Bowties and Betrayals: The Love is Blind Finale
Bowties and Betrayals: The Love is Blind Finale
A special collab with Nhari Djan!
I feel that Netflix’s Love is Blind is a thesis on how some people are simply not compatible, and gives us the opportunity to understand why they (and we) power through icks, lies of omission, clear fundamental misalignments on texting etiquette, and outright dastardly deeds to preserve what physical chemistry, shared religious values, abundant laughter, remains - not to mention the stakes of an entire wedding your family is flying in from Minnesota to attend. Sometimes there is no villain, and it is healing to see that depicted for our internalization. Stephen did a bad thing, yes. Tyler deserves to have his kids, who yes know what he looks like, take turns whacking him with pool noodles. Leo: the only Brody (or, as he spells it…Braudy?!) we trust is Adam. But of the couples to make it to Cabo…is there a villain, and who, or no? This show has a legacy of villains, people I would hiss at if I saw them on the street. SK, Shake, Jeramey and Sarah Ann Palin, BARTISE, Izzy…Micah’s lip injector…Uche. Jesus Christ, UCHE. But this season offered the reality of few true demonic souls putting their bare feet on the couches in the pods, and more people who try to love each over deep ridges of incompatibility.
and I realized we both needed to holler about this damn show after bumping into each other in ’s Love is Blind chat and said “I do” to this look at who, if anyone, is the villain of each couple:Ashley Adionser/Tyler Francis
For those who didn’t know, Tyler absolutely knows those children.
Nhari: Is Iyanla Vanzant still fixing people’s lives? Is the Oprah Winfrey Network still taking submissions for Black Love?
I have to get some things out of the way about this “wedding” before I start on the couple in question: Tyler’s velour green bow tie? His white boy-mom? The ballet dancers? The white wedding officiant leading the “Jumping the Broom” tradition? UNSERIOUS.
Tyler: Tyler is the obvious villain of the season. If his on-camera omission of his three biological children wasn’t enough, the TikTok and Reddit sleuths have shown us enough evidence for a conviction. He’s clearly been a liar from a young age, perhaps as a survival mechanism, and now he does it as routinely as one would do laundry or go grocery shopping. I’m not the first to say this, but I think he genuinely just needs a place to stay.
Men like him are why Glorilla said, “This n*gga tryna get me pregnant, I need to tie my tubes.” Over and over again Tyler would bring up having many kids with Ashley. “Seven,” he’d say with a smile, knowing he just needed four more to reach that goal. He, like Ballerina Farm’s husband or even Offest telling Cardi B “u my bm i won,” knows that it’s much harder to leave a relationship when kids are involved and that children can guarantee him a level of access to a woman forever.
Ashley: Anyone who wants to get married this badly is a danger to themselves and society. It took me a while to understand what made Ashley continue the relationship after discovering Tyler lied and why she eventually said “yes” at the altar. Aside from the obvious bird-brain poisoning that most women have to varying degrees, she has had to give men in her life unconditional grace.
When she was getting ready with her bridal party which included her mother and grandmother, she spoke about how she chose to reconnect with her father after the death of her grandfather, and how that meant forgiving him for how he treated her mother and other women. Tale as old as time. We’ll see if new information about Tyler’s relationships and his connection to his children will change her mind, but her decision to stay with the information she already had is telling enough. She’s an enabler.
Tara: I really feel that she could not have known about his past other than what he shared with her. I guess she could have asked to talk to the donation recipients, but you enter a relationship in good faith. You should not HAVE to be Nancy Drewing your partner’s every move. And if you have to, that is HIS FAULT. Not disclosing his “sperm donation” is a huge red flag, and I could - if I wanted to - fault her for not taking that as the immediate reason to leave, but I can not assign blame to her for trusting, or forgiving really, in the face of her good faith. She is a beautiful woman, outside and I feel on the inside as well. I just want better for her than to (I fear) learn of this man’s catastrophic lies and deceits, not only to her but to the three small children he disowned on national television, and stay with him anyway because she wants to “get married and stay married.”
Also that velour ass bow with the gold in the middle (?!?), looking like he ripped it off of a Christmas tree on clearance at Walmart. GIRL. I would have turned around right there.
Villain: Tyler telling his friends that he immediately wants to get Ashley pregnant after the wedding is enough that I hope they let the women throw tomatoes at him during the reunion. Get me Vanessa and a bucket.
Ramses Prashad/Marissa George
Tara: My ex had the same nail shape that Ramses does. He is a villain1. It’s giving Emma Corrin in Deadpool & Wolverine2. They were a villain. Case dismissed, bring in the dancing lobsters.
Nhari: Men really are still men regardless of their politics. Marissa made a similar comment in her interview with Glamour where she spoke about her and Ramses' relationship.
I will say this about Ramses, we gave him too much from the tidbits he shared (saying that billionaires are unethical and quoting James Baldwin). Anyone can do that! Obama certainly did it to pull communist chicks in college.
Not to mention, this man is 34 years old and still believes that he can’t get girls because he’s not seen as masculine enough. At your grown age? In the DC metro area? Be so for real. He thinks because he wears vegan leather pants 3-4 times a week that women don’t feel him, not because he refuses to wear a condom because he needs “the sex to be enjoyable?” It reads to me the same way Tyler has said in interviews that people use harmful stereotypes against him as a light-skinned man, when really he’s a serial baby trapper.
Ramses is my villain for personal reasons, but the foundation of this couple was ultimately, horniness. Somehow they spent the entire time in the pods not listening to each other. It’s impressive because what else is there to do? They brushed aside their own values and personal beliefs to be able to finally fuck each other in Mexico. Once the sex started to calm down (Marissa said no once!) and birth control became a question, Ramses was like “OMG our energies just don’t align :((“ I also wonder what the conversations with his family were like, since he didn’t film with them.
Condom-policing aside, I don’t think he’s wrong for ending the relationship with Marissa before the wedding. But that breakup was devastating and cruel. He basically reaffirmed to her that she is too much for him. I think a lot of pain could’ve been avoided because he likely knew he wouldn’t marry her weeks ago.
Unfortunately, Marissa would have gone through with it and they would've ended up in a resentful relationship. What she might see in hindsight is that she was already making concessions to please him without being true to herself. Why did she have to excuse herself for being too tired to have sex and blame PMS? How was she going to integrate her husband into her military community and family when he clearly wanted nothing to do with them?
Villain: Ramses. I don’t even have anything funny to say here. I have been that girl crying on that damn floor. Can’t believe I’m here wishing Marissa’s mom was meaner to him.
Tim Drake Godbee/Alex Byrd
Tara: Alex should have never put her hand over that man’s mouth. That’s foul. Did she Purell beforehand? Foul. But Tim is a mustache-twirling demon for dismissing a woman’s need for a nap. Our ANEMIC ASSES need to do sleepies sometimes!!! She hung out with his parents for what, four hours? More? However long filming took? And then she took an hour nap. After cameras were in their faces, an unnatural and possibly taxing situation. She took a nap for an HOUR, and this man told her that he never wanted to see her again as if it was some deserved little lickback for a harm most egregious. He got catty about it. I feel like he thinks his little moment is going to prove he is a man of strength and conviction and earn him a Coretta. He was so laden with resentment, and brought all of it into a top-loaded argument, where conflict was not used as an opportunity to strengthen their connection but to bulldoze it. And after what he said, after that letter, to her kind, kind father? His dichotomy, to go from so worshipful in what he spoke to Mr. Byrd to so dismissive of her over one thing not to his liking, scared me. Mr. Byrd should be legally given the privilege of running Tim (or sorry, “Drake” as his parents call him - I do not trust men who go by their middle name as a battle-tested rule, and I wish I could have shared this with Alex) over.
Nhari: Of all the couples this season, this one I understood the least. Ashley and Tyler were telling each other what the other wanted to hear, Stephen and Monica were weirdos, Hannah and Nick were competing for the lowest self-esteem. What did Alex and Tim have? Even in the pods I couldn’t tell if they liked, let alone loved, each other. So even though the breakup walkout by Tim was dramatic, I wasn’t convinced their relationship was worth all that fuss.
Based on what production showed us this season, Tim was the bad guy in the relationship, though I’d like to see the initial fight in Mexico. Nap-gate was certainly a tantrum that he had been bottling up. Alex could’ve done anything to piss him off and he would’ve ran with it. I wonder when he realized he did not like this woman.
Villain: More like Tim GodBITCH.
Monica Davis/Stephen Robinson
Tara: If Monica were my friend, I would tell her to in the wise words of Cheri Oteri simmah down now. She thinks Kate Spade is a brand of plebs and proles.3 He missed the fireworks display during the couples trip to counsel Garrett about some freakout he was having that his whole fiance…learned about and didn’t do shit to investigate, and Monica was PISSED. The sarcasm she threw in his face over that was in fact the man on the grassy knoll. It was violent. And girl, it is on you for hearing “I voted for Trump because I just don’t LIKE Hillary” and accepting that Neil Lane knockoff on your finger. That’s you.
But this man sitting on that couch with her in Cabo on a floating on a lazy river ride of consciousness whose final destination was talking to his wife-to-be about women who might want to suck his dick after the show premiered? Girl, he should have shut up and watched those fireworks with her. Let the explosions mute your words. Enjoy the silence. Because this man is an unfixed dog and probably one of Kendall from Love Island’s white friends he Venmos to chip in with for Trump PAC donations.
And while I can see Monica going full Lucy-Liu-in-Charlie’s-Angels, I could see her having a reasonably spicy sex life, I think Stephen assumes bossmanship. He is a white man who is a little Black, but he has not read enough of those damn books he and Monica were bragging to everyone about to know any other way than being the white thumb pressed down on someone else. Even if he isn’t aware of it, or wants to drink out of a dog bowl in the bedroom, that is a man who got bossed around a little by a woman who knows what she wants (even if what she wants is materialistic as heeeeeelllll, like please I would be honored to date a man who doesn’t know what YSL stands for and doesn’t have a night cream, you think Steve McQueen knew what the fuck hyaluronic acid is4!?) and ran (under the influence, at a SLEEP TEST, HE WAS DRUNK AT A SLEEP TEST, WHO IS CONDUCTING THIS SLEEP TEST, WAS IT ACTUALLY JUST A HANDJOB PARLOR) into the loving arms of the Feeld app to find someone who…will, I don’t know, indulge his mucophilia? Because either Monica is a prude or Stephen’s kinks are so insidious that I had to learn about it by watching a 28-minute YouTube deep dive about a group of redheaded sisters who pop balloons in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costumes. But maybe she’s just like me and can not fathom having a joint checking account with a man who wants to suck toe.
Nhari: You know what I loved about the Kate Spade/Louis Vuitton/YSL conversation? Yes, these are all luxury brands on different levels of the scale, but Monica seemed to believe that a Louis Vuitton bag was the ultimate high-class signifier. You can tell she’s on the “old money” and “soft life” TikTok hashtags (derogatory), and she’d be that woman on Succession who Tom Wambsgans calls out for bringing a “ludicrously capacious bag.” And yes, her man is an electrician who doesn’t come from money and supports his family financially. What exactly did she expect?
Both members of this couple are so scary to me. Of everyone we watched this season, I would hate to be trapped in a room with them the most. Monica was vindicated in the end because of Stephen’s cheating, drunk-while-sleep-testing reveal, but she has to be just as strange as him.
Villain: Stephen, and whoever presided over his sleep test needs to have their license revoked.
Nick Dorka/Hannah Jiles
Tara: I can’t believe I’m saying this after a year where I had to stop a man from trying to kiss me by saying “Uh, what about bro code?” but I need Hannah’s “best friend I’ve ever had in my whole entire life” or whatever she deemed Katie to move in with Nick and his pineapple-infested parents’ house. She lifts this guy up! Now I would NEVAH. NEVAH!! go on even a first date with a guy who still lives with his parents, unless HE owned the house and was caretaking, but she at least enjoys the man’s company. And that’s Hannah’s problem. It was not my original idea, I read it elsewhere, but her having to move out and support herself alone at 18 has lead to (rightful) pride in her achievement and independence and (misguided, unaddressed) hatred towards Nick for having the cushion of family support. This is a couple where there could have been no villain, a true no-villain no-fault “hey we just don’t work” conversation with a few tears and a friendly hug if Hannah had not belittled, needled, harangued this man for their simple opposite approaches to housework and social etiquette. Instead, she broke his balls and spirit with a camera crew in tow, and talked about how he doesn’t perform oral sex with a hot mic on. She was picturing Henry Cavill and out came Jay Baruchel and she loaaaaaaaaaaathes him for it. She literally came up with a “10 Things I Hate About You” list when girl, you will NEVER be Julia Stiles!!! Horror person.
Nhari: There was a part of me that enjoyed watching Hannah and Nick bicker. They just act soooo 20s (I’m 25 writing this). Two people with horribly low self-esteem that just manifested in different ways. Hannah chose to find someone who she felt was more pathetic than her, so that she could shine next to him. You could tell in that one scene with her friends that she would orchestrate an entire relationship just so the people in her life could tell her “You can do so much better.” Nick on the other hand was extremely unsure of himself and wanted a partner who could act as a manual for how to be in a relationship.
I do think Hannah was disappointed in Nick’s looks, which is typical in this series. The participants want to find “blind” love but aren’t prepared for when the person on the other side isn’t their type. Once she decided Nick was unattractive, it gave her license to be meaner to him. Her hyper-independent act was also interesting to see. Sure, she’s been on her own since she was young, but the way she spoke about chores and other responsibilities reeked of over-compensation.
I can see how Nick’s living situation might have made Hannah jealous or triggered her. In my opinion, living with your parents at 28 is unremarkably normal these days. The rent is too damn high. I do think that going from there to living with your wife is very jarring, and he should consider a step or two in between.
Do we even think Nick wanted to be married?
Villain: Hannah’s Ozempic hookup, because she is going to be so much more insufferable now.
Taylor Krause/Garrett Josemans
Tara: The only thing I have to say other than that Garrett is a pretty decent Canal Street knockoff Glen Powell (good for him!!) and that Taylor has cheekbones made of meringue god bless her, is that Garrett’s waffling on the nature of his texts with his ex concerns me. It could be a moment of gaslighting, though I want to believe that this redditor is correct.
The five-minute bachelorette party made me laugh though, thinking about some poor set dec just getting a text about Hannah or Marissa or Monica, sighing, and removing another lil teepee from the bachelorette…airplane hangar? You really feel the size of that space when there are TWO BRIDES.
Also, Taylor’s IG is @chinesediscobaby. Which is so different, has so much more personality, than the way she presents herself, as more reserved on-camera. She’s probably even cooler offscreen!
Nhari: Was it Monica who called Garrett a middle-class Chris Evans? He reminds everyone of a star before the fame. Now that he has grown out his hair, I’m starting to see the vision. I’m happy for this couple in the end. I think they exemplify many straight couples in the way that the woman is very cool and interesting and the man is… fine. I think they gave us some cute scenes together as a break from the rest of the meltdowns happening on the rest of the show.
There’s one thing I’ll never stop side-eyeing Garrett for. Actually, there are two. The second is him even daring to suggest that his beautiful wife moves to his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia. I’m from Northern VA, and Fredericksburg is when you start to see #those flags start flying if you know what I mean. But the question I know they won’t ask Garrett at the reunion (maybe Vanessa has enough nerve) is why he had an aneurysm when Taylor revealed that she was not a white woman, but didn’t want to reveal her ethnicity to keep the experiment blind? Personally, I didn’t agree with Taylor’s decision because I’m not dating anyone who could potentially have an issue with me or my Black family. But, arguably she was just trying to be true to the experiment. You could tell he was shattered by this information. I would love to hear why!
Villain: Taylor’s high-low wedding dress. Girl’s got great calves but my god, it was a 2012 Macy’s prom dress! With a HEADBAND. You’re grown!
Look at this shaggy dog crossbody bag. I would be doing some freaky deaky shit for the man who brought this home to me.
Love is Blind on its best day is not as funny as Vanderpump on its worst.
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I don't know anything about Love is Blind, but I appreciate the "bring in the dancing lobsters" reference! I've mentioned this multiple times at work and each time my coworkers look at me like they have no idea what I'm talking about (not sure why I keep doing it at this point actually, but it always feels relevant). I'm sorry, did we not all watch The Amanda Show and routinely log onto www.amandaplease.com growing up?
GodBITCH. Beautiful, no notes