The comments have ranged from “More drama than the entire run of Love Island” to “pure cinema”. But if you happened to be on the internet in February 2025, one clip from one show made the internet lose it: “¡por favor, Montoya, por favor!”.

To recap, this is from the Telecinco dating show La isla de las tentaciones, a version of a US format called Temptation Island which went around the world in the 2000s. The format brings six couples to two luxury villas in the Dominican Republic where they stay apart, surrounded by attractive singles. The format asks whether they can keep their relationship intact, rather than succumb to the temptations of those around them. It’s an awkward format, but it seemed to become a guilty pleasure in 2020 and hasn’t seen any signs of stopping eight series in.

What happened?

The actual clip shows contestant José Carlos Montoya being forced to watch his girlfriend of one year, Anita Williams, succumbing to the “temptation” of hunky singleton Manuel González. He can’t quite decide whether to sit and watch, or go. Host Sandra Barneda calls for him to come back. Then the newcomer strips to his underwear. Montoya pulls up his trunks. They get into bed. He goes down on his knees in front of the TV. “¡Disfruta! ¡Disfrútalo! ¡Disfruta!”

Then the music swells. “¡Cabrona!” He runs to the beach. Then it hits… “por favor, Montoya, ¡por favor!” The camera turns to catch him, with Barneda’s pleading for him to come back. He reaches Anita’s villa. The other contestants see him running, screaming. “¡Dios!” (quite possibly the greatest background event on any reality show). One tries to catch him. Anita and her new man stop right in the middle of it. “Te vas a arrepentir toda tu vida!” The orchestra hits! The shot of the multi-screen! Sandra gone! Drama!

All this – and that’s quite normal as Spanish reality TV shows go: Supervivientes last year (think Big Brother does I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and you’re close enough) had a very likely winner suddenly get kicked out for going out of bounds, away from the cameras, and producers having to call out the Honduran Navy to send a search party. Couple that with said Honduran Navy then lambasting Telecinco for putting a clip of the search party on Instagram. All in one episode.

A viral response, even if you don’t speak Spanish

What isn’t normal is that this clip seemed to break the internet. The Guardian and the BBC did feature-length articles on the response in the Anglosphere. US daytime chat show The View dissected the clip on air (and Telecinco couldn’t stop using it in promos for the show). All for two minutes of TV gold.

It’s really quite important for the network too – Telecinco has been in a ratings slump for quite a few years now, having engrossed itself in a myriad of reality shows, more reality shows, and mundane chat shows about those reality shows, that used to last five hours at a time. A schedule shakeup in 2023, aimed at bringing back audiences by reinventing itself as a family-friendly channel, really didn’t work.

This one moment also increased interest in the show and revived Telecinco’s ratings – La isla de las tentaciones ended last week with 2.1 million viewers and as one of Telecinco’s biggest hits, getting an audience share of about what Love Island had at its peak.

See, that’s not all, though. Because last week, Montoya and Anita met up again.

A tense reunion

On La isla de las tentaciones, the final episode is the “hoguera final” (‘final bonfire’) for every couple, where they go to an open-air fire on the island and answer the question between them – do they want to stay together?

Of course, everyone knew this probably wouldn’t end too well. True to form, it didn’t take them too long to get into an argument.

@telecincoes Las imágenes inéditas de la tensísima hoguera final de Anita y Montoya #LaIslaDeLasTentaciones lunes y miércoles, a las 22:00h, en #Telecinco #Mediaset #Montoya #LIDLT #TeleEnTikTok #QueVer #Reality ♬ sonido original – Telecinco

Both got in each other’s faces, both were warned by Sandra Barneda. It should be pointed out that it is the key to how Barneda hosts this show – keep out of the action, let the lovers (at least before) fight it out between themselves. Mirror what the viewer is thinking and feeling – if she’s fed up of them arguing, viewers will be too.

Montoya’s answer was simple: “I won’t do anything because I was disgusted to do anything, because I love you and I want this body, I’ve always said that to Sandra… And I don’t deserve this, because Montoya doesn’t need anyone to shine, he shines alone.”

Anita responded: “You’ve been with me since the first day, I don’t mind that you play. I haven’t recognised you since the first day, I didn’t understand those gestures, that you’ve thrown me down to the floor…”

The final decision has the catchphrase “How do you want to leave La isla de las tentaciones, with [name of partner here], alone or with someone new?”.

Montoya was first to respond. “I came to La isla de las tentaciones with the hope and confidence that we’d stay as strong as we always were. I played La isla de las tentaciones, I was myself throughout, but I had the disappointment of my life.

“For me, seeing this person, my partner, the love of my life, the one who I wanted to do everything with in the future, to see her getting into bed at the first opportunity, to give him a kiss at the second, and do it at the third, I go to find her after and find nothing.

“That broke me and what it taught me, in all truth, is to find love. The love that I found on La isla de las tentaciones is love for myself. Montoya knows how he feels, and Montoya will go alone.” He might leave the game without finding love, but he has plenty of new international fans.

Anita, on her part, wanted to stay with Manuel González, the successful ‘temptation’. “To say I’m going with a new love would also be tricking myself. With Manuel at the moment I don’t have love, but I want to keep getting to know him outside. I want to keep on knowing Manuel.”

Montoya left, and Manuel replaced him: they barely looked at each other as they swapped places (providing many memes in the process). What maybe nobody expected was Manuel’s own response to the question.

“I want to leave alone, but outside I want to keep trying. I think that it’s a moment where I have to clear my head. I don’t play anyone off, nor excite anyone. I always do as I say: I will go to Barcelona to see her and she may come to Cádiz [Manuel’s hometown], but I’m going to leave La isla de las tentaciones alone.”

Telecinco has also been swift to capitalise on Montoya’s new celebrity status – he’s been announced as a late arrival to Supervivientes which started on Thursday night, and he joined the cast on Sunday. But why invite him, when you can book both Anita and Manuel too? They’ve joined him on the Supervivientes island, and Manuel’s arrival was true TV gold.

There are no plans for a British adaptation of Temptation Island – one appeared on Sky in 2001 and was quickly forgotten about after two series. Regarding the other couples on this series, four of the pairs stayed together; one couple went their separate ways alone; and one other couple had the man leave alone while the woman picked the temptation.

The whole discussion in Spain has been whether Montoya overreacted, but social media has largely been with him globally. But one three-way love story in the Dominican Republic ended with an undesirable outcome for all three participants. I’ll let you make of that what you will.