# Love Island USA Season 7 Episode 20: What Could The Producers Be Thinking

(Note: This is NOT being posted on my Substack or Wordpress, but I do want a record of it that is timestamped and accessible for various reasons, so I'm putting this here, but do not in any way feel like you need to read it unless it sounds like fun to you.)

We all deserve some fun. This is some of mine.

I will always be a gamer and a sports fan, and especially a game designer, at heart. The best game out there, the best sport out there is Love Island USA, and I’m getting the joy of experiencing it in real time.

A Brief Ode To One Of Our Beloved Games
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Make no mistake. This is a game, a competition, and the prizes are many.

The people agree. It is more popular than ever, with huge social media engagement.

I got into this through the ‘horrible people producing The Bachelor’ show UnReal, which I consider one my seven tier 1 TV shows of all time. Then, I figured, I’d give a season of Bachelor a shot, watched 24, and found I was not only having a ton of fun, I was finding the game play fascinating. Then I kept watching, putting together the puzzle pieces for how the real game is played on my own since the internet spoils everything.

Then I realized you could safely compare to older podcast episodes. Then I found Game of Roses (GoR), and I set aside my draft post because I realized they were way, way ahead of me.

The game is fun if you take it at face value.

The game is even more fun if you don’t, and you accept it for exactly what it is, a multilevel strategic battleground of shifting goals and alliances for the players and also the producers, America, the public.

Where who you are playing with really matters. Instead of a finite sports game with constant rules, you get an infinite sports game. A game with only one ultimate rule: 4TRR, ‘for the right reasons,’ meaning you must be here to find love, with different games enforcing this to different extents and with different strictness, which has to involve playing the full game without revealing too explicitly that you know the full game exists and you are playing it.

Each player is playing to four audiences at once:

1.  The lead of the show, or your romantic paramour.
2.  Your fellow players, especially of the same gender.
3.  The producers, who have a ton of control but also real limitations.
4.  The public, who ultimately decide if you have a new career and how you’re seen.

Who is here 4TRR and to what extent? Who is going after what and cares about which things? Who is presenting themselves as what persona, and how much of that is real? What is real anywhere? Who can you trust in what ways? Who has what level of understanding of and skill at the game?

I am not as cynical as GoR on the motivations of all involved. I think 4TRR is more involved more often than they think, and of course I think this is GTFG (good for the game), but this is mostly in addition to, not exclusive of, the other motivations. A lot of this is that it is very hard not to become the mask under pressure but also I think a lot of people still start out the application process thinking ‘why not who knows.’

These shows are in a way Earth’s true version of Azad [from The Player of Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games), except for the current quality of play.

You can say ‘this ruins the game it is all fake’ or you can say ‘bring it on.’

We can and should watch with love and respect for all who play the game.

I still love sports and think people should watch them, and fully intend to stick with football. especially college football. But even with the Mets being great I no longer have the time to actually follow a baseball season enough to properly enjoy it, and the games blur together. So this serves that slot better.

Nice Hat
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It’s time to put on, among others, my producer (game designer) hat.

That’s always my favorite hat.

The reason for this particular article is that the producers did some things with the redesign of Casa Amor, and in particular the events of Episode 20, that on their surface seem rather terrible, and has triggered a very negative reaction, including by the experts at [Game of Roses](https://www.patreon.com/home), whose acronyms and terms I will use with explanation.

So I figured, I would write up my understanding of the situation, why the producers did what they did, and why it might be a mistake but it actually makes a lot of sense, and explain that yes this was all planned out, and indeed they wanted it to go down exactly like this and we have the information to know this. Because hey. Why not?

Consider this a scream. From the pit.

I will not be covering events prior to Episode 19, if you need to know you can look them up in other ways.

Request: No spoilers for previous seasons or for other shows in the comments.

#LoveIslandUSA, everyone.

The Story of S7 Casa Amor So Far In Brief
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Everyone is told that this year Casa Amor will be different and that ‘everyone’ will return to the villa afterwards.

It is a very strange time to start Casa Amor, because there had just been a dumping, and two new bombshells had not yet had opportunity to couple at all, meaning that TJ, Adrina, Pepe and Huda were all outright single heading into casa. That almost never happens, and ensures a very different casa. And the new arrivals (bombshells) were outnumbered in both villa and casa, which also almost never happens.

The six old boys stay in the villa, where they unknowingly kiss and then meet five new girls. Initially TJ, who is the latest arrival and has no connections and who no one seems to like, botches this meeting in epic fashion, is uncoupled, and then (only then) warned that ‘you have 24 hours to lock in a partner or risk being dumped.’

The seven girls head to casa, where they meet six new boys, do a kissing event and then couple. Initially Amaya, who was previously coupled with Austin but it clearly is not going well, is left uncoupled, and given the same warning. Everyone talks, and the new boys and girls learn who is in a strong couple, versus who is single.

With the recoupling and risk of a dump looming, this forces everyone to work to lock in a connection so they won’t risk being dumped. Some try much harder than others.

Amaya in particular makes an aggressive play for Olandria’s match Zac, including multiple kisses, whereas Olandria warns she has a strong couple and is a slower burn than casa’s timeline.

Back at the villa, there’s a lot more (shown to us) discussions across couplings, especially with Nic, who is in a strong couple but tells us it would be disrespectful not to explore everyone, primarily going after Jayden who initially paired with Austin, but also Taylor who has a great time talking to Clarke who is Nic’s current match, and his current match CoCo has a better time talking to Ace.

All the new girls and boys have 24 hours to realize that it is a lot easier to get or steal someone without a currently strong connection. whereas others are going to be tough nuts to crack.

The producers do the recoupling by asking if anyone wants to switch to the currently uncoupled player, rather than starting from scratch, so things become path dependent, and everyone plays correctly.

In casa, Zac wisely switches to Amaya, stranding Olandria, who is told she has 30 minutes to pack her bags and say her goodbyes.

Everyone there other than Olandria, including most viewers, thinks she is being dumped from the show entirely. Olandria alone assures them it is okay and she will find her way back to her match Taylor, and refuses to shed a tear because she has always had to be strong for herself.

In the villa, the new girl Vanna who initially had other goals decides wisely to declare bygones and go with open lane TJ. That opens up the rest of the action, so CoCo moves to Ace, then Clarke moves to Taylor, then Jayden has to choose between Nic and Austin. She clearly is more interested in Nic, but Nic is a much tougher nut to crack, so after some great face play she sticks with Austin. Nic is told he has 30 minutes to pack his bags and say his goodbyes.

So there is another crying fest back at the villa as Nic leaves.

Except, then the ‘Not’ in the ‘Loves Me Not’ in the villa exit flickers out.

And wait, what’s this car? Olandria excitedly telling Nic to hurry up and get in?

This Was Very Obviously On Purpose
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The producers chose to do this. So many different elements came together to make this happen. They had to know that something like this was the likely result, even if this was all planned before the season and they were determined not to interfere (okay you can stop laughing now).

Why would any casa boy choose to go with someone like Olandria or Cierra once it was clear they were in a strong couple and highly unlikely to budge? Why would any casa girl not go for an open lane like TJ or Austin, once the stakes were made clear?

I mean, yes, who you like and who likes you also matter, but the odds were always going this way. People from the strongest couples were going to be left uncoupled.

There is no way the producers capable of otherwise creating this show did not figure this out. The producers wanted this to happen.

There is even more evidence for the ‘on purpose’ theory than that.

Normally there won’t be singles headed into casa. This time, there were intentionally a bunch of singles, in ways the producers could have avoided and chose not to.

Then look at who they sent in as the new casa bombshells. We have Taylor talking about meeting ‘Olandria in another body.’ We have Elan, who is remarkably similar to Nic, being introduced to his paramour Cierra. We have CoCo who clearly had certain preferences on her targets. We have Vanna as someone who could find things in common with TJ. Chelly suddenly met someone she really liked, and who is very tall to play up against in-context short king Ace. And so on.

When they wanted to actually challenge Olandria and Taylor’s relationship, they previously sent in Jaden to go after her, whereas here there clearly was no one. That side was over before it started. The other side wasn’t as easy, since Nic was actively trying and finds all super hot people hot, but they did stack the deck in various ways.

Meanwhile, the producers have a huge amount of flexibility and power over how all of this works even after choosing who they are sending in. There were any number of ways they could have prevented this from happening, if they hadn’t wanted this to happen, including switching up the recoupling method.

The producers even told us up front, everyone would return from Casa Amor. And they never said ‘will be dumped’ they specifically said ‘will be at risk of being dumped.’ When the votes happened their warning at the start said ‘will have to leave the villa/casa,’ not the island, and did not say ‘dumped.’

If you think on reflection that the producers suddenly went ‘oh no, not Nic and Olandria, two very popular central players who are part of our two strongest couples and who some fans are shipping with each other, what are we going to do, panic, send the car’ then it’s time to step up your game.

If you think those 45 minutes of recoupling and leaving were a waste of time with no stakes now that you know Nic and Olandria aren’t gone? Then again, no, it’s time to step up your game.

The players who got voted out, whoever they were, were always getting in that car.

Why did the producers do this? What is the rest of their game?

Here is what I would be thinking and planning, in their place. I think this was a little bit ‘too cute’ given the audience reaction, that this burned more audience goodwill and trust than it was worth, but I actually think the design has a lot going for it.

The Problem With Casa Amor Is The Incentives
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Casa Amor is supposed to be the big relationship test.

The problem is everyone knows what is coming. Even if the players can be trusted to not tell what happened, and they can’t, there is going to be a movie night.

For those who come in single or with a weak relationship (Iris, Huda, Pepe, TJ, Adrina and Austin/Amaya) there is no problem.

But if you’re (this year especially Nic/Cierra, but also Taylor/Olandria and Shelly/Ace) then there could be a problem. Yes, young hot people on reality shows make dumb mistakes, but in the old version was this really all that hard?

It is only a few days, and every wise bombshell is going to go for the softer targets first. So it’s a tough sell, and the better the players, the tougher the sell. You can of course send in bombshells designed to tempt specific people, on condition they go for those people, and so on, but still.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, especially if it turns out someone’s really not that into someone else (with the only real question mark here in this group being Taylor), but you need to give it a bigger push in some fashion.

Yes, you can make some TV by bluffing that something is going to happen, and occasionally something would indeed happen, but mainly I think no, it was mostly going to be the players ‘exploring’ superficially but mostly bluffing, if you left everything to its own devices.

That still leaves a lot of new relationships to form, but the producers wanted more. So how to force the action and create more drama? Create stakes, force the players to react. Thus, create slightly imbalanced numbers on both sides, and issue the big threat, that people will be vulnerable or have even been dumped, and see how various people react to that, and open up a bunch of other possibilities.

The downside is that Casa Amor is already some of the best episodes of the show, so there a lot of reason to not want to mess with what you have, but chances are the people who get tossed were not going to be that interesting in casa otherwise. But also you could extend Casa an additional day to account for this, the season is long and Casa started early.

This time, in particular, we lose seeing Nic flirting with disaster. But I think this was an unusual case of Nic being used to open relationships and comfortable with the idea of exploring and flirting but knowing not to cross any lines, and ultimately I wasn’t planning on buying it in any case.

I think this season was a great time to run this experiment, because we have a lack of strong couples, so if you were to run traditional casa here you’d end up with the bombshells focusing on so many fully open targets and you wouldn’t get the experience you traditionally are going for.

What Do We Get Instead?
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We get the explicit coupling and recoupling.

We get even the relatively loyal portions of the old guard actively pursuing, at least to some extent, the new bombshells, and doing so more aggressively because they have a good excuse for it when they get back.

Note that I worry they messed up the timing on this. There should have been at least one kissing-style challenge before the recoupling, so that it would happen while everyone was still in danger.

The power dynamics are considerably more balanced.

You get the emotional goodbyes, which these shows always value. You get lots of engagement, everyone wondering what happened and is going to happen.

Also, you set several new things up.

What Happens Next?

In addition to people being sad, there is now the worry that anyone on the other side could be gone as well.

The first choice is whether to share the information right away about who left.

If you don’t, everyone has to prepare for the possibility that there might be no one waiting for you. You know about one of the dumplings, and it is clear loyal partners are unusually vulnerable. You cannot hang back and play it safe.

If they do tell, everyone else is off the hook but then you give the truly ultimate loyalty test to Taylor and Cierra. This would be my move - the next episode would open with a pair of texts to Taylor and Cierra saying that Olandria and Nic were uncoupled.

Meanwhile, Nic and Olandria go to another location together. You could of course give them each 1-2 bombshells, but I wouldn’t. Instead, I would have them couple with each other, and send them on a date and so on. Tell me this pairing was an accident.

If feasible, consider letting them watch footage from both villa and casa, see their reactions as colorful narratives.

Then everyone returns.

Return To The Villa
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Everyone will be returning to the villa, but you don’t want to almost double the size of the cast. There will need to be cuts.

So my presumption is, you’d give everyone other than Nic and Olandria a day (maybe two) to interact together. This is also when news of Nic and Olandria would spread if you didn’t say it earlier.

Then you have a full recoupling. There are any number of ways to go with this, but I would do it this way:

Possibly: Give Olandria and Nic, prior to rejoining the villa and before the ceremony, the chance to couple with each other, before they learn the rules, in which case they would be safe, if it looks like they might want to. I’d be inclined to do this specifically because of who they are, their prior relationship, and because it’s good TV.

The disloyalty involved and other implications (that the rival will now join the villa coupled with Taylor or Cierra) are sufficiently obvious that it serves as the disincentive to do it.

Then:

1.  All the new bombshells, of both genders, stand in front of the fire pit.
2.  Notify all the bombshells that any of them not picked to be in a couple will be dumped from the island.
3.  In an order chosen by producers, but holding back Cierra and Taylor, each original islander chooses who they want to couple up with. They can ask either a bombshell or another original islander. The person has to say yes, or there is no pairing. If they say no, the person is told they will get to choose again after everyone else.
4.  When it is Cierra and Taylor’s turn, then you walk Nic and Olandria back in. They stand in front of the fire pit, and are vulnerable - if not picked they are dumped. Note that yes, they can be picked by anyone rejected in round one.
5.  Finish the selection process. Loop around to anyone who was turned down.

Alternatively, experimental version:

1.  All the original islanders choose who they want to couple up with.
2.  If you are the only one to choose a given bombshell, then the pairing is automatic.
3.  If multiple islanders choose the same bombshell, the bombshell chooses.
4.  Anyone paired is in a couple.
5.  Anyone who is not paired is dumped.
6.  Now you bring in Olandria and Nic, and anyone paired can flip to them. If they do, your current partner is dumped.

For super duper experimental, you could also bring back any or all of the actually dumped islanders (presumably other than Yulissa, who as we all know was never here) along with Olandria and Nic, at the same time, if only to answer the fans screaming about this, and there’s a decent chance Hannah or Jeremiah would be chosen. I wouldn’t do it, and they almost certainly won’t, but I’m noting the possibility.

Then, after that, at movie night, if it hasn’t been shown already, you get to see how everyone reacted to the presumed dumps, especially Cierra and Taylor.

Otherwise, you’re back on track, and have a normal season.

Was That A Good Idea? Was It Done Honestly?
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I think it is at least a highly interesting idea. It opens up a lot of new possibilities. It also means that future seasons will have more uncertainty over the rules, so it keeps everyone on their toes. It certainly keeps everyone talking.

The execution was, in many ways, quite careful, honest and good. The players, and America, were never lied to, and indeed they went out of their way to note everyone would be returning from Casa. Yes, right now it looks like a scramble, but it’s not.

They did not lie and say anyone was dumped. They did not lie about the ‘risk being dumped from the island’ either, if I am directionally right about the mechanics.

If someone without an existing strong couple was in this position, they would indeed be dumped from the island, where they could otherwise have paired with a bombshell. So the risk, including to Amaya and to TJ, was very high. And if I’m right we don’t even know for sure that Olandria and Nic will be safe, especially Olandria.

I also note that there is a price to be paid. Olandria and Nic miss out on Casa Amor. They don’t get to spend that fun time with the new bombshells. Essentially, they had their tryout for it, and they got rejected. I am sure Nic at least is sad about this, and Olandria will be missing her girls. If they don’t do the date and otherwise give them a bunch of screen time, they could effectively be missing out on several episodes.

Note that we do have technology for proving this was all planned. The producers should have posted a hash of their intentions prior to the filming of Casa Amor, explaining the mechanics of all of this. Then, afterwards, they could say, we have proof that this was all planned, we did not ‘bend the rules.’

Another possibility (that I would not choose, and it seems unlikely) is there could be a vote individually on whether Olandria and Nic can return, which of course they would both survive, or a vote on which one returns which could go either way.

That is distinct from whether this was a good idea in the first place.

There was a price to pay, for sure. The fan reaction, for now, is not kind. I worry that a substantial amount of goodwill and trust has been lost, and a lot of people will now think the show is ‘fake’ in the wrong ways, and that it created false stakes and effectively lied to us, and thus be less interested. That would be a shame. Hell, even Game of Roses was furious.

The other problem is that ordinary viewers are thinking, well, if you can ‘bring Nic and Olandria back’ then why not Jeremiah, or Charlie, or even Bella-A? The answer of course is that Nic and Olandria never left.

My expectation is that once this plays out, people will understand better what they were going for here, they’ll appreciate what it brings us, and it will mostly be fine, and then we will get the upside benefits. But I do worry many will see it as cruel (and also that it is actually cruel, but Slussian Protocol, you know what you signed up for, and this very much is covered under that).

I’m on the fence on whether this was better than proceeding normally, if you can also go back in time far enough to change a few other things so you can build towards stronger pre-Casa couples and in particular ensure that Huda survives for it. But certainly I understand it, and don’t want to underestimate the value of an experiment.