Lana, make sure everyone knows there are spoilers for the Too Hot to Handle season 3 in this piece!
As someone who had rarely seen anything related to the overwhelmingly popular Netflix reality show Too Hot to Handle, I had very low expectations for the third season. I personally was not planning on watching the show until I was home with my sister and we needed something to watch together at 3 a.m. instead of sleeping. However, one of my friends was very excited about it, so our group turned it on in the background during one of our homework nights right after the third season came out.
The four of us quickly abandoned our homework, and all of our eyes were glued to the screen. There wasn’t a specific moment that piqued our interest at the same time, but by the end of the first episode, we were all more invested than we had initially thought. For me, I couldn’t help but pay attention once the contestants were informed they were on the show. Like I said, I had never seen the show prior to this and was curious as to how the show worked considering the premise was obvious. It was so interesting to me that they were told they were going on a vacation with others, and how absolutely devastated they all were when they realized the true reason they were all together on the beautiful island.
For anyone that is like me and has never seen the show before, let me give you a very brief explanation of what the show is about: there are ten single people chosen to be on the show: five women and five men. These ten people are said to be “commitment-phobes” who lacked the skills needed to be in a serious relationship. Over the course of the four weeks on the show, the ten members are living together in a house on an island. They are being pushed to learn how to be genuine with others and break their fling habits, so they can create meaningful relationships. The goal is to keep your hands to yourself and maintain the $100,000 prize until the end, and then the money is given to who the host, a cone named Lana, deems fit for the winner. Each time someone breaks a rule, money is deducted from the overall balance and drama immediately erupts within the group.
Upon hearing that explanation, a lot of people can agree there is no real meaning behind the show. It’s just a fun reality, dating game show that can be watched with your brain turned off. That being said: it was entertaining. There were a lot of firsts (according to my friend who had seen the show before and was explaining it throughout). One of the first new additions to the show that was addressed was that the total amount of money was doubled. In the previous seasons, the total amount for the prize was $100,000, but the grand total was an incredible $200,000 for this one. In the end, the amount ended up being equivalent to the previous seasons’ $100,000 because the show also named two winners this season rather than the typical one winner that had been seen before. Each of them ended up with $100,000 to do with as they please.
Despite the drastic amount of money, all four of us watched as the group slowly but surely spent every. single. dollar. It was truly incredible to watch and none of us were expecting it to actually happen. It was so entertaining though, and the four of us were rooting for each of them to keep their hands to themselves and keep the money. The entire season we were on the edge of our seats waiting to see what would happen. The money just kept draining and we kept getting surprised when it happened. That’s when you know it’s a good show – we all knew they were draining the money since none of them could control themselves, but we were all still surprised when it was happening. One person even cost them so much that they were eliminated. In a completely surprising twist, however, they weren’t officially eliminated but instead sent on a night trip to complete a self reflection to recognize what they should work on in order to create meaningful relationships with others rather than meaningless hookups. This was another first that was introduced to spice up the show and make it unique. Previously, if once someone was eliminated, they were simply off the show, but they kept this person around because of the drama and we were all excited about it as we were watching.
Overall, it was a genuinely interesting season that was able to keep everyone’s attention, even when we didn’t want it to. It was impressive to bring in aspects that made it align with the previous ones, but still different enough to have us shocked so often. The show had the potential to flop since it’s the third season of a show that is based around contestants being ignorant to what it is, but it proved to remain interesting as the contestants were still shocked to be on the show and continued to be surprised throughout due to all the twists and firsts. It also kept attention so well because of how genuinely captivating it was. The contestants all stirred different emotions from us, causing us to root for certain people more than others. We were obsessed with a certain contestant that was so random that we were sure there was no way he was real. Men don’t usually give flowers out and babysit couples to save the money, but this one kept us on our toes so we could see what he would do next. The chemistry felt real between a lot of them, and the pace was so well done that we nearly finished the entire season in one night without shame. As a virgin viewer of the show, I can confidently say that I will be in my room binging the rest of the series because of how fun this season was!