Where were you when you first saw Montoya scamper onto the beach at night beneath thunder and lightning as his heart was torn asunder by romantic betrayal and reality TV antics? I was putting the finishing touches on a steaming pot of three-bean chili when I opened my phone to refresh my feeds and encountered a viral clip I’ll never forget. Even amid the current chaos and fracturing of the internet, “Montoya, Por Favor” broke through and briefly interrupted our collective malaise.
“Montoya, Por Favor” is shorthand for a Spanish reality TV clip that whipped around social media last night. It was taken from La Isla se las Tentaciones, a show that mirrors the original 2003 Temptation Island premise of bringing couples to an erotic getaway where their romantic bonds and libidinal restraint are put under extreme duress as other beautiful participants attempt to seduce them. That’s how a young man named Montoya found himself one dark, tropical night on the tragic end of this Faustian arrangement on
The clip begins with host Sandra Barneda showing him what’s presented as a live feed of his partner Anita smooching in bed with her new lover Manuel before the two turn the lights off, get under the covers, and start engaging in more vigorous extracurriculars. As their lovemaking progresses, you can hear the Kill Bill siren going off inside Montoya’s soul, at which point he frantically runs across the beach to the resort on the other side to confront Anita. He tells her it’s over. She cries. More mess ensues, with online viewers trying to retrace the ethical breakdowns like John Madden explaining a five-man pass rush.
The entire clip is in Spanish, but as many English viewers have pointed out, Montoya’s spirit-shattering collision with reality needs no translation. Such is the raw, exploitative power of reality TV at its most unhinged, when sheer drama and pure watchability are pursued at all costs. It’s hard to imagine anything in Netflix’s upcoming season of Temptation Island coming close to this.
I watched the clip three times—as well as part II and the preceding context (Montoya got a lap dance first)—sent it to everyone I could think of, and continued replaying it in my head as I took the chili off the stove to cool. I ladled it into a handful of plain, white Pyrex bowls and delivered it to my family at the dining room table. They were completely unaware of what I’d just witnessed. Their reward for a life lived offline. For the rest of us, “Montoya, Por Favor” will not be so easily memory-holed.
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