Any reality show can create shock. Particularly when cast members are in the manufactured environment of a reality production, such as that of Love Is Blind, the opportunities for shocking revelations and hyperemotional breakdowns are endless. Whether by pure accident (Lydia and Uche’s dating history in season five) or sly editing (the discovery of Matthew repeating promises to multiple women in season six), surprise is fun, but it’s also par for the course. What’s much harder to create, and infinitely more satisfying when done well, is a sense of illumination or explanation — not the shock itself but the backstory that led to a moment of revelation. It’s why cast reunions are so popular: because they’re forums for analysis and finding answers. It’s why direct-to-camera interviews are such an integral element of reality-TV editing: because they’re opportunities for cast members to explain what they’ve been thinking. And it’s why the most satisfying, remarkable scene in the Love Is Blind season-six finale is not Johnny and Amy’s adorable family lovefest or Clay’s big altar confession. The best moment is the conversation afterward between Clay’s parents.
From the beginning of this season, Clay and AD have been an infuriating story about ignoring red flags. AD expresses early on that she has a habit of trying to fix men and needs to break out of it. Clay’s the type she’d usually go for — hung up on physical attraction and haunted by his father’s infidelity. But he also seems capable of talking about those things and even of being self-aware about how difficult his parents’ marriage and his lack of Black role models made it for him to imagine monogamy and fidelity. It seems eminently possible that seeing and voicing all of that might be enough to help him break out of those patterns if he really wanted to try.
He does not. Instead, Clay waits while AD walks down the aisle, listens while the officiant reads the vows, and takes a deep breath. “This has been the best process,” he says. “AD, I love you. I don’t think it’s responsible for me to say ‘I do.’ But I want you to know that I’m rockin’ with you. I just don’t think it’s responsible for me to say ‘I do’ at this point, where I still need work. I still need to get to the point where I’m 100 percent in.” A woman holds a hand over her mouth, agape. Another presses her lips together, seemingly about to cry. AD’s mother’s face falls. But Clay’s mother merely cocks her head, looking resigned and unsurprised.
There’s plenty of footage of the post-altar aftermath, including a long scene in which Clay attempts to comfort AD in her dressing room and expresses his hope that this won’t be the end of them, and footage of AD, bereft, oscillating between fury and self-doubt and grief. But none of it is particularly meaningful as a way to process what’s just happened or to look back on how they got to this point. They’re both in a state of stunned confusion. AD is bowled over by her own emotions, and her assessment of his decision swings between clear-eyed indictment and overwhelmed exhaustion. Clay seems to be operating in some delusional space of detachment. He said what he came to say, but he doesn’t seem to understand AD’s reaction or grasp that the consequence may well be the end of their relationship. He talks a little about finances in a direct-to-camera, which is especially bizarre: Unlike some couples for whom money has been an obvious source of tension, Clay and AD have had conversations about their careers and their goals that seemed perfectly amicable. Neither of them are really able to adequately describe what’s happening in their heads.
How could they be? They’re at the grand climax of a high-stakes, pell-mell rush toward lifelong commitment that’s also being filmed for global entertainment. The thing viewers are most anxious for them to provide — a satisfying explanation for Clay’s decision — is precisely the thing they’re both incapable of articulating.
Afterward, though, Clay’s mother, Margarita, and his father, Trevor, show us. “He struggles with a marriage,” Margarita explains. “Is it sacred? Do you honor?” She points her fan at Trevor, calm and firm: “A lot of that stems from things that you have to explain and apologize. No excuses; just apologize.” For all that Clay has said about the dynamic between his parents, it’s entirely different to see it in action. Margarita is preternaturally coherent about what’s going on in Clay’s mind, but Trevor appears totally unaware. “[He struggles] with commitment?” he asks. It’s apparently news to him! Margarita continues, laying out the way their relationship has given Clay a bad model for marriage and the fact that even now she’s still learning new information about Trevor’s behavior during their years together. “Here’s the thing, Rita,” Trevor says, beginning to cry. “I didn’t necessarily have the best role models in my life. I can’t ever remember my father being a part of my life.”
The pattern is so clear it’s as though Clay has taken his father’s place, standing there and trying to explain that he lacked good positive father figures. Margarita diagnoses exactly how Clay got to this point, Trevor sees it and agrees that’s what’s happening, and yet the pattern still holds. In the most remarkable moment, Margarita points out that Clay clearly wants to be in a marriage, and Trevor cuts her off: “Tell him to meet someone like you. I met you. Tell him to meet somebody like his mom!” “Yeah,” Margarita says, “you met me, but you wasn’t good to me.”
This scene is not just a deeply considered analysis of Clay and AD’s relationship, though that’s key to its appeal. As Trevor tries to shuffle all of that responsibility back onto needing to find a woman who can fix you, it’s as though the cameras have captured the exact moment when a delicate piece of machinery slips out of gear. Even more satisfying, Margarita instantly recognizes it for what it is and responds right away. That right there. That is the problem. It is as deeply gratifying as tuning an instrument, or watching a skilled craftsperson fix a watch, or the scene at the end of an Agatha Christie mystery where Poirot gathers the suspects together. It is something much rarer and more improbable in reality TV than shock or emotion: a moment of legitimate insight.
Love Is Blind can’t always find or orchestrate scenes like this, partly because the process of filming people can make this level of honesty hard to come by, but also because it’s unusual to find someone as cogent as Clay’s mother. Jeramey and Laura’s falling-out lacks a sense of resounding conclusion, but it’s not because they’re inherently less interesting. (Or at least, it’s not entirely because of that.) It’s because they, and particularly Jeramey, were not willing or not able to explain themselves with anylucidity, nor do their friends or family offer the same window into their mindsets that Clay’s parents provide. It’s more than just stories about these people as children or reflections on who they’ve become as adults. It’s that we can see the way Clay’s parents interact with each other in the present day, when all of the dynamics are still right there on the surface.
Every dating-and-romance reality show is about who decides to be with who and whether they stay together. There’s always a layer of skepticism, too, about whether people actually like one another or how much they’re playing it up for the sake of TV. When Love Is Blind is really working, though, it’s a show about whypeople are together, and why they fall apart.
Kathryn VanArendonk , 2024-03-06 17:00:30
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