The season was always going to be explosive. One year earlier, Love Island USA had become the No. 1 reality TV show on streaming platforms, boasting 1 billion minutes viewed in a single week. After six years, the American spinoff had finally risen to the level of mainstream saturation it enjoyed in the U.K. since its inception in 2015; in addition to hitting its stride (which producers attributed to superb casting and its buzzy new host, Vanderpump Rules’s Ariana Madix), season six offered watercooler talk that had absolutely nothing to do with the election — or really anything more substantial than hot people with water bottles and mic packs finding love in Fiji.
