Photo: Netflix
I can’t believe it finally happened. For the first time, a season of Love Is Blind has ended with zero married couples. We get two nos at the altar and one breakup that happens before we even get to the aisle. That’s history! It also feels like the natural evolution of a franchise that has grown to a point where most people are aware that getting engaged has the potential to turn them into micro-influencers. Now that the Netflix show is so popular, these weddings are not just about saying “I do” to the other person; they’re also about saying “I do” to everyone on social media having opinions about the relationship and potentially being thrilled to swoop in and say “I told you so” if you get divorced. Still, despite the lack of any successful weddings for our Denver cast, there’s no shortage of love on display in this finale. While the romantic connections didn’t work out, other types of relationships — between siblings, between a parent and a child, between a student and their favorite teacher — are still rich texts. Let’s get into it!
The tension here pretty much solely rests on Ali’s choice, because Anton makes it clear that while Ali is “high-maintenance” and doesn’t cook or clean, he’s going to say yes. The outlook seems bad at the bachelorette party, where Ali’s friends tell her that women of her “caliber” will look down on her for marrying someone who might only ever be a truck driver. Still, there are reasons to believe that Ali might say “I do.” She shows up wearing the matching Mrs. hoodie to his Mr. hoodie, just like he wanted, and handwrites him a letter. Although his lifestyle has been a concern for her, she’s now telling her wedding party that she’s not sure her informant’s info about Anton partying and going out to strip clubs was accurate; when Ali’s mom expresses worries over how much alcohol Anton drinks, Ali now suggests that he deserves grace. Plus, when Anton’s mom drops by to praise her son’s soul, Ali says in a very reassuring tone that she loves him and that he’s an amazing man.
I feel like the real love story here is familial. Anton’s mom does everything she can to try to get her “little baby” not to worry, and Ali’s mom and two of her sisters express similar sentiments. Ali’s other sister, Naiara, makes it known that she disapproves of the entire process, but she’s come to support her anyway. “You’re my best friend. And I want you to be happy,” she says. “So if you think this is going to make you happy, go for it.”
Ali and Anton are all smiles as she approaches the altar. During their vows, they both acknowledge that they’ve had disagreements. But Anton suggests that no good thing comes easy. If you read between the lines of Ali’s speech, it’s less optimistic — she says it was easy to fall in love with him, and that they’ve learned enough to make this decision.
Ultimately, Anton says, “I do,” but Ali says she can’t reciprocate. “I feel like the person that I fell in love with in the pods isn’t the person that I’ve gotten to experience in real life,” she explains. “I’m so sorry.” Her friends and family comfort her as she sinks to the ground in tears outside the gates; back at the altar, one of Anton’s friends calls Ali a “cold-hearted fucking bitch.”
Ali tells us in a confessional that she didn’t feel at ease or confident during the ceremony, as she had hoped she would. It all comes back to his “lifestyle” — drinking, partying, and even how healthy he eats. Anton doesn’t seem to know exactly what the issue was, and sums up his feelings by saying that this “fucking sucks.” Again, I think the truest love on display in this storyline is in the support systems that this couple has. Naiara might throw in a “I told you so,” but I think Ali and Anton will both have plenty of people checking in on them and making sure that they get through this breakup, and the split doesn’t feel too devastating.
These two are emotional from the moment they arrive at the venue. Edmond doesn’t have cold feet — in fact, he tells us his feet are hot. Meanwhile, Kalybriah describes Edmond as a healing, growing, stubborn man who makes her feel loved, “for sure.” She emphasizes several times throughout the day how much she loves him. Her mom seems to approve of Edmond, too, stopping by to give him her blessing and thank him for choosing Kalybriah.
Once again, though, I find myself more invested in a different relationship than the couple I’m supposed to be focused on. Although Emdond is upset that his mom couldn’t make it to the ceremony due to personal reasons, there is a woman who raised him in attendance: his fifth-grade teacher, Jessie. Edmond describes her as his “guardian angel” when he didn’t have a guardian — she tutored him, bought him food, and taught him discipline. She tells him that he is the reason she moves and dances while teaching, and says he can call her “Mom.” The first time I start to really cry during this episode is when he says that making her proud means so much to him, and she replies that she’s always been proud of him.
After Edmond shouts out God and his baby, KB, in a confessional, it’s time for the wedding. A proud Jessie walks Edmond down the aisle, right after he calls her by her first name for the first time. At the altar, Edmond and Kalybriah both cry during his vows. He affirms that he’s ready to be held accountable, grow as a man, and achieve the future they dreamed of. “I’m confident,” he says. “Give me some pressure, I got it. I love you so much.”
In her vows, Kalybriah advises Edmond not to be insecure about his story, because it’s what she fell in love with. She says she loves the hell out of him, and that he helped her grow — but once Edmond says “I do” and it’s her turn to decide, her face crumples. Edmond lets out an anguished yell before she even starts explaining that he deserves someone who’s 100 percent at the altar, and she’s not.
Jessie and the rest of the crowd look pretty bummed, but people seem to lighten up once they see Edmond and Kalybriah still complimenting each other and hugging it out. Kalybriah’s very apologetic. They reiterate their respect for each other, and she thanks him for being graceful about her honoring her “doubt.” I think it does showcase growth that Edmond isn’t yelling the way he did during his nice-guys-finish-last freakout in Baja. They hold hands and walk out to have a private conversation where Edmond appears to suggest that they give it another try down the road. While Kalybriah says she’d never write him off, the fact that she calls him a “big stepping stone” makes me pretty confident that this relationship is over.
Edmond walks off alone to serve the most angst on a golf course since Troy Bolton in “Bet on It.” Jessie comes to comfort him, telling him that he’ll get another chance to find a “diamond.” She also echoes what Kalybriah’s mom is currently telling her — that this outcome is better than an unhappy marriage. (Kalybriah admits that she would’ve been “miserable” if she said yes.)
Overall, this edit is very kind to Edmond. All we’ve heard is how much everyone who meets him loves him. When Jessie is hugging him and patting his back, all you want is for him to have gotten married today. But when he says in a confessional that he’s shocked and hurt because he treated Kalybriah “the best” … eh. I haven’t forgotten what these two’s arguments were like. I don’t blame Kalybriah for not wanting a marriage where — as Edmond indicated in his vows — she can look forward to a lifetime of applying pressure so he can grow. Pressure makes diamonds, but like Jessie said, maybe Kalybriah is a sapphire. Edmond can still be a gem to the people who love him, but this just wasn’t a match.
There’s less than ten minutes left in the episode when we cut to these two in their apartment, so it’s pretty clear that we’re not getting a final wedding. At the bachelorette party, Megan’s friends pressed her to consider whether she was willing to change her lifestyle and how much Jordan’s son was factoring into her decision. By wedding day, she has her answer. She tells Jordan that she woke up at 4:30 a.m. and was an “absolute mess.” She can’t go through with the wedding — they’re too different, like “ships in the night.” He initially tries to protest, but after she continues to explain that she wants a partner who is freer to do things with her, he questions why she picked him in the pods.
Megan basically says that she didn’t realize being with him would be so “rigid.” He reminds her that she has five years on him. (Read: He could be rich one day, too.) But Megan is making her choice based on the reservations she has right now. Perhaps because Jordan has specifically complained about her being “abrasive” before, she seems to be trying to deliver the news gently. Instead of focusing on the ways she needed him to be different, her main message is an apology: “I’m sorry I didn’t love you and accept you the way you needed me to.”
Jordan has been crying and nodding, but he doesn’t really have anything else to say about the breakup. Before he heads off to pick up his son from school, they hug, and Megan says she loves him. We don’t hear Jordan say it back. In a confessional, he says he thinks that if he had enough money not to need to work, he would be getting married. When a producer asks if he has any regrets, he says he wishes he hadn’t introduced Megan to her son. Ouch. “I feel like she doesn’t love me for me, and that’s the closure I need,” he adds.
In her confessional, Megan admits that she got carried away in the “excitement” of Jordan being a single dad. But this breakup is also about more than her knowing that Jordan specifically is not her partner. She’s now wondering whether she might be too caught up in her own life to be a mom, period. It’s important for her to start reflecting on that before she starts a family, but it’s unfortunate that a real kid may have gotten his hopes up about a stepmom in the process.
There is no happy couple or reception to cut to, which puts Netflix in an awkward position. It has to justify the existence of the experiment and still make this season mean something. The show’s solution is to show us a montage of the season’s ups and downs as a voiceover informs us that love isn’t happily ever after. Even though every relationship ended, we’re supposed to remember that the bad moments and breakups are just part of the real love stories that began via blind dates. If you accept that, though, then the true takeaways of this season are that factors outside of the pods are valid reasons to say no, and that regardless of whether love is blind, love alone is not enough to sustain a marriage. Of course, admitting that would complicate the premise of a show that positions weddings as the final test of whether love is blind. So instead, we get to listen to a nothing burger of a monologue about how love is [checks notes] every little moment fusing together into a shared experience that becomes the story you’re writing. Um … okay!
• Since we know what happened, I don’t have too much to add this week. But I’ll see you all again soon for the reunion, where (let me attempt to channel Netflix here) the season-nine cast will fuse even more moments together as the co-authors of the epilogue to their story.
• IRL: I spoke with Joe about his dating podcast and how he’s a “hopeful romantic” who does, in fact, want to get engaged a third time. If you want to hear from his current girlfriend (!!!), she’s also been doing some interviews of her own. But the most important Love Is Blind news of the week to me is that Lauren and Cameron from season one had a baby! After this season, I did in fact need the reminder that Love Is Blind can work. Honestly, the entire franchise was worth it just so those two could meet.
