The episode opens with an argument, a blur of rising voices that implies this has been going on for hours, but now it slows, becomes coherent, like a camera zooming into focus.
“You don’t get to dictate our every waking moment, Jerome!”
“All we’ve had are waking moments—you were tossing and turning all night. I haven’t slept.”
“Oh, grow up. I had to go with you to the fucking bathroom. I might never recover.”
“Why don’t you sue me over it. The sight of a penis is something people go to court over these days, isn’t it, Kalpana?”
“Are you really making light of indecent exposure?”
“You’ll give a name to anything, won’t you? This is why real issues are swept under the rug—”
“Jerome!” Kalpana screeches. “Can we please go be around some other people, because if I’m latched to you for two more minutes, I’m going to indecently expose you to the sharp edge of a knife.”
“I’ve said yes, but I’m not sitting with you and Theo Newman while you discuss whatever nonsense you’ve decided is of the utmost importance today. You’re like stoners, but without the drugs that might make it all bearable.”
Kalpana: This is the worst thing to ever happen to me.
Jerome: Wow, what an incredible amount of privilege you must have.
Kalpana: Either let me out of these handcuffs or shut up. Is this not bad enough without me having to sit through the confessional footage with you too?
“Fine! At this point I’d go sit with the leaders of the NRA and fucking Donald Trump himself if it got me away from being alone with you.” Kalpana rubs at her wrist, which is already chafed, despite the soft silken lining to the handcuffs. She’s almost certain they’re sex toys, which makes being bound to Jerome with them even worse.
“You know, I actually kind of like—”
“Do not finish that sentence if you don’t want me to unlatch my handcuff right this second. How on earth are any amount of points worth this to you?”
“If I have to explain the appeal of half a million dollars to you, then I have some questions.”
Kalpana huffs and tosses her hair from her face. Unlatching this would be letting Jerome win by proving that he’s getting to her.
“Besides,” he continues, “we don’t need to stay cuffed together all day. We just need to get the others to cave before we do.”
Kalpana stops fidgeting with the handcuff, and for the first time, she sees that she and Jerome might have something to work with in partnership after all—they are both conspiratorial and have no shame about being underhanded. They might both simply call such things being clever.
“What did you have in mind?” she asks.
Jerome straightens up, his smile smug and self-assured. “There are dynamics already at play—Rhys and Theo hate each other, Isko isn’t a fan of Araminta, and most importantly, Araminta and Rhys can’t keep their hands off each other. Isko and Theo won’t be able to stand it. I say we take all of that and push it to its absolute limit.”
The pair find Theo and Rhys sitting in stony silence, sipping at coffee they’d fumbled to make with their hands joined.
“Well, you look like you’re having as much fun with this as I am,” Kalpana comments, noting the way Theo’s hand tightens on his mug.
In the early morning, it’s not quite hot enough for the shaded patio to feel warm, but the promise of the sun burns on the periphery, and Kalpana pours coffee over ice like she already needs the coolant.
“It’s fine,” Theo says tersely.
“No, this is the worst,” Jerome agrees almost cheerfully. “Agreeing that we both hate this is the first time we’ve stopped arguing.”
“I’m sure I can handle being latched to Newman,” Rhys says, batting his eyelashes at Theo. “There must be dozens of teenage girls who would pay good money to be where I am right now.”
A vein in Theo’s neck throbs.
Kalpana considers pushing that further, but she’s not very good at improvising so she pivots to the track she’d planned. “Still, you can’t be happy to be paired with Theo over Araminta. I imagine you’d have a lot more fun handcuffed to her.”
Rhys’s gaze cools as he turns to her. “And is imagining Araminta and me in handcuffs something you’ve spent a lot of time doing?”
“Please,” she scoffs. “You might be shocked to discover this, but you aren’t my type, Rhys.”
“Araminta then. Do you wish you’d been paired with her? You could stop her escaping from you and force her to be by your side.”
Kalpana leans forward, narrowing her eyes. “Is that how you see your relationship? Like you’ve trapped her?”
“Did I miss where this escalated?” Theo interjects.
“I just don’t like a woman who kissed my girlfriend talking about her or our relationship,” Rhys snaps.
“It was a kiss,” Kalpana says icily. “And it was before you were dating. If you want to talk about a double standard—Araminta is currently handcuffed to a man you fucked.”
“Besides,” Jerome says, “everyone on this island has kissed Araminta. Hell, if the stories are anything to go by, half the population of London has kissed Araminta.”
“Theo, would you please come with me? I’d very much like to storm off now,” Rhys says.
“No, I’m quite happy right here.”
Rhys: I did consider it, actually—just unlatching the handcuff. I don’t want to do this—I want to be with Araminta. And maybe, for that opportunity, it would be worth losing. But I’m trying to think long term, of all the things that prize money could mean for us.
“I’ll unlatch the handcuff,” he bluffs.
“Jesus Christ, Sutton,” Theo grumbles, rising to his feet, coffee still clutched in his free hand. “Fine, whisk us away in whatever dramatic exit you have planned.”
Jerome: I think that went well, don’t you?
Kalpana: Yeah, it was a good start. A bit alarming though. Rhys brushes everything off, but that struck deep? I never even wanted a relationship with Araminta, and he was acting like he’d bested me.
Jerome: Is that what you’re mad at? The implied victory? Not him reducing Araminta to a prize?
Kalpana: Oh, get fucked, Jerome.
Araminta and Isko are so at ease with the situation that it has crossed into a passiveness that is in itself awkward. They are amicable enough, but they are not deep or meaningful, their conversation all stilted pleasantries and vague necessities.
Isko is unbothered.
But for Araminta, it ruffles something at the edge of her mind, some lingering concern she’d done her best to avoid but now struggles to evade: loneliness.
She feels lonely on this island. All these people and no one to confide in. She has had to rely on her friends more than most, but now that something so exciting is happening to her, she has no one. She wants someone to gush about her crush to, someone to get as excited as she is every time Rhys makes her swoon, someone to squeal to after every date.
But beyond Rhys, who is there? At best it is this—courteous disinterest.
“Hey, I want to touch up my makeup,” she says, drawing Isko to the bathroom and ambling to the conditioning mask, slipping out her bag of pills and carefully pressing one into his hands. He lifts a singular eyebrow, which could mean too many things—amusement, curiosity, surprise—and swallows the tablet without question.
In part, she needs it. In part, she hopes the secret might bond them together, repair their fractures.
Isko appreciates it, but he also pockets the existence of her pill stash away for future leverage.
They take their high to the beach. The sun scorches like it’s issuing a challenge. There is something almost Eloise-like in the way that it looms in the sky.
“Oh god,” Isko groans, and when Araminta looks up, she sees Theo and Rhys coming over.
“Rhys!” she beams unashamedly. The more she can be the excitable, innocent one in this relationship, the more she reshapes her own story. The thing they all miss when they scream about all the people she’s dated, when all they see is proof that no one can suffer her long but might like the look of her long enough to try—they miss that it is also a list of how many times she has gotten her hopes up, and put herself wholly on the line for love.
Theo lets himself be dragged over to Araminta as Rhys reaches for her. As they kiss, Isko and Theo share a despairing look, far too close to one another.
“This is the world’s worst double date,” Isko sighs.
“Can’t we be a polycule?” Araminta jokes.
“Oh god, don’t start,” Rhys says, shaking his head. “I’ve just had to put up with Jerome reminding me of the many, many people you’ve been with. I don’t need you lusting after more people in front of me. I much prefer you being my own personal minx.”
At this, he hooks his arm around her waist and draws her closer.
She’s grateful for the closeness—too close for him to see her face when he says that, time for her to work through her response, and how she wants to vocalize it.
“I’m not sure I love being called a minx,” she says with a breathy laugh.
Araminta: It’s not a big deal, but I don’t know—it’s just different, isn’t it? When it’s from someone you really like? Partly reinforcing all that slut-shaming, and partly introducing a degradation kink I didn’t consent to.
“What would you prefer?” Rhys jokes, smiling that captivating smile of his—one that is so bold and so bright, so centered on her that it feels like it holds promises of future happiness. “Harlot? Jezebel? Nymph perhaps? That would be a nice ‘screw you’ to the scandal-hungry press, to declare there’s nothing wrong with liking sex and all that.”
“I think just Araminta would be fine.”
“Hmm, whatever you want, minx.” He leans forward and kisses her. She kisses him back almost immediately, all that teasing making her lightheaded even with its odd undercurrent.
Hands wrench them apart, their own wrists yanked away by their partners.
“That’s enough of that,” Theo says with distaste.
Isko nods. “You might not give a crap about forcing it down our throats the rest of the time, but for this challenge you’re just going to have to cope with not launching at each other every two seconds.”
“You know what, I’m taking away the temptation,” Theo says, glowering at Rhys. “Come on—let’s go suffer this by ourselves. You can go back to the days where you pretended you weren’t together.”
Rhys reaches back for Araminta with a joking exaggeration, like they are lovers torn apart by great forces and not two irritated men. Araminta blushes, endeared all the same.
Jerome has decided to take this opportunity to start ranting that if “her eco lot” actually wanted to save the environment they’d put their time and energy into innovation rather than blocking roads and throwing paint. In retaliation, Kalpana lectures him about the paradox of eco-conscious choices under capitalism, and they both threaten to dislocate their shoulders in an effort for more distance as the conversation spirals through various prejudices and fallacies until Jerome shrieks and buries his head in his unrestrained hand.
“How is this fair?” he snarls. “If I were handcuffed to anyone else it would be fine. The others are all going to get those points easily, but we’ve had the hardest challenge here and we won’t even get more points for it.”
He’s right—the others haven’t suffered like they have. They deserve more.
And Kalpana resolves, as much as it cuts her, to push them to the brink. She does not hesitate, not even long enough to question what that says about her.
The wind picks up enough that the beach is uncomfortable, sand flying like tiny pinpricks, so they regroup on the patio, shielded from the worst of it by the house.
Kalpana sits next to Araminta and flirts—lightly and vaguely. The sort of way no one in their right mind would even clock as flirting.
But Rhys does. He’s tautly across from her, and his hand clutches his glass a bit too tightly.
Jerome is busy distracting Theo, so he does not see the build to the outburst Kalpana is sure is coming.
“Okay, tell me honestly, are men good in bed? Like, do they actually make you come?”
“Some of them,” Araminta says with a smile, eyes landing on Rhys, who glares hard at her.
“Kalpana, that’s enough,” Rhys snaps.
She tries to look innocent. “What? I’m just saying, isn’t it all over so quickly? With us girls”—she casts a look at Araminta, and Rhys’s face twists like he wants to rip her damn eyes out of her head—“you just have to call it. Otherwise, it can go on until morning.”
“She’s right,” Araminta laughs, oblivious to the tension, and still feeling the numbness of the pill. “My ex-girlfriend and I used to count a quickie as less than two hours.”
“Araminta,” Rhys growls.
“What?”
“I don’t want to hear about your fucking exes—especially not about you being in bed with them.”
“Rhys, you have no reason to be insecure. You’re—”
“I’m not insecure.”
“You sure sound it to me.” Kalpana chortles into her glass. “Compensating for something?”
“Araminta, walk away from her.”
Araminta snorts. “No.”
“Fine,” he hisses. “Newman, can we go please.”
Theo turns from Jerome, eyebrows drawing together. “What? No.”
Kalpana decides to stop being subtle.
“Shame all we did was kiss,” she jokes, “They could have paralleled Isko and Rhys’s ten minutes with our five hours.”
“I didn’t realize longevity was the aim,” Isko adds without so much as looking up from the loose thread he examines.
“Kalpana, is there something you want to say?” Rhys snarls.
Kalpana remains calm, arching an eyebrow and says: “I think I’ve been pretty clear. I could show your girl a better time than you.”
Kalpana: it was gross, honestly. To challenge his machismo for his girl—blargh, disgusting. But I wanted to expose him for the misogynist prick he is.
“Are you seriously going to sit there and let her say that,” Rhys demands, turning to his girlfriend.
Araminta stares at him. “What does it matter? I’m dating you—who cares what Kalpana thinks?”
It is this that undoes him, eye twitching, Araminta pushing back, dismissing his rage.
He stands up, yanking Theo’s arm like he is pulling a stubborn dog.
“Sit down, Sutton, for god’s sake.”
Being locked in, his anger spikes. Like he is caged and snarling.
Kalpana coughs. “Small-dick energy.”
“Fuck this,” Rhys says—and he’s so quick, the key in his hand, the cuff twisted off, Rhys’s heavy footsteps pounding off the deck before Theo can register the cuff hanging limply at his side. When he does, his rage could rival Rhys’s, no time for breath between his string of curses.
Araminta stares after Rhys.
“Should I—”
“Absolutely not,” Isko snaps, reaching across and snatching her bag from her, where he knows her key is stashed.
Araminta looks back to where he’s gone and swallows. “Well, that’s rather worrying, isn’t it?”
The remaining four could fling the handcuffs into the fire when they finally come off, or else at the screen and smash Eloise’s taunting smile into a thousand glass shards. She’s so pleased with herself and too readily admits how much they’ve all struggled with the challenge—and how entertaining it’s been for the audience.
She dishes out their five points each, commiserating with Theo, whose nostrils flare with his attempt to force a calm what-can-you-do smile. Once the handcuffs are unlatched and the screen is off, Araminta goes to find Rhys.
He’s on the beach, the wind considerably calmer now.
“Hey,” she greets, unsure where to start.
“Hi.” He turns, voice soft. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why that got to me like that. I think being kept apart from you all day had me already feeling on edge, and I just couldn’t take it.”
Araminta hesitates. She does not know what to say. She knows the anger is a warning sign but he seems devastated, and genuinely apologetic, and that camera is whirring ever nearer. “Shall we walk?” she finally offers.
It’s too small for that, really. A lap of the shore takes five minutes—across the beach on one side, steadily upward to the peak of the cliff’s edge on the other, and then back down to the sandy banks.
But they walk rings around it anyway, this wheel of an island, generating content for the audience.
And they talk.
“You just have to understand what it’s like,” he says. “When she’s sat there flirting like that.”
“She’s playing the game, Rhys. I knew what she was doing and I thought you did too, but as you proved when you opened that cuff, she clearly played it well.”
“My feelings for you aren’t a game, Araminta.”
“I didn’t say—”
“And you’ve kissed, I mean…look, you can’t be talking to someone you’ve kissed like that.”
“I was laughing her off and spinning it back to you.”
Rhys glowers but turns it out to the ocean. “You should have shut it down.”
“If she were genuinely making a move on me, I would have, but for god’s sake, Rhys. There are six of us on this island; I can’t just not talk to Kalpana.”
“And talking about your ex? Isn’t there enough out there of your past sexual exploits? It’s on every web page. I’m going to get enough details from everyone else—do I have to get it from you too?”
Araminta thinks this is ridiculous but suspects that may be because she came to terms with her sex life being public information a long time ago. She would not have a problem hearing about his previous encounters but supposes she can reluctantly see how he might struggle with it. She suspects the audience will side with him here too.
“All right,” she nods. “I won’t, now that I know it bothers you.”
Rhys sighs and takes her hand. “They’re just boundaries for me. Speaking of past relationships. Flirting with anyone, let alone people you’ve hooked up with. If that’s not something you can do, that’s fine, and we can go our separate ways. But Araminta…” His voice wavers, his tone different, and she turns to him, already startled. She knows that heaviness, knows it too well and already wants to brush it off—to brush him off before he goes too far. “I never expected to meet anyone like you on this island.” And it begins, as it always does, with themselves—their wants, their explanations.
No declaration of love she has ever received (for this is surely what it is) has been about her. It’s always the other person and the spectacle of it all, almost like they are saying these things for themselves, watching from afar, in the future, to look back and say look what I gave to this girl.
Maybe they think that if they can fake a feeling in language, or be kind, stretch what they are feeling that way, they can reflect on the passions of youth that she’s not convinced exist.
Three drones hover.
“I never expected to meet anyone like you, period. You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met,” he continues. This is what she wanted isn’t it, for him to make it about her? She tries to cling to her skepticism, his earlier outrage, to protect herself in any way she can. But it’s slipping away with every second he spends looking at her in the same way that she looks at sculptures.
She loves this every bit as much as she hates it. It’s how she ends up in this trap again and again. Because she can deride them for their pretty words, but god, doesn’t she love a pretty word?
“You’ve made my time on this island, and today has shown me that I don’t even want to think about a single day without you by my side, here or anywhere. I know it’s soon, but everything here is so intense and I have never felt like this before. So can we just do everything we can to make this work?”
“Rhys, I—”
“And I thought about it earlier anyway, and thought: no, I’ll only make you think I’m some creep, and then everyone on the island will be out for my blood. But every time I think I can’t like you more, you give these glimpses into the soul of yourself. Araminta, the way your brain works is a beautiful thing to witness. I love you, and I wanted to tell you that.”
She treasures the moment, conscious of the rush through her. And when Rhys turns to her, she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him under the moonlight, the buzz of the drones drowning out the waves.
@ashareads23
Oh my god do I actually support Araminta and Rhys now? Is that something that’s happening to me? They’re so goddamn cute. #Iconic
@ChayleighLee
@ashareads23 I know right! It was so adorable how protective he was!! And then that speech!!! #Arhys #Iconic
@AkosuaNkrumah
I have to say something. Kalpana Mahajan has a reputation in the community for piggy backing off the campaigning of other activists and is widely seen as only looking to be the face of the movement, not the driving force behind it. For anyone watching Iconic, ask what sort of activist would go on a show like this, and what has she used this platform for? If you feel it’s all a sense of performative superiority, here is a thread of people you should be following instead #Iconic
@MillyDawes_6
Are these people serious? I love you??? It’s been like three days. Even Married At First Sight doesn’t move this quickly. #Iconic
“Tell us what happened on that island,” Detective Kennard begins.
Araminta’s lawyer, Cheryl Blythe, waves a perfectly manicured hand to stop her client, though Araminta had made no move to answer. “I’m going to have to ask you to be more specific with the direction of your questions.”
“All right,” he agrees, fingers curling against his coffee cup. “In your own words, how would you describe your relationship with the victim?”
Araminta takes a sip of her water. She looks tired, skin nearly translucent under the harsh fluorescents, blond hair limp. Kennard wonders if AHX made the mistake of booking a four-star hotel. He doubts a Yaxley-Carter is used to anything less than Egyptian cotton. Or perhaps it was the guilty conscience keeping her awake. “Variable.”
“Can you expand on that?”
“No, I don’t think that I can,” she says. “If I told you our relationship was wonderful, you’d pull up footage of us fighting. If I told you it was terrible, you’d show us having sex on the beach.”
“We just want a thorough picture of what went on,” Cloutier says.
“Do you?”
Cloutier meets Kennard’s eye, and with the barest blink, Kennard suggests they move on. A year since they last worked together, and they can still communicate like this.
“Where were you when the victim died?” he asks.
“You have the footage,” Araminta says. “I was in my room packing.”
“The finale wasn’t for another week.”
“I was…” She glances to her lawyer, who nods. “I was thinking about leaving. No, I wasn’t thinking about it—I decided I was going to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Araminta looks down like she can suddenly pretend to be bashful and innocent. These people have spent so long being audacious liars to each other they’ve forgotten the rest of the world isn’t so fooled.
“Because of Rhys,” Araminta finally manages.
“You understand how that could be construed as a motive.”
“Of course,” she snaps. “But it’s not. I was leaving. I was getting out.”
“Perhaps you felt there was no way out. Perhaps you felt that leaving the show wouldn’t be enough,” Kennard suggests.
“Did you have a question, Detective?” Cheryl cuts in.
“A lot of your fellow contestants have spoken about how after a certain amount of time on the island, nothing outside of it felt real. Did you notice a similar goldfish bowl effect?”
Araminta shrugs. “A few times, I guess. I mean when I think of just how much happened, how quickly everything moved, I’m shocked. But it’s hard to forget entirely about your world back home when there are drones flying around everywhere and cameras on every umbrella stand. So no, I didn’t feel trapped by him. Quite the opposite—at its worst, I felt all I had to do was wait it out, and then I’d be home.”
Cloutier nods, before changing track. “We’ve had the autopsy results in, so this question is pretty important. Do you know where one could find drugs on the island?”
Araminta shakes her head. “You couldn’t—they checked everything to make sure no one could get anything in. There must be some mistake.”
“Drugs?” Theo frowns. “I’m not sure. I guess you would have to smuggle it in—why, did Rhys take something?”
“Christ, I knew he was on something. I thought he was just drunk,” Kalpana pops a mint into her mouth and arches a challenging eyebrow. “They checked everything though. I’m not even sure how you could sneak it in.”
Jerome shrugs. “You would have had to bring it in yourself, I guess. I have no idea how you would take anything, though, being on camera all the time.”
Isko snorts dismissively. “If Rhys managed to get something onto the island, he’s far smarter than I ever gave him credit for.”