Yahoo News Big Brother's Jordan and Henry 'love triangle' presents a major show flaw
Much of this year's Big Brother has been consumed by three points of a supposed love triangle, between one "I live in my dressing gown" Henry, another "I made Downton Abbey my personality" Jordan and a third "I like to howl at the moon" Matty.
Things started innocently enough. Henry guffawed with delight at Jordan's jokes. Jordan casually started referring to Henry as his "husband". Then Matty – who has an open relationship with his boyfriend – started to grow closer to Henry and Jordan's splinter friendship group and a budding will-they-won't-they situation metamorphosed into something billed as a tricky love triangle.
The reality of the so-called love triangle was a series of coy flirtations and roundabout conversations, with Henry looking like the saddest man to ever live whenever Matty and Jordan spoke and Jordan seeming wholly unaware of the whole thing.
It was occasionally hard to parse what was happening unless you were monitoring the minute interactions between the trio at all times – a pleasure we've been denied given the lack of a true live feed.
Instead, it became a case of trying to pick up a general vibe of what was going on, which often seemed to be not a lot.
That was until this weekend, when Jordan and Henry shared a series of full-blown kisses in the hot tub, then in the dark in the bedroom, then in broad daylight in front of Olivia in the bedroom. When Jordan was fake evicted on Monday evening, they shared a farewell peck.
It seemed the love triangle had collapsed into a love line, to the delight of #Jenry shippers the world and TikTok over.
So why has so much been made of a love triangle that has turned out to be not a lot? The role of the ITV reality-show-industrial complex cannot be overestimated in shaping how that sausage got made. Big Brother's social-media accounts have served up a daily influx of teasers, clips and high-resolution stills of the trio, hyping up this three-way flirtation to appear more than it might in fact have been.
Big Brother's decision to put the storyline at the heart of the show's run is a curious one, when you take stock of ITV's track record with queer relationships in its reality TV, particularly on its flagship money-maker Love Island.
Some may cry "Hypocrisy!" at the broadcaster's decision to gather a group of housemates, many of whom are queer, and then champion a gay romance in the Big Brother house – this from the broadcaster who pointed to "logistical difficulties" when repeatedly asked to give fans of Love Island a more inclusive version of the show.
On the franchise spin-offs of Love Island, Islanders have acted upon same-sex romantic feelings regardless of the show's hetero format.
When Love Island USA's Kassy Castillo and Johnnie Garcia confessed their feelings for each other and shared a terrace kiss, in classic villa fashion, the show's X/Twitter account posted a clip of the moment to a viral response.
Then in the juicy but elusive to view in the UK all-star Love Island Games, Kyra Green chose show icon Megan Barton Hanson in a recoupling.
The two moments hold glimmers of what Love Island could yield if those behind the scenes thought outside the parameters they have set for themselves. Because while we should rightly champion this representation, it's worth noting that these moments this year have both occurred far from the UK's crown-jewel iteration of the show.
To aid the ailing winter instalment of the show, this January we're getting a Love Island of returning still-single Islanders – which it seems Games has already upstaged – when we could have had a queer Love Island instead.
Meanwhile, the BBC finally plugged a gaping chasm in the reality dating market with Dannii Minogue and a masseria in I Kissed a Boy, proving the whole "logistical difficulty" nonsense to indeed be nonsense.
Meanwhile down the corridor at ITV HQ, Big Brother is still trying to wring pseudo drama from this pseudo love triangle. The teaser for Tuesday evening's (November 14) episode shows Big Brother gives Henry a secret task with a hidden earpiece, dangling the food writer an incentive of champagne and "delicious" caviar blinis. His first undercover task? To flirt with Matty. With, unbeknownst to him, Jordan in the secret spare room watching on.
With this manipulative kink in the saga, the so-called love triangle is starting to teeter from farce into something sourer, given then Henry and Jordan clearly have feelings for one another. The move shows that Big Brother is still trying to stretch this storyline out, like a toddler with a slinky, until it inevitably reaches a breaking point.
This burgeoning romance, with its emotional surprises (us feeling for Boris Johnson's number one fan Henry as he sobs in the Diary Room) and tentative firsts (from meeting in matching velvet jackets to the now various kisses, available for endless rewatch in TikTok supercuts) has been a huge crowd-pleaser in and of itself, without the need to force a love triangle onto the situation.
A Big Brother romance does not a Love Island couple make, of course. We've been vocal in pointing to why Big Brother should not be a Love Island lookalike: they're different formats serving different purposes.
But perhaps this might be what it takes for ITV to reconsider how logistically difficult it really is to make their actual dating show more inclusive.
Big Brother continues on ITV and ITVX.
You Might Also Like
