Spoiler alert! If you’re yet to watch the last 2 episodes of Love Is Blind Season 3, skip this article as we are about to unpack A LOT. Before we crown the villain, hero and victim of the season, let’s talk about how the show has ironically drifted far off from its original plot or any semblance of premise. This season we saw people with unprocessed traumas and relationship baggage entering a series that expects them to find a partner and marry them all under 3 months. Although 2 couples did fight the odds and made it to the other side, the three who didn’t, make up for the majority and outweigh the rosy picture Love Is Blind tries to portray.
The first season of this show somehow managed to remain true to its plot—couples who said ‘I do’ at the altar are still going strong. It sparked hope that people are capable of not just finding love on TV but are willing to gamble on their hearts for someone sight unseen. The batch of season 2 is where the cracks started showing. From the insufferable veterinarian Abhishek ‘Shake’ who constantly berated his fiance to Jarrette who proposed to his backup girl Iyanna—they were losing the plot already.
One may assume that the producers of the show will have learnt the lesson from the previous season before casting the members on the new one—but for reality tv creators, twisted characters become fodder for views. For instance, both Bartise Bowden and Cole Barnett in season 3, who were only 25-year-old at the time of the filming, picked well-settled women in their 30s as partners but were consistently immature and problematic through the process. While age is not a factor when it comes to love, it definitely is a roadblock when it’s about compatibility.
The experiment was constructed to show how love is blind and beyond superficiality. Proving exactly the opposite, the boys of the show (because let’s not call them men yet) instantly showed regret with their choice when they came face-to-face with all the women they could have been with. For most parts of the show, women in this series were subjected to disrespect and unpredictable temperament by their partners and were left questioning their self-worth. Let’s discuss some of these instances and get progressively angrier as we do so, shall we?
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1. Cole Barnett & Zanab Jaffrey
While following their story in the pods where people were dating each other without knowing how they look, Cole and Zanab emerged as the cute and quirky couple everyone was rooting for. Cole, a 27-year-old divorced realtor found love and a ‘deep’ connection with Zanab, a 31-year-old flight attendant, who also happens to be a woman of colour. Although he did develop an initial bond with another contestant, Colleen Reed, a 26-year-old ballet dancer, Cole decided to reject her because she seemed “shallow”. But right after the grand reveal, he flipped the switch.
At the couple’s getaway, right from the beginning, he began making unsolicited remarks about Zanab’s appearance in general. When all the couples met each other and finally got a glimpse of how everyone looked, Cole went ahead and expressed his attraction towards the same girl he once called shallow *surprise surprise*. He even rated other women higher than his fiancé in terms of physicality and tried to gaslit her when she held him accountable. Also, did we mention his low-key racist comment when he tells Zanab that he’s never dated someone like her and has always been with a white woman, which is why he is attracted to Colleen?
To top it off, their personalities turned out to be polar opposites which became a reason for constant clash. Zanab, an independent-neat-freak, who has never shared her space had to now live with a messy Cole, who keeps a toy gun in the microwave and whips it out to play while under seasoning his chicken. Not so surprisingly, Zanab turned him down at the altar and took the exit after unleashing an applause-worthy speech. But things took a U-turn when the estranged couple confronted each other during the reunion. Both Zanab and Cole laid their issues on the table and disagreed with each other’s version of the story, the show creators played the devil and added a clip at the end of the episode that left the audience polarised about whose side are they on.
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2. Nancy Rodriguez & Bartise Bowden
During the intense dating period, Bartise (26) was drawn to Nancy (32) and found it almost impossible to continue dating anyone else. In fact, he instantly shut down the prospect of him and Raven Ross (who he eventually thought was his perfect match because they’re equally hot *gags*), when the latter was caught working out across the wall while Bartise was narrating a rather emotional story. Once all the couples were out in the open, Nancy and Bartise’s relationship was the quickest to become sour.
Throughout the course of their time together, Bartise constantly made remarks about not being attracted to Nancy physically and also questioning her business equation with her ex which she was always transparent about. The breaking point was when Bartise used their disagreement about the abortion law and brought it up in front of his family to create an uncomfortable energy between them and his fiancé.
Nancy, a successful businesswoman with multiple careers and financial security was willing to marry a younger man who is just starting out. But Bartise took every opportunity he got to belittle her about her looks, her work and even her life choices.
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3. Matt Bolton & Colleen Reed
The most common comment under every Instagram post of Matt Bolton and Colleen Reed goes something like, “Colleen, blink twice if you’re in trouble” “Free Colleen” and my personal favourite, “Comment a ballet dance emoji if you need help.” All this is because, throughout their relationship, Matt constantly projected his insecurities and unresolved issues from his past and reacted aggressively after each argument.
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From threats about taking off to controlling her and not trusting her during their courtship—Matt emerged as the walking red flag of the season. In the history of the show, this is the first couple that the audience was rooting for an “I don’t” at the altar and the collectively disappointed after Colleen agreed to marry Matt has been expressed extensively on the internet.
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Netizens were quick to notice, Colleen’s body language throughout the reunion episode was different from how she started out. In the beginning, she quickly earned the title of the bubbly girl in the lot and was popular for her annoyingly positive attitude. Post-wedding Colleen looked like she was held hostage and was careful about everything she said. From her physical discomfort to her distorted expression got everyone leaving helpline numbers in the comments.
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As a reality tv enthusiast, I love when a show unabashedly owns its artificial plotline. But it’s shows like ‘Love Is Blind’ that preach to be holier than thou and end up practising the complete opposite. They set out to showcase that in a world where people are quick to swipe right and left on pictures, this show will bring out people who will fall in love on the basis of everything but looks. Sadly, the men on the show have repeatedly broken promises and made advances on women they later found attractive.
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Even in terms of portraying authenticity in relationships, the network is too busy cutting and joining pieces from the scenes that sensationalise every conversation, giving the audience a false image to build the hero vs victim narrative. As we know, any relationship, not just romantic, is far more complex and layered than what meets the eye. To pick the petty highlights and package people’s lives in a certain way is what it is about. Hence, love may be blind but viewers aren’t and it’s about time we stop being blindsided.
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