Warning: Spoilers ahead
On March 6, 2024, the final episode of the sixth season of Love is Blind premiered on Netflix. This episode marked the end of one of the craziest and most entertaining seasons of the show so far. This season was also one of the longest, with many of the episodes being over an hour long.
For those unfamiliar with Love is Blind, it is a reality TV show which began in 2020 and is hosted by celebrity couple Vanessa and Nick Lachey. The show brings together a group of 15 women and 15 men. For the show’s first half, the women and men are separated and can only interact by talking in pods. The pods are rooms where the contestants date each other: they can hear one another, but can’t see each other – hence the name, Love is Blind. After a little over a week of dating in the pods, one contestant can choose to propose to another; it’s only after a proposal that the couples can see each other for the first time. After the pods, the couples are swept away on a romantic getaway for a week, where they must face the real world living together as a couple. Each couple must live together for four weeks before choosing to say “I do” or “I don’t” at the altar.
This season, the audience was met with five couples who got engaged in the pods. Before I dive into the drama between those couples, there are a few contestants I want to highlight.
Matthew Duliba
Duliba had two women he was talking to in the pods: “AD” Smith (short for Amber Desiree) and Amber Grant. While watching the show, viewers mostly saw one side – Smith’s side – and there was not a lot of coverage of Grant and Duliba’s dates. It wasn’t until Smith was thinking about Duliba as a serious partner and thought they might get engaged, that the two women realized Duliba was saying the exact same thing to both women. This was a huge shocker to viewers, and to me especially as I had grown to like Smith and Duliba’s relationship. From this point on, it seemed like Matthew Duliba had ulterior motives and was playing both of these women. He definitely rubbed me the wrong way after I found this out, and I didn’t like him for the rest of the season.
Trevor Sova
Trevor Sova was a fan favorite this season until the reunion episode came out. I particularly liked Sova because he seemed like a genuinely kind and caring person, and I liked how he only talked to one woman in the pods: Chelsea Blackwell. I genuinely liked Sova and Blackwell’s relationship in the pods so when she chose Jimmy Presnell over him, I was a little upset. However, it seems that Blackwell dodged a bullet because, in “The Reunion” episode, which aired on March 13, it was revealed that Sova had a girlfriend the entire time he was on the show. During “The Reunion” episode, there were text messages shown of Sova texting another woman right before he was leaving to film, and then right after he came back from filming. Sova denied that the woman was actually his girlfriend, but in the leaked texts, the two were saying things like “I love you” and “I’m going to marry you”. I guess it’s up to viewers to make what they want of that situation and whether to believe Trevor Sova or not. Either way, the hosts and cast were pretty upset because they saw it as Sova not being in the experiment for the right reasons and wasting everyone’s time.
Now that I’ve highlighted a few important contestants in season 6 of Love is Blind, I want to talk about the couples who made it out of the pods.
Amy Cortés and Johnny McIntyre
Each season there is usually a couple viewers root for because it seems like they are genuinely good together; this season, that couple was Amy Cortés and Johnny McIntyre. Cortés and McIntyre were the first couple to get engaged and their relationship seemed like the healthiest out of all of the couples who got engaged this season. They both seemed equally in love and content with each other’s looks. The only real “issue” the couple had throughout the whole season was that they weren’t having sex because Cortés didn’t want to get on birth control (totally valid) and McIntyre was scared of her getting pregnant and having to raise a kid when they weren’t ready. However, it seems this issue was resolved because, in “The Reunion” episode, Cortés made a comment saying, “we figured it out and that’s all that matters.” Obviously, the two are still together and did say “I do” at the altar.
“AD” Smith and Clay Gravesande
Smith and Gravesande’s relationship was one I was unsure about from the beginning. Early into their time in the pods, Gravesande asked Smith to describe what she looked like, completely undermining the point of the show. “AD” Smith declined and from this point on I was skeptical of Gravesandes’ intentions in the experiment. However, once the two were out of the pods they seemed like a pretty decent couple and looked really good together. One of their main problems was that Clay Gravesande was afraid of being unfaithful to Smith like his father was to his mother. It seemed like Gravesande needed to work on a lot of things within himself and although Smith was willing to help him, I felt like Gravesande was asking a lot of her and wasn’t doing enough to help himself once they were out of the pods. I also didn’t really understand why Gravesande was so worried about being unfaithful to Smith: it seems like a pretty easy thing not to cheat on your partner. Ultimately, Gravesande ended up saying “I don’t” at the altar due to his fear of not being ready to commit to marriage.
Laura Dadisman and Jeramey Lutinski…and Sarah Ann Bick?
Laura Dadisman and Jeramey Lutinski were a very interesting couple because I could never tell if they actually wanted to be together. It didn’t seem like Dadisman liked Lutinski that much, but it might’ve just been her personality. I say this because in a scene from episode nine, Lutinski meets Dadisman’s family and she doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about her fiancé. She told her family about disagreements they’ve had and how Lutinski responded to a message from the other girl he dated in the pods, Sarah Ann Bick. This seemed like a strange thing for Dadisman to bring up the first time her fiancé was meeting her family, and to me it just made it seem like she wanted her family to say he wasn’t right for her.
However, my suspicions about Dadisman’s feelings were put to a halt when it was revealed in the same episode that Lutinski stayed out until 5 a.m. with Bick. From the conversation between Dadisman and Lutinski in the show, Jeramey Lutinski was out late talking to Sarah Ann Bick and even dropped her off at her house after. After this conversation, or rather this argument, they cut things off. Dadisman viewed the incident as cheating and didn’t believe her fiancé and the other woman were just talking until 5 a.m. Later in the season, at a lake party where most of the cast was in attendance, Jeramey Lutinski and Sarah Ann Bick had a conversation about how they wanted to be together. Lutinski and Bick ended up getting and staying together, which was confirmed during “The Reunion” episode. I felt that this whole situation was a first for the show, and what Lutinski and Bick did to Dadisman felt very deceitful. However, it did make for very good drama.
Jimmy Presnell and Chelsea Blackwell
Presnell and Blackwell’s relationship was a rocky one from the beginning. The two got into various arguments throughout the season and one of their ongoing issues was how Chelsea Blackwell was very insecure about her looks; this contributed to her making assumptions and causing disagreements between the two on a regular basis. Though Blackwell had her flaws in the relationship, I also felt like Presnell could’ve been more understanding in some of their arguments. I honestly was never rooting for this couple to be together and was relieved when Jimmy Presnell finally called off the marriage in episode twelve. It was a shock though, since this happened in the same episode where the other two couples had their weddings.
Brittany Mills and Kenneth Gorham
I loved Mills and Gorham’s relationship while they were still in the pods and while they were on vacation. They seemed like they respected each other and were genuinely in love with each other. However, once they were out of the pods things started to change. When they moved in together it seemed like Gorham was distracted – he was on his phone in almost every scene. Mills would be talking to him, and he would rarely look up at her and didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything she was saying. After a few scenes of this behavior, in episode 8, the two had a serious conversation. Brittany Mills talked about how she didn’t have a “crave” for him and Kenneth Gorham accepted this. They both didn’t see a way for them to work it out, and they ended their relationship. I thought the two of them handled the situation very maturely and the way that Gorham handled the conversation I thought redeemed him a little bit. Overall, I think they are both good people but they just weren’t meant to be together romantically.
This season was one of the best seasons of Love is Blind. It was filled with love, betrayal, drama, and entertainment: four things I always want from reality television. “The Reunion” episode was also one of the most shocking reunion episodes of all time. Overall, I felt like there wasn’t much more that could have made this season any better except for maybe one more couple making it past the altar.