SPOILER alert:This interview contains spoilers from Season 3 of “Love Is Blind,” now streaming on Netflix.
Ever since “Love Is Blind” debuted on Netflix, viewers can’t get enough of it. Season 3 is no different, already climbing the streaming service’s Top 10 chart. In fact, the CEO of Kinetic Content, the company behind the show, says it’s “the best season ever” — thanks to the vulnerable cast.
“They were really real, raw and honest and embraced the entire journey of trying to find love and seeing whether the love that they had found could sustain the obstacles that they encountered,” Coelen tells PvNew. “They gave it everything and that meant diving into some really incredible stuff.”
This season, which was filmed in 2021 directly after Season 2 wrapped, marks the first that follows all the couples who got engaged. In each of the first two seasons, there were eight engagements. This time, only five men proposed, which meant it was possible to show the journey of each one.
Below, Coelen details the third season —including that dramatic Andrew Liu tear moment.
There’s been a lot of chatter about how this season embraces body diversity. Was that intentional?
No. I’ve always said this. We’ve always been very diverse in our participant pool and we just follow the stories that unfold during the pods. We really don’t, in any way, control what happens, push what happens, influence what happens. We literally just set up the mechanism, they live their own stories and we just follow it. So the people who fall in love are the stories that we follow, regardless of what those people look like.
Let’s talk about the question you knew was coming. I have to ask about Andrew and the eyedrops. Was he using them to create fake tears?
What do you think?
With the way it was edited, I think yes. He was.
That’s my impression.
OK. So, why reveal that? Why pull the curtain back on that — showing that there’s someone there who does not have the best intentions.
We try to just set the mechanism up so that they can live their authentic stories and then we try to incorporate — to the best of our ability — the authenticity of those stories onto the show that we ultimately put out on Netflix. Andrew obviously was a crucial character in Nancy [Rodriguez]’s story. We wanted to show the essence of who he is.
I remember being in the control room when his proposal had been rejected. He went back to the interview and I happened to look over and that’s what was happening. And watching it live, I just could not believe that that was what was happening. It was jaw dropping. I cannot believe he’s doing that. I mean, that’s insane. But I think it was very revealing in in the moment as to maybe maybe his motivations in that particular moment. Obviously I’m not speaking for him. I don’t speak for him, but we put it out there as it happened.
So, why bring him back later in the season?
They were having this get-together. Typically, what happens in all of these seasons is that all of the people that go into the pods form some kind of a bond, they all end up hanging out together in groups. They were having one of those events and there were multiple people there. His interaction with Nancy and his story’s intersection with Nancy’s story really felt relevant. She obviously, at the time that that was filmed, had no idea [about the eyedrops] and we certainly wouldn’t have told her what he did when he went into his interview after. So she had no idea of that. For her, it was like, “Oh, this is Andrew, a guy I spent a lot of time with, who proposed to me.” It felt very real and I think for him too. I think it was a really interesting moment for him really to reveal himself and be in that moment.
Staying on Nancy’s story here, this is the first time an abortion discussion has been shown on the series. When editing, how did you make sure you were giving both Nancy and Bartise Bowden equal footing time-wise and not opening them up to potential blowback?
We try to show the authenticity of their conversations. It’s a testament to both of them and the depth of their feelings for one another and, honestly, the way that they had grown to communicate through their experience with one another in the pods and after that. They really had developed a love and the depths of communication where they were really adept at being vulnerable and opening up and sharing. This was obviously an issue that was really important to both of them and I think they handled it in a way that was really respectful. I watched all the raw footage of their conversations and what you see on the show is reflective of exactly what they talked about and how they talked about it.
And this filmed before Roe v. Wade was overturned, so it’s very timely now. There are certainly new couples having these discussions.
I love that about the show and the experiment. Some of these people [sarcastically] say, “Oh, the experiment,” but it is an experiment in terms of really seeing whether this emotional connection that’s developed in the pods can sustain the obstacles the real world throws at you. It’s just so amazing to see how open the participants are in terms of their willingness to navigate all of the issues that are of utmost importance and to figure out what they think those issues are prior to getting to the altar and saying “I do.”
The first seven episodes of “Love Is Blind” Season 3 are now streaming on Netflix. The next three will be released on Nov. 2, with the finale and the reunion dropping Nov. 9.
