He’s a real piece of work
Love Is Blind
Netflix
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the first batch of Love Is Blind Season 7 episodes. Read at your own risk!]
There isn’t anything inherently villainous about Love Is Blind‘s Leo Braudy when the first episode of the show’s seventh season, set in the nation’s capital of Washinton D.C., kicks off. That’s not how reality TV villains work, after all. Like a good reality TV villain, Leo grows into his villain status. He works for it. It’s a slow burn into villainhood, and the payoff is very much earned.
It starts casually, too. His welcome toast in the men’s lounge is part well-intentioned, part cringe. We don’t know enough about him yet to judge him as he says, “We’re on Love Is Blind, to love we may find, at the altar, we’ll decide, and if we like the same girl… back off, she’s mine,” but soon enough, we will. And by the time he finds himself in the middle of the love triangle we could have all seen coming, it’s clear no one is rooting for Leo.
But it’s not the love triangle that makes him the season’s villain. On Love Is Blind, a love triangle doesn’t necessarily make you into one. After all, this is a dating competition set up to maximize drama. Every third person is in a love triangle. To be a villain you still have to make decisions that turn you into one. And Leo does that, over and over. He does it frequently enough that he doesn’t even get to blame the edit for his behavior.
At first glance, the fact that he’s very rich and very willing to tell anyone who will listen that he is very rich is an obvious red flag. Sure, the rich guy from D.C. sounds like your stereotypical Love Is Blind villain. But Leo isn’t a villain because he’s rich. He isn’t the villain because he manages to bring up how rich he is in basically every conversation he has, even though in his intro video he claims that his biggest insecurity is that women only want him for his money.
He isn’t even a villain because after telling the story of how he lost his grandparents, his parents, and his stepfather in three years, which led to him inheriting the family business, he proceeds to add, “I’m unbelievably grateful for so many things.” (Which is a peculiar brand of tone deaf, even if he’s mostly referring to the fact that he got to spend some time with his mom at the end, not just the fact that he is “a rich f***ing art dealer.”) Instead, Leo is a villain because of the way he behaves in his relationship with both Hannah Jiles and Brittany Wisniewski.
At first, it all seems above board. Again, Love Is Blind is a show that lends itself to a certain level of emotional intimacy that sometimes borders on the uncomfortable. You are, after all, signing up to date multiple people at once. Feelings might get hurt. And Leo seems perfectly OK with that possibility — as long as he is the one dating multiple people. When he realizes that Hannah is ready to choose Nick over him and Leo doesn’t hold all the cards, that’s when he turns nasty.
Not only does Leo berate Hannah on what ends up being their penultimate date, asking her if Nick is “the best person for you or is he the first person to tell you ‘I love you?'” and questioning if “the schedule is going to decide your f***ing husband for life?” because Nick’s date with Hannah in the morning was only first due to chance, he also later straight up tells her he loves her as he tries to convince her to give him a chance. When Hannah walks away too distraught to continue the conversation, Leo comes back the next day with a new approach. This time, he’s ready to try gaslighting. Or, he had an epiphany. But it’s probably gaslighting.
Leo Braudy, Love Is Blind
Netflix
See, according to Leo, he and Hannah are not compatible at all. It was Brittany he wanted from the beginning. He even told the producers to cancel the date with Hannah from the day before, he just forgot to bring that up at any point when he was yelling at Hannah during their previous date. He goes as far as to ask her to please put in a good word with Brittany for him because the man’s got nothing if not nerve.
This is coming from the same Leo who the night before said to Hannah: “My other connection is amazing, but you? I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance with someone like you ever again” and who had previously made it very clear that he did not want a wife who wanted him for his money — which, let’s be clear, is exactly what Brittany seems to want. Except, when you go on Love Is Blind for your 15 minutes of fame, it is better to leave with a wife who wants you for your money than to leave alone. So, Brittany “I’m obviously a trophy wife” it is.
If Brittany says yes, because she’s apparently in the show for the same reasons as Leo, that’s another matter altogether. And if the doors open and Leo sees Brittany fits the trophy wife bill to a “t” and seems very happy with his decision, while she seems to be rethinking every single moment that led her to that instant? Well, that’s probably why they were not one of the six couples picked to go to Cabo San Lucas and why we don’t see any more from them after the show informs us via text on the screen that they took their own trip to Miami and broke off their engagement weeks later.
But with Love Is Blind Season 7 now out, everyone gets their shot at temporary stardom, for better or worse. Hannah’s journey continues. Brittany will probably be forgotten very soon. But Leo? He gets to live in infamy for a little bit longer. Love Is Blind villains always do. And after the yelling, the gaslighting, the Rolex, and the incessant money mentions, Leo is exactly that.
The first six episodes of Love Is Blind Season 7 are now available to stream on Netflix.
