Review: FBoys vs Nice Guys: Will There Be Any Real Winners on ‘FBoy Island’? [SPOILERS]
The first rule of Fboy Island is that you can’t spell out what “Fboy” stands for.
After that, anything goes on Fboy Island, the new reality dating competition hosted by Nikki Glaser. The series released the first three of ten episodes on Thursday.
The show’s premise strands three women, Nakia Renee, CJ Franco and Sarah Emig, with 12 self-proclaimed nice guys and 12 “FBoys.” The nice guys claim to be looking for love; the rest are there to break hearts and win a cash prize and the women have to mix and mingle with the guys trying to figure out which guys go in which group. The participants make the most of the gorgeous Cayman Island locations; the men and women stay in separate by equally posh villas and most dates take place somewhere beach adjacent.
The show’s press release claims the purpose of the show is to find out whether FBoys truly reform, or do nice guys always finish last. And for the record, Urban Dictionary defines a “FBoy” as a player and is only in a relationship for sex. Contestants on the show can drop ‘F’ bombs, but they can’t say “F*** boy,” for some reason.
Nakia, CJ and Sarah just have to find out who’s there for love, not knowing if the guys competing for their affection are really like them or if they are just trying to get in their pants. Every week, each woman eliminates one of the guys. The three eliminated men confess which group they belong to, and in a comical (and eerie) twist, the eliminated contestants get escorted to either the “good guy grotto” (where the guys start a bromance, even feeding each other grapes) and the Fboys are confined to “Limbro”, a sparsely decorated bamboo prison where they live in ignoble discomfort.
By the third episode, three more competitors are added to the mix, confusing the proceedings a little bit. Everyone’s intentions, meaning which group of men they belong in, will be revealed in the finale. The last men standing have a chance to win $100,000, presumably extra incentive for an FBoy to fool one of the women into thinking he’s a nice guy.
Watching the men try to woo the women isn’t terribly interesting; it’s hard to distinguish between the two dozen jacked, pomaded, and narcissistic suitors. Even knowing half of the men are supposed to be nice, they all seem to be up to no good. The women don’t seem to know who to eliminate; one guy is on the chopping block for not buttoning enough buttons on his shirt. Tempe native Ryan Garland leaves the island after a medical emergency and no one even remembers him being there.
That said, this take on a dating show has some pluses. For all that they have similar body types, haircuts and all seem to be club promoters, the men are a refreshingly ethnically diverse group. As the guys outnumber the women by far, they often spend more time bromancing each other than getting romantic with the women they are supposed to be impressing. The women are allies not enemies, working together to suss out the Fboys. On this island, the men get are the ones who gossip and get catty, tattling on each other to the women and even coming to blows (there can be only one Jared on the island, apparently.)
Host Glaser keeps the show lively; her brief appearances are the best parts of the show. When one of the eliminated contestants lies about being a nice guy, she challenges him by throwing his audition tape confessions in his face. Glaser is a natural for this show; she has appeared in multiple stand-up specials and late-night tv appearances. Her raunchy jokes center around sex and dating, according to her official bio.
After three episodes, there are still a lot of Fboys inhabiting Fboy Island. Seeing if they can keep up a nice guy facade should be interesting.