Something is certainly in the reality television air as of late! Not only has Triton Luxury Villa, the fab Turks and Caicos estate that served as a backdrop for the first season of “The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip,” just landed on the market, but now Casa Ocho, the stunning Cabo San Lucas mansion currently appearing on season two of HBO Max’s “FBoy Island,” is up for grabs, as well!
For those who have yet to tune in to the latter, the series, created by longtime “The Bachelor” producer Elan Gale, is the streamer’s first foray into the reality TV dating scene. The premise? Three women must determine which of their 20+ suitors are FBoys (I’ll let you fill in the blank there) and which are nice guys. Host Nikki Glaser explains, “At the end of your time on FBoy Island, you will choose one man to hopefully start a beautiful fulfilling relationship with.” The twist (because there’s always a twist!) – money is on the line. If the women ultimately select a nice guy as their final man standing, the new couple gets to split $100,000. But if they pick an FBoy, he has the option to cut bait and keep the financial prize for himself. As an HBO press release states, “FBoy Island is a social experiment that asks the age-old question: Can FBoys truly reform or do Nice Guys always finish last?”
Though certainly not the first of its kind, the series strives to break away from the norm. As such, you won’t find any fantasy suites, roses or helicopter rides here! Gale told Insider, “At the end of the day, the story really is just about figuring out if these guys are who they say they are. Too many extravagances is a distraction from that. We’re not selling a fairytale, we’re selling a bizarre reality that people are living.”
The first season wrapped up last August to decidedly mixed reviews, with Judy Berman of Time calling it a “funny, addictive, shrewdly executed twist on a familiar format” and a “masterpiece” of a “sudsy summer distraction,” while Variety’s Caroline Framke concluded, “It didn’t take long for ‘FBoy Island’ to make me feel like my brain was leaking out my ears, drip by stupefied drip.” Love it or hate it, the show was well-received by audiences, according to TV Insider, becoming “the streamer’s most-watched reality program to date,” resulting in both “the biggest premiere weekend for an HBO Max Original reality series since the platform’s launch” and a prompt order for a season two.
