The third batch of Love Is Blind Season 3 episodes dropped Wednesday, November 2 on Netflix, and forget who you thought the most solid couples were before. The newest installment proved once again that the real world can throw the show’s seemingly strongest couples into chaos.
Nancy Rodriguez and Bartise Bowden, Colleen Reed and Matt Bolton, Alexa Lemieux and Brennon Lemieux, SK Alagbada and Raven Ross, and Zanab Jaffrey and Cole Barnett were the five engaged couples to leave the pods. They got their first taste of the “real world” in Episode 4 when they got to spend their first nights together in person. By the end of that episode, most of the couples were relatively conflict-free, but the cracks were beginning to show.
Episode 5, aptly titled “Trouble in Paradise,” saw several pairs having their first fights, some of which would continue and worsen through Episode 7. But as of the end of that episode, all of the couples were still together. Episodes 8 through 10 covered the first weddings for Season 3, starting with Raven and SK’s.
Before walking down the aisles, the couples took the traditional wedding steps of dress and tux shopping, dance lessons, bachelor/bachelorette parties, and final dinners together.
After rough fights brought on by real-world issues, the couples all seemed more in love with each other than before in the final days before their weddings.
Nancy and Bartise, Zanab and Cole, and Colleen and Matt still win for the most toxic fights of the season, but Raven and SK’s relationship encountered trouble for the first time in these new episodes.
Below, we rank the Love Is Blind Season 3 couples from least to most dramatic, based on Episodes 8 through 10.
Love Is Blind, Season 3, New Episodes Wednesdays, Netflix
5. Brennon & Alexa
These two are truly just solid. Alexa and Brennon’s only apparent issue was their sexual chemistry, but communication (and of course, trial and error, as Alexa explained to the other women) nipped that in the bud. Now, it’s just a matter of blending their families, who come from vastly different backgrounds.
Things remained smooth as Alexa and Brennon started doing just that. Alexa being Jewish and Brennon being Christian, their families were concerned about religious differences. But Alexa and Brennon were open and curious about each other’s faiths and eager to incorporate each into their lives. Smooth sailing abound for these two, who were still together by the end of Episode 10. Their wedding will be shown in Episode 11.
4. Raven & SK
I had my doubts about Raven and SK, but Episodes 5 through 7 showed they are a good match. Their calm, methodical energies match, and SK’s expressed desire to learn how to love Raven “the Raven way” seems to have been genuine and not just a line.
Bartise and Raven’s conversation by the pool was a point of concern, but not because of Raven. In fact, after meeting Bartise in person, she was all the more confident that SK was the man for her.
The pace they were moving at seemed desired by both of them. The main concern in Episodes 5 through 7 was the absence of Raven’s family, who didn’t want to attend the wedding because they didn’t approve of the experiment. They stayed steadfast in that belief in the new episodes and weren’t present for the ceremony.
In Episodes 8 and 9, SK’s grad school plans became a big topic of concern. SK was set to move to California for grad school shortly after they wrapped filming, but Raven did not want to move away from Texas and uproot her life. A long-distance relationship was not appealing for either of them, but it seemed that was their only option for a bit. The love these two have for each other only grew in these episodes, but their inability to find a happy compromise about long-distance proved fatal.
Raven and SK’s wedding day was filled with love and excitement. Both were clear about their love for the other, and it seemed like both saying “I do” was inevitable. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case. Raven said “I do,” but SK said “I do not,” adding that he still loves her and wants to be with her, but that because of their relationship’s logistical issues, marriage wasn’t the best choice for them in that moment.
The tearful Raven understood, and later had a bittersweet moment with SK’s mother in her dressing room. It seems these two could still be together, but the marriage is off for now.
3. Matt & Colleen
Cole stirred up drama for Matt and Colleen, but their failure to communicate made it worse.
After Cole weirdly told Colleen he was attracted to her at the pool, Matt was livid that Colleen didn’t shoot him down entirely right then and there. He failed to consider that Cole put Colleen on blast, likely making her uncomfortable. Many women often pick and choose their battles when it comes to responding to advances from men. In that moment, Colleen seemed to choose to go with the flow so as to not stir up any drama in front of all the other couples and Cole’s fiancée, Zanab. But she didn’t articulate herself well at all during their fight. Truly, it’s hard to when you’re drunk and emotions are high. This same note applies to Matt.
Later on, the drunk Matt and Colleen fought about this at length, prompting him to storm out and threaten to leave her for good. The next morning, they soberly talked things out and moved past it. But it was a red flag that Matt refused to see any reason.
In Episode 7, the still bitter Matt confronted Cole, who confirmed Colleen’s story. Colleen had apparently told Matt that she said “whatever happens happens” in the real world with Cole, but that seems to be a miscommunication on Colleen’s part that she failed to correct. (Unless we just never saw that on camera.)
It took Cole telling Matt that Colleen was just “appeasing” him and “being nice” in that moment for him to believe her version of events. Because why trust your fiancée, right? It’s noteworthy that when Colleen and Cole told Matt practically the same story of that pool conversation, Matt got mad at Colleen’s part in it, but not Cole’s. She was trying to speed through an awkward moment, and as Cole told Matt himself, he was the one “initiating it” all and hitting on Matt’s fiancée.
At the end of Episode 7, Matt got angry that Colleen went to a club instead of “coming home to her boy.” He was drunkenly outraged that she would stay out with her friends until 2 a.m. on a Wednesday (oh, the horror), but he clearly was insecure about being cheated on in his first marriage. Someone should remind him that Colleen is, in fact, not his ex-wife.
They recovered from their conflicts in Episodes 8 through 10, but there were still concerns about going through with the wedding. Matt finally met Colleen’s parents in Episode 9, “Last Supper,” and in their last supper, Matt stepped up on showing his affection and effort to assure Colleen of his love for her.
“I just don’t know if s**t hits the fan, you’ll still be there,” Colleen told Matt during their aquarium dinner. “It’s a valid point,” he replied. “Maybe it’s me not being able to express my feelings as much as you have to me. I might not be that good at expressing my emotion because I’ve been shut down for so long.”
Colleen then admitted she was struggling with the question of “is love enough?” “Shouldn’t it be?” she said. Matt pressed her to stop playing games, but she wasn’t. While she struggled to find the words, she eventually said that as of that moment, love alone wouldn’t be enough for her to say yes at the altar.
At his bachelor party, Matt admitted to friends that he was self-sabotaging their relationship out of fear of being hurt. His friends encouraged him not to ruin things if he really did love her, which he said he did.
It seems their wedding might not be a shoo-in for success, but based on this whole season, that’s really not surprising.
2. Cole & Zanab
Cole was the first man to start showing public regrets. Initiating that conversation with Colleen at the pool hurt Zanab, who didn’t know the full details of the conversation until later (although Matt’s intel wasn’t accurate). For someone who already struggled with insecurities about her weight and appearance, this only deepened old wounds.
Cole made comments about Zanab looking like “a completely different person” without makeup, a false statement that she was clearly insecure about beforehand, and other snide remarks like “I don’t like you when you’re mad” (notice the specific wording there — that is much different than “I don’t like it when you’re mad”) sent Zanab down a continued spiral of self-worth struggles.
In Episode 5, Zanab revealed she made the mistake of asking Cole to rate her out of 10 at the pool party. Cole made the mistake of saying she was a nine, and when she asked if there were any 10s in the cast, he said yes — Raven and Colleen. She shouldn’t have asked for this, but he shouldn’t have answered this way, if at all.
Their problems continued through Episode 7, culminating in a fight with Cole after Zanab learned what he really said to Colleen at the pool. He got mad at Zanab for still being upset about this and then spewed some comments about her name and what it meant for her appearance that had some serious racist undertones, which Zanab seemed to clock. The fact that Cole’s parents refuse to meet her was also suspicious and upsetting.
“You do stress me out quite a bit, but I love you enough to deal with it,” Zanab told Cole in Episode 9. Cole said in a confessional interview he thought he was getting two different Zanabs, unable to understand how behavior affects moods.
Be it while cooking together, out with friends, or even on their “honeymoon” in Malibu, Cole would say and do rude things that upset Zanab, who immediately showed her feelings. Every time, Cole was bewildered, somehow continuing to be so after Zanab explained the problems. They seemed happily in love during dinner in Episode 9, but a tense conversation at home revealed Zanab was still unsure about marriage.
Cole was all-in, he said, and Zanab was confident she was, too. But she noted his behavior could change her mind, which (surprise, surprise) Cole could not wrap his head around. Both continued to flip back and forth with their confidence in each other during Episode 10.
1. Bartise & Nancy
After several episodes of Bartise suddenly finding Nancy unattractive, things got more tense when Nancy and Bartise had a disagreement on abortion in Episode 6. She had a reasonable perspective on the topic that Bartise refused to try and understand. They ended the conversation on different terms, but not necessarily in a fight.
While Nancy was introducing herself to her future in-laws, Bartise cut her off and steered the conversation back to their “fights,” talking about debt and their abortion conversation. Less than one hour into her first meeting with the family, Bartise threw her into the lion’s den, seemingly because he knew how his family would react. (The Taylor Swift lyric “casually cruel in the name of being honest” comes to mind.) Bartise’s sister cried about Nancy’s perspective on abortion, his mother said she disagreed but respected it, and his father was silent.
“The topic of abortion definitely worries me,” Nancy said in a confessional after the tense moment subsided. “I wasn’t afraid to bring up the topic, but I know that a lot of people don’t understand. Although I was sad to see her cry, I was hoping that they would understand why I have my own beliefs.”
Bartise then framed this conversation weirdly in a confessional, as if it wasn’t caused by him at all: “I did want my sister’s approval, but it’s not my sister’s decision to make. It’s my decision to make, and I’ve known Nancy a lot longer than my sister and mom and dad. So now it’s on me to go from here and maturely understand what happened tonight, but also weigh what has happened up until tonight … Seeing my family react the way they did with that information, this is the biggest thing for me to have to get through.”
It seems Bartise is intentionally ignoring his fault here. This familial disagreement wasn’t something unexpected and challenging — it only happened because he brought it up unprompted. His shift in tone and perspective is a massive red flag.
Remember when Andrew faked tears after Nancy rejected his proposal in the pods? Both of these men seem determined to frame things in their favor to give Nancy the blame. Interestingly enough, Andrew popped back in in Episode 7 when the couples were out for drinks. Bartise got jealous when he saw Nancy and Andrew talking, and later at home, they addressed it. Bartise was incessantly vocal about Nancy not being his “typical” type of woman in terms of appearance, constantly saying Raven was his ideal woman. He eventually started withdrawing the physical affection he gave so freely before. Nancy got real about the hurt this was causing her.
“No matter what I do, I will never be your type,” she said. “And the fact that I love you for who you are, but you don’t love me for who I am…”
“I do love you, though. That’s why I proposed to you in the pods,” Bartise responded. “But listen, looks do f**king matter.”
Bartise then listed issues about Nancy’s ex, whom she was not secretive about like Bartise claimed. He brought up the abortion issue again, saying these were difficult, unfair things she forced him through, when she was mindful and communicative through all of this. To top it all off, Bartise asked how he’s supposed to move forward through these “setbacks” when “I already have this underlying problem” of thinking she’s not hot enough for him. Girl, dump him. Immediately after this convo, Matt called Bartise and Nancy in a rage over Colleen going to a club.
“You’ve been looking for a f**king problem the whole time here,” Bartise said, not seeing the irony in his words. He told Matt to count his blessings that he at least found his fiancée attractive. Nancy, I repeat: dump him.
All seemed to improve in Episodes 8 through 10 for Nancy and Bartise, who both expressed their commitment to each other repeatedly. They got permanent bracelets as another show of their decision, but all the while, Bartise still described the first meeting with his family as something they “went through” unexpectedly and not something he caused.
In Episode 10, as they prepared for their wedding day, Nancy’s gift to Bartise brought him to tears over all the tenderness and care it showed. Bartise’s family was excited for him, but Nancy’s was excited and slightly apprehensive. When the moment of truth came, Nancy said “I do” at the altar. The episode ended on a cliffhanger just before Bartise gave his response.
