‘Love Is Blind’ Uses Deceptive Editing To Mask A Disastrous Finale

The Love is Blind finale just dropped yesterday on Netflix, marking an almost end to the second season of the show, though there’s a reunion episode next week so we can see where everyone is now.

I did not love this season, even more so when I realized that Love is Blind had used probably a lot more reality show editing tricks than usual to hide the results of the finale, which was “shocking” in some ways, but mostly I just felt like the series didn’t do a great job telling its stories as a result. Let’s go through the couples:

Danielle and Nick – These two just never really came off as well-matched, between an age gap and wildly different personalities. But despite Nick sweating more than any human being physically should at the altar, both of them did end up saying yes in the end, and this was probably the most “normal” result out of all of these. But then things got weird.

Natalie and Shayne – This was just a bizarre relationship from the start. I have no issues with Natalie but Shayne came off as pretty unstable for the duration. But he was a 100% yes and she said no at the altar, with her citing numerous “issues” they had to work through. Which I mean, obviously that was true. The show put together a supercut of Natalie teasing Shayne like any normal couple would, and him getting deeply offended by it, which was always weird. And there was some giant, unseen fight that was not caught on camera literally the day before the wedding which seemed like a key turning point in their entire relationship, and yet it…wasn’t shown at all. This wasn’t the only time, the show kept referencing fights that were never actually shown among many of the couples.

Deepti and Shake – I’m not sure anyone came off worse than Shake in this entire series, who was incredibly pleasant to Deepti in their every interaction, and yet was constantly telling everyone who would listen how he was not physically attracted to her at all (bizarre, since she’s beautiful). In the end it was Deepti who said no, saying that she deserved someone who was “sure,” and she ended up the most definitive no out of any couple here. I am not sure if production told her what Shake was saying behind her back, but again, the show edited their relationship so she always seemed happy and sure when clearly that was never the case, in order to extract this “surprise” no, which let Shake off the hook (I imagine he probably would have said no if she didn’t).

Mallory and Salvador – Again, the same thing happened. The show was edited to show Mallory as the deeply unsure one and Sal as being much more confident, but he’s the one who said no in the end, which seemed like it came out of nowhere. At least the resolution here was somewhat pleasant and it seems like the two may have a chance to just…date normally after this, but we’ll see with the reunion.

Iyanna and Jarrette – Easily the best example of deceptive editing, where all season long there were teasers of Iyanna in a wedding dress looking like she was storming off, being followed by family members. Instead, that appears to be a perfectly innocuous shot of the group moving locations, and this wedding actually went off without a hitch with both parties saying yes and no drama on the wedding day itself. Again, more annoying editing.

I should probably stop watching this show. The whole concept bothers me. The experiment is about proving that personalities can connect over the physical, and yet more or less everyone who matches is physically attractive so that doesn’t really play into things at all (unless you’re Shake). Instead, the real test is whether or not you could or should marry someone you just met just over a month later, where obviously the answer is almost always going to be no, even if you seem like you could be well matched further down the road (Mallory and Sal, for instance). Anyway, watch The Circle, it’s better.

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