An ode to Ekin-Su: The chaotic queen actually making this season of Love Island worth watching

We’ve moaned. We’ve whinged. We’ve yearned for the glory days of Love Island gone by. Why? Because we never learn. We never learn that the first few weeks are a sea of desolate and barren chat, a cacophony of bad vibes and awkward shuffling round some overwhelmingly well lit decking. But this year, not everyone was playing by the tepid opening rules. And we thank the TV gods that she didn’t. Love Island has never had so much of an instant and unshakable icon like they’ve got this year with Ekin-Su – the bombshell who’s proving to live up to the drama of her entrance title. This is an ode to Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, the Islander who is making Love Island 2022 worth shoving ITV2 on at 9pm for.

I never doubted this queen

The moment she strutted in and declared she wanted Davide and wasn’t there to make friends, I believed every word. People love to roll up into Love Island saying they’re not there for friends and they’re there to get whatever man they fancy – and it’s all façade. But not our Ekin. She is reality TV gold because she doesn’t care about looking keen, she doesn’t care about saying what she thinks and she doesn’t give two hoots if people on the outside get her.

She sang the SpongeBob SquarePants theme tune at Andrew

When Andrew told Ekin-Su where he was from, she went into a particularly piratey rendition of the SpongeBob theme tune for no reason whatsoever. He barely reacted. She carried on. She didn’t look remotely embarrassed. She committed to her nautical tune with full heart. And that’s the mark of a true star.

She’s an absolute character

Ekin-Su is an actress, but even when she’s not in a role she remains such a character. She’s the kind of person who would have absolutely thrived in Big Brother – eccentric and won’t change for anyone. She knows how to get camera time, and she knows how to make every second of that camera time be the best thing in the entire episode. She was in at least 48 minutes of last night’s 50 minute episode, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Espionage-Su

We can’t go much further here without talking about how iconic the entirety of last night’s episode was, thanks to Ekin-Su’s executed heist to get Jay on the balcony and snog his face off without any other Islanders getting wind of it. The sight of a grown woman crawling on her hands and knees towards the benches and Jay hobbling over to join her whilst everyone else was blissfully unaware.

It was perfect. It was what reality TV is all about, and for her to stroll back downstairs and then ask Davide to make her some food? The audacious icing on the brass neck cake.

The enemies to lovers trope

We are watching feelings develop between Ekin-Su and Davide right in front of our eyes, and it’s really gorgeous. No one could foresee this happening a mere week ago, but no we’re back rooting for the best TV in Majorca to reconcile. The tension between them is so iconic, and I love that Icon-Su managed to raise his heart rate through the ROOF.

The girls that get it, get it

Ekin-Su has a quality about her that gay people gravitate towards, and the type of straight people in the villa find jarring. She is both extremely blunt and straightforward, but actually full of heart and care. She’s a maximalist with her heart on her sleeve, and will tread on toes. But she also has every girl’s back in that villa. Watch how she gasses up Danica and Tasha. She’s a good egg!

Even when she’s wrong, we don’t need reality TV icons to be in the right

I’ve seen a few tweets about how if a man was behaving like Ekin-Su, we’d be condemning him as toxic. I would like to make the case that I don’t think that our icons of reality TV have to be noble. Sometimes they can be agents of chaos, for they are not operating in the real world. This ode celebrates that the Love Island drama is dramaing for our entertainment value, and if Ekin-Su wants to unleash hell to get what she wants, that is her right.

Love Island 2022 continues on ITV2 at 9pm tonight. For all the latest Love Island news and gossip and for the best memes and quizzes, like The Holy Church of Love Island on Facebook. 

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