The CW
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for FBoy Island Season 3, Episode 9.)
FBoy Island operates on a simple but powerful premise: Three women date their way through a group of guys and try to suss out who came as a Nice Guy (meaning they’ve agreed to split the show’s $100,000 cash prize, should a woman choose them in the end) and who showed up as an FBoy—meaning, they’ve reserved the right to take all the money for themselves. At least, that’s how the show is supposed to work.
In its first two seasons, which aired on Max, FBoy Island undermined its own premise by building in loopholes to save the women who’d chosen FBoys. Ethically, this makes sense; reality television has rightfully earned a reputation as an exploitative genre, and as FBoy creator and former Bachelor producer Elan Gale explained to the A.V. Club after Season 1, he wanted his show to be different. As admirable as that impulse might be, however, it’s left this beachside dating show a little stakeless—a problem that’s become increasingly obvious in Season 3, which aired its penultimate episode on the CW this Friday.