Buckle up ‘Love Island’ fans because the reunion episode hits TV screens tonight

A show that took over our lives for weeks on end, it all came to a fairly uninspired finish last month when Millie Court and Liam Reardon were revealed as the Love Island 2021 winners. Turns out it wasn’t goodbye but see you later though as the islanders are set to reunite once again this weekend for a special bonus episode of the show. No whey, no whey (thank you Chloe for the quote of the season)!

Gathering all 37 of this season’s contestants together for one last hoorah, they’ll join both  Laura Whitmore and Iain Stirling for the reunion. Hoping to fill viewers in on some of the drama that’s been going on since cameras stopped rolling, we’ll also get to hear more about what they really thought about certain scenes. And as in other years, there could very well be fireworks. 

There will probably be more than a few awkward moments too, what with Jake and Liberty meeting up post-breakup, Liam coming face-to-face with his former Casa Amor flame Lillie and Hugo and Amy hashing it out after that Aftersun interview. 

Set to air just under two weeks since the gang left the villa, the reunion episode comes much earlier than in previous years which usually hit TV screens around November time. What’s the hurry,  you ask? Well, no clear answer has been given but it could be down to a drop in viewing numbers. This year’s final only drew an audience of 2.8million viewers, compared with the record-breaking 3.6million people that tuned in to see Amber Gill and Greg O’Shea take the crown in 2019. 

Show bosses claim they’re not worried though, with ITV’s Kevin Lygo saying that the future is bright. Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, he commented, “I don’t think it has peaked, I think this is a pattern that you see when new programmes come along and they are huge phenomenons.

“There are many years left in it and I think the challenge thrown down to producers, and let’s give them a bit of credit, through a pandemic they managed to make a show every single night, is to make some subtle change to spice it up a bit and make it as fresh as you can.”

Now over their quarantine period, most of the couples (at least the ones that are still together) have already met up again since arriving back in the UK but it will be interesting to see who was playing up to the cameras and who’s in it for the long-haul. 

Love Island: The Reunion will air on ITV 2 tonight at 9pm. 

Feature image from Lifted Entertainment