It is winter. It is cold. People are snowed in on the highway in Virginia. But there is a place where it is eternal summer, where lithe bodies gleam in the haze and everyone has just enough suntan oil on to really pop. That place is the promotional cast photo of Too Hot to Handle season 3. Not since Nicolas Poussin’s Baroque masterpiece Et in Arcadia ego has the idealized human form done so much to convey the idea that doom lurks ever-present, even in the beauty of youth. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, for tomorrow the hot people will lose money if they kiss. Well, not tomorrow. More like January 19, when the season drops on Netflix.
For the uninitiated, Too Hot to Handle takes fuckboys and fuckgirls from across the globe, and sticks them on an island. While there, they have to forge deep interpersonal connections and not smash. No smooching, self-pleasuring, or any blasting with fingers is permitted. The show is hosted by a sex negative AI named Lana, who is willing to reward genuine emotional connection with hella money. Seasons 2 and 3 of the show were filmed in secret last year in Turks and Caicos. This season’s contestants include a 6’5†Hawaiian guitarist, a self-described “international playboy†from Cape Town and something called Stevan (pronounced as if it was the couples name of Steve and Evan).