Have your friends or TikTok For You page convinced you to watch the 2024 season of "Love Island USA," but you don't know how or where to start?
We know it can be daunting hopping on the bandwagon for a show that's already aired six seasons and more than 100 episodes, but you've come to the right place.
If this is the first you've heard of the Peacock dating show, it might be because "Love Island USA" recently reached new heights in its viewership two years after the streaming service acquired the series from Paramount+.
Here's USA TODAY's guide to all things "Love Island USA," and everything you need to know before stepping into the villa.
The wildly popular "Love Island" franchise originated in the U.K. in 2015, and the British series' 11th season (which can be found on Hulu in the U.S.) is currently airing.
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The show's concept is similar to many reality dating shows in that cast members live together while far removed from their friends and family and without access to their cell phones as they search for romance with fellow castmates. With more than 80 cameras strategically placed throughout the villa (including inside the bedroom and bathroom) and microphones picking up every word, "Love Island" captures every dramatic – or intimate – moment.
Unlike most reality shows, however, "Love Island" airs in almost real time.
Islanders spend their days gossiping, working out, playing games and participating in the show's challenges. And in most cases, everyone must be coupled up to stay on the show.
Throughout the season, new cast members – aka "bombshells" – enter the villa and test the bonds of existing relationships. Every few days, an islander (or several) is "dumped" following a vote whose format changes each time.
At the end, only a few couples will remain and viewers are tasked with voting for their favorite pair to win the cash prize.
"Love Island USA" is exclusively on Peacock.
Seasons 4 and 5 are also available on Peacock, if you dare. Seasons 1-3 are streaming on Paramount+.
Peacock releases new "Love Island USA" episodes "every day but hump day." Tune in to the drama starting at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET.
There's no new activity from the villa on Saturdays; instead, "Aftersun" host Maura Higgins (of "Love Island" U.K. Season 5) talks to the show's main host Ariana Madix, recently dumped cast members, famous alumni and other guest stars about the latest developments.
Sometimes, she shares new "Love Island" footage that didn't make the final edit and introduces bombshells that will be entering the villa.
Across the pond:How to watch 'Love Island UK' Season 11 in the US
The "Love Island USA" Season 6 finale drops Sunday, July 21.
The July 21 finale will be Season 6's 36th episode.
Want to have your say on who stays and who goes, as well as which couple wins it all? There's an app for that.
The "Love Island USA" app is available for download on Google Play and Apple App Store.
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Just as the islanders start getting comfortable each season, the show's producers turn up the heat by doubling the number of eligible cast members.
The men and women are often separated by the powers that be through some covert method, and it's soon revealed that they'll be living in separate villas for several days as they get to know a completely new group of men and women. This is when, as the islanders like to say, relationships are tested.
In Season 6, for the first time, the producers made an offer to the men that ended up being a twist of a knife for their other halves: They had the option to stay in the "Love Island" villa or go to Casa Amor.
To no one's surprise, all six guys − Kordell, Miguel, Rob, Kendall, Kenny and Aaron − headed to the new villa and met six new women. After a few days of separation, the original cast reunites to reveal who stayed true to their partners and who re-coupled.
Amid all the games and challenges the islanders partake in, "movie night" is one of the most dramatic.
The producers sit everyone down sometime after the Casa Amor drama starts simmering so the cast can see and hear exactly what everyone's been saying behind their backs all season.
An islander might witness a friend talk trash about them, or they might see their partner being intimate with another person during Casa Amor. "Movie night" shows these blissfully ignorant reality stars exactly what viewers have been tuning in to for weeks.
In Season 5, "soul ties" went from being the words on one of the numerous neon signs scattered across the villa to emerging as what might be "Love Island USA's" first catchphrase, courtesy of day one contestant Kay Kay Gray: "Soul ties is crazy" (emphasis on the "ay-zee").
The "soul ties" neon sign was located somewhere islanders could connect away from prying eyes (but not HD cameras, of course). The trade-off? Cast members could hear conversations from below.
From break-ups to hooking up with other partners, wild things would happen when islanders went up to "soul ties." With its reputation solidified as a place where dramatic events occurred, "soul ties is crazy" emerged. With the neon sign's reappearance in Season 6, the latest cast has been keeping Kay Kay's legacy alive.
Season 6 of "Love Island USA" had twice the reach of previous seasons, becoming Peacock's "most-watched and most-talked about series by minutes watched and volume of social conversation," according to a July 11 press release.
The sudden interest could be due to new host Ariana Madix, who's coming off a massive year thanks to "Scandoval," "Dancing with the Stars" and her Broadway debut. But the main reason is likely the can't-look-away drama and constant plot twists delivered by the Season 6 cast, sparking heated online debate about who's being genuine and who's faking their way to the finale.
"The phrase we’ve been using to describe this season is 'perfect storm,'" Simon Thomas, an executive producer on the series, recently explained to Rolling Stone. "It’s hard to describe one element of the show as the single thing that’s driven this forward. Everything has been firing all at once, which is like magic. "
Nearly three dozen islanders walked through the villa doors on Season 6.
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