#love-is-blind

#love-is-blind

The skit began with Love Is Blind hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey looking back at Janelle (played by Grande) making an emotional connection with the Grinch (played by Mikey Day). After expressing how excited she is to meet him, the two link up for the first time, and Janelle is visibly shocked that he's not human. "Are you the literal grinch?" she asks, prompting him to respond incredulously, "Oh, what, you didn't know? I guess it never came up."

For a reality dating show with an experimental premise, Love Is Blind has always been pretty traditionalist. Its entire purpose is the pursuit of heterosexual marriage. Separated by gender, contestants date one-on-one in "pods" without seeing each other. When it comes time for engagement, the men do all the proposing, and from then on the show is an arrow hurtling toward the altar.

All of the couples on Love Is Blind season nine seem to agree that love isn't supposed to be easy. You have to wake up and commit to your partner every day, you have to know how to compromise - maintaining the relationship is going to be work. But in that case, how do you know when to clock out and call it quits? That's the question of the week.

Now McIntosh, who told him she loved him before she saw him, is telling the cameras she's not attracted to the guy while bungling a face-to-face breakup with her fiancé. Instead of telling Suzuki she doesn't want to be with him, she implies that she doesn't want to be on camera anymore, leaving a confused Patrick unclear about the status of their relationship.

But by the end of this batch of episodes, most of these connections are starting to feel shakier than the mechanical bull at the rodeo-themed mini reunion. Perhaps that's an apt metaphor for ill-matched Love Is Blind relationships. You know that you're going to fall off and that this ride won't last forever, but you still get on and hold on for as long as possible.