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Six couples got engaged in the pods, but only five are headed to Mexico after the first batch of episodes.
The pods opened for 30 Boston singles and love was on the other side of the wall.
Netflix released the first five episodes of “Love Is Blind” Season 11 on Oct. 14, introducing us to an older-than-usual cast with established careers, previous engagements, and strong opinions about marriage.
For the uninitiated, “Love Is Blind” is a dating show in which singles build relationships through a wall and can meet face-to-face only after getting engaged. From there, the couples vacation together, move in together, meet each other’s families, and ultimately decide whether to say “I do.”
I’m Zipporah Osei, audience engagement editor at Boston.com, and day-one viewer of the show. I binged season one during the early days of the pandemic and have followed every season since, waiting patiently for the pods to come to New England. From now until the season concludes, I’m bringing you into the world of gold wine glasses and declarations of love. Read my weekly recaps and sign up here for a newsletter with more observations, Boston reality checks, and altar odds.
With five episodes, six proposals, and five couples headed to Mexico, there’s a lot to cover. Here’s where every couple stands after the pods — plus, the best Boston moments of the season so far.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
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Meet the Boston singles entering the ‘Love is Blind’ pods
Who got engaged on “Love Is Blind” Boston?
John and Sarah
Our first couple to get engaged starts off on an almost comically bad note: After their second chat, Sarah overhears John saying that he’s just spoken to his “bottom two” connection. He apologizes when she calls him out, but it’s not the most romantic beginning for the season’s first match.
Sarah’s other connection is Morrey, a Southie bouncer/boxer/cornhole entrepreneur. They share a love for the Ben Affleck movie “The Town” — also a favorite of Boston.com readers — and their flirtation quickly takes on a playful rhythm.
Before long, though, Sarah finds herself more drawn to John. While their conversations have helped break down Morrey’s “tough-guy attitude,” Sarah says she doesn’t want to have to change him or “be his teacher.” Morrey, who’s already had a dramatic breakup with Benita, takes it on the chin and sees himself out of the pods.
(The others guys named Morrey the most Boston cast member, but because he doesn’t get engaged, we’ll leave him here. Newsletter subscribers, however, can expect a fuller accounting of his memorable pod run.)
With Morrey gone, Sarah and John go deeper. John shares his recent multiple sclerosis diagnosis, worried that it’ll be a dealbreaker, but Sarah is undeterred. They bond over “Harry Potter” and The Fray, but there are some compatibility issues. John is religious, while Sarah says religion isn’t important to her. The couple also have a conversation about the healthcare industry, where John expresses COVID vaccine skepticism and concerns about late-term abortions. And while he is receptive to Sarah’s pushback as a healthcare worker, the two don’t seem to be on the same page here.
But love is blind to red flags, so the two get engaged. They’re both happy at the reveal, but I’m left wondering whether their openness to debate can bridge a genuine values gap.
Blake and Erika
Yacht captain Blake finds himself in a love triangle between two very different women. Erika, the easygoing marketing specialist, has been married before and is looking for real chemistry in her next marriage. Benita, an Albanian refugee who escaped the Kosovo War as a child and now lives in Cambridge, is immediately charmed by Blake’s love of “feisty” Balkan women like herself.
What the women have in common, however, is skepticism about his nomadic lifestyle. Erika asks some practical questions: How much time would he spend away? How would a wife or family fit into that lifestyle? Blake insists he’s ready to be married — as long as his wife-to-be is ready to sail away with him.
He juggles the relationships for a while, until Benita, sensing that his connection to Erika is stronger than he’s letting on, tells him that she values exclusivity over everything else. (It’s difficult to imagine why she thought a 30-person speed dating experiment would be the right choice for her, but alas.) By this point, we’ve already seen Benita’s connection with Morrey come to a combative end over his noncommittal attitude, so the writing is on the wall: They break up and Blake chooses Erika.
At their reveal, she’s relieved to find his hairstyle is more fashion mullet than Joe Dirt, and despite Blake saying that he was prepared for Erika to be “absolutely terrifying-looking,” he does call her beautiful. They’re off to Mexico.
Cam and Aneha
Our youngest lovebirds get together without much conflict. Cam, 28, is an HR generalist who lives in Dorchester and Aneha, who turned 27 four days before entering the pods, is a principal engineer at a biotech company who says there’s more to her than her bubbly personality suggests. The two bond over spirituality, travel, and corny jokes. (“What do you call an Irishman bouncing off the walls? Rick O’Shea!”)
Cam also has a connection with portfolio analyst Malaine, but he quickly decides on Aneha. His proposal is sweet and straightforward: He praises her laugh, devotion to her family, and career ambitions before telling her he loves her.
It’s not until the reveal that the cracks start to show. There’s no kiss when they’re finally face-to-face (sadly, a bad omen for past “Love Is Blind” couples) and Aneha suggests that a different haircut and an ear piercing might elevate Cam’s look. Later, she insists that she meant nothing by it, but it’s hard not to question if the attraction is really there.
Wilson and Wilnie
Senior compliance manager Wilson, and mental health counselor Wilnie don’t get much screen time in the pods, but what we do see is heartwarming and drama-free. They’re aligned on family values and agree they make each other feel safe.
Wilson’s other love interest, Malaine, decides to leave the experience after being rejected by Cam — our second self-ejection of the season — and it’s Wilnie who delivers the news to him. Taking this as a sign that he should go all in on with his remaining connection, Wilson pops the question with Wilne’s mother’s ring and she happily accepts.
There’s a lot of mutual attraction at the reveal, and while Wilnie, who’s Haitian, later tells the cameras that she’s never dated a Black man before Wilson, she seems more than thrilled the pods have pushed her out of her comfort zone.
Rob and Michaella
Rob, who at 38 is the oldest person in the pods, tells his podmates that he was engaged just over a year ago. Considering production put out the casting call for the Boston season in August 2024, and the cast was spotted filming in Boston seven months later, I have to wonder if he’s ready for another commitment so soon.
Nevertheless, the AI infrastructure salesman is convinced he knows what he wants — even if, for a while, that’s two women. There’s Michaella, a 33-year-old retail consultant who has spent the past five years focusing on her career and family, and Diana, a 28-year-old nanny from a large Sicilian family. Diana is attracted to older, traditional men, which suits Rob, but it’s Michaella who offers the more grounded connection.
Initially, Rob writes Michaella off for being too career-focused (he calls her a dud!), but he’s eventually won over by her self-assuredness and ends things with Diana. For Michaella, he puts together one of the season’s most thoughtful pod gifts: a giant bouquet of roses and a bracelet he bought in Ireland to honor his late father.
At the reveal, Rob is so blown away he forgets to get down on one knee and Michaella says she’s more certain than ever that he’s the right man for her. She predicts they’ll spend the rest of their lives laughing together and, so far, the altar odds are looking good.
Scott (“Stew”) and Jax
The men in the pods nickname Stew “Kennedy,” and the Connecticut native eats it up. He narrates his old-money fantasies to his connection, Jax: he wants a home on Nantucket, weekends in the Hamptons, and a Tuscan villa wedding.
Along with his finer tastes come some red flags. Stew says he’s never been in love and until recently, he loved the freedom that came with being single. He warns Jax that he may not be ready to say “I love you” by the proposal, though he hopes to get there by their wedding. Jax, understandably, says she needs to hear it before marrying him.
Stew proposes anyway, asking Jax whether she wants to be part of “the most stylish couple in the Hamptons” by marrying “one of the most handsome men to have ever existed.” Jax gives what might be the least enthusiastic acceptance in “Love Is Blind” history: “Sure, why not?”
And it’s only downhill from there. Jax is underwhelmed at the reveal, and says he looks more like Mitt Romney than a Kennedy (ouch). Stew, who is over the moon about Jax’s good looks, doesn’t seem to notice that she’s recoiling from his touch. When it’s time to part ways, she doesn’t look back as she walks away (another kiss of death in this show).
Shortly afterward, a visibly uncomfortable Jax tells production that she won’t be going to Mexico. She declines an opportunity to speak with Stew again and asks that they not give him a way to contact her. Stew, for some reason, is unsure if he’s just been dumped.
Still, the couple gives us the season’s first major cliffhanger: The cameras bring us to Umbria in the North End, where Stew and Jax are meeting for a conversation.
The best Boston moments so far
After the cast was announced in late September, there were grumblings online that the contestants weren’t “Boston” enough. Now that the episodes are airing, I’m keeping track of the moments that make this season stand out as a truly Boston one. Here are my favorites so far:
- In the men’s lounge, the guys get into a debate over the greatest comeback in history, comparing the Patriots 28–3 Super Bowl win to Jesus Christ rising from the dead. They give it to Jesus — but only by a hair.
- Also in the lounge, the men declare they’re past the days of being “Capo basement guys,” a sure sign they’re ready to settle down.
- During a pod date, Erika mentions that she has a rescue dog named Stanley, in honor of the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup.
- Wilson and Wilnie discover they have the exact same Dunkin’ order: a black cold brew paired with a cinnamon raisin bagel and strawberry cream cheese, though Wilnie sometimes opts for the almond croissant. I’m not sure our readers would call that a true-blue Boston order, but you be the judge.
We want to know: What are your thoughts on the season so far?
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