RECAP: Love Is Blind Season 8, Episodes 10-12
Absolutely awful. As bad as I thought this season was after the first two groups of episodes, it somehow got even worse in the third. As we entered the home stretch of the season, what paltry drama/conflict we had either stayed stuck in a frustrating loop until it inevitably collapsed, or one or both members of the couple did everything in their power to avoid dealing with it on camera. While I respect these people wanting to have some level of agency over their personal lives, they knew exactly what this show was when they signed up. This level of obfuscation or avoidance is unacceptable.
I’m not entirely sure where exactly the blame lies for this absolute disaster of a season. I mean, yes, this is a cast overwhelmed by duds. While most of them seem likely perfectly likeable, normal people, there are very few magnetic personalities among them. To the contrary, some of these people — Devin especially — are among the most boring cast members in the history of this show. As I said in my last recap, I think the setting of Minneapolis is also partially to blame. Such a small, incestuous dating scene basically guaranteed participants would either already know each other, or would have mutual friends on the outside. That has scuttled at least one relationship, and threatened others. And I am astonished by how many of the family members of these participants refuse to appear on camera this time. That has happened in the past, but this time it’s a very high percentage of opt-outs, I suspect because of their “good” “midwestern” “values.”
For whatever reason, this season is easily the worst of the entire franchise, and barring an epic conclusion — which I do not think is in the cards — this show is going to have a difficult time getting viewers back. Certainly it will have difficulty getting back THIS one!
Read on for my takes on the third batch of episodes (10-12) of Love is Blind Season 8. SPOILERS AHEAD!
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I’m again ranking the couples from most dramatic to least, but again, there’s no real drama this season. It’s all so stupid.
David/Lauren
It is rare on this show when the problems are coming entirely from one half of a couple, but let’s be super clear: David was the problem here, and he is a fucking loser. Not since Clay (of Clay and AD) have I seen a guy fumble a bag this hard, over absolutely nothing. When we left things, David continued to bitch and moan about the fact that his friends and his sister were freaking out about Lauren having a fuck buddy before going into the pods. It is important to note that Lauren has been literally begging David to stay in their shared apartment and work through this, and he refused. She has also been begging David to allow her to speak directly with David’s friends and his sister, and he refuses that as well. She even apparently wrote a long note to David’s sister about how much she cares for him, and wanted to do whatever she could to make this situation work — he refused to give it to her.
This is astonishingly childish behavior on David’s part. It’s avoidant to the extreme, and then it shifted to aggressive after he had an off-camera conversation with Lauren’s father, in which Lauren’s father apparently put some pressure on David to nut up. David continued to operate sack-free, spiraling over third-party allegations that are — I say this again — so easily verifiable that I am confused about how this was even a debate. Check text logs! They weren’t communicating telepathically. Basically, these conversations were the exact same things we had been getting since they returned from Guatemala, with no resolution, only a ratcheting up in desperation on Lauren’s part and accusations on David’s. This clown sat there with Lauren’s mother and said all the right things to her, while in private he was pushing her away. An infuriating scenario.
Things reached a head when the two of them were allowed a private meeting in an empty theater, and David once again pressed his attack on Lauren’s character, and dismissed her literal pleas to be able to defend her reputation to these unseen friends and family members. You could see on Lauren’s face the exact moment she threw in the towel. She was absolutely in the right to do so. They were going around and around, and getting absolutely nowhere — because David did not want them to get anywhere. I don’t think David was ever serious about finding a wife or partner. I don’t think he wants to grow up. I think he’s feeling social pressure to settle down, but I do not think for a minute he was emotionally or mentally prepared for an actual partner. I’m honestly not even convinced his friends and family were whipping up all of this anti-Lauren sentiment behind the scenes. Literally NONE of them were willing to appear on camera to address? That’s awfully convenient for this narrative David was spinning.
After Lauren walked out, David said officially that they were done, and immediately regretted his decisions. It was like he had a moment of clarity and recognized that he fucked up royally, and treated Lauren incredibly unfairly — which he did. That dude wasted Lauren’s time — and the viewers’ — and if I were Lauren, I would be furious. This dude, who asked her to marry him, spent almost the entire time they were back in Minneapolis saying, on camera, that she was a liar and implying that she was a cheater. Her character has been impugned over nothing by this total loser of a man. He even seemed to acknowledge that it was his own insecurities over her having previous relationships, which…duh. And also, what level of cuck do you have to be, to be this freaked out by the information that your partner has previously been with other people? Is this the 1700s? How utterly cringe.
After their break-up, at a party featuring other main characters from the pods, Molly sat down with both Lauren and David. The Molly/Lauren convo was so supportive, and so good to watch. They dragged this colossal chud effortlessly — at one point Molly asked aloud if David had ever had sex, and says that if he hadn’t, it sure would explain a lot. Molly then dragged David, telling him how badly he fucked up, and not giving him any kind of pass on his lame excuses. Molly acted as the voice of not only Lauren, but also the viewer, when David protested that he had defended Lauren to his friends and family. Clearly he did not, and Molly made it clear — this was not hard. This was a very easy situation to address, and he allowed other people to dictate his life. Humiliating. Emasculating. I would be ashamed to show my face in public if I were David. I cannot imagine how this guy will appear on the reunion, but I guarantee you he’ll play the victim.
It’s not a coincidence that, after being put in his place by a woman for the second time on this show, David was snapped back into reality. He had a heart-to-heart with Lauren about how spectacularly he blew it. He is a scared little boy who needs a mommy, not a wife. I am sure that the loss of his mother had a profound impact on his development. That’s tragic, without question. But this is a grown-ass man who is majorly emotionally stunted. He needs years of therapy and to grow the fuck up. Lauren, on the other hand, needs nothing to do with this chooch. Loser!
Ben & Sara
The cliffhanger from the last group of episodes had Ben and Sara confronted with third-party social-media allegations about Ben’s bad behavior toward other women. I hope you didn’t expect that to be addressed at all these episodes, as it was brought up literally not at all. Not once! Instead, we got multiple scenes where Ben and Sara alternated between cooing over each other, and awkward scenes where it became increasingly clear that these two were not on the same page when it came to values, especially regarding religion.
There was a scene in Ben’s church that was hammered this home. As the pastor talked about his dream of being an online church — despite the fact that he had plenty of empty pews that we could see — Sara seemed totally disconnected from the sermon. I don’t blame her. It was basically, “Why aren’t you doing more to conscript people into the church?” For what? Are you going to actually tell me WHY I should be doing these things? Why it’s good for THEM? Or do you just expect the answer to be, “Because I said so”? If you want to have your religion, go crazy. But when you try to bend other people’s faith to your own because your invisible sky wizard tells you to, I have questions.
We also met Sara’s sister and her partner, who have very serious reservations about this whole thing. Again I say: What is going on with the sisters of Minneapolis? This is a recurring issue for at least four out of five of these couples. They’re all judgy and disapproving. The idea that I would ever allow my sibling to have that kind of say in my life, or that I would expect that level of control over theirs — insanity. Insanity! Sara’s sister was at least measured and respectful in her questioning of the relationship, although her partner was a bit more intense. I appreciated her pushback at the term “acceptance” when it comes from churches/religious people.
The questions around Sara and Ben’s social and philosophical compatibility have been there since the pods. They never seemed aligned to me on some pretty core issues, and I’m not sure why this is suddenly a dealbreaker for Sara, but it sure seems to be. For his part, Ben seems completely on board with all of this, even though they’re not on the same page about so much. But by the time they got to the altar at the end of Episode 12, Sara’s concerns were written all over her face. I’ll just say this: if she does in fact ditch him at the altar, she’s got some real explaining to do. Because she seemed all in on this guy right up to the 11th Hour, and then suddenly she pulls a U-Turn? I smell a stunt coming.
Devin/Virginia
I’ll be blunt: I like Virginia, I think she is settling here, and I do not understand what she sees in Devin. It sure as hell isn’t his sparkling personality, because my god, their scenes together are deadly boring. As they laid in bed and she tried to pull something, anything out of that man, I could feel my soul leaving my body. And what was with the crazy camera work focusing on random details like Devin’s watch or tattoos?
These two also seem to have major philosophical differences that could be dealbreakers. Virginia basically had to pry out of Devin the fact that he’s not political (huge red flag at this point in our country’s history), and that while she is liberal, Devin’s family leans conservative. The discussion around abortion rights felt like a game of eggshell walking, and I came out of it assuming that Devin has never actually voted. Or if he has, he has voted conservative. I agree with Virginia’s confusion over how Devin’s family could be socially conservative. Are they aware that 60 years ago, Devin’s parents wouldn’t have even been legally allowed to marry in this country, because they were a mixed-race couple? I don’t understand how you grasp the implication of that, and still vote that way, but you do you, I guess.
Then we had PrenupGate, the lamest, saddest attempt at drama this season. Neither of these people have money right now. Devin actually has negative money, given his medical debt. I can understand Virginia not wanting to get saddled with some portion of that post-wedding, but Devin freaking out about signing this form is absolutely crazy to me. And in the end, it ended so flaccidly. “Yeah I talked to my mom and she said it was exactly what you said it was.” Scintillating television. I think Devin and Virginia will get married, and that makes me sad, because she deserves better than this drip.
Joey & Monica
Joey and Monica were largely their goofy selves for these episodes, with some resolution to the Monica sister pushback — she apologized and acknowledged she was not being fair to Joey — and then a weird subplot introduced in which Monica was suddenly questioning whether Joey was as into her as she was into him. I’m assuming this is just for show, and there’s no real danger there. But they need to add some level to tension to the plot, and they have so very little to work with this season, so…
Daniel/Taylor
It’s funny that the couple that seemed on the verge of imploding at the beginning of the last group of episodes emerged as the most solid match of the season. Daniel and Taylor are well matched, and I do think they will end up married. They’re very sweet to one another, and it all seems easy once they got past Taylor paranoia nearly sabotaging their whole relationship. I can only imagine the audible groans from the producers and editors when they were like, “Hey lets have another conversation about how much we love Christmas,” including a prelim holiday-card photo shoot. That’s how devoid of good content this season is. We watched a fake holiday photo shoot. Grim stuff.
The Other Pod People
Prior to the bachelor/bachelorette parties, there was a sledding event which brought back a slew of the other major pod people, including Molly, Brittany, Mason and Meg (now a couple — whatever, enjoy being weird together), and Alex and Madison. The major headlines here are that Brittany was so lovely and way more gentle with Devin than he deserved, and Madison confirmed my suspicions about her in the pods. This girl is drama. She is a drama generator. In her brief few minutes of screen time these episodes, she talked shit about numerous people, most notably Alex. I’m super curious to hear Alex’s take on this, because I do not consider Madison to be a reliable narrator on any difficult interactions with her. As boring as this season has been — and it has been relentlessly so — I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with an entire season of her sucking all of the oxygen out of the room.
Next: the weddings. Let’s just speed run this, shall we?
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.
