‘Love Is Blind’ Is Getting Too Big for Its Own Good
The Love Is Blind era of quarantine was so on-the-nose it was almost funny. Stuck in isolation? Dating through a screen? Even though the show filmed in 2018, it was a little too timely by the time it aired on Netflix in early 2020. The show—excuse me, experiment—presented a unique combination of Married at First Sight and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. For two couples, it was just wild enough to work, and they’re still together today. Season 2, by contrast, was a let-down: both of the married couples got divorced a little over a year after saying “I do.” For someone who clearly gets way too invested in other people’s love lives (hi, me), it was a bummer, but I was still holding on. And then came season 3.
After the first three episodes dropped, I was ready to write off the whole show. I wasn’t buying the engagements the producers were selling. Raven seemed to have stronger feelings for jumping jacks than she did for SK. Colleen, who literally said she didn’t want to talk about deep topics with her husband, had barely uttered Matt’s name before Cole rejected her. And Cole, for all his talk about wanting to discuss deep topics, asked hard-hitting questions such as, “Who would win in a fight, a bear or a gorilla?” Even Alexa and Brennon, who appeared solid and genuine, bonded over little more than shakshuka before we saw them get engaged. Most of these people clearly got engaged so they could be on the show longer, I cynically thought. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way: Fans on the Love Is Blind subreddit accused various cast members of going on the show to further their careers and faking relationships to get famous. It's official: Three seasons in, the show has undergone "The Bachelor effect," and it's time to talk about where it went wrong and how it can course correct.
When people know they can get famous by going on certain reality shows, it can make it harder to believe they’re truly there for love. Love Is Blind has reached a tipping point where the draws of reality TV fame risk overshadowing its initial intended purpose.
The first season had more of an innocence factor because the cast didn’t really know what they were getting into. Kelly Chase from season 1 said the show didn’t have a network, or even a name, during filming. But by the time season 3 rolled around, stars were born. Lauren Speed-Hamilton has 2.5 million Instagram followers. Damian Powers’ fling with Francesca Farago was covered in mainstream outlets like E! News.
Everybody who goes on reality TV wants fame to some degree, but fame scheming could ultimately ruin Love Is Blind, which is meant to be a true test of whether people can actually fall in love (don’t make me say it) sight unseen.
“People want authenticity now: from their celebrities, from their pop stars, everything. They want someone who's going to seem ‘real,’ but I don't think The Bachelor contestants have that anymore,” Ryanne Probst, who’s been recapping The Bachelor for Betches for five years, said.
“The Bachelor specifically has sort of lost the plot,” Emma Gray, co-host of reality dating show podcast Love To See It (formerly Here To Make Friends), said. Viewers agree: The most recent Bachelor season hit a 20-year viewership low. Love Is Blind could fall into the same trap. Like, if you're the type of person that is going to put eyedrops in your eyes to make it look like you had a more emotional response to something, you are not the right person to be on a show where the main purpose is finding love. I give the producers props for airing that moment and letting Andrew face the internet consequences, but Andrew shouldn't have been on the show to begin with. And that brings me to a tough part of this, casting.
What’s tricky about producing love stories is that people don’t always go on dating shows to look for a relationship—they go on for the experience, and if they find something special, that’s a bonus. “I had this mindset of, ‘I probably won't connect with anybody but like, let's just keep ourselves open to it,’” Love Is Blind contestant Kelly Chase said of applying to season 1. “It was like, ‘Let’s just do it. Why not?’”
Alexa Lemieux from Love Is Blind season 3 said she applied more or less on a lark after watching the first season. “I really just was like, this is a really fun opportunity just to go out and see what it's like, and then years from now be like, ‘Oh, look, there's me in the background.’”
What makes spotting early seeds of "The Bachelor effect" on season 3 even more concerning is that Love Is Blind, more than a lot of other shows, tries to set its cast up for success. Netflix only casts singles who live in the same city, which is pretty revolutionary. The emphasis is on mutual dating, not winning a competition. Nobody gets to stay on the show longer by stirring up drama—it actually has the opposite effect.
“There's a lot of people that went on it for the wrong reasons,” Lemieux said. “I think that because they weren't being very authentic, they were weeded out pretty quickly.”
Producers also don’t encourage anyone to keep the villain around because it makes for good TV; they promote real conversations. “They're just like, ‘Hey, you know, maybe you guys could talk about your financial situation right now,’” Chase said. “They were encouraging you to have those deeper conversations because of the wedding that was going to occur at the end.”
By the time I watched the season 3 reunion, my opinion on the season flipped thanks in part to these talks. Raven and SK developed a palpable fondness for each other; Alexa and Brennon’s relationship grew more profound; Colleen and Matt said yes. I now think the relationships were purposefully made to look surface-level at first so the growth felt more impressive, which feels rewarding at the end but makes it hard to buy at the beginning.
“Obviously, they have to make room for everybody to have their time,” Lemieux said, adding that she wished more of her and Brennon’s courtship was shown. “It’s like, ‘Shakshuka, shakshuka, okay, do you want to get married?’ There was a lot more to it.”
The "more to it" is what this show is actually about, and ultimately what will make or break Love Is Blind is whether the producers decide to showcase that part of it or the other part, the part that relies on the personalities of people who aren't there for the right reasons. The original premise of this show—the idea of finding love based on personality alone—is actually really, really powerful. That's what made people fall in love with this show "sight unseen" the first time around. Hopefully it can stay that way.
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