Warning: This story contains spoilers from the first six episodes of “Love Is Blind” Season 8, now streaming on Netflix.
On the heels of “Love Is Blind” celebrating its fifth anniversary, Season 8 kicked off on Friday with the first six episodes — almost all taking place in the pods for the first time.
In the first half of the season, five couples get engaged after many very serious conversations, including LGBTQ+ rights and Black Lives Matter opinions (or lack of, in Ben’s case). For the first time in “Love Is Blind” history, the most-shown conversations are between people who don’t get engaged.
While the first six episodes are streaming now, episodes 7-9 will be released on Feb. 21, 10-11 will be out Feb. 28 and the finale will drop March 7. Kinetic Content CEO and “Love Is Blind” creator Chris Coelen breaks down the format changes, upping the game in the music department and more.
This season spent a ton of time in the pods — six episodes! Was that the plan or was it just how the edit worked out/what was too good to cut?
It’s always how the edit works out. We film everything and then we go back and look at how we got there. We put the pieces together. As always, we’re trying to pick the stories that resonate and that we feel are worthy of telling because they lean into authenticity. When we first started making the show, the pods were a couple of episodes. People love the pods. It’s crazy to think about Season 1, Lauren and Cameron were doing the reveal at the end of episode 1. Looking back… that’s so fast! But there are real, intense, incredible love stories that unfold in really fascinating ways in the pods. There are unbelievable love triangles. When we first started making the show, we thought we didn’t have time to tell stories of love triangles. But we now embrace the fact that it’s incredibly emotional, dramatic, messy and aspirational.
When you look at the story of Madison, Alex, Mason and Meg in the pods… we’ve never told a story that didn’t make it out of the pods before. And I think it’s really exciting to do that because people will always ask, “What else happened? Who else did the date?” We can never make a show to show everything, but showing some of the other stuff that happens in the pods is just incredibly entertaining. I could probably make 30 episodes of pods and it would be fascinating.
I ask this every season: Were there any couples who got engaged that you couldn’t follow this time?
There were two other engaged couples we didn’t follow.
Lauren O’Brien and Molly Mulaney in episode 805.
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
This season started with Vanessa Lachey saying that there are more people here than ever. How did you guys find a way to tell the amount of stories you did?
We told more stories than we’ve ever told. We told the stories of 16 people this season, which is why we have more pod episodes.
It seems like this season, the participants seem to be a bit more mature and aware that there are mutual connections, love triangle-type situations happening. Is that an evolution that you guys have noticed too?
Well, it all depends on the group of people. You see a season like Seattle, which I think was one of the most mature seasons we had. But it was also the season of the mean girls with Micah and Irina. People assumed that producers were orchestrating lounge drama and we weren’t. My point is that two things can be equally true — one of the most mature seasons and there was also a very juvenile thing happening in the pods. Every single group of people have their own vibe. This was a really supportive group.
I have to say, you guys upped the music game this season — we had a great Billie Eilish needle drop. Was that a conscious change?
Of course! it’s our fifth anniversary, and music has always been such a big part of the show. We decided to creatively lean into celebrating the great love songs — not all of them, obviously, there’s no way to get every great love song in there. But we got a lot of terrific love songs. There are a lot of songs that we’ve talked about that we didn’t get a chance to use that I’m hoping in future seasons we will. So much of our experiences around love come from love songs and music. It is evocative of our feelings. Being able to incorporate some of these great songs and great artists into the show is really exciting, and hopefully an elevating, entertaining experience for the audience.
How was casting in Minneapolis in comparison to past seasons?
I thought it was great. A lot of the participants feel like even though there are a lot of people that live in the metropolitan area of the Twin Cities, but it has a small-town feel. A lot of people know a lot of people. Fortunately, nobody knew each other, but there are some connections, which you’ll see. Overall, I think it was great, and we’d love to go back there at some point. It was a terrific group and has everything that the greatest “Love Is Blind” seasons have.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
