RECAP: Love Is Blind Season 9, The Reunion (Episode 13)
I went into the Season 9 reunion expecting LOTS of spice and accountability. I got almost none of that. The first season of this show to conclude without a single married couple kept the disappointments coming with a relatively tame reunion in which precious few people owned up to their bad behaviors/decisions, and the drama was as dull as that mid pop song they used to open the show.
I did find it interesting that this reunion did not feature ANY “Love Is Blind” alums, which also feels like a first. That is not a complaint from me. I’ve found that bringing in couples or singles from seasons past to be a disservice to the season getting closure; I think there should be an annual special where they give updates to the couples still married from the “experiment.” But I do wonder if the producers assumed there would be enough juice with these couples to sustain the reunion all on their own. And sadly, there wasn’t. Almost everyone came in with rehearsed talking points — some of them even had a cheat sheet hidden in their tits! — or selective amnesia when asked about specific situations. It was a frustrating watch.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Sparkle Megan and Jordan
If I had to pick a “main” couple this season, it would probably be Megan and Jordan, who I felt got the bulk of the camera time over the course of the season. I don’t know when they filmed this reunion in relation to what episodes had aired — I wonder if Megan chopping Jordan just before the weddings had been officially released yet. I suspect it had not, as Megan has been catching a LOT of heat on social media over the past week, and she seemed pretty blase about the whole situation in the reunion.
The headline here, of course, is that Megan has become a mother herself in the time since the show filmed over a year ago. The timeline, appropriately, was quite fast, as she seemed to have met her baby’s father within a few months of dumping Jordan, and got pregnant three months after they started dating. (In the meantime Megan dated Mike from the pods for a bit — she certainly was not wasting any time.) Megan seems happy with her current situation, and hey, good for her. Based solely on context clues, I suspect her baby’s father leads a life that has more in common with Megan’s than Jordan’s did. But the whole thing felt strange to me. Kudos to Megan for keeping this a secret from virtually everyone on the cast, except randomly, Kacie.
Jordan was grilled about his love of chicken and artificial lemonade smoothies, as he should have been. He also clarified his post-filming comments that he regretted introducing Megan to his young son, explaining that in hindsight he should never have exposed his kid to this highly unstable situation at that age. Megan was offended at the initial wording, but to be honest, I am Team Jordan on that one. He took a big risk introducing his son to this person, who then dumped him within days because Jordan wouldn’t be available at a drop of a hat to go, like, yachting on a Wednesday morning or whatever. Megan can try to spin the situation as much as she likes, but she pushed to be part of this kid’s life and then walked away when the reality of the situation was less exciting than she imagined. Like, own that behavior.
Kacie and Patrick
I was pretty harsh on Kacie in my previous recaps. She probably got THE most savage response of anyone on this season, and I don’t think that’s fair — some of the men (Joe) were given passes for shitty behavior, but Kacie was blasted extra hard because she’s a woman. Meanwhile, I have found the online discourse around Patrick pretty soul killing and deeply racist. If you didn’t understand why Patrick was so concerned about his ethnicity being revealed in the pods, take a look at what people have been writing about him on the “Love Is Blind” subreddit. It’s pretty offensive.
I don’t think either party came out looking great here, but Kacie in particular did herself no favors. You could tell she was nervous. I’m surprised she showed up at all. Her approach to questions and situations was either to stammer and seem stunned by the situation, or to offer lukewarm apologies. At one point she had the audacity to act all offended that she was Patrick’s second choice after Anna, flipping the bullshit Anna threw down at the rodeo party. She did a very poor job at what I would say was her main opportunity, giving Patrick a public apology for her mindfuck of a non-dump dumping. Patrick even implored her to take the opportunity to apologize, saying he would forgive her. I don’t think she gave Patrick what he wanted. And I think what he got from Kacie was solely to shut Patrick up, as well as the peanut gallery online. Even a rando in the crowd called her disingenuous at one point!
Patrick overplayed the martyr bit, and other than that seemed confused and checked out. This was especially true during RingGate, when the subject of Kacie refusing to return the engagement ring was brought up. Much and more has been mentioned about this topic online. The salient points are that Patrick did not actually pay for the engagement ring — the producers provided it, as they do for all the men. Kacie also said that Patrick said she could keep it, but Patrick countered that was when he thought they were still going to try to make things work, which she clearly never wanted to do. In the end, after much pressure and complaining (including from Ali, who ALSO didn’t think she should have to give her ring back — of course she thought that), Kacie surrendered the ring.
Except then for some reason Kacie and Patrick were playing basketball with some…basketball star? I guess? And whoever got the most baskets got to keep the ring. Kacie won by 1, and Patrick did give her the ring, hopefully ending this saga.
In my opinion, regardless of who PAID for the ring, it was given as a sign of a commitment. When Kacie and Ali decided they did not want to follow through on that commitment — and I don’t think either one of them did, at a VERY early stage in this process — the ring should have been returned. It was not freely given. It was given as part of a transaction that they backed out of. It’s pretty simple, and if you’re Team The Girl Should Keep the Ring Regardless Who Paid for It, I think it reflects pretty poorly on your personal ethics.
Madison and Joe (and Kacie)
Kacie wasn’t out of the hot seat just yet, as the Lacheys tried to pivot to the next couple using Kacie as a hinge. Because post-filming, it turns out that Kacie dated Joe. Kacie and Joe both attempted, poorly to avoid this topic. I can understand why. Even if they technically did nothing wrong, the optics for both of them are not great. Both came out of the season looking shallow and feckless, and this reunion only doubled down on that.
I found the Madison and Joe section highly disappointing. There were real issues to address here, and they were either ignored (Joe’s behavior when seemingly in an altered state, which happened more than once) or given pat, unsatisfying answers. Joe denied that he was unattracted to Madison because of her size (which is, again, insane — the discussion about Madison’s body would have been totally shut down two, three years ago, but we are really devolving as a culture), and ultimately said that it didn’t work out because they were always either “fuckin’ or fightin’.” Which, based on the edit, does ring true. Madison pushed for Joe to explain why she was blindsided about the end of their relationship, given that Joe was clearly conflicted pretty much the whole time they were together, including up to the night after the tux fitting, where he just noped out of there because he couldn’t deal with it.
Things got super middle-school when the Kacie topic came up, exacerbated by Kait — of the Annie/Nick/Kait pod triangle — who is best friends with Madison and seems like a bit of a shit stirrer. Madison accused Kacie and Joe of being all over each other shortly after filming wrapped, and specifically said she believes that Kacie was a factor in the end of her relationship with Joe. They both denied that, and tried to play off their relationship as fleeting. That was refuted when Kait and others brought up how devastated Kacie was at subsequent Pod Squad-related parties after Joe started seeing another of Kait’s friends, Avery. (Who the fuck is Avery?)
The end result of this segment of the reunion was that I liked everyone involved even less than I did coming into it, and that’s saying something, because I think Joe is basically the worst. I thought Joe got off WAY easier than many other fuck bois have on this show, in part because he took the bait not at all. He just sat there and barely engaged. I guess that’s a smart strategy, but from a viewer standpoint, deeply unsatisfying.
Nick and Annie (and Kait)
Kait got more screen time as she weighed in on Nick’s love bombing both her and Annie in the pods. When those episodes first aired, I was hoping that this would get brought up at the reunion — it was quite egregious, in my opinion. I thought Kait did a good job calmly explaining where she was coming from, and Nick had the perfect response to it. Almost too perfect, honestly. One of the women (Kait?) mentioned that it felt like Nick had gotten his lines in the pods from ChatGPT, and that’s how it felt here too. It was all exactly the right way to handle things, so I feel shitty dinging the guy for it. But it didn’t feel genuine, even if Nick was being genuine. That’s a hell of a Catch 22 for him. For his part, Nick owned up to all of his shit, and several of the men (especially Joe) apologized to Nick for the hurtful things they said about him on the show.
As for Annie and Nick, I was also deeply unsatisfied with this segment of the reunion. Annie seemed checked out or defensive the whole time, which is hilarious, because that break-up scene was one of the craziest ones we have had on this show, and it was 100 percent on Annie. She did a low-energy explanation of why she reacted the way she did — basically, informing Nick he could not break up with her, which is CRAZY — and I didn’t feel like I got any insight into where she was coming from. She tried to argue that she was doing all the work in that relationship, and I still have no idea what she was trying to say. Annie did not come off at all well in this. I went in thinking she had emotional issues and I left it thinking she was irritating and condescending. Good riddance to her and her underboob, I never need to hear from or see her on my TV again.
Ali and Anton
As poorly as Annie came off, I think Ali came off worse. I think this will be a generational thing — I think younger viewers, particularly women, will probably be more on Ali’s side than I am. But I thought she came off as an entitled brat, with an edge of cruelty.
Anton came in hot, saying that he was blindsided by her comments at the altar that he “wasn’t the man she knew in the pods” once they got home. There was an interesting exchange in which The Lacheys tried to dig at Ali’s apparent issue with Anton’s character — the drinking, the strip clubs, etc. — and surfaced that at no point did Ali even attempt to address these issues with him, on or off camera. Ali also said that she knew she wasn’t going to marry Anton when they got to Baja and he lumbered around with those terrible flip-flops.
I think Ali thought she was being funny there. And maybe it was a joke. But I think there was at least some truth to that, and the implication is that everything she did and said on the show post-engagement was completely manufactured bullshit. I think that’s the case, and I have thought that for a while. I think Ali is about as phony as they come — even more than Kacie, and that’s really saying something — and that she only did this show to launch her career as an influencer. She’s been putting out petulant videos since the wedding episodes aired, and being mock offended that people would consider her a gold digger. If you’re going to be so blatant about using this show to scratch out your 15 minutes of fame, spare us the performative outrage. Just own it. There is apparently no shame in the influencer game, so I would respect Ali more if she just copped to it.
Kalybriah and Edmond
The conversation around Kalybriah and Edmund has also been fascinating/disturbing to watch. I’ve seen so many people lay into Kalybriah for being condescending and hurtful to Edmond, but I’m over here like, The woman was a saint to put up with him for more than a few days. Have we ever had a less-mature individual on this show, man or woman? I really do not think so. I won’t try to diagnose whatever is going on with Edmond. I don’t know the man. I do think he is trying his best. I don’t think he’s malicious. But intent is ultimately not the issue when the behavior is consistently problematic.
A huge crux of the convo around these two came down to Kalybriah saying that she found Edmond’s frequent emotional outbursts to be manipulative. Edmond vehemently denied this, and his supporters have backed him up on this. For my part, I am sure Edmond was not deliberately thinking, “I’m going to get KB to do ______ by begging and crying and lovebombing here.” I don’t think that thought was part of his process. But I do think that a child of trauma — which Edmond undoubtedly is — learns these behaviors inherently as a kind of survival adaptation. The most likely scenario to me is that Edmond could feel KB pulling away after any one of his childlike outbursts, and then he would regress to these embarrassing and obnoxious displays in an attempt to bring her back into orbit. Deliberate or not, that is manipulative. It’s certainly not the kind of behavior you want in your adult life partner.
I thought it was fascinating when KB laid out specific instances in which Edmond pulled this — some of them off camera — and Edmond denied that they happened. KB had details, and they fit into the timeline we saw. We saw her take this tactic on the show a few times, and each time, the edit backed up what she was saying. Edmond denying these things happening was, frankly, troubling to me. He was either gaslighting this woman (another de facto manipulation) or he truly has no recollection of his actions when he’s in those states. Which is entirely possible. It’s not an excuse, but it is possible.
The resolution to their storyline was basically Kalybriah saying that she absolutely did love Edmond, but she could not have a future with someone who behaved in that way. Amen to that, sister. Edmond countered that he would have loved KB forever and knows he will never meet another woman that good. I think that’s also true. But Edmond’s inability to acknowledge his colossal emotional problems, much less actively work to fix them, made this relationship totally impossible. It was obvious from the start. I hope Kalybriah moves on to a much more mature, centered man, and I hope Edmond does a lot of work in therapy. It’s the only way he can hope to find a real partner in life.
Overall, I found the Season 9 reunion disappointing and surprisingly dull. I would be curious to see someone else take the reins of the hosting gig — as the participants in the show become more and more savvy about how to portray themselves/answer questions, I am uncertain that the Lacheys have the skills to get real answers out of any of them. But overall I think the show format needs some serious tweaking. We have hit peak influencer farming on “Love Is Blind.” I am not convinced that any of the participants this season, except for maybe Edmond, went in genuinely looking for love; they wanted exposure and a way to launch on social media. It’s becoming less and less satisfying to watch, and if Netflix doesn’t address it this show is going to collapse.
What are your thoughts on Season 9? Were you bummed that none of the couples got married this season? Drop your thoughts in the comments. I have to go to ANOTHER wedding this weekend, featuring decent people who actually love each other.
