The following contains spoilers for Season 3 of Too Hot to Handle.
When the contestants of Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle arrive on the beach, they think that they are in for a 24/7 booty fest on a show called Pleasure Island. Unfortunately, no one has learned yet that that show does not exist!
When virtual assistant Lana reveals herself and her true intentions, the guests are forced to avoid intimacy and make deeper emotional connections.
Season 3 dropped Thursday so let’s break it down: who learned something, who didn’t, and who could have cared less.
The few folks that learned something!
Beaux: It’s pretty clear to everyone, especially the producers, that Beaux and Harry made the most progress during their time on the retreat. They were rewarded in the end for that accomplishment and although no one’s quite sure of whether or not they are still together, everyone is rooting for them.
Harry: There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Harry asked Beaux to be his girlfriend — except for the two of them, they couldn’t stop giggling!
Holly: Although a little suspect that she couldn’t stop teasing Nathan during their final night in the private suite (come on, it was his “ultimate test!”), I think she was just having a bit of fun. Her disappointment when Nathan “left” and her constant use of the l-word when he returned definitely makes me think she took something away from this experience.
Gerrie: Gerrie really tried to show that he learned something from this experience when he decided to ask the forbidden fruit that was Georgia to be his girlfriend. She didn’t feel the same way, so he never really got a chance to prove himself. But we all saw it.
Maybe they learned something?
Brianna: Brianna’s time on the show seemed solely for the sake of the producers and not herself. When her fling with Nathan was over, so was her solo time on the show. That was really weird because we saw her cuddling up to Obi…for the rest of the season! And not in the platonic connection way that many folks on these shows have with one another, it seemed more than that. Why did we never see anything about that? Weird.
Obi: It seemed like the only time they edited Obi into an episode, he was saying something really stupid. He was used for laughs more often than not. That’s a shame because it seemed like he may have learned something in his coupling with Brianna.
Izzy: Who knows? She didn’t really get an arc over the course of the season. Her thing with Jackson didn’t end up being much of a thing, but she didn’t do anything to make me think that she didn’t learn anything.
Stevan: It comes sooner than you think.¹
Olga: She was a tough one to place, but just like Izzy, I’m putting her in this category because she didn’t not learn anything.
I honestly have no clue…
Nathan: Nathan is the biggest conundrum for me. He says he learned something in his one-on-one workshop², but I’m not so sure I believe it. Obviously, you have to take everything you see on a reality show with a grain of salt because of the editing (this season had the worst issues with non-linear editing) and the producer interference (Nathan’s redemption tour was one of the worst examples of that I’ve ever seen), but he just seemed like a really bad actor to me. Saying the things he was supposed to say because he was supposed to say them. But maybe I’m just a pessimist.
Georgia: I think it’s clear that Georgia just didn’t like any of the boys on the island. Understandably they all loved her, but she felt “the ick” and was never with anyone for any substantial amount of time. The purpose of the show is not exactly to find a partner, however. It’s about finding yourself. I think it’s possible that Georgia did that, but she was never really put to Lana’s physical test.
Jackson: We just never really heard from him. Seems like a nice guy…
We know that they didn’t learn anything
Truth: She never cared and left early. Didn’t learn anything.
Jaz: Played the field and was pissy when he got caught and the girls iced him out. Couldn’t wait to leave. Didn’t learn anything.
Patrick: Just like Season 1’s Jesus, Patrick came in a spiritual butterfly and although he credits the retreat for a lot of internal growth, it seemed to me like he just left the same guy he was when he came in.
¹All jokes aside, the most emotional of our friends definitely found something inside of himself during his time on the retreat. And his conversation with Georgia in the last episode was sweet.
²That was probably the funniest thing that’s ever happened on this show. When it cut back to them pouring out their feelings and it was nighttime, implying they had been there all day, that was gold.
Do you agree? Do you disagree? Who learned their lesson? Who didn’t?