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The Love Is Blind Finale Was a Beautiful Nightmare

Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Over the past three weeks, Netflix’s Love Is Blind has established itself as one of the most sensational reality dating shows in history. It involves a group of probably drunk contestants who agree to marry each other after forging an exclusively verbal connection through thin, opaque walls over the course of several days. After they are engaged, the contestants go on a honeymoon, move in together, and get married. This happens in one month. The objective, as elusive show hosts Vanessa and Nick Lachey explain, is to prove “whether love really is blind.”

Today, that question was ostensibly answered in the Love Is Blind finale, wherein couples said yes (or no) at the altar, with various amounts of chaos ensuing after the fact. Here are the best moments from the show’s most pivotal episode:

Giannina’s Escape Through the Woods

A modern-day Ophelia. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Giannina and Damian seem to hate each other, and establish themselves as one of the show’s most combative couples early on. Their arguments mostly revolve around what Damian perceives to be Giannina’s excessive use of social media (she is an influencer) but their most devastating moment is a discussion about their sex life:

“You know how you tell me this is the best sex of your life? Have you noticed that I don’t return the compliment?” Giannina asks a slack-jawed Damian during a confrontation that takes place while they are in separate rooms.

Their wedding day was characteristically tense: The previous episode had closed with Giannina saying “I do” at the altar, and this one opened with Damian responding, pink-faced and tear-soaked, with “I don’t.”

After a lot of gasping and how dare yous, Giannina runs out of the wedding tent in full prom regalia and into a nearby forest. There, she removes what appear to be six-inch heels and falls into some mud whispering, fiercely, “I’m outta here.”

Kenny’s Cut-the-Cameras Moment

Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Kelly and Kenny are the show’s dullest couple, and Kenny barely bats an eye when his fiancée, Kelly, leaves him at the altar. This comes as a bit of a surprise because Kenny “checks all the boxes,” but Kelly has spent a lot of time in previous episodes explaining that she’s not at all attracted to him and comparing him, at length, to her ex.

But in a backstage moment after the wedding, Kenny expresses a yet-unseen degree of emotion by getting into an altercation with his cameraman, Jimmy, who refuses to stop filming him. The back-and-forth goes as follows:

Jimmy: You still wanna marry her in the future?


Kenny: I really can’t answer that question right now. You have to respect the fact that I’m telling you this. Please stop recording. That’s wrong.


Jimmy: [Continues recording.] What?


Kenny: What you’re asking me.


Jimmy: How you feel about Kelly?


Kenny: This is not how I feel about Kelly. I’m not going to have things filmed. Please stop recording, Jimmy.


Jimmy: [Continues recording.] So you don’t know if you’re going to stay with her?


Kenny: It doesn’t matter. I’m not answering that.


Jimmy: [Continues recording Kenny, who is in tears, as “Dynasty” by MIIA plays in the background.]

This Man’s Expression

A wedding guest at Cameron and Lauren’s nuptials who is clearly not buying it. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Giannina’s Mom Attempts to Comfort Her Jilted Daughter

Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

After Giannina escapes from the woods and into a parking lot next to a highway, her mother, who had been running after her in a shimmering silver gown, attempts to comfort her:

Giannina’s mom: [in Spanish] Everything is shit. Ideally, you would have said no and he would have said yes … You should have said no, no?

[She begins to sob as Giannina hugs her.]

Jessica’s Evil Bridesmaids

Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Jessica and Mark are another great couple, mostly due to the messy, drunken antics of the former, which include feeding wine to her dog, intermittently using a baby voice, and constantly flirting with another engaged contestant named Barnett. (Barnett and his fiancée, Amber, are one of two couples who actually get married at the end of the show, meaning that he presumably inherits $20,000 worth of her credit-card and student-loan debt.)

Mark, who is a decade younger than what Jessica frames as a decrepit 34 years old, is obsessed with his wife-to-be and spends all of the show in earnest pursuit of her. Jessica, however, sees Mark’s emotional availability as a “big red flag” and responds to his “I do” at the altar with a grim “I cannot.”

Immediately after, one of her two bridesmaids turns to the other and says in a loud, carrying whisper, “So embarrassing for her,” and the other responds, “I know right.”

“We’re Married, Yay”

Lauren and Cameron are the show’s best-looking and most beloved couple. Love Is Blind viewers are genuinely rooting for them, and seem to sympathize with their attempts to navigate the complexities of being an interracial couple. This includes a moment when Cameron, a white man, tries to make a good impression on his black fiancée’s mother by rapping original lyrics for her.

The couple — who in one episode fantasize that they are Caesar and Cleopatra reincarnate — seem happy, except for the fact that Lauren definitely does not want to get married and abandon her life as a single woman. She looks terrified every time her marriage to Cameron is brought up, and is reluctant to tell her friends and family she met her husband on a blind-dating show.

Lauren spends the day of her wedding (which takes place in the biggest and nicest venue) breathing through what seems to be an extended anxiety attack. And her fear is compounded when, in the moments after their marriage is legally officiated, Lauren says, “We’re married, yay,” with the kind of horror in her eyes that I can only describe as akin to a baby calf that is about to be slaughtered:

Photo: Courtesy of Netflix
The Love Is Blind Finale Was a Beautiful Nightmare