SPOILER ALERT: I’m about to discuss my thoughts on the latest season of the Netflix series, Love Is Blind. So, if you haven’t watched it yet and plan to, now is your cue to exit left. No shame, I promise.
I’ll wait.
Y’all know the deal around here – reality television is my guilty pleasure. It never ceases to amaze me the way production teams use creative editing to piece together the narrative they want us to believe – especially when that narrative grossly differs from what the cast members tell us later on.
That said, we finally reached the final episode of the season and as you know, only two couples made it.
I think we all knew that Johnny and Amy were going to make it to the altar and say “I do.” Their love story was pretty normal from the start, despite the lingering questions about how they are going to handle delaying children. They had no drama; no toxicity, and they genuinely had the best intentions for each other. We’re rooting for them, right?
To be honest, I didn’t want AD to leave the light on for Clay when they were in the pods. After his fixation on needing to know what she looked like before he could move forward, completely defeats the purpose of the show. Physical attraction plays a key role in our decision to be with another person, whether we admit it or not. Yet, Clay signed a contract to be on Love Is Blind which includes NOT talking about looks. So, for him to be so adamant in the beginning about it was a huge red flag. And that just doesn’t turn off like he led us to believe it did.
Look what Chelsea did to Jimmy. She very matter-of-factly told Jimmy that “people say” she looks like Megan Fox, and we could all see that was a boldfaced lie. Not only that – but she agreed with what these people, whoever they are, said. She wanted to hook him in with the type of look she wish she had, because she really didn’t have the confidence to do it on her own accord.
Okay, let’s focus back…
In the pods, Clay advised AD that he wasn’t going to propose to her, until he knew what she looked like. He also made cringe-worthy comments about how after she potentially had his child, he would make her get back in the gym and work out so her body wouldn’t be out of shape.
We could see the foolery AD was going to be in for, and we screamed into the television to take her devices elsewhere – even if that meant leaving the show alone.
But she kept going. She went full swing with a man who was clearly broken, expecting a woman to do all the work to put him back together. He got down on one knee and proposed to our girl. He also continued to objectify her and squeeze the very life right out of her. He never reciprocated the work that she put into him.
What’s worse is that social media is blaming AD for her own objectification. People are saying that this confident Black woman was “leading with her body,” even after Jimmy (white man) expresses to his fiancé Chelsea (white woman) that AD is “stacked.” Chelsea announces it to the entire group, bringing attention to AD’s body. The camera crew zoomed in on her body every chance they got.
Maybe, in addition to just being proud of her body, AD was dealing with constant objectification and did not want to come across as difficult or ungrateful on national television, as dark-skinned Black women are often accused of.
Clay’s unhealed trauma shouldn’t have been a cast member on the show. He should have dealt with that before coming on. Instead, he projected all his trauma onto AD. He liked the way she coddled him; the way she validated him; the way she did all the emotional labor and made it okay for him to do absolutely nothing.
Telling AD that he couldn’t marry her, because he needed to work on himself, was not admirable. At this point, he had already bled her dry and wasted her time. After embarrassing her in front of her family and friends and saying no at the altar, he once again turned to her for comfort to absolve his guilt and make him feel better about hurting her.
The truth is Black women, especially, have been taught from birth that if we perform, give, serve, one-side compromise and coddle, we will prove ourselves worthy of love. Unfortunately, it never works out that way.
Praying release for all the ADs.