Love Is Blind
Week 2 (Episodes 7-9)
Season 10
Episodes 7 – 9
Editor’s Rating
Chris’s villain arc makes for one of the most insulting breakups in Love Is Blind history.
Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX
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It’s time to handle some family matters. Our seven couples are back from their bae-cations to check out each other’s homes in Ohio and try to make a good first impression on their potential in-laws. Some relatives keep these conversations fairly surface level, while others are cross-examining so intensely that they might as well be auditioning for a cameo on All’s Fair.
The biggest development of the week, however, comes from a couple who we don’t see meet each other’s parents or siblings. After Chris says he’s not physically satisfied and points out that he usually dates people who work out more, Jess exercises her right to break up with him. While I hate that this had to come at the expense of her heart, I think his subsequent villain arc is unfortunately exactly the shot of energy this season needed. While some of these couples’ story lines are in danger of starting to feel boring or predictable because they keep having the same problems they’ve had since week one, Chris has the audacity to chart new territory by seemingly trying to steal someone else’s fiancée. But before we get to that messy mini cast reunion, let’s back up and walk through what happened, couple by couple:
These two are giving me whiplash. When we pick back up in Mexico, Brittany is tearfully declaring off-camera that Devonta should have left the pods when his grandfather died and that he isn’t ready for this experiment. But he assures her that he’s not always like this, and the next time we see them, they’re in bed grinning about their good communication. Brittany says she values that Devonta is very “Christ-like.” As Tyler pointed out last week, though, Jesus died single …
Still, Devonta does successfully become the first guy Brittany brings home in a decade. Her dad is so charmed that he jokes that he’s about to ask Devonta to marry his daughter. It’s moving when he says Devonta will be his son, especially since we know Devonta’s father wasn’t involved in his life when he was growing up.
Later, when Brittany’s concerns that Devonta isn’t attracted to her resurface, he explains that he felt like changing his behavior after she confronted him in Mexico would feel forced or insincere. Thankfully, he does finally end up complimenting her physical appearance (including her “volumptious” lashes). It feels genuine. But just when I’m starting to feel hopeful again, next week’s preview gives me pause: Brittany is scared because she thinks her feelings are stronger, Devonta is asking to be left alone, and she thinks it feels like he has a “backup plan.” Yikes!
Christine’s mom seems to fall in love with Vic almost as quickly as her daughter did. She gives a glowing review of her potential future son-in-law’s personality in a confessional after she meets (and prays with) him. “I thought he was hot,” she adds bashfully.
We see Vic and Christine have a candid conversation about what it would mean to raise biracial children in a world that isn’t colorblind, and we learn that they’ve decided to wait two years before they get a house or start a family. There’s a vloglike aspect to some of their other scenes that makes their relationship feel less produced and more intimate: It feels like we’re watching over FaceTime when Vic gives Christine a mini-tour of his campus. The same thing goes for the footage we get of Christine driving him to her rural hometown — a vulnerable act for her — and showing him everywhere from the parking lots she used to hang out in to the hospital where she was born. The edit is making me feel so optimistic about this relationship that I don’t even feel worried when the preview teases a conversation where they discuss “insecurities coming out a little bit.” Whatever it is, I think they can handle it.
The most intense family meeting of this week comes courtesy of Ashley’s dad, a lawyer, who grills Alex over dinner about his family, résumé, knowledge of cryptocurrency, and more. (It’s truly an incredible one-two punch when Alex says that he didn’t vote, then asserts that he “absolutely” would’ve voted for Trump if he had.) Ashley’s dad doesn’t trust that Alex is being honest with his answers and isn’t afraid to say so.
While it may feel like a bit much for a first meeting — at one point, Ashley’s brother apologizes for his dad — the conversation is genuinely helpful from a viewer’s perspective. The Lacheys should low-key study this interrogation before this season’s reunion. Have we ever heard Alex go this long without talking about soccer? I have a much better sense of just how much he’s traveled and how many different jobs he’s had.
It’s all helpful context for when Alex tells Ashley back at their apartment that he’s gotten an offer to coach soccer in Florida, which he views as a perfect place for a conservative couple like them to move. He seems to want to lock the opportunity in quickly, and Ashley ends up feeling the need to deny that she’s trying to “trap” him in Cleveland. This escalates into a fight about water-bottle placement in the fridge and the fact that they haven’t had sex since leaving Mexico. Alex apparently likes to back off when a woman is on her period — or ovulating, because he’s scared of an accidental pregnancy.
Ashley steps out to compose herself before coming back to tell Alex that she will be less “crazy” about cleaning and more open with him about her menstrual cycle, work on initiating sex more, and see about applying to different companies even though she’d like to stay with her current one. Alex says he will work on doing more to initiate sex. The next time we see them, they’re cheerfully making innuendos about holes while golfing.
Ashley tells us that her sexual frustrations may have been addressed, but does she feel like she knows him and trusts him enough to move to Florida with Alex? I’m not convinced. When Ashley meets Alex’s mom, a truck driver who seems even more nomadic and spontaneous than her son, she’s left with questions about his past. Once she and Alex are alone again, Ashley channels her dad and questions the timelines of Alex’s relationships, including an ex that he’s still friends with. She eventually gets Alex to admit that he once flew to Texas to hook up with someone as a way to soothe his own ego after another girl broke up with him. Both Ashley and Alex have been cheated on, and he says that he won’t cheat on her. Still, the preview is pretty quick to remind us that his type is a brunette with brown eyes …
It sounds like Emma and Mike do have other issues to address — they have differing organizational habits, and Emma may have to make a career decision based on how “solid” she feels about Mike — but it all pales in comparison to the question of whether Emma is ready to have kids. Unsurprisingly, that’s the main topic of conversation when they meet each other’s families.
It’s funny that Mike’s mom has the same amount of polite conviction in her voice when she’s clarifying the difference between sauce and gravy as she does when she’s questioning why Emma is on the fence about having kids. Hearing about Emma’s surgery history does seem to help this big Italian family understand why she might have reservations about giving Mike’s siblings more cousins to hang out with. But I also notice that Emma doesn’t tell them that she just might not be sold on the concept of starting a family in general, medical reasons aside.
That comes across more when Mike meets Emma’s family, who burst into laughter when she quips that she doesn’t have any maternal instincts. They seem most worried about whether she is ready to give up as much of her life as being a mom requires. (The fact that Emma has concerns related to her scars and how difficult it was for her to grow up feeling different is apparently news to them.) Mike tries to make a case by arguing that Emma is a great dog mom, though his point gets a little lost when he ends up pointing out that puppies and babies require different amounts of care. Another argument of his backfires when one of Emma’s sisters admits that although she loves her kids, she wouldn’t choose to be a mom if she could redo her life.
But since getting back from Mexico, Mike has realized that starting a family is a nonnegotiable for him. He doesn’t want to marry her if she might change her mind and grow to resent him or their child. At the same time, it feels impossible to expect her to fully commit to motherhood in three weeks. I think she knows that, he knows that, and their families know that. We’re all just waiting to see if it somehow happens anyway, I guess?
I remain unconvinced that there’s enough time for these two to fully prepare for the logistics of what their marriage would look like. Amber has a great “reunitation” with her 7-year-old daughter, Emma, and Jordan has a “productive” meeting with Emma’s dad. But Jordan still hasn’t met Emma, much less experienced what it would be like to live with her. He and Amber also will have to figure out their living arrangements — Jordan doesn’t want to move out of his bachelor pad with rotting bananas and into the home that Amber has been renovating for seven years in a good school district for Emma. He wants them to find a new place together.
Amber’s brother takes in the fact that Jordan never thought about having kids before Amber, but ultimately doesn’t grill Jordan too much. The tone is similarly light when Amber meets Jordan’s family. His sisters assure him that he doesn’t need to worry about whether Emma is going to like him. But based on the tense-looking glimpses of this couple in next week’s preview, I’m wondering if we should start worrying about whether he’s going to like Emma (or more specifically, being Emma’s stepdad).
Is Bri too mean to Connor? It seems like they’re both still trying to figure that out. She frequently describes him as a “boy” or a frat bro who doesn’t know how to clean. There’s a sense that she kind of wants people to laugh at Connor because he has Christmas decorations up when it’s almost Easter, or a keg at his house with a door lock that she can easily break through. Bri tells her mom she’s not sure whether she needs someone who’s as much or more of a “go-getter” as she is. At this point, she’s not confident enough to introduce Connor to her dad.
Still, Bri does often emphasize how much it means to her that Connor shows up for her emotionally. When she meets his family, she projects a lot of confidence in their relationship. I’m personally not that convinced that their connection is as unique and fated as they seem to think — she can’t be the only University of Michigan graduate in Ohio, for instance — but she tells Connor’s family that if it wasn’t him, it was “nobody.” Hmm … not even Chris?
And to think that for a second, my main concern for this couple was whether Jess’s dogs would get along with Chris’s cute cat! Before we have time to fully process some clear communication issues surrounding Chris’s decision not to come home one night, he decides it’s time to come clean about the underlying problem. He tells Jess the physical connection isn’t working for him, and he’s used to dating people who do CrossFit or Pilates every day.
And look, Chris shouldn’t fake it if he’s not feeling it. But to tie this issue to how often Jess goes to the gym is wild. (Mind you, she was never dishonest about that in the pods, and he specifically dismissed that concern when she wondered in Mexico if he only dated gym rats.) He also confesses that he’s been thinking about what it would be like with his No. 2 person, and switches to past tense when he claims that what he “felt” for Jess in the pods was real. Yet he has the nerve to look confused when Jess doesn’t want to keep trying … which would mean, what, trying to change her body so he can figure out if he can love her and stop thinking about Bri? Jess sees Chris’s request for how insulting it is, and tearfully says in a confessional that she doesn’t want to be with someone who doesn’t make her life better. Meanwhile, Chris says in a confessional that looks won’t matter when you’re 90 … but he’s not 90 right now.
After the breakup, Chris texts Connor at the same time that Jess texts Bri. When Chris later meets up with Connor, he makes it sound like Jess is at fault for not wanting to work on the relationship. Connor suggests that Chris try to win her back with a letter, and the pair even joke about going on a double date with Bri and Jess. The fact that Connor seems to genuinely be rooting for Chris’s happiness just makes what happens next sting even more.
When members of the pod squad reunite to go bowling, Chris and Jess’s breakup is clearly the hot goss of the night. When Jess shows up, the women loudly start proclaiming that her body is tea and she must be working out. “They all hate me, bro,” Chris says, before dropping his catchphrase of the night: “I don’t give a flying fuck.”
On the first night that he was single again, Chris apparently made an Instagram account — with allegedly paid-for followers — and started posting from a strip club. Bri casually admits that after the breakup, Chris sent her a friend request, DM’d her “oh yeah,” and asked to call her. She says she showed Connor and didn’t engage because she is engaged. She also mentions that Chris told Connor that he goes for 21- to 25-year-olds. Every detail just pisses the other women off more. I didn’t realize that Amber got down like this! When she calls Chris too short to be this cocky, it’s actually one of the politest, least profane things she has to say about him. To his face, she later scoffs, “You think you’re gonna get another hot doctor?”
Even though Bri is the first person to hug Jess when she shows up, she seems to be trying to see Chris’s point of view of the breakup. Although she does tell Chris to lower his voice after he callously and completely unnecessarily describes sex with Jess as “the worst shit I’ve ever had in my life,” she also still maintains that she’s “on nobody’s side.”
Meanwhile, we know Chris thinks Bri is hot. He’s not worried about Connor because he looks down on him as too “submissive.” When Bri reveals one-on-one that she’s now gotten to a place where she is planning to introduce Connor to her dad, Chris literally laughs at the idea of him meeting a “legit man.” I don’t get why Bri feels the need to tell Chris that Connor is not the best sex she’s ever had. When Chris point-blank says that Bri needs someone more dominant and that he wants it to be him, Bri replies, “Stop.” But she sticks around long enough for Chris to suggest that he regrets not proposing to her. Maybe one thing Bri and Chris have in common is that they don’t respect Connor that much.
Who’s getting married? I admittedly sent this poll out late, so a few of my co-workers pulled an Alex and didn’t vote in this week’s compatibility rankings. But here we are:
🥇Christine and Vic (100%)
🥈Amber and Jordan (67%)
🥉Emma and Mike (33%)
🥉Bri and Connor (33%)
💀 Brittany and Devonta (0%)
💀 Ashley and Alex (0%)
⚰️Jessica and Chris — (n/a)
Christine and Vic, you’re our only hope!
Villain of the week: It’s a three-way tie between Chris, Alex, and Pilates.
• I just can’t take Chris’s alpha-male shtick seriously when he reminds me so strongly of Stuart Little. He looks like he should be nibbling on cheese and wearing a nice sweater, not doing ice plunges and criticizing women’s bodies.
• When Keya and Kevan come to the mini-reunion, we know who they are. But Priyanka’s presence at the reunion is intriguing since we didn’t follow her relationships in the pods. After Alex reveals that Priyanka was in his Chicago friend group, I’m wondering whether she has any tea to share about him and that Chicago ex …
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