nothing else – seems to mean something else entirely. I estimate that this will be funny for one more week and then he will have to be kicked out for the good of his skin (still burned) and my blood pressure (high).

Josh is on thin ice. Aye, it’s a game. Aye, they’re all in there to try to tongue increasingly attractive people under the vague guise of "looking for love" while often forgetting the real purpose of the show, which is "win over the audience so you can spend the next three to five years coasting off sponsored Instagram posts and guest appearances on daytime television". But despite possessing one of the objectively best looking faces in The Villa, Josh unfortunately does not have the requisite level of craic nor force of personality to get away with deep throating someone else's toe after faking feelings for world’s greatest friend "G" a day prior. Frankly, lads, he doesn’t have the range.

Why does everyone on this programme snog like they’re at a Year 7 disco? I don’t need to see man tongues emerging from man mouths, muscular and solid, heading like fleshy missiles towards some poor girl’s teeth while I’m trying to eat spaghetti. I’m sorry, but if you’re over the age of 18 and still kiss like you’re lapping up a 99 Flake on a hot afternoon, you need to promptly take yourself to an ice cream van and sort your life out. Also: why so wet, please? Is it in their contracts that every mouth-to-mouth connection has to hit a certain decibel level in order to air? This is irresponsible television.

After doing tongues with Laura, Jack two – 2 Jack 2 Bloody Crap At Kissing – has taken up the mantle of the island’s worst snogger. It used to be Adam, who can’t kiss for shit despite having allegedly slept with 200 "…ish!" women and really should be fairly good at it by now. If he eats pussy like he kisses, my heart goes out to everyone who has powered through the cracking-on process on account of the size of him, only to further suffer being prodded at by his rigid little mouthpiece like a lizard catching flies.

Jk. Adam doesn’t eat pussy, obviously.

Has absolutely fucked it.

@hiyalauren / @emmaggarland