This article originally appeared in Love Is Blind Club, a subscriber-only newsletter. To watch and dissect the sixth season of reality-TV’s great “experiment†alongside New York’s writers and editors, sign up here.
It’s hard to believe that four years have passed since Love Is Blind premiered mere weeks before the pandemic, heralding the quarantine era with its premise of socially distanced dating. For five seasons, we watched as couples around the country fell in love with each other’s deepest selves — sometimes unraveling spectacularly in the process.
On the occasion of season six’s Valentine’s Day premiere, we’re revisiting some of the craziest moments in Love Is Blind history as a reminder of just how insane(ly entertaining) this “experiment†can get.
Most Devastating Beyoncé Homage
Season One
Please keep the Love Is Blind camera operators in your thoughts. They had to hide in the bushes in Mexico while Carlton Morton and Diamond Jack committed girl-on-gworl violence — on their honeymoon. Carlton waited until after their engagement (when she could see his Call Her Daddy hat in person) to share his bisexuality, leading Diamond to question his intentions for the experiment. The fight escalates quickly. Less than a minute in, Diamond pulls off her engagement ring. About 20 seconds later, Carlton says “this†(biphobia, presumably) is why he doesn’t deal with “bitches†like her. “Watch my ass to the next dick, boy,†Diamond yells while the camera struggles to keep up with her walking away. Usually quoting Beyoncé has everybody on mute, but she famously ends that album back with the man who wronged her. A choice, just like how Carlton chooses to respond by throwing the engagement ring into the pool and yelling, “Watch your wig, ’cause it keeps sliding.†It was the show’s first breakup, and it fed the discourse through to the reunion even though the relationship didn’t make it to day two of the honeymoon. The case for an all-bisexual season makes itself, Chris Coelen. I know you’re reading this!
Worst Dog Mom Reflex
Season One
The first season of Love Is Blind, which dropped just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the real world, feels like a fever dream upon rewatch. It set a comedic tone for the seasons that followed, but one thing that everyone took very seriously was Jessica Batten’s dog who loves wine. Jessica practically broke the internet when she shared a goblet of red wine with her golden retriever mid-conversation with her fiancé, Mark Cuevas. Now, we all know dogs shouldn’t drink alcohol, but Jessica’s dog? She loves wine — Jessica sheepishly whispers this as she leans over to share her glass. She later apologize after viewers chastised her for giving her dog ostensibly poison. She blamed herself, saying she was uncomfortable talking about finances and didn’t know what else to do. And thus the show’s first meme was born.
Realest Reality Check
Season One
Especially in season one, the magic of Love Is Blind was in not knowing ahead of time what kinds of stories would and would not be included. Dating reality shows so rarely feature real homes and actual spaces that haven’t been pre-selected by producers, and part of the shock of this episode-seven moment between Amber Pike and Matthew Barnett — known mononymously as “Barnett†— is in how unusual it is to see a home like Amber’s on reality TV. Actual people live here! It’s not a staged model home that looks like half of it’s a soundstage!
The real juice of it, though, is the way seeing this house shifts Barnett’s understanding of Amber. Although both clearly have some awareness that their backgrounds are different, it’s really not until Barnett sees Amber’s mother’s very small brick home in what he describes as a “rougher area†that he actually understands where she comes from. He’s more conscious of their different financial situations, but he’s also more aware of all the assumptions he’d made about money and its relationship to the kind of person he’d end up with. Lauren and Cameron get all the attention from Love Is Blind’s first season (with a special shout-out to Giannina), but a scene where a guy pulls up to his fiancée’s family home and is brought smack up against all his preconceived ideas of class? Oh yeah. Grounded storytelling like that makes all the other petty, messy parts more interesting!
Best Runaway Bride
Season One
Giannina Milady Gibelli was never one to go by the playbook. From her proposal to Damian Powers in the pods to her telenovela-esque revelation that their sex life left something to be desired, Giannina never missed an opportunity to elevate a dramatic moment into must-see TV. The apparent climax of their relationship came at the altar, as it often does for couples on this show, and Giannina rose to the occasion. After she said “I do,†it was Damian’s turn to give his answer. In a dramatic moment that spanned an episode break, Damian declined to marry Giannina, citing her unpredictability and inconsistency with her feelings toward him. An overwhelmed and emotional Giannina fled the venue on foot with an intrepid cameraperson hot on her tail, having abandoned their tripod and certainly going above and beyond the job description of “wedding videographer.†The distance Giannina traversed is unclear, but at some point she shed her heels and veil and was seen crying on a street corner while the wedding guests quietly filed out of the venue.
Gi eventually made her way back to the venue to confront Damian, approaching him among the stacked chairs in the would-be wedding hall and demanding an explanation. An emotional fight ensued, culminating in yet another classic Gi moment: She tore a strip of fabric from her wedding dress and tied it to Damian’s wrist before storming away. The couple would reunite romantically once more off-camera before calling it quits for good, but four years and five seasons later, Giannina remains one of the Love Is Blind’s most memorable personalities, serving almost as a proof of concept for the series itself.
The Most Satisfying Confrontation
Season One
It was the love triangle that started them all: Back in season one, Matt Barnett romanced both regional manager Jessica and ex-tank mechanic Amber in the pods before ultimately proposing to Amber. Jessica wound up engaged to a trainer named Mark, but that didn’t stop her from interfering in Amber and Barnett’s relationship at every given opportunity thereafter — including some brazen flirting with her former pod-fling on the beach in Mexico. It was this behavior that prompted Amber’s now-iconic line at the reunion: “Bitch, you’re sheisty. You are so fake. Coming to my face like we were cool, you are so fake.†Jessica, to her credit, owns up to her behavior and apologizes directly to Amber, who didn’t exactly accept the apology, but was clearly happy to have received it. Later in the reunion, Jessica opens up about how brutal it felt to watch her actions play out on screen. In retrospect, this reunion was bracingly vulnerable. Even though we haven’t seen that level of honesty in several seasons, one thing is clear: In order to be worthwhile, reunions need personalities that are willing to call a spade a spade, or in this case, call sheisty behavior sheisty behavior.
MVP (Most Vexed Player)
Season Two
The best Love Is Blind villains have a raging current of insecurity fueling their bad behavior. Such was the case with season two’s Shayne. After getting into a mess of a love triangle in the pods, Shayne leaves engaged to Natalie, but it quickly becomes clear that the dudebro bluster he put on was covering up a deep well of self-doubt. He asks Natalie for a lot of validation (“words of affirmation†— therapy-speak has fully infiltrated reality TV!!!) while continuing to flirt with Shaina on and off camera. Shayne’s potent combination of swagger and self-doubt came to a head at the Love Is Blind bachelor party. While the women take a nice booze cruise down the Chicago River, the men celebrate their upcoming nuptials by playing baseball at Wrigley Field. The other guys hit a few balls and run a few bases, but Shayne strikes out — and nearly loses his shit. He mimes breaking the bat (jokingly, but also not) and throws it into the air, stalking off the field, defeated. Not only is it a neat distillation of Shayne’s fragile ego, but it’s a moment of pitch-perfect producing. Clearly the pitcher was told to strike Shayne out in the hopes that it would shatter his confidence ahead of the weddings. Morally questionable? Sure! But great TV.
Best Wedding Rejection
Season Two
In season one, the weddings that didn’t end in two people saying “I do†felt nervous, calamitous, or deeply fraught. Deepti Vempati’s wedding to Shake Chatterjee in season two is the first time Love Is Blind created a narrative that felt like a victory, even when the wedding itself was a total bust. By the time Deepti arrives at the venue, the tide has wholly turned against Shake. In a previous episode, his own parents seemed to be signaling to Deepti that she should perhaps reconsider. So when she looks into Shake’s eyes without tears or hesitation and says “No, I cannot marry you,†it’s one of the most celebratory moments in the series. She’s smiling as she says it! Her parents practically sag with relief! The success of that scene is so satisfying on Deepti’s behalf — especially immediately afterward, as Shake tries to pretend he’s blithely unbothered and mostly excited about his upcoming Nobu reservation. But it’s also a testament to Love Is Blind’s flexibility. An appealing, affirming arc for the show doesn’t have to be marriage; it can also be the pleasure of someone realizing they’ve made a terrible decision and then shutting it all down.
Sweatiest Groom
Season Two
While far from the most dramatic or consequential wedding moment in Love is Blind history, Nick Thompson flopping sweat through his suit at the altar is joyously bizarre. Filmed after the breakout season and the first since the onset of the pandemic, season two had a slew of challenges (and allegations) it never could seem to shake. (Including Shake Chatterjee.) Despite it all, Nick and his fiance, Danielle Ruhl, overcame vacation blow-ups and petty disagreements to make it to the altar, where Nick sweated buckets, frowned, and just looked more generally nervous than anyone has ever has in maybe all of television history. Is Nick sweating a metaphor for navigating a relationship under the bright lights of Netflix and social media? No, sometimes it’s just a man sweating through his suit at the altar.
The Least Cute Cutie
Season Three
Never have such un-cute charges been leveled around such a cute food. Throughout their engagement, Zanab Jaffrey accused Cole Barnett of being insensitive about her weight off-camera. Though it seemed like an open-and-shut case, the story was unpeeled at the reunion: “One day, it was like 2 p.m., and we were still filming,†Zanab tells co-host Vanessa Lachey. “I hadn’t had a chance to eat, so I grabbed two Cuties — like two little oranges that fit in the palm of your hand. And he looked at me and goes, ‘Are you gonna eat both of those?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, that’s a serving.’ And he goes, ‘Well, we’re going out to eat later, like maybe save your appetite.’†Luckily for us, this incident was caught on camera, and the reunion ends with the footage: While Cole’s affable idiot schtick veers paternalistic with the use of dad-vocab like “save your appetite,†it didn’t appear quite as malicious as some of the show’s other body-shamers. Given Zanab’s insecurity, the Cuties may have been the final straw before she used her “I Do Not†speech to completely come for Cole.Â
The Most Cartoonishly Painful Reveal
Season Four
In the pods, Zach Goytowski — the man who couldn’t stop serenading his dates with song — was involved in a love triangle with two women whose first names say it all: Bliss and Irina. Although torn, he ends up choosing to propose to Irina Solomonova because he deems her “more affectionate†through the wall, though viewers know she’s the bully in the women’s lounge. Zach pays dearly for his miscalculation. During their all-time awkward reveal, Irina comments that her now-fiancé looks like a cartoon character and has a “blank stare,†all before he even pulls out the ring. “Do you want a kiss?†he whispers in her ear; she swerves and gives him permission for a hug. It gets worse: After accepting the ring, Irina straight up tells Zach he’s creepy. “I thought he’d be a little bit more normal,†she laughs to the cameras after. By the time they get to Mexico, Zach has realized he’s made a huge mistake and decides it’s beyond salvageable. (â€It’s been fucking horrible.â€) Once he returns to the real world, Zach reconnects with Bliss Poureetezadi, who he rejected in the pods, over coffee — a first in Love Is Blind history. Now, they’re married and having a baby together! Love wins!
The Best [signal cuts]
Season Four
The season-four live reunion of Love Is Blind was a lot of things: messy, dramatic, drawn out. One thing it wasn’t? Actually live. In its second-ever attempt at live streaming a cultural event (the first being Chris Rock’s Selective Outrage stand-up special that fell short in its own ways), Netflix, for lack of a better term, fucked it. At 5:02 p.m. PST, Netflix tweeted that the live event would begin in 15 minutes. But as it crept closer to 6 p.m. (the time when a new episode of the final season of Succession was set to air), viewers attempting to watch the reunion were still being served a message saying, “It’s almost time! The live event will start soon.†Meanwhile, at the viewing party in L.A., hosts Chloe Veitch (Netflix triple alum) and Chris Burns (comedian) were tasked with keeping an increasingly intoxicated crowd of journalists and reality stars in check — no small task with not one, but two open bars in the room and no food to speak of.
Finally, finally, at 6:29 p.m. Netflix threw in the towel. The reunion would be recorded and uploaded to Netflix in a decidedly non-live capacity “as soon as humanly possible.†Those of us at the viewing party were told we’d be the only ones actually able to watch it live. Around 6:45, the live-ish stream commenced at the venue, and a somewhat forgettable reunion ensued, the highlights of which included Jackie and Josh teleconferencing in and Vanessa Lachey nearly demanding a Love Is Blind pregnancy. Silver lining? It was a very entertaining night on Twitter.
Almost Broke the Show
Season Five
For the Love Is Blind experiment to work, the participants need to come in fresh, innocent, a clean slate. Sure, they have their baggage and hang-ups from previous relationships and time spent on the battlefield of romance, but Love Is Blind offers a new beginning, a chance at love with someone completely new who lives in their same city. So when season-three participant Uche Okoroha told his potential fiancé, Aaliyah Cosby, that he dated Lydia Velez Gonzalez, Cosby’s pod bestie, in the real world, it broke the Love Is Blind experiment forever. As a nation, we had so many questions: Did Lydia join the show for Uche? Why didn’t Uche tell Aaliyah earlier? And, most importantly, how did the producers let this happen? While we never got a satisfying explanation, the plot twist thrust Love Is Blind next to the Red Wedding and “The Bad Place†in television history.
Best Makeup/Worst Breakup
Season Five
This argument has to be one of the silliest in LIB history. We could see the signs early — when Jared “JP†Pierce and Taylor Rue first lay eyes on one another post-proposal, they embrace and JP aggressively presses his needle-thin lips against hers, planting kisses that match the violent cringe of Liam Neeson and Viola Davis’s morning smoochfest in Widows. That first meeting is oddly quiet, though. JP says that he likes Taylor’s face only after she pays him the same compliment. Taylor takes note but decides to keep it pushing. This is a weird experiment; some awkwardness is sorta inherent to the whole thing, but the vibe is awkward. We can’t tell what JP’s thinking until, after a four-wheeler excursion, Taylor asks JP if there’s anything he would change about her. “You need to show your freckles more,†he says, to which she responds, “That’s it?†There has to be more to his deafening silence, right? “I felt more comfortable talking in the pods,†he responds, “because I was talking to a wall.†That sorta suggests that … he’s living the Her life and only dates on his phone or … he’s really not that into her face.
We get our answer later in the episode while they’re in bed. Taylor wonders why it feels like they’ve regressed and aren’t where they should be emotionally (read: happily in love). JP claims that Taylor is still stuck in the awkward phase of the reveal — he’s been trying “every fucking day†to change her mind. JP doesn’t really talk so I’m not sure how that was getting done but neither here nor there. Finally, Taylor asks the million cent question: “So what changed after the pods then?â€
“I understand that you tried to present yourself and look as best as you could but if you would’ve presented yourself like this without any makeup, it would have been better.†And that’s when my brain cells began to deteriorate. Taylor is just as confused as the rest of us: “So the way I looked made you communicate differently?†JP takes a beat and says, “It felt like you were fake. You had a caked-up face, fake eyelashes. I’m being honest, and I’m sorry that’s so hard to hear.†Taylor is literally dumbfounded: “You didn’t know what I looked like before!†“I had makeup all over my jacket,†JP counters without a single hint of self-awareness. And at that point, Taylor’s just done with the whole thing. Because there just ain’t no damn way JP was really down for his umm “sugar butt,†if all it took was some foundation and mascara to turn him off like this. On a show where couples are breaking up over sexuality, finances, and the pressures of an accelerated timeline, these two ended their little dalliance over Taylor not showing her freckles enough.
Best Solo Cups
Season Five
Stacy Snyder, examining Izzy Zapata’s apartment, discovers that his kitchen is full of disposable plates and silverware rather than porcelain, china, or even higher quality reusable plastic plates. Stacy is aghast; Izzy is honestly unsure of why she finds this so upsetting. But it’s not just a repeat of the Amber and Barnett scene from season one — it’s chock-full of its own weird specificity and unspoken tensions. Amber and Barnett, despite their discomfort, are fully aware of the assumptions they’ve made and needing to compare that with reality. Stacy and Izzy aren’t even sure how to talk to each other about why they feel the way they do! All Stacy can say is that these disposable plates suggest a disrespect or disregard for her comfort, either unaware or unwilling to take the next step and admit that they seem cheap. Izzy, for his part, is so out of step with the enormous aesthetic and financial framework Stacy’s brought to this close reading of his plastic plates that he’s not even sure how to respond to her. This tiny bit of home décor sends them both into a tailspin for reasons they can’t even articulate! They could try to explain for hours; they’d never get closer to the crux of this relationship than the disposable plates fight.