(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Love Is Blind Season 6, Episodes 10-11.)
I have to imagine that a man knows he’s messed up when he cries to his mother about his latest relationship problem, only for her to say, “You’re lucky it wasn’t me.” Then again, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Jeramey on this season of Love Is Blind, it’s that feedback never quite seems to sink in for him—regardless of who provides it or how they phrase it. Whether it’s his mother gently hinting that he might’ve muffed things up or his fiancée Laura making the same thing clear in an expletive-laden rant about his “narcissism,” Jeramey remains an impermeable mass of cool. Maybe it’s those polarized sunglasses he’s always wearing, or maybe he just doesn’t care about his engagement. But this week, it all blew up in spectacular fashion after an incredibly painful cookout.
This season of Love Is Blind might be the most emotionally incomprehensible installment yet. Like any dating show, there’s always some degree of unseen drama and dialogue editing to muddy the waters and make it hard to suss out what, exactly, is happening between our on-screen couples. But in Season 6, I’ve had an especially hard time figuring out what the hell is going on between most of these people—whether it’s Jeramey and Laura duking it out over text messages, Jimmy and Chelsea fighting over nothing, or Kenneth and Brittany breaking up out of nowhere last week. All I know is that if I were one of the attendees at this week’s unfortunate outdoor get-together, I would have taken my white wine spritzer to go and gotten way out of dodge.
Jeramey and Laura left things off on a pretty awful note last week, after he stayed out past five in the morning with his friends and wound up hanging out with his ex, Sarah Ann, from the pods. Jeramey seemed to want a Nobel Peace Prize for being magnanimous enough to share his phone’s location with Laura while he stayed out without a word the night before she was supposed to meet his fricking parents, but he failed to acknowledge that he’d even driven to Sarah Ann’s until Laura called him on it. Good on his mother for refusing to indulge his self pity this week, but honestly, unless we’re missing something huge here, what is this guy’s deal?
Cut to the trauma barbecue, where everyone and all of their pod exes gathered to eat hot dogs, drink alcohol out of coolers, and generally have a miserable time together. Laura rolled up ready for vengeance in a black cutout one-piece and understandably talked shit to everyone who would listen. Jeramey, meanwhile, made it very clear to his pod buddy Jimmy that he has absolutely no remorse. “I was 100-percent on board with trying to work things out with her and trying to solve things,” he says. Apparently, however, he did not like the mean text messages Jimmy sent him when he tried to send Laura an apology bouquet—which included the observation that it was unfortunate to see him go from “fiancé” to just Jeramey in her phone. “Even if you’re angry, I don’t want to be talked to or treated like that,” he says, while Jimmy admits that he (correctly) believes that both Jeramey and Laura are “a little hard-headed.”
To be clear, Laura hasn’t seemed like a walk in the park. She’s made nonstop comments about Jeramey’s love of Hawaiian shirts, and she made a pretty nasty dig at him for not having a college degree last week. These people obviously should not be together, and even their parents seem to have gleaned that. But Laura’s right in saying that Jeramey clearly lacks the maturity to process his feelings for Sarah Ann. Case in point? When Sarah Ann shows up to the cookout, she reveals to Amber “AD” Desiree that Jeramey actually told her on the night they met up that he was breaking things off with Laura. If that wasn’t enough, the two hopped on a Jet Ski and rode around in the water together as a final “screw you” to all the naysayers on the shore, whom Sarah Ann believed were painting her as a “floozy” for reaching out to her engaged ex.
In conclusion: Can we get Sarah Ann at this reunion? Because I think Laura’s going to have a lot to say.
Jeramey and Laura’s implosion might’ve stolen the spotlight this week, but Chelsea and Jimmy are still very much a mess as well. Sure, the meeting of the parents went well, but then came another blowout fight. This one’s somehow even more confusing than the last. From what I gathered, Jimmy had the nerve to go out for about an hour to make an appearance at a friend’s birthday party, and Chelsea did not like that. First, she was mad that he wanted to go out at all, because apparently, while in the pods, they mutually agreed that neither of them would go out at any time, for any reason, ever. (What an exciting life this is shaping up to be!) When that failed to compel Jimmy, Chelsea complained that he texted and hung out with his female friends too much—which prompted him to offer to pull back, only to turn around and say he’s actually not willing to pull back. Then, Chelsea said she was upset that Jimmy maintains a friendship with a girl he slept with once—a detail they’d apparently discussed off-camera and agreed not to reveal for the sake of this person’s privacy. Then—it keeps going!—Chelsea suggested that Jimmy had hung out with Jess at the party, which he denied, and they argued about the fact that she was saying all of this while drunk and suggesting that he did not love her. Woof.
At one point during this whole fiasco, Jimmy suggested that Chelsea seemed to be fishing, and from what we saw, that seems right. Regardless, they somehow make up again—a feat she attributes, in part, to the power of gray sweatpants—and they make it to the cookout, where they continue to be awkward around one another as Jimmy meets Jess and reveals to her that she was, in fact, his “Number One” in the pods. Eventually, they left to go carve an ice sculpture for their wedding with a chainsaw, which feels like some kind of metaphor, and we end this week’s final episode on a cliffhanger in which he asks how she feels about getting married and she looks very unsure. Wonderful!
Outside of these two couples, there isn’t a ton to say, because our remaining couples are pretty much in the same place they were last week.
Amy and Johnny seem to be just peachy, except for the fact that they still have not figured out their birth control situation and therefore have not been intimate. Apparently, condoms are not enough assurance, and now that Johnny has actually Googled what a vasectomy entails, he’s not feeling so breezy about the idea of getting one. They get along great, and their families are on board, but as for the physical part, we’re getting down to the wire. We might be picking out wedding dresses and tuxes this week, but if Amy and Johnny don’t figure this out soon, it might wind up waiting until after the wedding.
AD, meanwhile, still seems willing to believe that Clay will somehow get over his commitment issues—even as he confesses to her own mother that he’s uncertain. “The sad part about that is, what he’s worried about is not even his,” AD’s mother says, wisely referencing Clay’s father’s infidelity and his parents’ divorce. “You can’t take on your parents’ stuff.” AD clearly understands that Clay is struggling with this, but at the same time, she also tells him that she doesn’t want to date after the show if they don’t get married; she signed up for a specific timetable, and she’s picked out her dream dress and painted some wedding sneakers, and at this point, that is apparently that. And with that, I say… good luck with that!
