The best and worst part of summer is Love Island USA. The twisty dating-competition series airs six nights a week for five weeks straight, so it’s essentially a part-time job, and clocking into every shift means subjecting yourself to an hour (or more!) of watching hot people in swimwear make mistakes and make out under the Fijian sun. But, at the same time, it’s something to rally around and talk about, an unending source of discourse—and, like most things in life, it’s even better if you talk about it with a friend or two.

“I think that this summer has been a summer about community, discovering micro-communities or becoming curious about communities you weren't really interested in before,” says playwright Jeremy O. Harris, who is watching the show for the first time at the behest of his friends, after spending the summer watching the NBA Finals and World Cup with them.

“It's been a really interesting watch, and it's also been really interesting cultural commentary, because I'm also learning from friends and the online community that this is the first time that men are watching it as much as women,” he says. “And to have so many gender lines in the sand around how people feel about different arcs in the show and different people in the show—it's giving me whiplash, it's crazy.”

Indeed, Love Island USA’s eighth season is being watched more than any of its predecessors, racking up over 2 billion viewing minutes on Peacock (an estimated 3.7 million viewers per episode) within its first two weeks on air—a 50% increase from last summer’s season 7. Even with Targaryens and Berzattos in the mix, Love Island USA is currently the most-watched streaming show on TV.

Naturally, with millions of viewers, there are millions of opinions on the series, and enough talking points to keep your group chat and Twitter feed fed for days. You have your Sincere apologists and your Team Brinitys, your pro-Kenzie factions and your Caleb/Melanie truthers. Ahead of the season finale, airing on Peacock next Sunday, GQ tapped three famous guys who are watching this season—Jeremy O. Harris, Andy Cohen, and Sam Nivola—to weigh in on the drama.

Jeremy O. Harris, Playwright and Actor

I have love for every single one of them. I feel like they are all great test cases for so many micro-relationships I see in my life. I feel so strongly about KC. There’s this horrifying message to me about the ways in which I have to help my nephew not become KC. Because I see that KC actually is a good guy, but I think the thing that makes me really frustrated is that so many men on the Internet, and so many of the guys on the show, can't seem to get it through their head that respect for the women on this show comes from having recognition that your actions have consequences.

And I think that oftentimes, he's doing it because he's such a follower of Corbin, and has deep insecurities about the type of man he wants to be and isn't, that it forces KC to play this machismo that goes back to all of these Kevin Samuels/Andrew Tate type talking points about girls. Which I think is literally just a shield that young men have in order to feel like they have some sense of control in a world that doesn't want to give anyone control. So, I have a lot of love for KC, but I feel really sad for him.

Trinity and Bryce are amazing, although I was really disappointed in Bryce [during Movie Night], really disappointed in him. It's really funny to see how men just become men no matter what. And I do think that if Bryce continues his bromance with Zach and stays a teen boy, he will lose Trinity by the end, and the audience as well, and Carl and Aniya will take it. Can we talk about Carl for a second?

Carl is lowkey boring, which I think is his biggest crime in the house. The editors don't want to find fun things for him to do. But I will also say this, Aniya is [boring] as well, and I think they look like the kind of boring, cozy couple I would love going on a vacation with, and I hope that she knows that that is a good thing. I think especially when you're young, you fetishize relationships like Melanie and Sincere's, because loud, angry passion feels like love, because that's what we see in movies. And I actually think that what I learned is that love for me, or the best kind of love for me, has been the kind of love that's really comfortable to the point that it's stable, to the point that it almost feels boring.

The other person I haven't talked about at all is Corbin. I do like that Corbin is unabashed, he ain't shit, and he knows he's not shit. He is an actual, factual fuckboy, but also in an endearing way, to me. I think that there's something really scary about KC and Sincere, and also Zach, in the sense that they don't seem to know how nefarious they are. And he's just like, "Yeah, no, I'm grimy."

I would dump KC and Titi. Oh, actually... God, this is so hard. I would actually dump Kenzie. Yeah, I would dump Kenzie and Dylan because I think KC and Titi still have more work to do. I think Kenzie's done, I think Kenzie hoed too close to the sun. I think doing that to Jen was so shady. I just can't.

I would say it is a tie between the two most [scripted-seeming] moments of the season. I don't know if she wrote this in her head beforehand to prep, or if it really came off the dome like this, but [Aniya’s] “I chose you” speech—fire. That'll be edited for years.

And then the Build-a-Bear speech. I was like, Melanie, where did this come from? And then I would say, honorable mention because it's not one moment, every ad lib out of Trinity's mouth all season is why she's the winner.

Andy Cohen, TV Host

Love!

How many real couples there are already.

I’m surprised how moved I’ve been by Trinity and Bryce!

It feels like the fans think Sincere and KC are going to have a lot to answer for at the reunion.

Sam Nivola, Actor

I think this season has been so refreshing in how honest everyone is in general about their intentions on the show. It feels like everyone is acknowledging that the show is an incredible opportunity financially and otherwise, but they're also genuinely looking for love. In past seasons, I felt like the Islanders have been pretending that it's all about love, which obviously it isn't entirely. It's about drama and craziness, and love is an amazing bonus that may or may not happen.

My favorite couple so far is Bryce and Trinity—me and my girlfriend Iris [Apatow] love them. They were obviously kind of circumstantially put together at the start, and it felt like they were only together just so that they wouldn't get voted off, which of course happens all the time, but it's so so sweet to see how they struck out with everyone else and then realized that their favorite person was right under their nose the whole time. I think they're going the distance. And thank the lord that they made it through Casa Amor! Also, thank god Carl got brought back. He rocks.

The guys in general have been awesome in my opinion, by and large (my girlfriend does not agree). They have seemed pretty emotionally mature since the start, which I think is just a side effect of them being in Gen Z, which is evidently a very therapized generation with good emotional vocabulary, which I think makes the show so much more fun to watch. There's way less miscommunication and way more honesty. However, they kinda threw that out the window with Casa Amor. It was pretty gnarly how stoked they were to make out with all those girls like an hour after they were hanging out with their girls at the Villa. I'm very happy that most of them stayed together, but I do not blame the girls in the slightest for being super fuckin' pissed.

To be honest, I would dump KC from the Island. He was so rude to Aniya when they split. Of course I know the name of the game is recoupling etc., but it was brutal the way he handled it, and I felt really bad for Aniya, because she seems like a really stand-up woman who deserves care and love.