How Serena Page & PPG Made America Fall In Love With Love Island

While Love Island UK was a bona fide, BAFTA-winning hit in its motherland and the United States by 2018, the American counterpart lagged behind after its 2019 debut. The romance didn’t feel as all-consuming, which was not aided by the fact that actual sex was had (and televised) on the UK version. The dialogue wasn’t as specific as the Britishisms viewers had fallen in love with, and which usually required closed captioning to comprehend. The comedy just wasn’t hitting. But in the summer of 2024, on the island of Fiji and the Peacock apps of the United States, something happened: Love Island USA finally became a thing. Producers point to Rob Rausch’s infamous pool jump as the moment ratings started to rise to what would make it the number one show in streaming. But by the Season 6 finale, the snake wrangler had been dumped from the Villa and all eyes were on two entities: the unbreakable friendship of PPG, and the very real romance of Serena Page and Kordell Beckham that had blossomed in the artificial environment of the Villa.

The producorial plotting that seemed to push other Islanders to emotional dysregulation was also responsible for creating the winning love story of Love Island USA season 6. When 22-year-old aircraft fueler Kordell Beckham first met Serena Page, they were both auspiciously dressed entirely in Brat green. “We didn’t necessarily go in going, ‘These two are gonna be a couple,’” showrunner Ben Thursby-Palmer says. “But from night one, the first time they looked at each other, we were like, ‘There they are.’” Kordell, a 22-year-old aircraft fueler and the brother of NFL star Odell Beckham Jr., seemed to happily accept this reality. Serena, a 24-year-old media planner and one of the most well-comported Islanders to appear on Love Island, remained a self-described “slow burn” who was initially open to talking to almost every bombshell who walked into the Villa

She just seemed less than enthusiastic about Kordell, who shared his ambition to act and get a Cheez-It sponsorship deal. That cracker sponcon was a dream was ick-inducing to Serena. Still, after telling Kordell she didn’t feel a romantic connection, then putting him “back on the radar,” Serena informed him he was her number one — for now. It felt to viewers (and the other Islanders) that Serena was keeping Kordell as a reserve option, which she seemed to affirm right before Casa in the “Stick or Twist” challenge. Each couple stood on opposite sides of a closed door and were told to keep dancing if they wanted to stick in their couple or leave the dance floor if they wanted to “twist” to other options. Kordell stuck; Serena twisted. “I’m telling myself, ‘Sh*t, I got nothing to worry about,’” he said in a to-the-camera interview, visibly wilting. “I do feel stupid. I do feel like I was played. F*cking looking stupid. I’m over here giggling and sh*t about this girl. She don’t even feel the same way.”

Thursby-Palmer had come up with a novel entrée to Casa Amor, the half-week-long test where the cast is separated by gender and given a whole new set of Islanders to crack on with, with limited visibility into what their partners were doing. That season, the men could choose whether they wanted to go or not. “Ben’s idea was to say they have to take self-responsibility, because they can’t blame us as much if they are in control,” Season 6 executive producer Simon Thomas says. It may sound like a dangerous proposition to leave the season’s most important (and expensive) set piece in the hands of the Islanders, but it proved to be a compelling plot element: All the men, including the dance-disrespected Kordell, decided to leave.

While they were gone, something shifted for Serena. It seemed like Kordell had been too close for her to see properly in the Villa, and the distance to Casa had given her the perspective she’d needed to appreciate a man who simply wanted her — and to be paid for his love of cheesy snacks. “I miss Kordell so much,” Serena told Kaylor Martin. “But I’m such a hard bitch, I don’t want to show that … That man has been so patient with me, so attentive. It’s like, I need him. I’m sorry. I want him.”

PPG — aka “the Powerpuff Girls” or “Gang,” the self-coined name for the friendship of Serena, JaNa Craig, and Leah Kateb that composed the other great love of season 6 — was typically sympathetic. “I will take these heels off and run,” JaNa told her later. “Say the word and we’ll go to Casa Amor right now, because you know I don’t give a f*ck.” Unlike Serena, Daia McGhee was not afraid to show Kordell that she wanted him. They made out all over Casa while the 27-year-old travel blogger affirmed him, from telling him he deserved someone who was all about him to complimenting the size of his penis.

Kordell was conflicted, but having someone say “I’m here for you” was enough to get him to get close enough with Daia that the footage appeared to show them dry-humping; then he brought her back to the Villa, where he thought he would continue to be able to explore both connections and choose between the woman who had twisted away from him and the one who had stuck it on him.

“Watching Serena was really inspiring, because I just felt like I could take a piece of that into my own life and be able to express my emotions that well.”

When they returned, Serena attempted the scoff of someone who just knew this was coming, clapping for them sarcastically and talking about Kordell getting his “petey-wacker wet.” He understood Serena was masking her hurt, while the male Islanders viewed her vehement response as unreasonable; to them, she hadn’t allowed Kordell to be happy with her, and now she was trying to prevent him from enjoying things with Daia. “The other guys were saying things like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe she’s too upset,’ or ‘We didn’t like the way she was talking,’” host Ariana Madix says. “Kordell never bought into that. He was always like, ‘No, she has a right to feel this way.’ A lot of times guys will do or say whatever to impress other guys, and I feel like that was such a healthy thing.”

This is why Kordell would fare so much better than other men on Movie Night. “Seeing what I did, where I f*cked up, and how it affected Serena, dog…” Kordell said after he watched her respond to the footage of him. “That sh*t hurt.”

Kordell kept trying to have an honest conversation with Serena, but she was too guarded to engage. Eventually, she broke. During a climactic scene in which the pair fought while Serena paced back and forth the entire length of the dock, she let Kordell in on what millions of viewers already knew: that she had needed a different kind of test than he did to understand that she only wanted him. “It didn’t take me a week to explore with another guy to know that it was always you,” she said, weeping. Finally, the guy who’d been second best to the possibility of a better man and the woman who realized nearly too late that she’d overlooked the person she’d loved all along were on the same page.

The effect was cinematic; an unscripted romantic comedy moment in an era with a paucity of great rom-coms. Some viewers had initially felt like Serena was leading Kordell on, though the PPG stans would defend her by pointing out that she was always honest with him about her ambivalence. By the time they made it to the dock, the audience, Serena, and Kordell had reached consensus: They belonged together.

“It was only going through the journey and jumping over the obstacles that by the end they were like, ‘Actually, I think you are my person.’”

“Even though she’s so much younger, Serena is just such a beautiful example of someone who grew so much in allowing herself to let her walls down,” Madix says. “Watching her be able to go through that journey was really inspiring, because I just felt like I could take a piece of that into my own life and be able to express my emotions that well.”

Thursby-Palmer says, “It was actually only going through the journey and jumping over the obstacles” — the ones he and his team had set up — “that by the end they were like, ‘Actually, I think you are my person.’ And they were so much stronger for it than if they never actually went on Love Island.”

The public was enchanted. Kordell got his Cheez-It brand deal and acting work. Serena got to be the heroine of the season, along with the other members of PPG; all three made it to the end. “Do you know how rare it is for a trio — a best friend trio — to be in the final?” Leah asked as they broke into a goofy three-way dance in lieu of a designated handshake. “PPG for lifers,” JaNa cried.

In addition to creating love, friendship, and intergenerational wealth–inducing endorsement money, the show had created memes. The images became shorthand: PPG gave Spice Girls girl power; Rob Rausch slipping into the pool was the new Homer Simpson disappearing into a bush; Kordell’s Cheez-Its were the triumph of an oversaturated influencer era; and Serena’s was a journey from the guarded person she told everyone she was at the beginning of the season to the secret softie she’d been worn down into by the ordeal of the series.

“You need some adversity,” Thomas says of how to triumph on Love Island. “If you want to be on one of these shows, then you want to be Serena. Pray to the TV gods that you get an arc like that.”

Anna Peele’s Enter the Villa: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind Love Island is out now.