GREAT NEWS to all our To L and Back friends and family! We’ve gotten the band back together for two very special episodes covering the glorious mess known as The Ultimatum: Queer Love. The first episode, in which Drew defends A.J against the haters and we fear that Mel and Dayna are lying about their sexual activity, is already live wherever you get your podcasts.

The second episode, in which we discuss the final three episodes including that WILD reunion, is HERE, NOW, for our AF+ members, on video even though you know I hate to be on video. It’ll be out wherever you get your podcasts in a few days but we wanted to give you early, exclusive access.

Riese: Hi, I am Riese!

Drew: And I’m Drew.

Analyssa: and I’m Analyssa!

All: And this is To L and Back The Ultimatum Queer Love Edition!

Riese: That was really good. No, no rust at all that time. It was perfect. Now we’re really back from the L.

Analyssa: Now we’re really in it.

Riese: Okay. So the first episodes have come out, you’ve already listened to our podcast on that topic. Everybody is responding on the internet to the first batch of episodes, including everyone who’s in it. Like, I think every single cast member has made a video reminding everybody that they’re real people and that nobody should be mean to them.

Drew: Fair.

Riese: I don’t know if this happened the first time around or not, but like on TikTok, like every other video I have, is a different Ultimatum cast member being like, “just remember that we’re trying hard to live, you know.”

Drew: This is maybe hypocritical of me since I’m literally recording a podcast about this show, but I can’t imagine caring enough to go after these individual people! Maybe it’s more — people like posting a reaction and then it just happens to cross the feed of the person they’re talking about — I don’t know how many people are like personally reaching out and like commenting on these people’s pages, ’cause that feels crazy to me.

But recording a full podcast, that’s just totally normal!

Riese: Just another day in the office.

Drew: It’s part of my job. So, you know, I’m just trying to get health insurance like everyone else.

Analyssa: That’s kind of the thing about reality tv, right? Once you’re on reality tv people can post about you on social media and say whatever they want.

I guess someone could do that about me, but I’m interacting with fewer people and fewer people know who I am. So like — where is the line of being mean and bullying? Are we not allowed to say anything about anyone who’s been on reality TV? I just find that very fascinating.

It’s happening in my Love Island discourse also.

Drew: Hmm.

Analyssa: They’re having a mean season.

Riese: Well, I for one love Islands. On that note, should we talk about the episodes? We’re gonna talk about eight, nine, and the reunion, which was a wild event. Our screeners for it haven’t been color corrected yet and the sound hadn’t been mixed yet. So I don’t know what you guys are gonna see, but what we saw, like color-wise also was just very fascinating. It had a, like a soft metallic glow. It felt like someone had spent a lot of time in Party City with a specific color palette in mind, and we’ll see how that turns out in the final episode. And I’m sure everybody’s on the edge of their seat as far as that’s concerned.

Analyssa: That’s the most exciting thing about the reunion to await.

Riese: So we return to our couples in strife.

Drew: I think we start with Pilar and Haley.

Riese: Haley and Pilar are, believe it or not, having a bit of a rough go of it.

Drew: Kind of! I also think that the way they communicate is so much better than most of the other couples, in my opinion. Like, yeah, they’re going through a period of time where they’ve been together for 10 years. One of them just — I’m doing air quotes right now — “fell in love with someone else” — and they’re navigating that. There’s issues but you know, Pilar is saying to Haley, I can’t tell you how to feel. I just think that they’re navigating it in a way that I would hope if I had good friends who I cared about, who were hoping to maybe at the end of this fight still be together and this rough patch still be together.

Like they are navigating all of this quite well, in my opinion.

Riese: I agree. It actually also did remind me of the Mal, Yoly, Xander thing from season one, where Mel was commended for communicating effectively, not flying off the handle. It feels like that’s the same case here where Pilar is like, “I’m gonna make space for the fact that you had this experience, but like, I’m still here and I’m still like fighting for you,” you know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: And isn’t that lovely?

Drew: It is.

Riese: Okay. Dayna and Magan. Magan says she missed Dayna, and she lost hope and isn’t sure if she would’ve slept with Haley had the pool incident not occurred. The pool incident that we all know changed the course of human history. In my notes, I said, Dayna is still lying. And then said she needs surety, which is not a word. And Dayna’s through line for all of this to Magan is like That wasn’t you. That wasn’t really you. I can’t believe this is you. I don’t know what that’s about, but that’s like a really interesting approach. It’s interesting, you know? Okay.

Drew: Yeah, I think you can’t, I mean, you can, Dayna’s doing it, but be like, “I don’t know how to trust you again for doing this thing that I also did, but I’m lying about also having done it so.”

Analyssa: But even regardless of that, Magan called Dayna in the first few nights being like, “I don’t wanna do this.” And Dayna said, “if you’re committed to me, you will commit to this experience,” which is bananas, and Magan said, okay, I will do that

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: You can not like the way that she did it. That makes sense. But being like, “I can’t believe you would commit to this experience and do the thing that Netflix is trying to get us to do.” When Dayna has done the exact same thing and is committed to lying about it on camera, which is wild.

It doesn’t make any sense to me. Like the, I understand people are heartbroken, so the logic isn’t really the point, but the logic doesn’t track.

Riese: I felt like she was just using it to have the upper hand in the fight. I guess that’s her business. She’s a real person, so I dunno.

Analyssa: I think it’s in Kayla’s recap, she was like — I wish that Magan had revealed that she hooked up with Haley earlier so that Dayna can’t just hide behind that the whole time. Like use that. and that was prophetic.

Riese: Indeed.

Drew: My next note is, “I don’t care about Marita and Ashley.” Sorry. So I’m gonna hand that off to any notes that you both have on, on this couple that’s just … clearly over.

Riese: I transcribed a quote? “We’re never promised tomorrow.”

Drew: Hmm

Riese: Someone said that, and I guess that’s true. We could all die tonight!

Drew: And do you wanna die being in a relationship with Ashley or not?

Riese: Yeah. Do you wanna die romantically or do you wanna die having to make your own dinner? Hard to say, but I wrote, “nobody opens their mouths.” Oh, they met up with Ashley’s sisters. Yeah. They’re all good real people who had the same hair and I thought that was adorable for everyone.

And it seems like they should break up.

Analyssa: It seemed like the sisters are also rooting for them to break up. They’re like, “no, we love you guys and we want you to be happy, but if you can’t be happy, maybe break up? And it doesn’t seem like you can be happy.” Like they kind of just keep cycling through that.

Riese: Well, we’re never promised tomorrow.

Analyssa: So true. I find them fascinating to watch because I think it’s so interesting to have chosen to be in a four year relationship with someone when you don’t like how they behave.

Like it’s not a values situation. It’s not like a, “I thought I wanted kids and I thought you did too, and now we’re four years in.”  It’s like, “I don’t like that you don’t do nice things for me.” And the other person being like, “well, I can’t do nice things for you.” And nobody’s been willing to change their position on that in four years is like shocking to me.

Like I’ve dated people for less time who have done things that are annoying and I’ve been like, well, that’s just who they are. Or I’ve been like, okay, I don’t wanna deal with that. Like those are the options.

Riese: They do a lot of stuff in this show and all the Netflix reality dating shows that I’ve seen where they talk about the other person and what they like about the other person. But usually it’s what they like about what the other person brings out in them.

But they don’t spend enough time, in my opinion, telling me like, what do they do as a couple? Like what are their things together? What TV shows do they watch? Like what’s the little bagel store they go to every Saturday? What are the ties that bind them together? Do they send each other cute emojis in the morning?

Do they text each other from the other room and say, I’m eating your Butterfinger, like my wife does? What are the things that they do? And I say, get your fingers off my Butterfinger!

Speaking of butter fingers. Mel and Marie. Uh, Marie wants Mel to feel safe and love and trust makes Mel happy.

Drew: Mel says that she might never want safe and stable. Mel’s still sort of like in that world of Dayna—

Riese: Bonnie and Clyde!

Drew: Bonnie and Clyde! True romance. We’re just gonna just ride it out until we can and leave as many bodies in our wake as we need to, to prove that we’re outlaws in love.

Which is a way that people feel —and you shouldn’t then be in a relationship with someone and have a business with them. Then it just feels like Mel’s in a place maybe to just like — run around and live life and be free.

Riese: Yeah, like a bird.

Drew: Like a bird.

Riese: We go back to Haley and Pilar. Haley never felt like Pilar was prioritizing her, and Pilar wants to show that. Apparently they ran into Dayna and Magan at a club, and Magan said that they needed to cut all contact. And I’ve got a feeling that was Dayna’s idea, just a theory here!

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Dayna says — tells Magan — that her relationship with Haley is not appropriate. Haley ignored Magan at the gym. These are the days of our lives like sand through the hourglass. Again, Magan doesn’t “sound like herself” whenever she says something that Dayna doesn’t like. She’s like, “that’s not, that doesn’t sound like you, you don’t sound like yourself.” Yourself only says things that I like.

Drew: I just have. “Yikes. Yikes, yikes!” That’s the note that I have here. So I don’t know what that was exactly in response to, I’m not having fun, not being super detailed in my notes, but it was between Magan cutting off Haley and Dayna saying Magan can’t be friends with Haley. So in between there, someone said something.

I’m gonna guess Dayna said something that made me go, “yikes!”

Analyssa: They’re really mad that Haley liked a photo of Magan’s on Instagram.

Riese: Yeah. More fights like that!

Drew: There’s a lot of Instagram drama.

Analyssa: We forgot to talk about Haley blocking Pilar or Pilar blocking Haley on Instagram After posting Kyle with heart eyes?

Riese: We should all be posting Kyle with heart eyes more often.

Drew: I’m not ever posting Kyle with heart eyes. Sorry.

Riese: That’s your prerogative. But they’re real people!

Drew: And you know what? Something brave about me — and they do, but  not all of them can be posted with hard eyes by me. I only have so many hours in the day. If we do the math here, there’s a limit to the number of people I can post with heart eyes.

Analyssa: And me and Riese are in the top 10.

Drew: Oh yeah. I’ll post both of you with heart eyes.

Riese: Thank you so much. I’ll post both of you with heart eyes too. I will And I’ll see if my wife blocks me. Or if Kyle blocks me! But speaking of Kyle, they meet up with the parents and Bridget just still doesn’t get why marriage as necessary. And Kyle’s Dad says, “you don’t have enough money to get married. What are you guys doing? ”

Drew: Another real person on this show who is obsessed with “for sicker and through sickness and health for richer and poorer.” I’m like, man, we’re really, it’s really getting brought up again!

Riese: Should we get rid of those?

Analyssa: Bridget is like, “what is marriage?” And the parents just start reciting the vows and it’s like, no, no, no. Yeah, we, we all are aware of that, but it’s like, again, Bridget’s point — fair. Yeah. You guys are already kind of doing that, you know?

Drew: Well, and then —

Analyssa: But what they really mean when they say that they are poor is that they can’t buy a home in Los Angeles, which is like—

Riese: No one! Who can?

Drew: Literally who is a homeowner?,

I did gasp when Kyle’s dad was like, you shouldn’t get married. Um, if I was Bridget, that would make me wanna get married more.

Analyssa: I was, I was just about to say!

Drew: Okay. We’re not gonna be able to own a home? Well, let’s, let’s do this.

Analyssa: Bridget being like, “marriage is maybe too traditional and not really for me.” Like someone saying like, “well, you can’t do it because you’re not traditional enough.” I’d be like, “hold on. That’s up to me!”

Riese: Exactly. AJ loves Brittany, she worries she’s not enough.

Analyssa: The crowd cheers!

Riese: We too love Brittany. This is a relatable emotion. She says she’s worried she’s just not enough, and Brittany’s like, ‘okay, be more!” And again, queen! No notes.

Drew: Yeah, this was really revealing in a way that, some of the stuff from the last batch around like AJ being like, “you care about your career too much and you’re not like around to make me food!” And that was a little bit eye rolly. Like it’s clear that it’s more attached to like self-esteem and wanting to also have a career path that feels equal and insecurities around not having that.

And that was the final sort of moment that made me go like, “okay, I can, I can root for these real people to work things out if that’s, if that’s what they want.”

Analyssa: They’re real people when we’re excited about them. In the way that, in the way that Magan’s only really being herself when Dayna likes what she says,

Riese: Exactly. Yeah.

Analyssa: They seal it with a very, very sexy kiss for the, like, sushi restaurant that they’re in!

Riese: That was a big day at the restaurant!

Analyssa: But the cameras do a lot of angles, so you know they’re not sitting right next to anybody. They’re like “we’re gonna be on the booth on the other side of them.”

Riese: Do you sit next to your partner?

Analyssa: We sit across from each other.

Drew: I would say usually across, Elise likes to sit next and I’m always a little bit, like, I just feel like I can talk to you more while, like, I, I not to not be

Analyssa: my head.

Riese: I have an ex who always wanted to scooch up next to me, and I was like “I don’t know!’ It was adorable, actually, but I prefer across. I don’t see any advantage to the side by side.

Uh, how do you feel about PDA? I don’t know if I would kiss in a restaurant. Is that internalized homophobia or is it because I’m afraid people think we’re sisters? And then is that internalized incest phobia?

Drew: Hmm. Wow. Lots of unpack there. Um, I also struggle with this sometimes where like, don’t want to be someone who worries about like, what am I actually worried about, right? Like, am I worried about people being weirded out and making a comment? ‘Cause okay, I can get through that.

I’m not actually worried about violence. I don’t think so. I’ve been pushing myself to be more PDA, I’m very good at PDA if I’m like drunk out late at night and then the vibes feel, you know, whatever. It’s the daytime walking around or sitting at a restaurant where I do have a hesitation. But I’m working on it. I like other people’s PDA. Put on a show for us, you know?

Riese: Yeah. What are we here for? No one’s promised a tomorrow.

Drew: Exactly.

Analyssa: So today, let me see you kiss!

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Do you feel differently with having a male partner, PDA than you would with a female partner? Or the same?

Analyssa: I was thinking about that ’cause you guys were both like, well maybe it’s homophobia. And I was like, right, I don’t experience that in the relationship that I’m in. but I think I feel about the same. I think I’m not a PDA person. In the daylight, a peck is something I feel comfortable with and would do pretty much with anybody. But the more intense kissing, I don’t know. Tongue? I might feel differently.

Drew: It might be ageist.

Riese: I was thinking that too.

Drew: I’m 31. Should I really be like hooking up with my partner in public right now? But who says that in your thirties you can’t continue to do that?

I don’t know. I don’t have a strong answer on this. I really feel conflicted.

Analyssa: I think I feel most on board with that actually. I haven’t thought about that, but I feel like a little bit too old.

Riese: Yeah. I’m like, no one wants to see this old hag tongue.

Analyssa: Nobody wants to see all that. What am I doing?

Riese: But everybody should feel confident no matter what age they are, and everyone’s a real person.

Drew: Pilar says is talking to Haley about seeing Magan and is like MAY-GAN? Megan?

Analyssa: “What’s her name?”

Drew: Haley’s, like, it’s very clearly Magan. I have to say this whole episode’s gonna be a lot of me obsessed with Pilar.

I think this is the exact balance between being a mature good partner and being just petty enough that you can hold onto yourself through the hard times of little jokes that undermine the person who your partner has feelings for, but still giving space for the actual mature conversations.

I was cracking up and I was like, this is, this is a perfect vibe. No notes.

Riese: This is like when my ex-boyfriend had this relationship with this other person that he lied to me about. And anyway, I only called her by her AOL screenname, which was AllyBoo. Never Allison. Allyboo forever. If him and I spoke tomorrow, I would still call this girl Allyboo. And that’s what happens if you lie and you cheat!

Analyssa: Then I get to make fun of you a little bit.

Riese: Then I get to make fun of you a little bit.

Drew: It’s a pretty effective bullying tactic? Or undermining tactic?

Riese: In my defense, I was 21.

Drew: Look, I’m 31 and I’m still encouraging people to do this. I just think it’s a pretty, it’s a pretty good — you’re not really making fun of anyone. You’re just forgetting someone’s name!

Analyssa: It’s a little bit like the phrase, “your little friend.” Dayna said that at the Recoupling, which is not like the kindest tone, but being like, “oh, your, is your friend gonna be there?” It’s like that a little bit.

Drew: Look straight people have been using “your little friend” in order to undermine our relationships for years and years and years. So, you know, we could do it to each other. And that’s progress.

Riese: That’s equality.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: So then there’s a cocktail party, which is wild. Dayna tells Mel she’s being weird. I don’t know why Dayna cares about how Mel’s behaving at all at this point. ’cause she’s already made it clear she’s all in on Magan. Mel is still hung up on Dayna and Dayna says she learned so much, but then also is telling Mel like, I never wanna see this behavior from you.

I mean, Dayna can, the character of Dayna on our television show can do whatever she wants and everyone else is can’t and is at fault. And that’s sort of that sort of her stance it.

Analyssa: I think it’s like that thing where you’re not supposed to be dating someone or hooking up with someone or pursuing someone anymore, but you do still want them to be obsessed with you and miss you and text you and so that you can be like, “no, I’m not doing this.” You know?

It becomes kind of clear that Dayna and Magan wanna be just as committed to each other in these three weeks as they were to their trial partners.

So not having contact with their trial partner while they’re back together with their original partner. But I think in sort of a Dayna character fashion, like it’s a little double sided of being like, well, I’m supposed to be committed to Magan, but it’s really pissing me off that you’re not trying to break through that at all.

Riese: They’ve decided to sort of rewrite history. Magan only did any of this, because first of all, they, of the pool incident. And second of all, ’cause now she’s saying Haley was manipulating Magan and oh, “Magan knows she got manipulated.” “Haley came here to leave Pilar.”

But Haley is so benign as a person! I cannot imagine her manipulating anybody! Magan’s going along with this narrative and being so cold to Haley. I understand they’re focusing on their own relationships, but Haley’s willing to make room for the fact that what they had was real, even if only temporary.

Analyssa: She even tries to, yeah, tell Haley well, “did I say I loved you? Like, I don’t think I did.” And it’s like… you did. We all saw.

Riese: It was on camera! You guys say you’re in love with each other and that you love each other.

Drew: It did give us the episode title, which is “Backtrack of the Century/” which I thought was a great line.I think there’s just like a way that Meghan could have very kindly been like, look, I need some space for the next few weeks because I want to just see if there’s anything here with Dayna and really focus on this relationship.

And then let’s check back in to see what the energy is, whether that’s a friendship or something more. The problem is the structure of the show — you get your three weeks with the trial partner, then you get your three weeks with your original partner and then you make a decision.

In a real world scenario, you could be like, “Hey, I need the next three weeks to just focus — that’d be a weird period of time for some reason — two makes more sense. Gimme two weeks to reconnect and then I’ll let you know. And then the person can be like, fuck that, and then leave.

And then you don’t get to have those two weeks. But in the context of the show, it’s just a little tricky. It’s almost like this show is unnatural? Queerness — natural. The ultimatum? Unnatural.

Riese: Exactly. Ashley and Marita make vision boards. That was adorable, I thought.

Analyssa: First we have this very funny little montage of what everybody’s up to. Ashley and Marita are making vision boards. Brittany and AJ are doing Amazon Prime Spon Con. They’ve ordered a s’mores maker, but with really visible Amazon Prime tape. Haley and Pilar are going — paragliding? Is that what it’s called?

What’s it called when you fly behind the boat?

Riese: Jet skiing.

Analyssa: No, when you’re in the air?

Riese: Um, uh, flying?

Analyssa: Haley and Pilar are flying, which I think is really funny. All the couples are doing boring things like Amazon Prime spon con dates. But then Haley and Pilar who are kind of going through it — they’re like, let’s put ’em up in the air! Let’s add more chaos!

Riese: So, Pilar and Haley have Haley’s dad?

Analyssa: For dinner. He comes over for dinner.

Drew: Haley’s dad says “I’m not just here for Haley. I’m also here for you.” And I did cry. This is actually a new update since To L and Back original episodes is— I cry now. I don’t know if it’s because I went off my SSRI or if I’ve just lhave a really good therapist or what’s going on—

Riese: You’re really depressed?

Analyssa: Maybe your eye thing traumatized you into not crying.

Drew: Oh, that’s true.

Analyssa: You’re pretty far out from your eye thing. Not to be sorry, not to be so former roommate coded.

Drew: No, I love it. You know, my deep lore. This really got me. It was really nice. I think something that does happen with queer relationships is you — whether it’s just with your partner, or with a partner’s family —you develop a family structure that’s, even when you’re not meant to be together, can be really hard to disentangle yourself from and you can feel like you’re like losing your family, not just losing your partner. Which is already, even for a straight person, like a family to some extent.

But it’s just bigger, I think for queer people, especially if you have issues with your family.

Riese: Absolutely. And basically Haley’s feeling like she read Magan wrong and like now Dayna has her claws in and she feels bad and sad, and I do too. I read Magan wrong!

Analyssa: I probably wouldn’t tell my dad that I fell in love with somebody in three weeks?

Drew: I just don’t understand people with this kind of familial relationship. When we get later to the reunion montage of Kyle’s parents, I just, there’s no part of me that feels like, oh, this is so sweet.

And I know it’s probably jealousy.

Riese: Yeah, I think it’s sweet. Magan is proud of her relationship now. Feels hopeful about her parents, like in fixing it because of how great her relationship is with Dayna. Um, okay. Ashley and Marita. Marita still feels unfulfilled.

Analyssa: Marita starts sobbing.

Analyssa: She says doesn’t wanna just be friends forever, which is to me an insane thing to say to your partner of years. They’re not just friends!

Riese: Yeah, they’ve had sex! Sexuals. I think as we’ve discussed, things aren’t going well. Haley and Pilar are still talking it out and Someone says, “I thought the grass was perfectly green with you.” That was sweet.

Analyssa: I think Haley says that, I think Pilar is like, is it just a grass is greener situation? And Haley was like, well before this I thought the grass was perfectly green. Which is lovely. They’re cute and they have a very funny conversation about what viewers at home might be saying about them, and they weren’t wrong.

Drew: I think that it shows the fact that they could work through this. The  fact that Pilar is like anyone watching this at home would say we shouldn’t be together. I’m like, you have no idea what’s going on in some, well, I guess they have some idea of what’s going on in some of these other couples, but like —

I’m gonna say something here, a theory, which is that for relationships to work, you need three things.

There’s like some more practical things.

Riese: A house in LA? Amazon Prime? A S’Mores kit?

Drew: You need to share a sense of humor, like be able to make each other laugh.

You have to be able to talk through conflict. Conflict is always gonna pop up. Youhave to be able to communicate through conflict well, and you have to have good kiss chemistry. These are the three things. If you’re someone who’s a sexual person, those are the things you need. Sexual chemistry can be found. Bodies are complicated, especially when you’re queer. But kiss chemistry? I’ve never been able to learn it.

So these are my, these are my three points that I think are the key to a happy, healthy relationship. And I’m seeing that from Pilar and Haley.

Riese: I think you’re right. I think that’s true. I love that theory and you should patent it.

Analyssa: Mel and Marie are at home talking about Mel wanting to be at Stay at Home Masc. My only other note from this is like, it doesn’t seem like she’s ever gonna talk about having hooked up with Dayna. Like that’s just so,

Riese: I wrote, “who doesn’t wanna be a stay at home masc?” I’d do that tomorrow.

Analyssa: I am really worried about what they will both do for work if they break up.

Riese: They could sell Cutco knives. Have I tried to talk about this before on the podcast?

Drew: I’m familiar with Cutco.

Analyssa: My best friend’s sister sold Cutco Knives right out of college and she’s young, so that was recent.

Riese: Well, I’m saying, it’s a career. I wrote “Maria’s trying so hard to get Mel to be a person.” I don’t know what’s going on there, but I love love.

Drew: Great.

Analyssa: The only other thing is in Magan and Dayna’s last conversation, Magan says she wants her life to be like Fast and Furious.

Riese: I want that for her too. I did think — “Oh, Drew will love this.”

Analyssa: I was like, this is for Drew.

Drew: Honestly, I’m over Magan at this point. I do think Fast and Furious is a franchise I very much enjoy, though I feel complicated about Vin Diesel due to recent things that have come out. It’s also the kind of franchise that I don’t necessarily feel an immediate affinity to people in the fandom.

Riese: Magan wants to have backyard barbecues of chosen family, just like in Fast and the Furious. Whenever I watch Better Things and she has all of her smart, creative friends over, that’s when I think I want my life to be like that, like on Better Things. But anyway, there are other barbecues.

Drew: Fast and Furious is like Better Things, if the way they formed bonds was in the previous movie, one of them was the villain and now they’re in the crew. That’s how it…

Riese: So like a hero-to-villain trope.

Drew: Yeah. Villain, villain to Barbecue was sort of the.

Riese: Wait, in Killing Eve, was her name Villanelle because of the word “villain”?

Drew: Yeah, and a villanelle in poetry. But yes, she’s literally a villain character named Vielle, and her obsession is Eve, the first woman. It’s not a subtle show, but it is a good one.

Riese: Okay so episode nine — the proposal episode. Wow. No one’s sure about anything and everyone feels differently, and everything is happening.

Drew: Yeah. It starts with a conversation, or the first thing I noted was a conversation between Magan and Haley. They meet up. Haley gives her a gift she’s like, “I already ordered this anyway,” which again, I very much enjoy Haley. The thing I had to say about this interaction is you fundamentally cannot get to know someone fully in three weeks. You cannot. We can all have different definitions of what love is. You cannot love someone in three weeks. You can have feelings, you can even fall in love. And I’ve said “I love you” very quickly in my relationships. I’m not… you can say anything, you can do anything, but what’s happening here is a very weird scenario created by this television program that forces you to cohabitate, and then you develop a real bond potentially, and that’s real. And you can have hurt feelings over it, but ultimately, it shouldn’t be surprising, specifically saying this to Haley, that the person who you really connected with for three weeks… it didn’t… You’re like, “Oh, I actually don’t know you fully.” It’s like, you could date someone for three years and not really know them fully.

Riese: Well, I fell in love with Magan in three weeks and, like Haley, felt betrayed by this conversation in which Magan said she feels differently and Haley didn’t give her and Dayna the space they needed. I feel like Magan is doing a complete turnaround and it’s very mean.

Just acknowledge you have what you had, but you’ve moved on. But don’t deny it happened. It happened! And we saw it.

Analyssa: It feels like Magan and Dayna have locked elbows and been, “We’re, this is it. We are putting a fence around this.”

Riese: This is the new story and this is the story we believe in going forward.

Analyssa: Which is further to me proven when Magan says to Haley, “if you want to be friends with me in the future, you owe an apology to Dayna.” Which is BEYOND.

Riese: Like, the fuck? For what?

Analyssa: For not respecting our relationship?

Riese: Insane!

Drew: Horrible.

Riese: At this point, I’m supposed to think Magan is a person who’s making choices with free will. I don’t know why I am not willing to accept that! But wild. It takes two to tango, my mom always says.

Drew: Yeah. It doesn’t mean that someone can’t be manipulative, but as a queer community in discourse, we really like to slot people into categories. It’d be very easy, and I’m sure we’ll see this and already have seen this in discussions of this show, to be like, “Dayna’s manipulative and Magan’s a victim.” Not to say that that can’t be possible, but I don’t think anything we’ve seen makes me think Dayna is some unique super-villain or even…

Magan’s making a choice to be with this person. Earlier, I think in the last episode, Haley said something like, “Oh, I thought Dayna was the issue, but maybe it’s Magan.” Two people can be the issue or neither can really be the issue. It’s not good guy, bad guy. That’s not how life is.

Riese: But speaking of good guys, AJ and Brittany! AJ proposes and Brittany says yes, and they’re happy.

Analyssa: It is really…

Drew: Very sweet.

Riese: It is cute. They look great. I’m rooting for them.

Drew: I feel they could make it, which I’m not sure I said about anyone last year.

Riese: Now Pilar is ready for marriage. This show is really good at getting people suddenly ready for marriage. I mean, I have to say, at this point, the shoe works.

Drew: Okay, I would like to… we’ll get to this in the reunion, but no one is married yet. They are engaged. This show’s very good at getting people ready for engagements.

Analyssa: But I will say, weddings are very expensive.

Drew: Oh, totally, totally.

Riese: [Laughter]

Drew: I’m just saying, let’s hold off before we give Netflix and The Ultimatum too much credit.

Riese: But for the straight people, it has worked. Most of them are married.

Analyssa: Whoa.

Riese: The vast majority. Yep.

Analyssa: Good for them.

Riese: Good for them. Yeah. Good for straight people. Yeah, good for them. Whatever. And Pilar has a great blowout. They’ve grown together and they call Haley’s dad and he’s happy, and I am happy for them.

Analyssa: They look really happy. Haley says the ring is exactly what she wanted, and I thought all the rings got distributed at the beginning of this experiment.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: So lucky she got the one she wanted, I guess.

Riese: She wanted one that Netflix picked out.

Riese: And isn’t Netflix kind of picking things out for all of us, if you think about it?

Drew: Maybe the exact ring she wanted was whatever ring that was given to her by Pilar!

Analyssa: Wow.

Drew: So it doesn’t matter.

Riese: Wasn’t there a point in this episode or another episode where they promoted a video game to us?

Drew: It’s at the end — at the very final moments in case your soul is still hanging on just a little bit. Just — BOOM!

Riese: Don’t worry!

Drew: Don’t worry.

Analyssa: You too could be involved in this!

Riese: Yes.

Drew: I was really happy for them and also — my unsolicited opinion, if these were L Word characters and not real people, would be that they should be non-monogamous.

That would be my advice. But I don’t know them in real life. And I also don’t know what happened in their little break. I just am always a little bit ehh with couples that have been together since they were really young. But maybe that’s just a me thing, maybe other people just wanna be with one person forever. It’s just that because Haley just had three weeks of being in love with someone else. I just still want Pilar to get to have — a throuple! Not even with Bridget and Kyle. I think she could do better. A little fling.

Riese: Yeah, they should. They should have a threesome with Alice Piasecki.

Drew: Who? Haley and Pilar?

Riese: Yes.

Drew: Sure. Okay.

Riese: Good, we agree. Ashley and Marita. A black cat is lurking around. She’s like, “Is that a bad sign?” Yeah.

Analyssa: Ashley gives a speech that is so close to proposing, and then at the end…

Riese: Big Love is Blind vibes there. Those at the altar moments.

Analyssa: And then at the end I was like, “But you know, I just can’t do it.” And Marita reveals that she was ready to propose, which I do think is a very easy thing to say when someone has not proposed to you. We don’t know that that’s true.

Riese: But it is an unscripted show, but every now and then some poetic dialogue gets in there, and her being like, “I would’ve said yes, I was gonna say yes.” I was just like, “Ah, this is your rom-com moment.”

Drew: Is now a good time to say that I wrote dialogue for The Ultimatum: Queer Love? I also wrote the lyrics for the song. I was really…

Riese: Oh my God. Is that why the 405 was mentioned in a song that played during Haley and Pilar’s convo? Because that took me out of the moment for sure. Kyle and Bridget. Bridget reiterates not understanding the point of marriage, but they say they’re going to get married. They’re

Analyssa: : They get married.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They got married right on the spot.

Drew: I’m not that interested in this couple, but I did find something interesting, which was when Bridget says that Kyle has wanted to go by fiancé because it’s the one gender-neutral term. Someone was just telling me that, I literally was having a conversation with a friend who got engaged and they were like, “And you know, the name of their partner is so excited because this is the one period of time where the words we refer to each other as are gender neutral.”

Riese: People should, yeah.

Drew: Obviously make up new things to call each other, but…

Riese: Maybe “fiancé” will be the next neo-pronoun.

Drew: Mm-hmm. Much to consider.

Riese: Magan and Dayna. First, Netflix replays Magan telling Haley that she’s in love with her, just so we all remember that happening. And then…

Drew: Also during this montage, the lyric — because I’m always listening to those beautiful lyrics — is, “Show me how I can live my life if we can’t be open.” Which I thought was a funny thing for a show that pretends that non-monogamy doesn’t exist.

Riese: At this point in my viewing experience, Jude was being really fussy. So I took Jude and Gretchen began taking notes for me on the program.

Drew: Hmm. Oh, fun.

Riese: Yeah. So here we have: “Mel looks like she’s cater-waitering a child’s golf tournament. Mel’s nervous because Dayna is an asshole. Mel’s in deep with Dayna, but Dayna’s heart is closed for business. Mel is crushed. Mel doesn’t want a friendship. Dayna’s boobs are out. Wow, wow, wow. So frustrating.” She wrote in all caps.

Drew: So frustrating that Dayna’s…

Analyssa: Boobs are out?

Riese: Oh, just the whole thing. Mel got a ring for Marie because that’s what Marie wants.

Drew: Well, okay, wait, before we… I love these notes from Gretchen. Don’t mean to interrupt, but Dayna says the letter that Mel wrote her was the most beautiful letter anyone has ever written her.

Riese: She should have heard what Brian Krakow wrote for Jordan Catalano to give to Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, and then he might rethink that.

Drew: yeah, I guess I don’t have much to add beyond that.

Analyssa: I’ve missed the opportunity a few times to point out Dayna’s insistence on telling people how they feel and what they want. Because when Mel is like, “I don’t want to be friends,” she calls her a liar and is like, “Yes, you do. You do want that.” Again, in toxic situations that you’re trying to walk away from, you can project a lot. I’m speaking from personal experience. You can project a lot and be like, “Well, they really want to be with me. They’re just scared.” Whatever. But what they’re saying to you is they don’t want to be with you, so you just have to kind of grow up and let that go. Dayna does it a lot with Magan, sometimes with Haley, with Mel especially earlier when they were trial wives. Dayna’s like, “You don’t not want marriage. You’re just scared.”

Riese: I think that works both ways too with people like her. When you’re saying it in a positive way, like, “Oh, you want this,” or “You do this, but it’s a good thing,” then that makes… or it’s real, it’s true, then that makes me feel like, “Oh my God, this person who I just met really understands me,” because she’s telling me how I feel and it’s accurate and positive, and it makes me feel good about myself. So it’s a very interesting way to be a person, and that’s not the kind of person that I personally have a good time with anymore in my life.

Drew: Yeah, I just hope that the queer community will not lose sight of the fact that Dayna, at least the character Dayna, is very annoying and unpleasant to be around. And that doesn’t have to mean that she’s abusive or any sort of horrible, toxic, she shouldn’t date anyone ever, we should cancel her and chase her off the internet with pitchforks. She can simply be quite unpleasant. And so many people are.

Analyssa: Yeah, sometimes people are just hard to be around and unpleasant, bordering on mean, and that’s okay.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Mel says to Dayna that she has a ring, and Dayna’s like, “Well, is it because it’s what you want or because it’s what Marie wants?” And Mel says, “It’s because it’s what Marie wants.”

Riese: Like, Dayna, why are you still meddling? You’re about to go get married.

Drew: Once again, I’m asking this question, “Does Mel know that this is being filmed?” It’s an interesting thing from your interview with Mal about how, as it goes on, you sort of forget some of the cameras because they’re around so much, and that’s a technique of reality TV, et cetera. But Mel being like, “I’m gonna propose because that’s what Marie wants, but I don’t really want that, and I’m sad that you don’t want to talk to me more, and you’re back with Magan.” I’m like, this is going to be seen. If you propose to Marie a year from now, there’s going to be problems. Anyway, then you’re right. Magan is proposing. I wrote, “Magan proposing, my God, yikes.”

Analyssa: And then Dayna proposes back.

Riese: Then Mel says she learned a lot about herself. Marie says they’ve grown so much. Okay. And Mel got her a ring pop.

Analyssa: Oh my God, the ring pop.

Riese: Ring pops. So many flavors and colors!

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know if maybe if I’d seen a different couple, I would feel differently about this, but it felt a little bit like your relationship is not steady enough for you to be doing bits during the proposal. I don’t know about this one. I don’t even take proposals that seriously, or any of it that seriously, but I think given everything that’s been happening, you might want to put the Ring Pop away and get the real ring out first.

Analyssa: No, but it’s like last season when Aussie and Sam were like, Aussie was so commitment avoidant and then was like, “So penguins give each other rocks, so I found you a rock.” It’s like, okay.

Riese: They’re still together and happy. They give advice to other couples about how to be better.

Drew: Honestly, here’s the thing though, when I was giving the most dating advice out in my twenties, I think about that sometimes, and I’m like, “Wow.” I mean, some of the things I said were pretty good, but it’s wild to me that I was allowed to get on the internet and give dating advice.

Riese: We let a lot of people say a lot of things on the internet.

Drew: When I think about the things that I was…

Riese: Advice is pretty benign.

Drew: I mean, it was a real, “Do what I say, not what I do,” situation. And now, look, ultimately I eventually listened to myself and now I’m in a very happy relationship.

Analyssa: Right. Sometimes you have to learn to take your own advice. You probably were giving good advice, just not to yourself.

Drew: The last thing I’ll say about this before we get into the reunion is it is edited to be like, “Yay, love.” And I just think that I could get more on board with a reality television program—

Riese: Boo, love?

Drew: No, not boo love… that didn’t take the circumstances we see and smash it into these boxes. Because that’s actually what’s happening here. This show had to know that by the time we get to the reunion, the chances of Marie and Mel being together were slim. So this music, the cues and everything sort of going to this thing of like, “Love conquers all.” They even do this in the reunion, and it is very annoying to me in some ways. But it just gets, I guess, to the heteronormativity of the whole thing and the structure of this show. Anyway, speaking of, should we get into the reunion?

Riese: We should.

Analyssa: Boy, should we!

Riese: Once again, I have Gretchen’s notes.

Riese shows Gretchen’s notes to Drew + Analyssa

Drew: Wow!

Analyssa: Her handwriting is so cute.

Riese: I know. I love her handwriting!

Drew: Great handwriting.

Riese: She wrote “Reunion episode for Love is Gay Blind.” Okay,

Analyssa: So we messed up the title when we introduced the episode today.

Riese: I’ll tell you what. I did not think Magan and Dayna were still gonna be together.

Analyssa: I didn’t either. And I also thought that Kyle and Bridget would be like, “We are still together, but we’re not engaged.”

Riese: Interesting.

Analyssa: I just had a feeling that they would kind of, to the point we’ve been making of the… it’s like on The Bachelor too, the rules don’t always fit. And I like sometimes when people are like, “We love each other and we want to be together, but this game, the rules weren’t right for us.” And I thought if anybody was gonna be that, it was gonna be Kyle and Bridget.

Drew: Well, then how could Kyle prove to their parents that…?

Analyssa: That they’ve got it all together.

Drew: Yeah, if they’re not engaged, so.

Riese: So this reunion was chaotic and full of drama. Also interesting because after the first Ultimatum, Aussie and Sam were still together at the reunion, but everyone else had broken up. So I was prepared for a similar level of carnage here and surprised to see it was just Marie and Mel. And obviously Marita and Ashley, but also Marie and Mel. We open with AJ and Brit. The relationship is better. It appears. Gretchen would like them to have a threesome with Marita.

Drew: Well, they credit Marita for keeping their relationship working, which I didn’t necessarily see on camera, but love that for them. Love that for Marita.

Analyssa: I think that’s a really sweet, full circle of Marita in The Choice was devastated by AJ, and then ended up with Brittany kind of by accident, and they had a really lovely time. I thought that was very sweet that now she knows them both pretty well and got to play a role. They do spend some time on the AJ dating period of it, and the way everyone keeps being like, “Well, the issue is that she was being really sexual.” We did not see that. I’m sorry, but my definition of being very sexual in dating, in flirting, is not what we saw from AJ. I truly… I was so mad at all of these prudes for acting like she had done something so horrendous. Also, I don’t even know, I don’t need to make it political, but I don’t understand watching this, and maybe something happened off camera that I didn’t see, but to be like, “AJ was just so sexual,” and saying it in this way where it was like something was done wrong. I’m just…

Riese: Right? They’re supposed to flirt.

Drew: Grow up.

Riese: One thing that becomes clear throughout the reunion is that AJ and Brittany were in touch a lot more than we saw. Even Ashley being like, “I was out there with my dog. You guys were always together.” Because we saw AJ immediately switch, and I wonder if the way things went down at The Choice made it that AJ was sort of shamed so much for what was happening that in order to save the relationship with Brittany, she had to opt out of the whole experience in a major way immediately. Even as it was ongoing. AJ’s experience was not a trial marriage. AJ’s experience was dating. They all saw how that went and decided, “Okay, no, you’re off the market. Let’s get it back together.” And they, by the way, look at everyone’s outfits. I think they really killed it. The dress that Brittany’s pulling off is incredible, honestly. So.

Drew: Then we go to Marie, and Marie’s quite angry at AJ and Brittany, and it feels a little bit… also, just watching Marie this whole time, it was so miserable. She just feels very traumatized and very…

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Sad. It was very not fun. Not in a reality TV way fun. It was just very miserable to watch. But I was a little bit like, “Your anger’s misplaced.” And then it’s revealed later that AJ and Brittany are pals with Magan and Dayna, and I was like, “Oh, okay. This makes more sense why there’s more animosity from Marie towards AJ.”

Analyssa: Yeah. And I think it’s fair to be irritated or even a little bit angry, and I think Brittany and AJ say this, “We get that you might be upset by that. We did what we had to do, and we’re really sorry that that’s impacted your relationship.” I mean, maybe they don’t exactly say that, but…

Riese:  So we know that they see the show right before their reunion, right? Like they saw this yesterday and now they’re reunited. My sense is that for Marie, I think the thing that made her feel betrayed by watching it — and maybe I’m projecting, actually, definitely I am, but I think I’m correct — is that Mel telling people, “I’m telling you this thing about myself, about my health, or not having kids, and I haven’t told this to anybody, or I haven’t told this to Marie.” And I think seeing your partner of four years tell people that you are not a trustworthy receptacle of information about their physical health and their ability to have is so, so hurtful and insulting. It’s almost more hurtful and insulting than cheating, because that’s about becoming into somebody else. It’s more hurtful because that’s character slander in a way to be like, “Yeah, I can’t tell. I haven’t told her this.” And also it was cheesy, because as Mel was telling people this, I’m like, “You just told that to someone else. Why are you acting like this is exclusive information?” I think that’s why she felt the most betrayed.

Analyssa: Which, yeah, which they fight about when it comes their turn to discuss what went wrong. And she’s…

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Again, kind of pointing to like, “I’m your partner. I’ve looked into everything that’s…”

Riese: You think, I don’t know.

Analyssa: “I’ve researched as much as I can,” all that stuff. So I think that’s probably definitely in there. Also…

Drew: Didn’t we get to the real surprise, which is Ashley and Marita? I didn’t know they had this in them. Honestly, I was a little bit bored of them the whole time, and then they did this and.. I don’t grasp what happened between them. I know it involved…

Riese: She was like, my grandpa’s dying.

Drew: And I know that at one point Marita says, “and that’s gaslighting”

Riese: And it was not! It was not gaslighting!

Analyssa: You know what that is? Gaslighting? Nope, wrong.

Riese: Yes. “I actually fucking hate you,” Marita said to Ashley

Analyssa: It sounds like both people have grandparents dying. We’re hurling… I mean, I think when you get to this level…

Riese: You should not be… you cannot be bringing your grandpa’s name into this Netflix reunion. You…

Analyssa: “Are we talking about my grandpa?”

Riese: I don’t know what happened with them. It is wild.

Analyssa: So Marita says that Ashley asked her dad for his blessing. So Marita, I think, went into proposal day assuming that Ashley was going to propose. I think that’s incident number one.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Riese: Uh-huh.

Analyssa: Then it sounds like they broke up on the show. We saw that. After the show, they did a trip together where Ashley was kind of like, “Let’s still be together. The show doesn’t matter. Let’s, you know, be us.” Then maybe they were confused. My best read is that they were confused about whether that meant they were together, because Marita is accusing Ashley of cheating and Ashley is saying we weren’t together at that time. Everyone’s kind of getting involved on the side trying to parse it. It gets crazy in there.

Drew: A real classic Ross and Rachel, “We were on a break” situation.

Riese: Well, and then Ashley is like, “You cheated on me five times. I could name all the people,” and I’m like, “Name the people! Let’s get ’em in here! Stop talking about your grandpa! Leave him! Leave him out of it!”

Analyssa: Yeah, so Marita is like, “My grandpa was dying and Ashley cheated on me during that.” And Ashley in retort says, “Well, now my grandpa is dying,” which is an insane direction to take that claim.

Riese: Yes. And then Marita at one point storms off the set.

Drew: Well, Ashley…

Analyssa: No. Ashley storms off.

Riese: Ashley.

Drew: Because Marita says, “I don’t…” What does she say? I don’t want to misquote her, but she says, “I don’t care about your grandpa,” or something. It gets…

Analyssa: Which even… which causes all the rest of the cast to be like…

Drew: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don’t mean that. You don’t mean that. You don’t mean…”

Riese: “You love her, grandpa, Marita. Don’t talk about Earl like that.” Mel runs after Ashley.

Analyssa: Mel runs after Ashley. Marie inserts herself a lot. There are a lot of very confusing players in this, but Brittany and AJ go to comfort Marita, which makes sense given what we just learned about them. And then Mel runs off to hug Ashley.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: And then they come back, and Joanna, Joanna Garcia Swisher is like, “Well…”

Riese: “Everyone has their own perspective.”

Analyssa: Hmm.

Drew: Wait, can I just say that I accidentally called Joanna Garcia Swisher, “Joanna Kara Swisher,” in the first… the first…

Analyssa: I thought you were making a joke.

Riese: I did too. I thought you did it on purpose.

Drew: I learned that you both thought I was making a joke, which maybe I should just run with it, but I really wasn’t. It was in my notes as that because of the famous…

Riese: Lesbian.

Drew: I don’t actually know who Kara Swisher is, except that she’s a lesbian. But imagine if she was the host!

Riese: Yeah, exactly. That’s what they should do. They should be like, “We have a new Swisher in town.” You know, they could do a tie-in with Swiffer.

Analyssa: They kind of talk about Bridget. Marita’s like, “I don’t appreciate Bridget convincing Ashley to reverse the ultimatum,” which I think it was very clear that Bridget was joking and that was something they joked about in their trial marriage. But tensions are so high that I think let’s just let her have that.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: This is the last time I’m going to be defending Bridget on this podcast episode, but I do think it’s pretty clear that she was responding to the things Ashley was saying. You are… you’re not convincing someone to break up with the person. If someone says, “I think I might not want to be with this person,” and you go, “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t be with that person,” you have not convinced them to do anything.

Riese: No one should be that easily convinced.

Analyssa: Would Bridget have an agenda of breaking up two people that she just met three weeks ago at Max? Like there’s…

Riese: Yeah. She didn’t have…

Analyssa: And Joanna is like, “So do you guys think you’ll ever reconcile?” Which I think is a grave misstep. They should not. I don’t think we should be promoting that at all.

Mel says the relationship is non-existent with like such a shit eating grin on her face that I felt instant rage. Like I was so upset during this whole thing. And when it pans to Marie and you can tell she’s feeling rage, I was like, “you know what? I understand.”

Riese: You know who else understood, according to these notes? At this point in time, Jude pooped his pants. All the way through his onesie through to his bouncer. “That’s how full of shit these people are,” Gretchen wrote.

Analyssa: Jude knew the vibe.

Drew: Even a generous read — like Mel’s clearly uncomfortable. I mean, it was clearly a coping mechanism, and that’s my most generous read. It’s still just, all of this is so unpleasant, and Dayna being so calm in her relationship is also… I was concerned about Marie throughout all of it. The good thing is that they broke up a couple months after the episodes. I was very worried about them watching the episodes still together. So they broke up a couple months after. And then we get into the whole playlist shenanigans. L

Analyssa: Which kind of seems like maybe it’s nothing?

Riese: People don’t seem to think it was a big deal and I still buy it.

Analyssa: The thing that is critical is like they did hook up, and I don’t appreciate what happens next, which is that we do a montage of “what do queer people think is sex?”

Riese: Joanna should have had to answer that! She should have been put on the spot, Joanna.

Analyssa: I just think it doesn’t matter that we all have the same definition of sex. Even a little bit. They did something that was beyond — there’s so much like technicality here and Mel even is like, “Well, by whose definition? He, he, hee.”

Riese: Well, Mel wants to tell the truth, I think,

Drew: Oh, you can tell that.

Riese: Mel is just bursting with it.

Drew: It’s also a thing of the emotions. The combination of emotionally connecting, as Mel and Dayna clearly did, and it getting physical to some extent. The sex acts do not matter. This is my general take: if you are talking to someone, this happens in media all the time where there are two people talking, and they’re like, “We can’t hook up. We’re coworkers, we’re each married, we can’t hook up, but we’re going to go out to eat together and lie to our partners about where we are and look at each other across the table.” But then at the end of the movie or TV season, it’s like they didn’t hook up, they’re so strong. I’m like, “You were just doing a weird kink thing.” This is sex. My definition of sex is whatever is happening right here where you’re sitting across the table, toes touch, but then you won’t let yourself have sex, but you’re talking about how you really want to have sex. This is a bigger betrayal than if you went out to a club and made out with someone, or went home with them and had, you know, all the sex. This highlights that this is a very narrow show. This is The Ultimatum: Queer Love. It’s really The Ultimatum: Cisgender Queer Love.

Riese: Cisgender queer love.

Drew: Yeah, with a few maybe non-binary people that we don’t talk about. Look, I’m not saying I want trans women on this show. In some ways, it’s kind of like…

Analyssa: Save them from this.

Drew: I’m sort of like, “Should trans women be allowed to be on this show?”

Riese: Or the military?

Drew: Yeah. I’ll give an added asterisk to military: people’s health insurance is at risk, and the military targets lower-income neighborhoods. I’ll also add an asterisk to that: in the military, you kill people. I don’t think anyone was killed on The Ultimatum: Queer Love.

Riese: Well, someone’s Grandpa.

Drew: I don’t think we’re allowed to make those jokes.

Riese: I’m allowed to make death jokes because I have had the worst deaths.

Drew: that’s so true. You are allowed to make death jokes. I will let it stand. All this to say, what’s fascinating to me about that exclusionary aspect of the show is it actually feels like they all have a very… I was a little bit like, I was waiting for them to be like, “Well, actually, sex is just when a penis goes into a vagina, so none of us could cheat on anyone.” I was so fascinated by them basically being like, “As queer people, we can’t really have sex and it really doesn’t matter. So you can’t really cheat.” It was so baffling and honestly, not that I ever care about this, but invalidating towards their queerness and towards queer relationships. Anyway, whatever.

Analyssa: Marie is like, “I think anything that’s intimate is sex.” And I was like, “Great.” There were some that were like, “Well, unless mouths are involved…”

Riese: Yeah, I think it was Mel or maybe Dayna who I’m like, “You guys are just fitting your definitions to get ou  Of what you did!”

Analyssa: Shape out of what sex is so that theirs is not included. They’re gerrymandering the sex definition.

Drew: Well I learned from a recent Autostraddle article that there’s a lot of people out there who don’t ever wanna do oral. So there’s a whole world.

Should we move on to Bridget and Kyle?

Riese: Oh, you don’t wanna go into the montage of their pets that somebody decided to subject us to?

Drew: No

Riese: Kyle and Bridget are still together. Kyle’s mom says, “because I knew you, I’ve been changed for good,” which is the second time those lyrics have been peddled to us this television season.

‘’Cause that also happened on And Just Like That! Um, so I don’t know what to say about them besides that Bridget has cute hair.

Analyssa: Bridget says, “I finally came to the conclusion, this matters a lot to the person that I love, and it doesn’t matter that much to me. So I’m on board.” And I was like, “Thank you. That makes sense.”

Riese: Yes, thanks for listening to the pod.

Analyssa: Yeah. Thank you for hearing our pod and concluding we were correct.

Riese: Correct.

Analyssa: Haley and Pilar are also still engaged.

Riese: They’re going to elope, they’re living authentically.

Analyssa: Pilar has kind of just detached value from connecting with her parents, which is on one hand sad, and on the other hand seems to be very good for her, and she feels empowered and confident about it. I think that’s a really good outcome for…

Riese: Yeah. People will push you as far as you let them, and that’s what she learned by taking Haley to her cousin’s wedding, just being like, “This is my fiancée,” and realizing that when you don’t give them the space they need to hate you.

Analyssa: They talk about their kiss. It seems like it was all just like a mistake.

Drew: Bridget’s still pissed and.

Analyssa: Bridget does react pretty

Drew: I think for someone whose whole thing, for someone whose whole thing during her and Kyle’s section was like, “Bridget is so kooky. Bridget is so crazy. Bridget is so weird.” I was like, “She cannot even handle…”

Riese: They just meant by that she is in the gig economy.

Analyssa: She’s an artist. She’s creative. Yeah.

Drew: I don’t know. I was very… I was very over that. I think I’m a bit of a Bridget-Kyle characters hater.

Riese: I have no negative feelings.

Analyssa: I don’t either. I feel fine.

Riese: I I feel… Dayna and Magan, we have to see a montage of that. That’s fine.

Drew: If I was Magan’s formerly homophobic family that’s working on it and I saw any part of the show, it would make me homophobic again so quickly.

Analyssa: Well, Dayna even says that, she’s like, “We really went on this show thinking it would show how good we were,” which to that I say, “Whoa, that’s a crazy thing to have thought.” And obviously it didn’t go that way. I don’t know. I can’t tell what has happened, but they do seem more on the same page. So I…

Riese: They seem happy.

Analyssa: I guess, yeah, they seem happy. And I guess in the vein of, I love love and especially love for queer people, I’m like, “Great. I love that.” For…

Riese: Love is, yeah.

Analyssa: It is surprising to me. Dayna mentions that having seen all this back, she can adjust based on what she has seen. Which I was like, “Actually, that’s mature.” That’s a good read. It’s like when you listen to your voice and you’re like, “Do I really sound like that?” She’s seeing weeks of footage of her being intense, to say the least, and seeing there’s adjustments to be made.

Riese: Gretchen wrote, “Dayna says she has a lot to work on, and we finally agree on something.”

Analyssa: That’s how I felt.

Drew: I said sigh. I guess I’m rooting for Dayna too. Mostly rooting for this show to get canceled.

Riese: Why do you want every show we try to do a podcast for to get canceled?

Drew: Why can’t we ever do a show that’s good? Like, no one cares about any of the good shows, and I honestly had a bit of an emotional crisis over the last couple weeks because of this show. I know, I know!

It’s just like media is so broken and Hollywood is so broken. Look, I am literally recording a podcast about this show, so I cannot judge anyone for caring about the show, talking about the show, writing about this show. But it’s just like when I look at the numbers that the coverage we do for this show versus the coverage we do of really good stuff that’s even still fun. I just, I feel deep despair about this show, which honestly, I guess I felt that way about Gen Q too. So I’m really just the person who is… sorry! I’m here. I just… I feel really depressed. I really don’t know what to do with. I just also like, Are You the One? Season 8 was fun queer reality TV that didn’t make me want to die, and that felt actually queer, and we didn’t get another Are You the One? Come One, Come All season? And it makes me really sad. I just wish we had more of that. If we’re going to be obsessing over a reality TV show, let it be the one where there’s a wide range of queer experiences, where they’re having a fivesome, where it’s good. This show just feels so nasty and sad. Maybe we can pivot from that to talking about all of them praising the show having a straight host, and…

Riese: I, for one, love this show and want it to get a million more seasons. I find it incredibly entertaining. I’m not even just doing it like Gen Q where I was like, “I’m doing it for the hits. Gotta get the hits.” I would watch this show even if we weren’t. I mean, I watched it last season. I didn’t write about, did I? Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I like this show, but it is sad that everything you said is true. It is sad though. But would anyone have listened to our Transparent podcast?

Analyssa: I would have at that time!

Drew: Oh yeah. In 2014, 2015, 2016. When there was an industry out there for queer media that wasn’t… I mean, not that Transparent‘s a perfect show by any means, but that was an exciting time. That was like, things were starting to happen and Pose came out. It really felt like, “Oh, wow.”

Riese: One Mississippi, Vida…

Drew: One Mississippi was so good. Vida‘s the best show ever. When does P-Valley come back? That’s not a show that I would host a podcast for, but it is a show that I would listen to a podcast for, and it is, I think, the best show on TV.

Riese: Well, in conclusion, I, for some reason, was genuinely moved by AJ and Kara’s conversation about how no one gives her enough credit. And I teared up.

Analyssa: I did not tear up, but I did think it was sweet. I thought it was a sweet ending, not because of praising Joanna Kara Garcia Swisher, but because it seems to get everybody else on the same page. And something we didn’t talk about earlier is Kyle kind of casually reveals that none of them have really spoken since.

Riese: Well, some of them are still friends.

Analyssa: Some of them are still friends, but that they kind of all ended in not really good places with each other, which I thought makes sense. And now after they’ve praised their straight mom, they’re like, “Maybe we could all go for a drink.” And they hug. The only person who leaves early is Marie.

Riese: Did you notice that? When they cut she was like —

Analyssa: She’s booking it out! She’s not doing the hugs with everybody!

Drew: Hashtag I’m with her.

Riese: I feel like if I was her, I could imagine that the next day I’d wake up and be like, “FUCK, I wish I could do that all over again,” because I would’ve known  I went into it with my blood boiling, and when that’s happening, I have minimal control over what I’m about to say or do. But also I think everything that she felt was legitimate. You know, I think everybody’s feelings about everything are legitimate — but I do not think Joanna Kara Swisher should do the wedding for AJ and Brittany.

Analyssa: I do hope they get to a place where Dayna and Magan and Haley and Pilar can all be invited. If that’s what Brittany and AJ desire. Although, once you start looking at guest lists for a wedding, I’ll tell you, you start being like, maybe we could cut those people?

Riese: Are you inviting us to your wedding?

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: Thank you. Okay.

Drew: Wow okay, very on the spot. I was gonna say it would be an honor to be invited, but no pressure!

Riese: It’s okay. It’s okay. You don’t have to.

Analyssa: Well currently the guest lists is 300 people. So.

Drew: Oh, okay. Well, if it was 300 people and I wasn’t invited, I’d be offended. But, but I, my thing about weddings, people that could invite me, don’t invite me. There’s a very small group of people where if I wasn’t invited, I would be deeply offended. It’s maybe two people. Like, it’s your wedding. Have it as big or small — invite who you want.

Riese: I get offended.

Drew: Really?

Riese: I do.

Drew: I guess I’ve just like, people get offended about not getting plus ones all the time…

Analyssa: I’ve never gotten offended about not having a plus one.

Riese: I think it’s ’cause I frequently do think I’m closer to someone than it turns out they feel like they are to me. So it’s really about hurt, it hurts me. Like, it’s about me not realizing where I stand with them, you know.

Analyssa: hmm.

Riese: To end it on a sad note!

Drew: Engagements are long. I don’t know if I’d want a long engagement. I sort of feel like once I’m engaged, I kind of wanna be married. But that means I can’t have a big wedding, obviously.

Analyssa: Yeah, if we wanted to like, elope, we would do it soon and be married. But once you start thinking about planning a wedding, a big wedding, that type of event, venues are booked out. You have to do catering, you have to do like all this shit. I would like a year and a half to plan for that and pay for that. But in my ideal world, we would get married a lot sooner than we’re thinking, but it’s not seeming possible.

Riese: On the note of things ending sooner. Do we have any last notes? Besides that, never on any season of Ultimatum or Love is Blind has anyone ever thanked Nick and Vanessa for anything. And I think that we know why. And it’s because they are bad at their jobs.

Drew: Um, I just wanna remind everyone that if you enjoyed the experience and you wanna feel more involved, that you can play the new Ultimatum Queer Love game that’s available now on Android and iOS. You can feel like you’re part of the action. And we don’t even have a sponcon deal with this.

Analyssa: I hope the pod has convinced you that you want to be a part of the action!

Riese: If you wanna be a REAL part of the action, you should join our membership program AF+. ‘Cause otherwise, who knows how much longer we’re gonna exist!

Drew: To take a note from AJ’s book. I’m gonna say that Drew might end it all if, if people don’t start supporting media beyond the Queer Ultimatum.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Drew is very tired and very sad, but also so happy to be with Drew’s pals, you know!

Analyssa: Drew’s doing the best Drew can.

Drew: Drew’s doing the best Drew can and she’s  mostly happy to be here with the two of you. If One Mississippi ever comes back, let’s do a podcast about it.

Riese: Oh, that was such a good show!

Analyssa: It was so good.

Riese: Okay. Well, everyone’s gay. And bisexual.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!