Hugo’s recoupling speech finally gave us the drama Love Island has been missing
Hugo's impromptu rant put Toby in his place and has injected the flatlining reality series with a much-needed shot of electricity, Lauren Morris writes.
Well, it's safe to say that last night's Love Island took us all by surprise – and we weren't the only ones. Even the producers got more drama than they bargained for, with ITV2 tacking an extra 15 minutes onto the episode at the last minute to make room for the most dramatic recoupling we've seen so far.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about and spent your Thursday evening away from your TV (how dare you have a life while Love Island is airing?) or your Sky recording cut out the episode's ending, then you missed Hugo Hammond's surprise recoupling speech in which he chose Chloe Burrows, slated Toby Aromolaran for the way he treated her whilst getting to know new islander Abigail Rawlings and hinted that he may actually be romantically interested in Chloe. No, this isn't a joke.
Hugo – the villa's most single pringle, who's spent the last three weeks batting away the few lovely women actually interested in him – decided he'd had enough of Toby 'no regrets' Aromolaran's antics and called the semi-pro footballer out on his behaviour after watching him pick Abigail while a bitter-looking Chloe gave us a good two-minutes of meme-able eye-rolls.
"If I'm being completely honest, [Chloe] doesn't doesn't deserve to be treated how she has been this past 24 hours," Hugo gallantly said, as the islanders' jaws dropped to the floor.
"I firmly believe that a lot of this 'test' stuff is complete b******t. You deserve someone who's honest and communicates with you and who knows what could happen. Stranger things have happened. So the girl I would like to couple up with is Chloe."
This unexpected display of chivalry earned Hugo a 'big boy' from the now-beaming Chloe, dirty glances from the likes of Faye Winter and Kaz and a look of simmering rage from Toby, who's finally been put in his place.
While it would have been nice if Hugo had stood up to Toby earlier – ideally when he'd tossed Kaz Kamwi aside and made off with Chloe – this speech was everything Love Island needed and more, giving the ITV2 show a shock of electricity just as it was beginning to flatline.
Up until this point, Twitter had been plagued by tweets from viewers voicing their disappointment with this series, which had seen few genuine connections, many predictable dumpings and a number of jiltings (mainly on Toby's part) with barely any consequences. Lucinda Strafford practically ran into Aaron's arms the minute Brad McClelland left the villa for her and no one said anything, while Toby leaving Kaz, Brad ditching Rachel Finni, Aaron Francis abandoning Sharon Gaffka and Liam Reardon ending things with Faye were all justified with: "Well, that's the aim of the game."
Considering Toby has been the most prolific and serial offender on the head-turning front – (someone get this boy a neck brace) – it was so satisfying to watch him be called out by one of his peers and for there to be some actual fallout from a re-coupling.
Don't get me wrong, Chloe didn't necessarily deserve this show of support considering she was once in Abigail's position and had no qualms about being Toby's new squeeze during and after he was coupled up with Kaz. How she didn't see this coming from a mile away I don't really know and in many ways this was very much karma – however the villa would be an even duller place without her, especially now a romance between her and Hugo is potentially on the cards.
With the tight-knit group of islanders beginning to implode thanks to Hugo's romantic rant, we can expect the next few episodes to be must-watch viewing for reality junkies and for that, we have the Hampshire-based PE teacher to thank.
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