Last time on IKAG, practically everyone went home and the handful of remaining couples received messages from their loved ones giving them detailed instructions about how to have a successful relationship. Unfortunately, the messages all self-destructed in five seconds, so everyone returned to their impossible mission of constructing a lasting partnership from 100% vibes.
The gang wakes to the stark realisation that they have 48 hours remaining in the masseria, a sudden rainshower matching their mood. You can sense the end-of-holiday feelings swirling around the bedroom, but rather than worrying about finding where all their knickers have gone and having to go back to work, they’re spiralling about what might happen if their summer flings come into contact with the real world.
Blessing is still in a deep funk about her relationship with Lindsey. Ever since Lindsay gave Blessing the magic crystal of sexiness, Blessing has been filled with crushing doubt about whether Lindsey finds her sexy. This reminds me of the very first time my wife made a move on me by slipping into my bed and saying “I like you” and I lay there for an embarrassing amount of time rationalising that this meant she couldn’t possibly like me. Lesbians! We’re the fucking worst!!
Lindsay takes charge of the situation by bringing Blessing breakfast, which happily tweaks my Acts of Service muscle but also just looks like a heinous pile of scrambled eggs? Anyway, they settle down on the bedroom floor for a heart-to-heart while ignoring the hygiene ramifications of eating so close to the carpet of the messy massy.
Blessing breaks the emotional seal by explaining that prior to crystal-gate, she’d never heard Lindsay compliment her or talk about her in a way that bigged up her sexiness. Lindsay, on the other hand, claims she has complimented her.
Unfortunately, Blessing can’t turn to VAR, but I think we can all independently adjudicate that Lindsay is living in an alternate reality. Lindsey starts to snap, queries why Blessing hasn’t brought this up before, accusing our chill stud of creating drama, etc. etc. Now I realise why in the previous episode Lindsey’s sister wrote that, because of communication issues, she shouldn’t go out with anyone with a star sign.
Meanwhile, Pippa and Nikita are definitely in the snog-first-ask-questions-later phase of their relationship. Their dilemma mostly revolves around whether they’ll be able to commit to each other once faced with the temptations and practicalities of quotidian existence. I am warming to these two, all low-key “we kinda like each other, now what?” It’s almost like real life!
Kayleigh and Almayra have got some bigger questions to answer around their compatibility. Kayleigh ponders how important sexual chemistry (or lack of) is to her, but admits she likes the side of her that comes out when she’s with Almayra. Equally, Almayra wonders if she’s being selfish by focusing on her needs around abstinence. I’m feeling on the fence about these two. It’s obvious they get on and respect each other, but I’m sensing a full-on relationship may be a bridge too far.
Dannii swoops in with the brevity of a multi-year Attenborough documentary to declare that tomorrow will be the final kiss-off! And this time they will have an audience: all their friends and family, at least those that fit within the modest travel budget.
Now it’s time for the segment I thoroughly enjoyed from the first season: pretending to your family that everything is totally fine between you and a virtual stranger that you may be pseudo-marrying tomorrow.
First up: Nikita and Pippa. Nikita is itching to know more about Pippa’s stubbornness from their BFFs Jack and Paris. Everyone settles on this meaning Pippa just likes to have a lot of structure in their life and doesn’t mean they need everything their own way in a relationship. Happily, they all swim through the red flags, riptides be damned.
I’m totally here for the mums on the show and Nikita’s mum delivers. She’s all encouragement, unphased by Pippa being nonbinary, and senses genuine warmth from them. This is good news for Nikita, who’s feeling the pressure rise.
Likewise, Pippa’s mate gives Nikita the thumbs up, and assuage Pippa’s concerns about being tied down with the stunning revelation that your independence doesn’t stop as soon as you’re in a relationship. Where have all these level-headed people been all season?! But also, they are woefully uneducated about lesbian merging.
Next it’s Kayleigh and Almayra. Remember when Almayra casually dropped a while back that she had a twin? Well, here comes Iman and she is her identical twin! With a nose ring and tats, so let’s assume queer, and has this show really been sleeping on the possibility of introducing identical gay twins?!!
Everyone gets on fantastically! We broach the whole party girl / abstinence-era dynamic, and Kayleigh’s mum Trish (another winner) sagely says Kayleigh has two sides to her, and opposites attract. Almayra worries that she’s too much of a homebody, but her twin thinks they balance each other out well. Is positive family pressure bringing this pair around?
Bounding onto the scene next are Lindsay’s sisters Winnie and Serena. They match Lindsey’s big energy and stunning looks and they love how grounded Blessing is. Blessing’s mind is blown by having everyone together, including her mum Joy and sister Destiny. Possibly she is being swayed by the prospect of marrying into a highly attractive family.
They all talk about what’s tested the pair in the masseria and obviously they bring up the mismatch in communication styles: Blessing needs time to process things, Lindsey is more “in the moment” aka has a tendency to massively overreact.
Lindsey’s sisters advise her that this doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker is they can find a non-toxic way to air their grievances, and Blessing’s mum is all for her getting Lindsey locked down! If only the cast had shown a tiny proportion of their family’s investment in their relationships, I think we’d have had a completely different season. Their enthusiasm is definitely rubbing off on Lindsey and Blessing, who are both left feeling way better about their relationship. Could it be enough to consider making it work?
When it comes to Elise and Elisha, they are having next-level nerves. The stakes are a little bit higher for these two as, having already sworn their undying girlfriend-level devotion to each other, this will be a proper meet-the-parents situation!
Elise’s fears about nerves giving her verbal diarrhea are well-founded, and she’s immediately gushing about Elisha and revealing she asked her to be “her missus.” For the first time we see some concerned mum eyebrows raised!
What about those fears over long distance? Elisha’s mum Samantha confidently declares that it’s only two and a half hours away, and I don’t want to cross a mum, but she is being a bit optimistic there. In fact, the more that I think about it, the Newport tunnels traffic might be the only immovable object to Elise and Elisha’s unstoppable lesbian force (anyone wanting to get into a deep discussion on the romantic merits (or lack thereof) of the M4, please DM me).
Overall, the families are well and truly into the couples. I genuinely thought it was only me that wanted people to get together on this show, but indications are that as a nation we are rooting for love and these families are our hopeful proxies.
For the final night and morning, the couples are separated so they have space to spiral. Mostly, they’re all emotional because the gayest holiday of their life is coming to an end. They’re happy to say I love you to their mates, but will they say it to their partners? Time to scarf one last toastie before they decide their romantic fate!
Dannii did not get the memo that guests shouldn’t wear white to a pseudo-wedding and flounces to the floral altar in full-on bridal wear.
First up, Elise and Elisha. They remain our one shining beacon of hope to salvage some pride, gay or otherwise, from this show. If these two don’t turn, I’ll burn down the masseria. The only real danger is they both hyperventilate before doing the necessary heel-spin, but even their mums are holding hands to calm each other’s nerves.
Thank fuck they turn and kiss! Love declarations abound! The only real surprise here is that Elise hasn’t fashioned a ring from a bit of palm frond and got down on one knee. Elise is going to Wales next weekend to make their Gavin and Stacey dreams come true!
Let us now wade into muddier waters, first with Almayra and Kayleigh. After the thudding heartbeats, Almayra turns…but Kayleigh doesn’t! Wow, it’s only taken us the entire season for this situation to happen.
Almayra didn’t want to leave the masseria with a “what if” and put herself out there. Kayleigh says neither of them should have to compromise on their lifestyle choices, and honestly I think it’s the right call. The crowd is dismayed! I think there’s every chance these girls can stay friends at least.
Next is Pippa and Nikita. They’ve got those lingering commitment issues and concerns about whether things will work IRL, but are they going to give it a shot?
They are! I was a bit worried about Pippa noping out, but I guess the only way they’ll know if it will work on the outside…is if they try it on the outside. This pair kind of stumbled into each other and nothing went wrong, and maybe that’s just fine!
At the start of this episode, I hadn’t considered it a real possibility that Lindsey and Blessing would give it a go, but after their familial intervention, the editors have got me reconsidering things. Lindsey says Blessing makes her feel seen and she remains optimistic about how things could be, despite that looming cloud over their communication. Blessing’s talking up her need for boundaries though, and after the requisite number of thuds, the pair stands unmoved.
Blessing says it was a hard decision because Lindsey was the only one she ever had eyes for, but she had to be honest with herself. No regrets!
And now, semi-successful celebrant Dannii draws things to a close with lip service about keeping hearts open because no-one knows who’s out there waiting for them. Is she paid on commission for successful couples, or does she get a flat fee regardless of pairing performance? This could explain a few things.
We conclude with our couples / singles equally happy with the gay old time they’ve had in the masseria. Elisha says she’s not hiding her queerness any more! Nikita went in gay but came out even gayer! Blessing’s Mum dances with Dannii and I regret every time I question why Dannii hosts the show. Their families are all very proud and perhaps we’re rounding things off with a level of queer euphoria we never quite reached in the early parts of the show.
Importantly, Elisha says she and Elise are going to get a dog, get married and sail off into the sunset. And of course, we will find out whether that really happened when we move swiftly on the to the reunion show…
BUT WAIT!
There is no reunion show?! You may have been fooled by there being two episodes dropping, but the second one is merely a recap of all four seasons of IKAG / IKAB, the shows that briefly made us feel like someone actually wanted to make TV for gay people. Host Dannii and voiceover-ers Charley Marlowe and Layton Williams are all remotely sequestered in little boxes with their best podcast gear to provide the narration. It’s giving high pandemic vibes. Could they really not have sprung for a studio and bus fare for everyone?
Here’s a wild reference for you: By the final episode of Star Trek: TNG season 2, they’d completely run out of money so dredged up a bunch of clips from earlier in the season to cut into what is now universally acknowledged to be the worst Star Trek episode ever. When the BBC cited money reasons for cancelling IKAG, was it actually true? Maybe the masseria rent has spiked and this is just another victim of the cost of living crisis.
I let the recaps play and feel a bittersweet sensation that’s 99% amaro at this point. I’ve still enjoyed season 2 for the rare delight of seeing queers frolicking on my TV screen, giving us the rep we’re thirsty for and showing everyone what real queer people look like in all shapes and sizes. But I have to admit: I wanted to enjoy it a little bit more. There was something a bit magical about season 1, however, like the chemistry that everyone’s been chasing so hard, you can’t always recreate it on demand.
Deprived of the reunion show, instead we must cleave together to process things. I have some feelings on what worked and didn’t in the show, what it’s all meant and where we go from here, and I’ve got all this word count left, so let me get on my soapbox a bit.
In the first season, we got a glut of loved-up couples from the start. That brought a lot of stability to proceedings, which I think led to those many easy group conversations about identity and big queer feelings.
It was clear early in season 2 that things were going to be a lot more chaotic, and the constant merry-go-round between between the pairings meant things never really settled. We were left with the dynamic of watching a bunch of queers stringing each other on until someone better came along (or didn’t). I just don’t find that low-key toxicity fun. The wife-swapping dynamic can be a hoot, but constant chopping and changing between people that don’t care for each other is less satisfying than, say, the slow burn in season 1 between Amy and Fiorenza that led to a genuine will-they-won’t-they.
I might be a sucker for love, but I’m not a complete idiot; we all know that best case on a show like this is that a couple makes it to the end without throttling each other. For it to really hook us though, I think we need to feel the illusory sense that a happy ending might be possible.
I did briefly wonder if this was a second-season curse, where those applying might have been more interested on being on TV than participating in the concept, but I don’t think so. The show’s producers have said they casted for success, not conflict, and I believe them. As individuals, I thought the cast were all great, even drama divas Imogen and Lindsey who, at the end of the day, stirred trouble only because they were direct and didn’t dance around their feelings. The fact that so many chose to send themselves home rather than string out a charade of attraction showed a level of self-respect over narcissism that I don’t think you’d get on other shows.
When the original pairings all failed, it really exposed the limitations of the IKAx format. Much is made of the mercurial yet undeniable nature of chemistry, or vibes or energy or any other term to describe the indescribable pull between two (or more) human beings. Let’s consider for a moment that chemistry isn’t something that just happens, it’s something you do. Connection builds through shared experience, and when the singular shared experience is lounging around a pool, you’re gonna hit a wall.
Perhaps my fave pseudo-dating reality TV show was Beauty and the Geek, where nerdy guys were paired with beauty queens and they had to compete at challenges that tested their relative strengths and weaknesses, from maths to makeovers. You saw a real progression of relationships and change in how everyone perceived and valued each other.
One of the main problems with IKAG is that they don’t really do anything. The so-called chemistry tests and other activities are just thinly-veiled drinking games that don’t lead to substantial revelations or change the course of proceedings. My wife noped out early in this season, asking the salient question: Should we be spending our one wild and precious life sitting around watching other people sitting around?
And yet, was I constantly rooting for people to get together? Absolutely! Was I delighted by all the watch parties and the way the show brought queers together? Of course! Was I gutted when the reunion show never materialised and we’ll never find out whether these budding romances blossom into something real? By now you will know this is a rhetorical question. Also: spoiler alert, Pippa and Nikita are still together, but Elisha and Elise are not! (It’s that M4 traffic that did them in, I’m telling you!)
These minor gripes all come from a place of love, because I really want queer shows like this to exist and be compelling and go on forever like all the other reality shows do. As Pippa so aptly says in the final episode, being in the masseria made them realise what it must feel like for straight people on the outside world. The last season of Love Island in the UK had fifty-seven episodes, and it’s just one of many for the straights.
With only a handful episodes each year, we’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to queer rep on IKAx. I really appreciate the respectable regional rep and racial diversity, but it bombed on disability and body types (as do all mainstream shows). Gender representation has been a mixed bag, at once breaking barriers including non-binary folks on IKAG and a trans guy on IKAB, but falling short elsewhere. These aren’t digs about casting decisions; ultimately, representation is a factor of screentime. This show needs more time, and we need more of these shows. Let’s face it, we’d need a hundred seasons at least before the BBC could pluck up the courage to cast a trans woman.
So what next? There’s no signs IKAG will get picked up by another channel, but I think a switch and a format shake-up would be an excellent thing. If nothing else, let’s not miss the opportunity to make noise about the queer rep on TV that’s achingly lacking. Sign the petition, mourn loudly and with purpose on social media, go march on Broadcasting House.
This might be the last we’ve seen of the girls kissing girls (and non binary people) for now, but let’s celebrate it, shout about it, and agitate for more.
