‘Love Is Blind’ Season 6: A Dating Trainwreck You Just Can’t Look Away From

To fans of “Love Is Blind,” it might feel like the show premiered just yesterday. Released right around the time the Covid-19 pandemic began, the Netflix series’s novel concept piqued the interest of a largely homebound audience. Since this time, producers have churned out five more seasons, the most recent being season six, which premiered on Feb. 14.

“Love Is Blind” is advertised as a social experiment that allows participants to find love based on an emotional connection rather than a physical one. To this end, each season features a cast of singles from a shared metropolitan area who date each other from “pods” where individuals can hear, but not see, each other. Over ten days, speed dating narrows down to longer dates, which narrow down to engagements. Couples can finally meet in-person after their engagement, at which point the show transitions to a week-long couples’ retreat as well as living together back in their hometown.

Season six brings together a cast of 30 hopefuls from Charlotte, North Carolina, aged 25 to 37 years old. Though things start out innocently enough, plentiful drama inevitably ensues as emotional entanglements develop among the cast. This season’s wealth of betrayals, messiness, lies, and, of course, “no”s at the altar, prove that “Love Is Blind” is still as entertaining as when it began — a dating trainwreck you just can’t look away from.

Season six benefits greatly from the variety of conflict that the cast displays. Major drama begins as soon as episode one, wherein contestant AD finds out that one of her main love interests, Matthew, has been spouting the same promises verbatim to another woman in the pods. From here, a web of complicated ties only builds as contestant Jimmy is continually forced to reckon with choosing between Chelsea and Jessica, Laura and Jeramey crumble as he reconnects with Sarah Ann, Kenneth remains glued to his phone while his engagement falls apart, and even more drama ensues. From the pods to the altar, it feels as if each episode is chock full of new twists and turns in the couples’ journeys.

Social media’s engagement with the series also enhanced viewer enjoyment this season. The “Love Is Blind” experience did not end with a black Netflix screen; rather, after the final episode, the fun continued on other platforms like TikTok and X. Here, fans were quick to post memes and their reactions to the latest happenings, as well as to discuss and predict couples’ futures. In fact, cast members themselves often engaged with fans on these platforms, offering spoiler-adjacent content that fans loved to overanalyze.

However, what makes the series so enticing is also what gives some viewers pause: The show thrives on the exploitation of the genuine romantic ambitions of its cast. In fact, its methodology does not even accurately target the supposed question of “Is Love Blind?” — considering a large component of the show design is that it speedruns the processes of meeting, dating, engagement, and marriage. Individuals have little time to process their emotions and develop these relationships “sight unseen,” leading to the various interpersonal conflicts viewers see later on.

Aside from this expedited timeline, the show’s relationships are also destined to fail because — as it turns out — love is not blind. With the exception of eight couples across five seasons who are still together, this so-called “experiment” has repeatedly proven that relationships built on talking through a wall for a few days are not built to last. Most couples struggle to find chemistry and compatibility beyond the pods, to the point that this awkward phenomenon has become a point of humor for fans across seasons. Individuals’ various insecurities, traumas, and external problems also often come to light post-pods, further disintegrating engagements. This phenomenon was on full display in season six, as viewers learned about Clay’s deep-rooted fear that he will cheat, Trevor’s girlfriend on the “outside,” Chelsea’s insecurity from past experiences of being cheated on, and many other compounding variables in this experiment. Perhaps most telling of all: Only one couple ended up saying “I do” at the altar.

At the end of the day, “Love Is Blind” is a reality show, and its cast know what they are signing up for. The producers’ primary incentive is not to provide healthy matchmaking opportunities, but rather to use this concept as a pretense for garnering onscreen drama and viewership. Still, “Love Is Blind” is one of the best dating shows on the market right now. Its concept, though deeply flawed, continues to provide delicious entertainment, and there is always just enough hope kept alive for another miracle couple like season one’s Lauren and Cameron. Above all, “Love Is Blind” is a lighthearted series that gives viewers a glimpse into other people’s juicy dating lives. Each new season consistently provides a boatload of fun and intrigue, and season six is certainly no different.

—Staff writer Julia Hynek can be reached at julia.hynek@thecrimson.com.