Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On features five couples who are unsure if they want to get married. As the couples temporarily break up and date other people, the the theory is that they’ll discover whether they’re happier together or apart, but this season, there’s drama right off the bat when one of the participants realizes that participating in the show might be too much to bear.
Opening Shot: A montage of this season’s five couples shows all of them walking to set. Some of them look each other in the eyes. Others place a kiss on the hand of their beloved. They all seem happy in each other’s company. For now.
The Gist: There are five couples on The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On: Antonio and Roxanne (together 4 years, she’s not sure she wants to be with a man whose ambition doesn’t match hers), Lisa and Brian (together 2 years, he’s waiting to be more financially secure before proposing), Ryann and James (together 7 years, he doesn’t believe in the idea of “one true love”), Trey and Riah (together 2 years, she’s unsure of what she wants in life and isn’t ready for long-term anything), and Kat and Alex (together 2 years, he says she drives him crazy).
For the first week, the couples will all break up (and henceforth refer to their partners as their exes) and casually date the other members of the opposite sex who are participating in the show. They’ll then pair off with one of them and live together for three more weeks to see what it’s like being “married” to someone else. At the end of the experience, the hope is that they’ll realize they came on to this show with their soul mate, or that they’ve learned that partner is not for them.
As the couples all get to know one another, one of the most interesting aspects is the fact that the ones who gave their partners the ultimatums all seem to be seeking each other out, perhaps because they’re all the partners who are more sure of their feelings about commitment. As the gang all meets up after their first day of dating one another, they try to have a candid, albeit very awkward (since their exes are right there), discussion about who they all are connecting with. And soon the awkwardness turns into tension when Lisa, who is in love with her partner Brian, starts to reconsider her participation in the show when she sees him talking to Riah. Lisa, who has previously seemed pretty reasonable, has a complete meltdown and runs off-camera.
What Show Will It Remind You Of? The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On has elements of Love Never Lies, where couples are given lie detector tests that gauge their love for one another, and Married At First Sight, which features couples getting hitched sight unseen.
Our Take: Going into a show like The Ultimatum, you have to wonder whether any of the couples who would agree to be on it are actually truly happy and healthy together. After all, an ultimatum is basically the last straw, the death knell for desperate people who need an answer to some burning question. If you’re critical of the show for that reason (like I am!), rest assured, the producers of the show understand exactly what you’re thinking. They’ve even worked it into the script, having host Nick Lachey say, “Psychologists agree that giving an ultimatum isn’t exactly a good way to get someone else to do what you want. BUT, it is the very best way to get the answers that you need.” It’s as if saying that out loud justifies the whole series by at least acknowledging that the process we’re entering into isn’t going to be healthy.
I have to give credit for this season’s casting for making it engaging and addictive. The participants are all vastly different and filled with complicated layers: On the one hand, you have someone like Lisa, who seemed truly in love with her partner Brian but she becomes so enraged at him for doing what the show requires of him – talking to another woman – that she smacked him in the face when he was. On the other, you have Roxanne, who I found so annoying because she she constantly used the word “hustle” as a noun and repeatedly declared how ambition is the most important thing in life. Yet when Lisa starts to freak out in the final moments of the show, it was Roxanne who tried to calm her, even saying “Don’t be mean,” when Lisa called Riah “a Hooters bitch.” (Too late, meanness has already beenlaunched into the ether!) During episode two, Roxanne tells the group, after they’ve all witnessed Lisa’s meltdown, “Honestly, it’s only going to get weirder,” and y’all, that’s a promise that show keeps.
Sex and Skin: None (yet).
Parting Shot: Lisa, having walked in on her ex, Brian’s, date with Riah, tells him how much she hates seeing him with other women. “You know? You can go ahead and talk to the girl, I really don’t care,” Lisa says, and then she mushes Brian in the face and walks off the set as everyone else watches in awe.
Sleeper Star: When the show first introduced Lisa and her boyfriend Brian, they actually seemed like the most stable of all the couples, despite the fact that she issued him the ultimatum. But by the end of the episode, Lisa became a wild card, interrupting one of Brian’s dates and walking off the set in anger.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I want to share the rest of my life with somebody, but it’s time for her to make a decision. It’s time for us to get engaged or get married, or it’s time for me to move on,” Trey says at the beginning of the episode. It’s almost like he’s on a show with the words Marry or Move On in the title.
Our Call: The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On is an extreme premise, one where getting engaged equates to winning a grand prize. The more intriguing aspect of the show is the way the participants all couple off with others and actually make meaningful realizations about what they want in a partner, though, and experience some highs and lows along the way. This season’s emotional roller coaster doesn’t disappoint: STREAM IT!
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.