“It’s Me … Hi … I’m the Problem, It’s Me!”
The Love Is Blind Season Three Cast, Ranked
Hi! Me again! Spoilers for the newest season — and latest episodes, as of today (11/2) — of Love Is Blind below.
If I could take in Love Is Blind intravenously, I would. It is the premiere reality dating show, because its terms extend far beyond dating: these people meet, “fall” in “love,” vacation together, live together, meet the families, and plan a wedding together — that’s better than a few group dates and a Luke Bryan concert (or whatever they’re doing over there on The Bachelor these days, girl, I don’t know).
It is a mess! And yet, when it’s time to say “I do,” I watch with my face covered, in between my fingers, because: well … will they or won’t they. Over on the Substack app I’ve been keeping a weekly discussion chat – chime in below:
Ahead of the final batch of episodes, I’ve returned to rank the players. (You can read last season’s ranking here.) Onward!
Bartise Bowden
How can I even even begin … to describe … the utter disdain I have for this man …! To borrow a phrase: I can't wait to see him drinking a flat sprite out a garbage can at the Cotton Bowl or something.
Someone — and when you see how his parents and sister talk to him, it starts to make sense — raised this boy to think that he was the most important person in every room, that his opinion mattered the most, that he would grow up to be the best looking man in any bar. What they should’ve been telling him was to pipe the fuck down!
Bartise is worse than Shaina, worse than Shake. Shake cast himself as the villain and was off book in a matter of hours. Shaina was aware enough of her villain narrative to try to salvage her reputation. Bartise, by contrast, is so totally ignorant of his own immaturity and selfishness. I often wonder, when watching reality TV, “what is going to happen when the other person sees what their partner has been saying in the talking heads?” Nancy doesn’t need to see what Bartise says in the talking heads! He says all the foul rude shit to her face! (There is a certain type of person that prizes “radical” or “total” honesty above someone else’s feelings. It reads to me as a form of narcissism, a way of centering themselves over how anything they say could be experienced or felt. That’s Bartise.)
A lot of this comes from immaturity and insecurity. Look at his conversation with Nancy about abortion: he’d only thought of abortions inasmuch as what would be the consequences of him accidentally getting a girl pregnant (everyone gets one “pass” or whatever the fuck he said). When Nancy asks about abortions after a rape, or incest, or about an unviable fetus, it’s obvious that the thought hasn’t crossed his mind. The biggest red flags with Bartise, for me, came during the reveal and on the subsequent vacation: he was so obsessed with making sure Nancy appreciated the ring — not that she liked it, not that it fit, that she appreciated it — and selling that he was good in bed (no way it could be true). He cannot see beyond himself at all. *Adele’s baby’s voice* At all! And doesn’t care to!
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