Warning: This story contains spoilers from the first six episodes of “Love Is Blind” Season 9, now streaming on Netflix.
The first batch of Season 9 of “Love Is Blind” proved to be quite a rollercoaster. During the six episodes released, the show saw a whopping six engagements: Ali and Anton, Madison and Joe, Annie and Nick, Megan and Jordan, Kalybriah and Edmond, and Kacie and Patrick. And, while past seasons featured engagements not shown on screen, this season was only the six.
However, only five made it to the post-pods vacation. Shortly after the in-person meeting, Kacie bowed out in one of the most bizarre breakups ever shown. While telling Patrick she couldn’t do this, he thought (and she confirmed!) that she meant the trip, but really, she meant a relationship. She told him at the time that she feared the edit would make it seem like she was having a meltdown because of his looks; she insisted that wasn’t the case, but told production, “I just, unfortunately, don’t think my attraction to him is going to grow that much.” However, after saying goodbye, she continued to jump into his arms and hug and kiss him.
During an interview with Tudum, Kacie said that Patrick felt like a “stranger” after their in-person meeting and knew that if she wanted a relationship to work, she “needed to do it off camera and wanted to date him slowly at our pace at home in Denver.” In fact, she told the site that that conversation wasn’t a breakup and she intended to get to know him deeper. “I really wanted to talk to him more, pursue going on dates, and get to know each other on a more physical level to see if this was really real.”
She also insisted she didn’t leave due to his appearance: “He’s a handsome guy. It was more about him being a stranger in my arms than it was what he looks like.”
As always, Variety spoke with creator and Kinetic Content founder and CEO Chris Coelen about the first six episodes, including that split, the multiple contestants who ghosted, and the serious conversations that happened in the pods.
Starting off, we got an engagement in episode 1. For those wondering, you can confirm that’s the editing, right?
Yeah, just editing. It’s just how we’re telling the story. We don’t tell stories linearly on the show. We never have. Obviously, sometimes people know sooner than other times, but no, it didn’t happen two days in or something. Lauren and Cameron also got engaged in the first episode [of Season 1].
So this season, we had both Anna Yuan and Blake Anderson quit during the pods and ghost their connections. How does it impact your process of making a TV show when someone chooses to leave early on?
I think the beauty of being part of this is that we just follow whatever happens. If people fall in love, it’s amazing. If people decide it’s not for them, they want to leave for whatever reason, then they do, and we follow that story. Every single season, it has been wildly, uniquely different, because people are wildly, uniquely different. The way that they act is completely unpredictable. Blake and Anna left in the pods — other people left too, but their stories were particularly relevant to some of the other stories we were telling.
It’s not typical that people just ghost. I know that happens in the outside world, but if people want to ghost, that’s their choice.
Kacie and Patrick’s non-break-up breakup was probably one of the strangest things we’ve seen on the show, with her seemingly not attracted to him, but refusing to break up with him and still jumping into his arms. What were your thoughts about what was happening in those scenes?
That’s a question really for her as to what she was thinking. People will draw their own conclusions about what’s happening in those moments. As we’ve seen before on the show, sometimes you can show a scene and people will draw wildly different conclusions from it. I have my own opinions about what’s going on, but I think it’s probably pretty complicated. I think there’s probably a lot of feelings that are there, and you mentioned that there’s issues around attraction and probably wanting to be protective of other people and their feelings — but at the same time, maybe not being able to really come to terms with that in a way that is up front.
We saw some intense, serious conversations in the pods through the years. This year, we saw Nick and Annie discussing what they’d do if they had a child who was a member of the LGBTQ+ community. In today’s climate, are you encouraging contestants to talk even more about these topics?
It’s whatever they want to talk about. People talk about a whole slew of things. They’re there for 10 days, and hours upon hours of conversations. As producers, the fun part of what we do is to try to figure out what the things are that really represent people’s stories in terms of what feels relevant to them in any particular journey that they’re on.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
