How dare any of us act like we knew the whole story of Love Is Blind Season 5? While this season was small, it was still incredibly mighty and packed in surprise after twist after WTF moment. Just when you think you knew who was getting a hero’s edit, the show started flipping tables — which is easy to do because that At Home furniture seen in every apartment isn’t very substantial. As anyone could predict, the Season 5 reunion has been anything but predictable — and it’s even made us rethink the season’s seemingly most clearcut storyline: Lydia vs. Uche.
It all seemed pretty straightforward, at least as straightforward as anything on this crazy show can be. Uche and Lydia dated in the past and ended up on Love Is Blind together, completely catching production by surprise. Uche hit it off with Aaliyah, Lydia comforted and coached Aaliyah through the ups and downs of pod-dating Uche, and Lydia hit it off with Milton. But when Uche finally told Aaliyah that he had dated Lydia, all hell broke loose. Aaliyah was weirded out that her pod bestie withheld this info (the producers made her, we now know), and then Lydia could not stop talking about Uche. This proved to be all too much for Aaliyah, and she bolted.
After that, Uche made all kinds of accusations against Lydia, claiming that Lydia was stalking the Insta Stories of women he knew, driving by his house and sending him photos, snooping through his email, and — the kicker — that she intentionally got cast on Love Is Blind just to match with him. Aaliyah had a couple of allegations too, primarily that women from the pod remembered Lydia saying on Day One that she felt like she would run into someone she already knew in the pods. That’s a mighty specific hunch to have. The show never resolves this storyline, which is why the revelations in the reunion are essential to anyone trying to figure out who knew what and when.
After being shown a montage of Lydia comforting Aaliyah and then spilling all sorts of tea about Uche, Lydia says, “From the bottom of my heart, I wanted her to have her happy ending. It’s unfortunate that that did not happen.” Then, the understatement of the reunion: “Um, I did not read the room correctly, as you might see.”
Then Aaliyah did the lord’s work and asked Lydia the questions that we have all been dying to ask: did Lydia know that Uche was going to be on Love Is Blind ahead of time, and did she say that she felt she would run into someone she knew?
“In terms of Uche and I, we had a conversation of two seconds in November of 2021, ‘Oh yeah, I saw the casting.’ ‘Oh yeah, I did too.’ And that was it! I had — and I’m gonna say it really clear for the public, for everybody — I had no confirmation that Uche was gonna be there. My instinct that day that was like, ‘Shit, this doesn’t feel right,’ no, it was not hope. No. If I had that power, he would have not been there.”
Funnily enough, the Uche drama does not stop there — even though Uche declined to participate in the reunion. Milton tells a story about what it was like to be in the living quarters with Uche. “We were never friends. We were never peers. He was obsessed with my relationship with Lydia and I didn’t know why.” Milton added that if he didn’t want to talk about his dates, the other guys would respect that. Uche would pry, and later gave Milton “unwarranted” information about Lydia during that reunion/party. Milton had to tell Uche to stop. “At the end of the day, I told him my relationship that I built with my fiancee at the time is independent of anything you have going on. I truthfully don’t give a shit because that’s how strong my bond is with Lydia.”
As for whether or not anyone is still in contact with Uche, it seems like the answer is “no.” He and Aaliyah tried to date, but that ended when Aaliyah found out Uche — who was still acting condescending towards her, she said — was telling other women from the show that Aaliyah was not the type of girl he usually went after.
Izzy said he’s “not a fan” of Uche because he found out Uche was dragging him to other women in the pods. “I thought all of us guys at the pods, we were super respectful of our time there. But to some of the girls, he would just talk bad about me, which I was shocked because I thought we were cool.”
Uche has texted Lydia, though, on the day the season premiered. “He texted me and said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna watch later tonight. If there’s anything that you want to discuss, I’m here. I’m available.'” Then Aaliyah said, “He sent me that exact same text.” Not Uche copying and pasting — !
Milton said that Uche will occasionally appear in the men’s group text and get no response. Uche did once text Milton directly, though. “The day I got married. My wedding day. If I’d just gotten married and had a text from Izzy, like, ‘Bro, how’d it go?’ It would make sense. We talk every day. Him? Zero communication. He texted me and said, ‘Hey man. Heard you got married. Want to talk about It?’ No, not really. I just didn’t respond.”
So let’s reevaluate where we all stand with Lydia and Uche. Lydia has now said that she only talked with Uche about Love Is Blind in passing and that her “feeling” that she might know someone in the pods was not a good feeling. As for Uche, Milton says it was like Uche was “obsessed” with his relationship with Lydia and would constantly ask him about it. Uche sent the same sensitive-ish text message to Lydia and Aaliyah. And then Uche sent very awkward texts to Milton on his wedding day wanting to talk about, what else, his marriage to Lydia. It’s all just weird, right?
But, y’know… fingers crossed Uche shows up in the inevitable After the Altar episodes, because we gotta see how he turns it all back around on everybody else.