Netflix's 'Love Is Blind' Experiment Isn't Working Anymore

At the end of every season, Love is Blind’s biggest critics revisit the same question: Is Netflix’s reality TV phenomenon and “social experiment” broken? One could argue that the answer has been yes ever since the notorious Lydia-Uche-Aaliyah debacle in season 5. But now five seasons later, the definitive answer is, “Well, duh.”

Since we’ve seen time and time again that love is rarely blind, it seems we should pose a new question: Has Love Is Blind run its course? Season 10, which aired its finale on March 4, ended with only two marriages and reiterated yet again that the Netflix series has become nothing more than a perpetual-motion machine of discourse and dashed hopes. At this point, the global franchise has failed to amount to more than mortification voyeurism posed as entertainment. With the show's melodrama frequently being at the expense of its female contestants and telling us nothing new about modern romance, it may be time to close the door to the pods forever.

If season 10 were your first time watching Love Is Blind (not only would I admire your willpower), you’d be blissfully unaware that viewers have already seen most of the season’s arcs. The Ohio-based cast endured what's become all too familiar each season: one blissfully drama-free couple, a love triangle where nobody leave the pods engaged, a lack of physical attraction IRL, cringe-y visits to male living spaces, a man reminiscing on his long-gone sports career, a female participant negging her partner to the point of cruelty, disagreements about family planning, a lack of knowledge about birth control, hesitancy in forming a family with a single parent, and online allegations made by an ex eclipsing the actual show. Watching this season as someone who’s written about the show since its inception proved that there’s little else for the experiment to explore.

One storyline that did reach a fever-pitch among both the fandom and the rest of the internet, however, was participant Chris Fusco and his fragile male ego. His breakup with Jessica Barrett in episode 9 came out of nowhere to both viewers and Barrett herself, as Fusco went from accepting her penchant for pizza to revealing that he wanted a partner who does pilates every day. According to Barrett, there was no prior hint of Fusco’s true nature, both on- and off-camera; he knew exactly what to say to his partner and in the confessionals up until the moment he decided to voice his concerns. Plus, though it may not have been clear in the edit, Fusco had also wanted to continue through the “experiment,” as if he hadn’t voiced what seemed like an irreconcilable dealbreaker. It’s no wonder that the influx of “Understanding Chris from Love Is Blind” analysis content has broken containment into the feeds of people who have never watched LIB. Villains are nothing new to the franchise, but Fusco stands out because he exemplifies what the show has become.

The reason Fusco has made such a stir is the same reason Love Is Blind has stood out from other reality dating shows: It’s the most frighteningly honest depiction of dating seen on TV. Once these couples return to their hometowns, patterns emerge that mirror the rapid devolution of heterosexual dating over the past few years. Men put in minimal effort to the point that it seems like they’re sleepwalking. Women attempt to unravel migraine-inducing timelines of past situationships. The most horrific participants end their love-bombing to reveal a baseline of emotional abuse and disrespect. Women have the emotional walls they’ve put up to protect themselves from being challenged by an actually good-seeming man.

Beyond escapism, one of the enduring arguments in favor of dating shows (and one that I ascribe to myself) is that they reflect human behavior and the state of society. Though it may never have been the intention of the “social experiment,” Love Is Blind has come to serve as a sort of dating true-crime, where viewers can learn to recognize the red flags that show up in its notorious villains. However, like with true-crime, there’s only so much psychological analysis you can get out of the same patterns shown over and over.

That’s not to mention how few success stories the show has produced. Only eight LIB couples are still together out of 50 over the show’s 10 seasons. (Nine if you count season 8’s Sara and Joey, who were both engaged to different people before going public four months after their reunion.) That’s 36 onscreen breakups and, more tragically, six offscreen divorces. A 16 percent success rate is not the stuff of romance.

Midway through season 10’s airing, Netflix released a docuseries about another notorious reality show that at times produced two seasons a year: America’s Next Top Model. The documentary, Reality Check, reveals that ANTM ran for 15 years off a formula that wasn’t built to teach modeling success, as its contestants believed. Instead, as put astutely by Grazia, its “secret sauce was the ritual humiliation and exploitation of often deeply vulnerable women.” The word’s still out on whether Love Is Blind will reach a 15-year tenure, but there’s little doubt that Netflix has plans to stop its winning formula as long as people are watching. But people will keep tuning in, not because it’s impossible to look away, but because we can’t help but hope for an actual, earnest love story.

It’s time for the powers that be to reflect and decide if their phenomenon is worth continuing. If not, 10 years from now, we may be tuning into a tell-all docuseries where producers shrug off their sins and point to Lauren and Cameron and Vic and Christine, trying (and failing) to claim that their “experiment” was a success.