Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle. Netflix’s new dating show, Too Hot to Handle, premiered on April 17, and, as expected, we binged the whole season in a weekend. And let us tell you: Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle winner is unlike any dating show we’ve seen.
Let’s start with the basics: What is Too Hot to Handle? Well, the eight-episode series is Netflix’s next dating show hit after February’s Love Is Blind. The series follows a dozen or so attractive singles on a tropical resort as they look for love. In the end, someone will receive $100,000. The twist? They can’t kiss, have sex or masturbate otherwise their $100,000 prize goes down. The contestants are also controlled by an Amazon Alexa-type device named Lana who sees all and tattles when two singles break the rules. As expected, the cast is muy, muy attractive, which means that, yes, there’s some rule-breaking and drama.
That said, who is the winner of Too Hot to Handle season 1? Well, in the final moments of the finale, Lana organizes a group meeting with the contestants left on the show: Bryce, Chloe, David, Francesca Harry, Kelz, Lydia, Nicole, Rhonda and Sharron. (There were other contestants, but some were eliminated or quit the show.) Lana then reveals the final prize fund after a season of kissing and love-making: $75,000.
Hours before the final meeting, however, the prize fund was in the mid-$30K, but Lana offered the couple that spent the most money—Francesca and Harry—a chance win some cash back. The challenge? They had to stay in a private suite for one night without touching. In the end, the horniest couple on the show was able to stay within an arm’s reach of each other and won the group back the money they lost throughout the season.
Image: Netflix.
After Lana announced the final number was $75K, she then called out the show’s winner(s). First she told Harry and Francesca to stand, which pissed off most of the cast as Harry and Fran spent the most money of the season and the rest of the contestants didn’t think they deserved the prize. Then Lana told Sharron and Rhonda to stand (another couple), then David and Lydia (the final couple.) At first, it seemed like only those who found love would receive the money. But in the end, Lana told everyone on the couches to stand and told them that they all progressed as people and would receive a cut of the prize fund. That means that the final 10 contestants left standing went home with money: $7,500 each.
It’s not much, compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars other reality shows give out, but Too Hot to Handle was never about the money. It was about finding love and realizing that a romantic connection can be more than the physical. Each contestant seemed satisfied with the result, and Lana ended the whole show by telling the cast that the rules were now over and they could kiss their significant others. D’aww.