RECAP: Love Is Blind Season 8, Episodes 1-6
Netflix’s dating reality “experiment” Love Is Blind is back to the pods for Season 8, and the show has never been more underwhelming. I applaud the showrunners for picking a less-conventional city to explore in Minneapolis, MN. But based on what we saw in the first six episodes — which only took us through the pods, we didn’t even get to the tropical “honeymoon” phase as we usually do — I think that was probably a misguided choice. For the most part, this is our least-dynamic, least-interesting, least-charming, and certainly least-diverse cast yet. And the fashions — how dreadful.
I have generally enjoyed the initial pod sequences of the show. I typically think the editors do a good job weaving together the stories, building often-shocking narratives, and highlighting dramatic moments. I don’t think anything in any of these arcs so far piqued my interest. On multiple occasions — especially with one suitor in particular — I found myself completely zoned out as his monotone voice droned on and on in some of the most inane conversations ever committed to television. With more couples than ever allegedly part of the mix, if this was truly the best footage they had available to them, this season looks to be a stinker.
Read on for my takes the first batch of episodes (1-6) of Love is Blind Season 8. SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Joey & Monica
Every season on this show we have one match that seems relatively stable — the couple we can identify with and feel reasonably good about as the season progresses. This season that appears to be Joey and Monica. They both come off as extremely likable, down-to-earth, and a little goofy. They seem exceptionally well matched.
Joey gives off big Uncle Joey vibes from Full House — that is a compliment — and I am obsessed with his accent, which came out more and more as he became more comfortable with Monica. Monica seems lovely and relatable, although I’ll be honest, I don’t feel like I know that much about her as a person, aside from her being between jobs and taking care of her elderly grandparents.
There were really no bumps to speak of in their pod courtship, and once Joey proposed — with a notably oddly phrased proposal line — the two of them were giddy to the max at the unveiling. I don’t know if we’ve ever had an engagement sequence like that. It was less human beings meeting and more excited pups at a dog park. That is not a criticism! They just had very innocent, almost childlike energy. My prediction is that the two of them will be just fine, although the preview dropped a potential wrinkle in Joey’s apparent OCD tendencies. (As someone who lives with someone with OCD, it can be quite the…experience.)
Devin/Virginia/Brittany
I believe this is the ONLY couple we are following with ANY POC reputation — I don’t think that has ever happened before in the history of this show. Devin and Virginia got engaged by the end and seem to make a lovely couple. Personally I was a much bigger fan of Virginia, who is not only a stone-cold stunner, but also seems intelligent, warm, and levelheaded. I am rooting for her specifically.
Devin is more complicated. I liked him well enough for the first few episodes, but then we had a one-two punch that left me wary of what’s really going on there. First, we had his record-scratch conversation with his other top choice, Brittany, who revealed to Devin that she has had lesbian experiences in the past. The Bisexual Panic in Devin was very, very real, which I consider to be an awful look. I will concede that Brittany’s answers were not exactly home runs. When Devin pressed her about whether she was no longer interested in women, she went with, “I’m attracted to the person, not a gender,” and stressed that she is strictly monogamous, so if they were together he would have nothing to worry about.
To me, this felt just like the bisexual revelation from Season 1, just considerably less messy because it happened prior to them getting engaged. I did not like Devin’s reaction at all. I thought that immediately killed his interest in Brittany, which I find pretty fucked up. And I feel for Brittany. She revealed something deeply personal, about which she obviously felt conflicted, on national television and the result was a door slammed in her face. Brittany, if you are reading this: you have done nothing wrong, and I hope that you are able to get some counseling to feel less guilty about the scope of your attractions.
Devin also gave us IbuprofenGate, which I found difficult to follow and hard to believe. Maybe I was missing some of the details, but what I got was that he was experiencing chronic pain due to basketball injuries. Rather than seeking a doctor — which I get, the American healthcare system is thoroughly fucked — he just started relying on over-the-counter pain meds, taking way more than the daily limit. He continued to experience pain, and this apparently caused him to…lose faith in God? Because God was not taking away his pain? And ultimately he saw a physician and got treatment and was all better? I felt like there was coded language going on there about what was really happening. If it really was, “You guys, I was taking SO many aspirin, and that made me a bad person” — I am struggling to find empathy.
Ben & Sara
Completely on board with Sara, who is the poster girl for this season. She seems all-around great. Smart, great communicator, passionate, love her commitment to social causes. This is why I was so frustrated that she ended up with Ben, one of the several many nearly identical brown-haired guys this season. I literally could not tell at least three of these guys apart.
Everything was going swimmingly until politics came up, and Sara asked Ben where he stood. Ben admitted that he “doesn’t pay much attention to that stuff” and didn’t bother voting in the “last election” (which would have been either the 2020 presidential election, or the 2022 midterms at this point). What privilege. When Sara said that answer did not sit right with her, she pressed him on his feelings about Black Lives Matter and specifically the George Floyd situation — which was quite relevant, as that happened where they all live, in Minneapolis. Again, Ben basically shrugged and said that he doesn’t really pay any attention to “that stuff.” When Sara shared that her sister is an out lesbian, and asked if the admittedly very religious — like, goes to Catholic mass every Sunday — Ben would have issues with that, Ben assured her he would not. Ke said that he looked forward to growing and being educated on social issues with the help of his partner.
Um, it’s not this — or any woman’s — job to get you an education, sir. You are 28 years old and totally checked out from the reality of what is going on in this country politically and socially? How embarrassing for you. “I look forward to learning” is also SUCH a copout. You couldn’t be bothered to engage with these issues for the previous decade of your adulthood, but now you will? Not buying it.
I was genuinely disappointed when Sara ultimately pushed that all aside and accepted his proposal. They’re fine, I guess. I didn’t get any real sparks from them. They are not what I would call “passionate.” They seem perfectly…typical. So for Sara to seemingly shrug off something that really could and SHOULD be a dealbreaker for…typical…bummed me out. I think she deserves better than that, frankly.
David/Lauren/Molly
To paraphrase Taylor Swift, I knew David was trouble when I saw his cast bio. If this guy was a scratch-n-sniff sticker, he would smell like Summer’s Eve. Don’t get me wrong; David is attractive. He’s a handsome man, and those legs are spectacular. I even think he genuinely went into this trying to find a life partner. But I think his emotional unavailability, and the thrill of getting pursued by two different women, brought out the worst of him. The casual negging right off the bat was a HUGE red flag for me, and once Lauren called him out on leading both her and Molly on, he responded by dismissing it as “girl drama.” Oh, no. No ma’am, no Pam, no cauliflower. That right there should have been reason enough for both of those women to dump his ass.
But ultimately, he picked Lauren, and Lauren said yes. I am concerned for Lauren, more than any other woman still in the running this season. I do not doubt David has the best of intentions. I just doubt that he’s going to be able to curb what I think are pretty obviously selfish, self-destructive tendencies. I think Lauren seems lovely, and I thought her self-regulation when faced with the reality of the David/Molly stuff was totally understandable. I was glad she also put David in his place by pushing him to make a decision, because otherwise I think he would have run down the clock until one of them voluntarily backed out (and it would have been Lauren). In fact, I couldn’t help but suspect that he PICKED Lauren BECAUSE she was ready to walk, and he could not bear the thought of being dumped. But that’s purely speculative.
As for Molly, I don’t think she’s a bad person. I do think that it was a bad idea to go on this “experiment” when you have never had a serious relationship. This requires a very high level of emotional acuity, and I think Molly is still very much a beginner at all of this. I didn’t interpret her bragging about the David situation in the girls’ dorm as malicious; I think she just got swept up in the excitement of the experience. I do think that final convo with David underscored that Molly may not really know exactly what she wants out of a partner, and her tendency to submit herself to whatever the other person wants. I also think that’s precisely why David was so attracted to her, even subconsciously.
I do not know any spoilers for this season, but I will be shocked if Molly doesn’t reenter the picture at some point. Of the existing couples at the end of E6, this one is the most potentially volatile, and this is above all else a reality TV show.
Alex/Madison/Mason/Meg
It is wild — WILD! — that we spent so much of the first six episodes with this quartet, and yet none of them ended up as one of the couples moving forward to the altar. We had overlapping love triangles here, with Madison and Mason being the two hinges. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the participants of this show having serious conversations with multiple people — that is literally the point of the experiment. But I think they both handled it pretty poorly, with Mason getting the lion’s share of the blame — unfairly, I think.
First, let’s talk Alex and Madison. I was actually rooting for them. I found their sweet, innocent courtship charming. Alex seems wholly sincere and committed to finding the right person for him — I have no doubt that, if he was still single by the time these episodes aired — his DMs are blowing up right now. He seemed levelheaded and good at communication, and if anything his abundance of understanding is probably why he and Madison didn’t work out. If he has a fatal flaw (based on what we saw), it was his ability to give people the benefit of the doubt, even when they didn’t necessarily earn it.
Like, for instance, Madison. There are a great many things I liked about Madison. She’s clearly quite intelligent. She’s sharp as a tack. I think she really wants to find a partner, and she desperately wants to be loved. Unfortunately, I also think she has been deeply traumatized over and over again throughout her life, and she has an innate sense of how to weaponize emotions and manipulate people. We saw it over and over again in the pods, with both Alex and Mason. Love bombing and intense flirtation, combined with instant snapback and controlling coldness when they would say something that was out of line with her specific expectations. Her Episode 6 lecture to Mason, about how awful he was for toying with both her and Meg’s emotions — she did the exact same thing to both Alex and Mason. And she was almost gleeful as she was sinking her teeth into him. I lost count of the number of times over these six episodes where I was blown away by her antisocial behaviors.
That’s why I was so happy for Alex, who correctly walked away from that situation when it was becoming clear that Madison could not be fully rational — it was all about her emotions, all the time. Had he pressed on and gone through with the engagement, I have zero doubt she would have made him miserable in record time. I don’t think any of this is deliberate on Madison’s part. Hurt people hurt people. She has been DEEPLY hurt. She needs to do a lot of self work, and I wish her only the best with it.
As for Mason, yes, he was leading on both Meg and Madison. He was having his cake and eating it too. But I thought the drubbing he took from both was more than a little overblown. I don’t think he’s a bad dude, just clueless. And deeply boring. My god, those unending, circuitous conversations with him and Madison could cure insomnia, I swear.
Meg is a kook. That’s all I have to say about that.
Daniel/Taylor
The big cliffhanger at the end of Part 1 was this mess, which was well-seeded throughout the pod scenes. I found it very strange that these two apparently took forever to get engaged, despite clearly being fully on board with each other relatively quickly. Maybe there was other stuff going on that we didn’t see — other connections they didn’t bother to show us. But it felt very strange to me that we kept getting scene after scene of the two of them cooing over each other and pre-nesting, but seemingly never moving forward until the end. And now we know why.
Numerous times in their conversations the two of them would allude to incredible coincidences they shared, and how much they felt like they already knew each other. And after Daniel’s proposal, everything seemed to be OK…until the next morning, when Taylor spoke directly to the camera with her suspicions that Daniel actually knew her via social media prior to filming the show, and expressly went into “the experiment” knowing exactly who she was, what she looked like, and details about her life that she shared on social media.
It’s difficult to know at this point if Taylor’s suspicions are grounded in reality. She asked Daniel about specific photos she seemed to recall from his social profile (this feels weird to me — I couldn’t tell you what photos are on my socials, is this something people actually keep track of?). As of Episode 6, Daniel responded to the questioning with decent chill, seeming more confused than anything else. But that could all be an act.
The thing is, given the relatively small size of the dating pool in Minneapolis, I think it’s totally plausible that someone could have on the lookout for potential castings. I won’t be at all surprised if it ends up being true. And if it IS true, I understand why Taylor would be completely freaked out about this whole situation. It goes completely against the point of the experiment, and she would never know how much of their bond was genuine, and how much was specifically engineered based on advanced knowledge. It’s a real pickle, and to be honest, this meta drama is my least-favorite part of this show.
What do you think of Love Is Blind Season 8? Who do you think will make it to the altar? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
