Love Is Blind’s fourth season reunion went about as smoothly as the season itself did: That is to say, not smoothly at all.
Netflix advertised the reunion as its second-ever live show, following a live-streamed Chris Rock stand-up special earlier this month. Rock’s performance went off without a hitch. Unfortunately, the Love Is Blind reunion experienced many a hitch—leaving most viewers unable to even watch it live at all.
After treating us to a constantly refreshed loading screen on the livestream page, Netflix finally was able to get the stream working 75 minutes later than advertised. But only a select number of viewers were actually able to watch it live. While some of us (myself included, somehow) were able to watch the stream as intended, both co-host Vanessa Lachey and Netflix’s Twitter account announced at the top that most people would not, in fact, be watching live. Instead, Netflix would film the reunion to dump on the platform later.
In case you only got to see the copious memes last night about how “Love is late” and not the show itself, here’s the biggest moments from the Love Is Blind Season 4 reunion.
Zack tears into Irina for joining the show “to get famous”
Irina got a lot of heat during the reunion—deservedly, as she was arguably the season’s biggest villain. Co-hosts Vanessa and Nick Lachey asked her to defend her “mean girl” behavior when they were in the pods, replaying moments of Irina laughing at various other girls. For the most part, Irina took an apologetic tack, seeming to recognize that her behavior was inappropriate.
But when the subject of her engagement to Zack came up, Irina’s measured explanations didn’t quite suffice. Despite having a stronger connection with Bliss in the pods, Zack proposed to Irina—a decision he went on to regret, as he and Irina ended up breaking up during their Mexico vacation. Even though Zack went on to rekindle his romance with—and marry!—Bliss, he accused Irina of never being interested in him at all. Instead, he told Irina point-blank that he believed she only came on the show for attention.
Irina said seemingly all the right things: She was genuinely looking for love on Love Is Blind; she chose Zack because he was “the best guy,” and she did love him; she’s happy for him and Bliss now, and she’s glad they didn’t stay together. But Irina failed to convince anyone that she was speaking the truth, especially when Bliss brought up a DM that Irina sent her while she was with Zack in Mexico saying that Bliss “dodged a bullet” by not ending up with her future husband.
Even though Irina was clearly very well-media-trained before the show, she didn’t end up winning anyone over to her side. Sorry girl!
Micah confronts Paul about rejecting her at the altar
For one, Micah was Irina’s bestie in the pods, which didn’t endear her to audiences (or the other girls). Between her continued flirtation with Chelsea’s then-fiancé Kwame—which, we found out, the women cleared the air about during a never-before-seen moment—and her horrible group of friends, Micah had a lot of work to do to win us over. But by the end of the season, she at least garnered our sympathy: Paul told Micah “no” at the altar, leaving her devastated.
Micah explained why she let Paul answer first, instead of saying “yes” or “no” to marrying him when initially asked. She felt that if she had said “I do,” Paul would have begrudgingly agreed to marry her to save face—even though, clearly, his heart wasn’t actually in it. Paul refuted that idea, saying that he believed the choice he made to not marry her would have been his choice either way.
But the moment that Micah really zeroed-in on in the reunion was Paul’s talking head interview after the breakup, when he told the camera that one of the reasons he broke up with her was because he didn’t see her as mother material. That was, understandably, a hurtful thing for Micah to hear when she saw the moment in last Friday’s finale for the first time. Micah said that her desire to have a family was a top priority for her, something that Paul knew and that they’d talked about a lot. Paul tried to save face by saying that he misspoke—that he couldn’t envision her as the mother of his children, specifically, and that he didn’t encourage her ability to be nurturing. But he said what he said, and Micah still sat in teary-eyed silence for most of the rest of the show.
Zack defends his bestie Paul against Micah, for some reason
Zack and Paul got close during the pods, and they remained tight throughout the show. After Micah said her piece about how badly Paul hurt her, Zack decided to jump in and criticize Micah for being “out for blood.” Zack, we know you’re a criminal defense lawyer, but your boy was not actually on trial here. Still, Micah then hit back against the claim, clarifying that she was honestly hurt by Paul’s treatment of her.
Chelsea reveals that she’s met Kwame’s mom
Fans of the show questioned whether Kwame and Chelsea had any chemistry throughout the season, leaving many of us shocked that they ended up married. But Kwame and Chelsea made sure to clarify that, no, they do actually like each other. This came in between Kwame trying to explain himself for flirting with Micah after getting engaged to Chelsea, something he took ownership of while trying to downplay. It wasn’t particularly convincing when he explained that it was more Micah making advances than him—but, hey, Chelsea and Kwame are still married, so.
There were a few times when Chelsea and Kwame shaded their edit, saying that they showed a lot more open affection for each other in unaired segments. Kwame also explained that the producers encouraged him to go by “Alex,” his first name, instead of Kwame, in the interest of removing race from the conversation. Kwame obviously did not go for that, but I’m surprised he got away with saying that here. Guess that’s what happens when you’re live!
Happiest of all, though, is that Chelsea and Kwame spent Thanksgiving with Kwame’s mom. This is huge, since Kwame’s mom refused to give her blessing for her son’s relationship and marriage. She only appeared on the other end of a tense phone call during the show, and she didn’t come to the wedding. It’s great to hear that Kwame’s self-described best friend is now back in his life and accepts his wife.
Jackie and Josh skip the reunion—for a frothy pre-taped interview
Jackie talked a big game ahead of the reunion, promising to bring all the apparent receipts she had about how Marshall was the real instigator in their relationship. This is despite Jackie ditching Marshall for another guy from the pods, Josh, after he humiliated Marshall (and himself) during his random reappearance on the show post-pods. Marshall was obviously hurt that Jackie broke up with him for the other guy she liked in the first place, dragging him along for the ride.
But even though Jackie spent a whole week tweeting about how she’d show incriminating texts from and about Marshall during the reunion, she and Josh didn’t even bother showing up. Instead, they sat down with Vanessa on Zoom, holding each other calmly the entire time. Vanessa let Jackie off easy for keeping the engagement ring from Marshall, which Jackie claimed she kept as a reminder of their love story (???). She also implied that the reason behind her near-relationship-ending, off-screen fight with Marshall was because he called her a transphobic slur. Yikes!
Of course, Vanessa didn’t ask Jackie about any of the alleged homophobic text messages she sent to her friends about Marshall too. Instead, she just told the pair that she was rooting for them.
Marshall owned up to making a transphobic joke toward Jackie, although he said he never used a slur. (He didn’t repeat the joke or the offending term on-camera here, thank goodness.) He also reaffirmed his position that Jackie should have returned the ring—as well as mentioned that he went on a single date with a girl from the pods after the breakup, which was apparently rumored on social media as Marshall cheating on Jackie. But in the end, Marshall was left scrambling to end this one-sided conversation with Jackie and implore us all to move on. And move on we shall—unto Season 5, whenever that may be.
