Nick and Vanessa Lachey might want to prove that Love Is Blind, but based on the show’s new After the Altar reunion special, it can also turn vindictive.
Love Is Blind’s debut season became a runaway success for Netflix largely thanks to a TV-magic romance between Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton. The standout relationships from Season 2, however, felt a little more fragile: By the end, the only surviving couples were Jarrette Jones and Iyanna McNeely (whose foundation was already cracked) and Nick Thompson and Danielle Ruhl, who faced communication struggles of their own. Instead of a loving relationship, the gravitational center holding this season together was Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee—specifically, the cast’s shared contempt for him, as seen during an explosive cast reunion.
Now, we rejoin this group of couples, friends, frenemies, and exes once more. What’s changed since we saw them last? Here, for your perusal, are the six biggest reveals from Season 2’s After the Altar special, now streaming on Netflix.
Jarrette and Iyanna, and Nick and Danielle, Are Kaput
Really, we knew this was coming; both couples announced their divorces earlier this year.
Nick and Danielle seem to share the same rapport during After the Altar that they did during their original Love Is Blind season. Here, they discuss their ongoing themed parties (with costumes, thanks to Danielle) and mostly seem to share in their fellow castmates’ gossip. Still, some underlying rough spots peek through the surface. Speaking with People, the couple’s fellow contestant, Kyle Abrams, said he’d previously heard that Nick and Danielle had their “ups and downs.”
Jarrette and Iyanna, meanwhile, spend After the Altar discussing the ongoing source of tension in their relationship: In spite of his promises to change his behavior, Jarrette seems unwilling to stop going out drinking all night. (A window into their arguments: He insists he’s always back by 4 a.m.; Iyanna claims it’s more like 7 a.m.) The couple reveals during After the Altar that Iyanna moved out after a particularly bad night, and while she moved back in during the show (after a tense conversation with their families), it appears they weren’t able to reconcile. “I was just like, ‘I gotta go,’” Iyanna says of her initial decision to move out during the episodes. “I can’t do this. I’m not doing this.”
Kyle and Deepti Vempati Are in a… Situationship?
These two have been hinting at something for ages, and finally, we have some clarity. Deepti obviously deserved better than shallow “Shake,” but no one expected she’d find it with season villain Shaina Hurley’s ex. But are they actually together-together?
Early on during the reunion, Deepti describes her vibe with Kyle as a “situationship.” They hang out every day, and they’re coordinating outfits on their way to Love Is Blind events, but both parties seem hesitant to take the plunge. By the end, though, the two decide to make it official; they’re now boyfriend and girlfriend.
Shaina Is Engaged (And Not to Shayne Jansen)
Shaina might’ve been single-minded in her pursuit of Shayne during the season, but now her romantic interests allegedly lie elsewhere—with her fiancé, Christos Lardakis. (Actually, he’s now her husband; the two wed in Greece this summer.)
Shaina and Shayne now insist there’s never been anything untoward between them. Because of their initial spark, Shayne posits, anything they do is now a “thing.” That said, neither of these two are particularly ruffled by the drama. In fact, Shaina seemed more interested in ensuring she wasn’t caught making her favorite, extremely meme-able facial expression—as she told Danielle at one point, “You better tell me if I’m squinting right now!”
There’s Some Serious DM Drama
Still, Shaina and Shayne will probably always have something of a flirtationship. At least in these episodes, that seems to be alive and well—even as the two discuss Shayne’s ex, Natalie Lee, who claims to have found damning DMs between them from when she and Shayne reunited to try and patch things up after their finale breakup.
While Shayne claims the door will always be “open” for a romantic reunion with Natalie, she asserts that they’re done for good. As Natalie put it, “I let him know I don’t love him anymore and I think him and I have, you know, a very unhealthy relationship and I don’t think it would have been good for either of us… It’s the lies from him. I put so much trust in him and he completely destroyed that trust for us. I can’t have someone in my life that doesn’t respect me.”
Christos, who claims he’s seen the DMs, says he “laughed” when he heard about the messages, while the rest of the cast says they haven’t seen them.
Salvador Has Met Someone New…
Perhaps the biggest news, however, is Salvador Perez’s new girlfriend, the bubbly Jessi. (Their couple name, for the record, is “Jessidor.”)
For those who need a refresher: Sal got engaged to Mallory Zapata during Love Is Blind Season 2, but decided he could not marry her at the end of the series—a decision that was never quite explained. (More on that later.) Mal, meanwhile, maintained a bit of a flirtation with Jarrette early in the season after the couples left the pods—in spite of her engagement to Sal, and Jarrette’s to Iyanna. A much-discussed moment upon Jarrette and Iyanna’s divorce? Jarrette’s flirtatiously disparaging comments about the engagement ring Sal had given Mal.
During the Love Is Blind Season 2 reunion, Sal mostly appeared annoyed that he had to be there—and desperate for Mallory to stop discussing their relationship. Now, he seems happy as a clam and it’s Mallory who producers often film from angles that accentuate a stiff upper lip. (In a maneuver both evil and genius, producers even staged an ’80s-themed party where Mallory had to watch her ex show up in a coordinated couples costume.) At this point, Mallory says she’s been dating and focusing on herself—and hasn’t been in touch with her ex at all.
…And Sal Also Says He’s Done “Protecting” Mallory
Things got juicier, however, during the third episode, when Sal proclaimed he was done “protecting” his ex.
“I protected Mallory throughout this whole experience,” he says, “and I don’t know why. I don’t think she deserved it.”
A week before their wedding, Sal says the two had scheduled a shopping date, but he didn’t hear from her for hours. On the last call he got from her, he said, she was “slurring her words,” and later that day, he found her drunk in a car with another man. By the end of the conversation, Sal reveals to his siblings that he’s bought an engagement ring for Jessi—a decision that seems to please both of them.
In a post-credits interview, Mallory says the man in the car was “one of my closest friends” and insists that she and Sal already discussed the incident. “Wow,” she says. “Any excuse to just like, play the fucking victim.”
