Fantasy Island – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

His and Hers/The Heartbreak Hotel

Episode 2 of Fantasy Island begins a week later, with Ruby waking up on the island and preparing for her first day of work. She’s seemingly completely over Mel now, and she’s excited to meet the new guests. According to Elena, the island definitely chose her to work there.

Parachuting down are Zev and Daphne, a couple looking to have their wildest adventure ever. They’ve got no pets and kids, living for the moment… but there’s a problem. Neither of them have been connecting that much and they want to inject the lust and passion back into their marriage again. This comes in the unexpected form of switching bodies.

Meanwhile, Ruby tries to connect with a guest called Brent, who’s been at the island for 35 years. He’s sneaking through his grief by sleeping away his troubles. The catch though is that he needs to stay awake for 48 hours every 5 years to reflect on his life.

Elena doesn’t know how to connect with Brent, but a quick chat with Ruby seems to hint that he just needs someone to listen and comfort him.

Meanwhile, our Freaky Friday body-swappers find themselves coming to blows over the smallest of things. Daphne, in Zev’s body, ends up sleeping down by the beach alone where she realizes that the pair have been angry at one another for a while.

An extra twist is thrown in though when Zev (in Daphne’s body) ends up pregnant. However, the real kicker here is Daphne (in Zev’s body) and decides to start a fight. This inevitably sees Zev (in Daphne’s body) on the hunt to try and find his partner.

Eventually they find one another but everything blows up when Daphne reveals she doesn’t want a baby. Well…maybe they should have used protection and/or taken the pill? Anyway, Daphne is convinced that women give up more than men because men are “powerful and confident, women give up more and it’s never 50/50 when one has a baby.”

Meanwhile, Elena and Ruby go for dinner together and discuss the implications of the island and what it means. The island itself is magic but Elena is not. There are also a lot of questions around how the island works, how this magic works and quite why this island has “chosen” Ruby. We’ll have to wait and see if the show decides to answer these questions though.

Elena eventually heads in to see Brent, learning the truth about what happened to him in the past, and helping to get him some closure.

Speaking of closure, Zev and Daphne finally switch back to their own bodies and head back to the mainland again. Brent also decides to head back too, ready to face his grief after talking to Elena about his worries.

The Episode Review

So this dude goes to sleep for 5 years at a time (ignoring the obvious bedsores and implications this would cause for the human body) and not once did any of these people on the island decide to give him a nice doggo and actually ask him about his problems?

I mean, all it takes is a sympathetic ear to hear him out to actually bring Brent back. It just seems a little contrived to me, although the resolution was quite touching to be fair.

By comparison you have Zev and Daphne, and how easy it is to be a man compared to a woman. Now, as a 32 year old male I understand I don’t have any experience over what women go through on a daily basis.

There are struggles that women go through that men will never understand. Likewise, there are issues that men have too and brushing all men off as “powerful and confident” completely negates the damning fact that suicide rates are far higher in men compared to women – hardly the epitome of confidence.

For women though, things are equally tough. The pressures of the media forcing women to look their best, magazines poking at every insecurity and the unenviable task of trying to be seen as more than a pretty face at some workplaces. These are all very real problems but instead of actually diving into both sides of the argument, it feels like we only really get one side of it here, which is a shame.

However, there is some pretty decent (albeit heavy-handed) discussion around maternity/paternity leave at work and it’s a shame that the episode didn’t dive into this further than surface level examinations.

The whole Elena/Ruby situation though feels completely contrived and the fact that Ruby hasn’t once expressed any sort of grief or longing for Mel speaks volumes about her character.

Still, we’ll have to wait and see what the future instalments have in store for us. For now though, Fantasy Island continues to be a somewhat turbulent ride.