The world of reality TV is full of oddities. I have seen people in swimwear chew up spaghetti and spit it into the mouths of others on Love Island. I have seen cast members wet the bed on Geordie Shore, and flee from the FBI on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. I have, of course, seen Naked Attraction.
Despite all of these jaw-dropping moments, however, there is no reality TV sight I find more shocking than what Netflix’s Love Is Blind offers, frequently multiple times per episode: a man, eyes brimming, down on one knee, proposing marriage through a wall to a woman he has known for about a week and has never actually seen in person.
Love Is Blind returned for a second season last week and releases its second batch of episodes today (as in 2020, the show will drip-feed viewers a few hours per week, with the finale coming on 25 February).
Easily one of the more bizarre formats dreamed up in recent years, the show is framed as a “social experiment”, designed to counter society’s apparently appearance-obsessed dating app culture, and offer Americans in their late twenties and early thirties an opportunity to meet a life partner without the burden of caring what anyone looks like (that said, pretty much all of the cast members from both seasons tick the “conventionally good-looking” box).
The participants are whisked off to “pods” – kind of like adult-sized wombs, designed for comfy emoting, with sofas and snacks inside – where they chat with each other through the wall, attempting to get deep and establish bonds.
This all seems fine, if a little silly, until you’re aware of the stakes: the only way the contestants can meet in person is by getting engaged. And this, in turn, is how we get to those tearful pod proposals, the only thing on TV that elicits me to scream out loud to nobody at all.
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The marriage aspect elevates the whole endeavour from a dippy idea to a wild ride, and it’s even more eye-popping in season two.
Those who took part in season one were Netflix’s guinea pigs, with no real sense of what the show would look like – but this year’s contestants had full knowledge of what they were going into and chose to do it anyway.
And while the 2022 series does carry the slight implication that some participants, like glamorous Christian hairstylist Shaina, perhaps decided to get engaged and remain on the show more for the spoils of reality TV fame than because of her undying love for fiancé Kyle, you almost can’t believe that anyone would take in Love Is Blind season one and think: “This is how I want to meet the person whose hand I will hold on my deathbed.”
While other nations outside the US have also made versions of the show, it definitely feels like the type of thing that could never work with cynical UK sensibilities – the knowledge of which makes the Disney adult sincerity of the American version even funnier to watch. This year’s cast – including self-described “tool” Shayne, and Jarrette, who, having been turned down by one woman in the pods, simply proposed to another instead – do feel more self-aware than 2020’s inaugural bunch (two couples from which, amazingly, remain married), but the show’s forthcoming episodes promise enough ridiculousness to keep viewers well fed.
Having “fallen in love” in the pods, they must now co-habit and navigate real life together, their weddings (planned by the show) mere weeks away.
What is the point of any of this? Something about proving that looks aren’t important when it comes to choosing a life partner, I think. Do I care about this moral to the story? Absolutely not.
Regardless, I could watch Love Is Blind, and its constantly, pointlessly heightening drama every day for the rest of my mortal existence: it’s reality TV at its strange, hysterical best.
