Love Is Blind Reunion Recap: Reality Check

I take it back. Against all odds, this reunion might have just made this entire season worth it. I gasped, I rolled my eyes, I somehow developed an even deeper distrust of Minnesotan men … Netflix definitely saved the best episode for last. I suppose I prefer this to having a better season that builds to a snoozefest of a reunion? There were only a handful of moments tonight where my attention drifted. And I must give the Lacheys their 10s because that’s largely thanks to the fact that they clearly put in work practicing these questions and follow-ups.

Before we get into the life updates from our season eight cast, though, I should acknowledge that this reunion doubles as Love Is Blind’s five-year (!!) anniversary celebration, which means the episode is broken up by clips of the most unforgettable moments in LIB history, according to a vote that I apparently missed. Very Ben of me, sigh. Here are the results:

This is recency bias. You’re telling me that four out of the five most memorable moments in this entire franchise happened during or after 2024? I demand a recount. Netflix should’ve made people vote for a top moment from each season in order to force them to actually go back and think. I will say, though, that it’s very funny that they had Jess (and not Jimmy) essentially film an acceptance speech for this win.

Alright, with that out of the way, let’s move on to our current cast!

Taylor and Daniel

Season eight check-ins are bookended with updates from this happy couple. Daniel has a mustache now, and while he hasn’t yet gotten a matching lip tattoo as promised, he did get Taylor’s “squinty” eyes (his words) inked on his chest. Um … as long as Taylor likes it, I guess!

These Christmas lovers have spent the past year doing everything from kissing under the mistletoe (cute) to interlocking toes (horrifying). They also got an inflatable Uncle Sam and Bald Eagle couple’s costume, so there’s that. Their families have been spending time together, too, though not always under the best circumstances. When Daniel’s mom was diagnosed with leukemia, his dad stayed with Taylor’s brother, who happens to work at the hospital where she was treated. It’s a relief to hear that Daniel’s mom is now cancer-free and preparing for a transplant, and I’m hoping that no updates about Taylor’s dad or his cancer mean that he’s doing well, too.

Taylor and Daniel share that they recently bought their first home in the Minneapolis suburbs, and that’s pretty much all the news we get from them. I guess when you’re happily married, life isn’t so dramatic. Their castmates, on the other hand … well, let’s get into it.

Virginia and Devin

Virginia, who is speaking with more bass in her voice than we’ve ever heard before, says that Devin told her a lot about his “core values” off-camera. She still doesn’t want to speak for him but lets us know that she fully supports the LGBTQ community and abortion rights. (Virginia’s mom, Mary — who is a Democratic state representative, by the way —  nods in the audience.) Virginia also believes in valuing different religions, pointing out that we saw her Muslim family members at the wedding. Ah, so maybe that’s why Netflix gave us so many shots of the audience during the ceremony. Devin suggests that he can “look past certain things” and that you don’t need to completely agree on everything in order to be in a relationship. As a Christian, he thinks it’s important to love everyone, and that’s apparently as specific as he’s willing to get.

But there were other issues, too. Devin got a note from his ex-girlfriend the night before their wedding, which he maintains was platonic. Virginia met the woman in question but says she didn’t know about her history with Devin until his mom told her. Despite being such a staunch supporter of her son getting married, it sounds like Devin’s mom accidentally contributed to the relationship’s demise because she was also the one who told Virginia about a $1,000 check that Devin never brought up. (He says he was just holding onto it until after the wedding.) Also, Virginia went all out on a personalized birthday present for Devin that he was reluctant to help her carry in. Saying “You coulda got that” to your fiancée … if any of the high school girls on Devin’s basketball team watch Love Is Blind, I fear they’re going to be clowning him at practice.

Ultimately, it seems like Devin wants to come across as someone who’s taking the high road. “This is a very interesting character that I’m seeing today because I haven’t felt love or respect in the last year,” Virginia says, actually yelping in shock when he claims that he still wanted to be with her after the wedding. According to Virginia, Devin stopped answering her calls — and then told everybody that she was the one who ghosted him. Devin starts to deny this, but girl’s girl Molly interjects, “Well, he told me that, so.” When Madison backs her up, Devin suggests that the duo were “very drunk” at the time and being nosy. He says post-wedding conversations with Virginia kept devolving into arguments, and it just wasn’t going to work out. He’s also ready to move on, so our next set of exes is up.

Sara and Ben

After Sara brings up her concern over Ben’s “lack of curiosity,” Ben — talking in the third person for some reason — says that, looking back, he wanted to shake himself. When asked how he didn’t know his church’s stance on gay marriage, he replies, “I didn’t ever need to know because there wasn’t really anyone in my life that it really pertained to.” Sir, I thought some of your closest friends were “that way”? Was your friend with a girlfriend a paid actor, or what? Anyway, Ben is eager to note that he’s not proud of all the things he didn’t know.

Then we get into the new information. According to Sara, she and Ben were still working things out after the wedding and even lived together for a week or two. She had to go to Nashville for three months to work, and they planned for him to stay with her for two weeks to two months since his job is remote. But when Sara got to Nashville, he stopped sharing his location and sent three allegedly “scripted” apologies that she didn’t believe or respond to. The next time he reached out, it was because a former cast member advised him to get on good terms with her before the reunion. (Ben doesn’t want to throw anyone under the bus; I appreciate Vanessa for making sure that Jimmy from season six got the Regina George treatment anyway.)

Ben says he doesn’t remember asking to rehearse how they would talk about “values”; Sara retorts that he definitely did because she thought it was ridiculous and told all the women on the cast and her family and friends. He also claims that he and Sara broke up before she left, and Lauren steps in to say that Sara definitely didn’t think that — while driving to Nashville, she apparently told Lauren and Taylor over the phone that Ben was going to stay with her.

From Ben’s perspective, Sara is the one who didn’t respond to his apologies, so she ghosted him. Meanwhile, Sara thinks she was “completely love bombed” and feels that Ben was not being genuine throughout the experiment.

Monica and Joey

The couple with the names of Friends characters never left the friendzone. We already knew Monica felt some type of way about her physical connection with Joey, but I didn’t realize it was to the point that she now feels that his lack of romantic interest was “degrading” and that watching the show back was a “slap in the face.” Joey points to Monica’s sister as the “big reason” that things stayed platonic. (Monica’s mom and Joey’s sisters are in the audience, and their faces make their opinions clear throughout this whole segment.)

Once again, we learn about the drama that happened off-camera. Monica found out about a month ago that Joey slid into Madison’s DMs after that mini-reunion with the pod singles. Monica doesn’t know what the message was about, but the act alone would’ve been a dealbreaker for her. But don’t worry, Joey just likes to check in on people. He did date Madison for a bit in the pods and says he reached out to be friendly and tell her that he liked her pink hair. Looking back, he can now see how that bothered his then-fiancée.

Monica reveals that she was still hanging out with Joey after the wedding. They don’t agree on how many times they got physical, but Monica says during this “friends-limbo-question-mark” phase, Joey told her that Madison was “coming onto him” at bars. Months later, Madison heard this, firmly denied it, and confronted Joey. It seems like there were a couple of subsequent conversations about what he did or didn’t say. (Molly is quick to confirm that she witnessed Joey suggesting that Monica had been joking.) Maybe Netflix should’ve kept a couple cameras in Minneapolis after the weddings, because it sounds like the real drama started after the season was over. Also, does everyone have the same favorite bars or what?

Monica concludes that Joey has a lot to learn as a partner even though he’s a great son, brother, and friend; Joey says he loves her, is sorry that they couldn’t fall in love, and wants the best for her. After a thin smile from Monica, we’re moving on to our next duo.

Lauren and Dave

Nick kicks things off by asking Dave, “What’s wrong with you?” Incredible. Lauren and Dave sort of rehash the argument about her past hookup. They agree that she’s much more emotionally mature than him, and she corrects him so that he admits that he was the one who couldn’t get over the situation. Dave has apparently recently realized that the guy in question was planting “fabricated” information. According to Lauren, he sent her a “really kind and mature” text a couple of weeks ago about the clarity he’d gotten. Obviously, she didn’t need it because she knew the truth. Nick gets everyone to agree that you can have a “booty call” and meet the love of your life the next day, then declares “Laurengate” over.

Dave, who denies that he was just looking for an out, says that Lauren is the one who got away. He’s suddenly bashful when asked to tell her how he feels. Thankfully, Lauren isn’t buying it; they’ve seen each other at bars, and he has her number. As for that letter? Dave says Lauren found it in his jacket before he gave it to his sister but insists that he did deliver it. According to Dave, his sister had no response because her mind was already made up.

Lauren is being so nice to this man. She makes a point to say that while he has some “growing and healing” to do, the internet is wrong to call him a narcissist and manipulator. “It’s real shit that we’re going through up here,” Dave reminds us.

Finally, it’s time for a tiny update from Molly, who says she has no ill will toward Dave but found it hard to watch “some of the lies” that he said in the pods. (He nods when she says he reassured her that she was his number one.) She also stands by the fact that his friends suck if they actually didn’t want to meet Lauren. When asked if she’s been in her first committed relationship, Molly says she’s hated men all year. “Any girlfriends?” Vanessa asks. “No,” Molly replies, “But, you know, that’s not, you know, something I would say no to maybe.” There goes my theory/manifestation that the surprise relationship teased at the top of the episode was going to be a Molly/Lauren reveal.

Madison, Meg, Mason, and Alex

This is where the pacing started to drag a bit for me. We go over a lot of stuff that we already know from the mini-reunion and pods: Mason thinks Madison validated him a lot and made him feel pressured to reciprocate, he and Meg filmed their own reveal after the show, and Madison thinks Alex was being fake on-camera.

The seating arrangement emphasizes that this is a three-versus-one situation. Mason and Meg have decided to be best friends after trying to date a couple of times, and Meg is ready to call out Madison for calling Mason “manipulative” in an interview. (Mason’s comeback is essentially, “I’m too dumb to do that.”) Meanwhile, Alex is side-eying Madison for being different in her different relationships. He also shakes his head when she says he begged her to stay in L.A. with him and says it wouldn’t make sense for him to talk shit about Mason.

In a now-familiar pattern for this cast, the drama continued at bars after the show. Like Joey, Mason claims that Madison was hitting on him. She says she came to a bar because she wanted to clear the air with Mason, who apologized when they met up; Mason says she confessed her feelings for him that night and that he apologized … for not seeing her red flags. Meg later also brings up “the bar scene” and accuses Madison of lying about how her breakup with Alex happened.

Madison is upset that people don’t believe that she had real feelings for both of her pod exes. She also says she’s tired of Alex lying and reaches into her dress to pull out printed screenshots where he says that he told her “a lot of stuff in confidence that wasn’t meant for other people to hear” and that he feels like the “bad guy” now. “I do have more, but that’s all I could fit in my armpit,” Madison says. While the text messages and emojis are definitely telling, I wouldn’t say they’re damning. If someone was going to smuggle in physical receipts, I wish it had been Sara bringing out Ben’s apology texts and request to “rehearse” for the reunion.

Promo, a proposal, and a performance

And now, onto whatever this portion of the reunion is. Did we really need a sock bin challenge? Is Netflix that hungry for people to download the Love Is Blind game? My interest is dwindling by the time that AD from season six walks in with Love Is Blind U.K.’s Ollie to tease her new podcast. It turns out that these two are the surprise relationship. They’re also both in the upcoming third season of fellow Netflix’s Perfect Match. We see them filming a promo for it before Ollie leads AD down the beach and proposes. Ahhh! I might not be wiping away tears like Virginia, but I’m very happy for her. We’re left to ponder whether this means they were the final couple on Perfect Match — I personally think it would be hilarious if one of them won with someone else.

After an announcement that season nine will be set in Denver, Colorado, it’s time for Alex from season eight to deliver Love Is Blind’s inaugural music performance. Wait, no he just kinda looks like Alex and has the same name as him. Not confusing at all! This is actually Alex Warren, whom I feel pretty confident that I’ve never seen before. Sorry to this man. But I’m sure this performance is a big deal to some viewers because Spotify stats show that “Ordinary” is a pretty popular song judging, and some quick Googling tells that he’s been famous for a while as one of the co-founders of TikTok’s Hype House.

The season eight cast then raises a golden goblet to love, and I guess this is a family reunion now because we close out the episode with a Love Is Blind fam jam. As everyone grabs an instrument, we get a short montage from some of Love Is Blind’s success stories over the past five years, including Kwame and Chelsea, Lydia and Milton, Brett and Tiffany, Garrett and Taylor, Alexa and Brennan, Amy and Johnny, and Zack and Bliss.

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