Love Is Blind has become the king of quick-turnaround reality series. The fourth season, filmed during the third season, is hitting Netflix only a few months after Season 3 ended. By now, we all know the formula. But does that formula still hold our interest?
Opening Shot: A shot of the now-familiar Love Is Blind pods lighting up.
The Gist: Season 4 takes place in Seattle, and by now we all know the routine:
Nick and Vanessa Lachey greet the singles, starting ten days in the pods. There, the singles talk to each other through a blue wall, with the only way to see the other person is if they get engaged. Then, after the engagements and reveals, the engaged couples spend time at a resort getaway. Then they live together for three weeks, meet each other’s family and friends, etc. At the big wedding ceremony, they then decide whether to say “I do” or “hell to the no!”
Some of the people the first episode highlights: Kwame, who finds a connection to Micah, but Micah is torn between him and the lowish-energy Paul; Paul is also drawn to the twice-married Amber. Jackelina and Marshall definitely have something going on. Tiffany and Brett have such a strong connection that he tells her about his older brother dying not long before he was to get married.
Zach opens up his dates quipping that he’s a stripper, even though he’s an attorney. When he gets into a pod with Irina, though, he reveals that his single mother was a stripper to make ends meet, and that he felt like he never belonged in any of his schools due to his upbringing. But Zach also has an instantaneous connection with Bliss because they both have the same favorite song.
Kwame also vibes with Chelsea, which makes him wonder if what he’s got going with Micah is something he wants to pursue.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Love Is Blind Seasons 1-3.
Our Take: At this stage, we’ve pretty much determined that the reason why Love Is Blind is so successful is because of the casting. The casting directors on the show aren’t looking for people who are performative; even if one slips through — we’ll mention one example later — they get filtered out of the mix pretty quickly. No, the people they cast sincerely are looking for forever in these pods, and are optimistic that they can find that. Oh, and they also tend to show their flaws pretty quickly, sometimes as soon as in the pods.
Take Amber, for example. When Paul asks if she ever considered cheating on one of her ex-husbands who cheated on her, she didn’t say “no” right away. Paul caught that and even cited it as “a bit of a red flag,” but allowed Amber to convince him it’s not. Believe us, Paul: That red flag is there and it’s waving in the wind, and it’ll really blow hard when Amber and whoever she ends up with goes to the resort and the corporate apartments in Seattle that the couples will call home for a few weeks.
We get by now what happens in the pods; there’s so much time to talk, these couples go into directions that even established couples don’t venture into until months into their relationship. There’s nothing else to do but talk, so it makes sense. But there also is a sense of pressure if you think you’re really connecting with someone, and you can see these singles straining to make the leap from vibing to being in love. They may say they’re falling for someone, but we know that, for the most part, that love will be torn in pieces by real life. Just as we stopped believing The Voice coaches when they told their team members that they were going to be big music stars, we’ve stopped believing that the emotions generated in the pods are translatable to the real world.
That’s why the show’s success comes down to casting. The sincerity of most of the singles is evident, and that makes us hope to see the couples come out of the pods give it a go, even if we know that, more than likely, they’re doomed.
Sex and Skin: None. Most of the discourse is more about love than sex.
Parting Shot: One of the singles falls asleep while the other is pouring their hearts out. It’s the first season where the first episode doesn’t end with an engagement reveal.
Sleeper Star: We want to see Bill, the leopard-print-wearing, ethnicity-guessing bachelor, on his own show. He’s the guy we thought was there to be goofy and performative, which is why we’re pretty sure we won’t see much of him beyond the first episode.
Most Pilot-y Line: In one of the few two-faced moments we saw in the pods, Irina tells Bliss that the flowers she got from Paul are pretty, then turns around and tells Micah that they were lame. Pick a lane, Irina!
Our Call: STREAM IT. Yes, we’re growing cynical about the “love” part of Love Is Blind. But the show continues to present viewers with singles who ooze sincerity and may or may not have just enough loose screws to torpedo things once they get out of the pods.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.