This article originally ran on March 6, 2024, and has been updated for the Love Is Blind season 6 finale.
One could argue (and many do) that Love Is Blind is a dating experiment. I’d be more inclined to buy into this thesis if it weren’t a nationally televised sensation. While it’s not officially a competition show, couples are constantly jockeying to prove that they’re the strongest couple of the season. And even though everyone claims that they’re there for the right reasons, whenever exposure is on the table, you can never be too sure of someone’s intentions. So, while we can (and do) talk ourselves to death about the love and relationship dynamics we see play out, I’m here to discuss an underreported facet of Love Is Blind: power.
It’s become our duty to power rank Netflix reality stars, so when the new season dropped, we started taking stock of power moves. Clay drinking hot Gatorade? Boss move, low-key. Laura telling Jeramey to “bean dip” AD on the beach? Weird and unfunny!
But the season has come a long way from the pods and the shores of the Dominican Republic. It’s time to take stock of everything that went down and reveal the best, worst, and most powerful characters from season six.
15.
Nick and Vanessa Lachey
I literally forgot that they were associated with this franchise.
14.
Chelsea
I blame casting for Chelsea. To find someone so radically unprepared for a relationship, let alone marriage, and convince them to go on a dating show, is at best irresponsible and at worst nefarious and irresponsible. This is a woman who was set up to fail. All of Chelsea’s missteps this season, and there were many, ultimately came down to a deep-rooted insecurity that undermined her worldview and governed her decision-making. Simply put, insecurity is the antithesis of power. It was neither fun nor rewarding to watch Chelsea’s slow descent into obsessive jealousy, and had casting used a more discerning eye (or a psych eval) while assessing the population of Charlotte, we might all have been spared.
13.
Clay’s Dad, Trevor
It cannot be said enough that the root of so much of this season’s strife between AD and Clay can be traced back to one man’s flagrant disregard for his marital vows, and his inexplicable decision to involve his kids in the treachery. Trevor, it seems, took the generational trauma he received from his own father not as a cross to bear but a mantle to pass. While the dynamics can be explained, they cannot be excused. It’s not too late for Trevor to see the errors of his ways, in the sense that he’s still alive, but the damage he’s done will take years to rectify. This leaves Clay as the next Gravesande with the opportunity to break the cycle. It’s not looking good, folks.
12.
Clay
Clay is not last on this list only because he has one thing that Chelsea doesn’t have: a shred of self-awareness. It would have been nice if he had tapped into that self-awareness before he was standing at the altar, rejecting his fiancée in front of all her friends and family. But that would have taken courage, a quality in which Clay is apparently bankrupt.
11.
Jeramey
I don’t have much to add to the Jeramey discourse, nor do I feel the need to present a lot of evidence that this is not a powerful man. Jeramey’s behaviors speak for themselves. However, the spelling of Jeramey’s name needs to be spoken for. I demand an explanation.
10.
Matthew
Matthew’s presence in this season was as bewildering as it was short-lived. AD compared him to a pistachio — a hard shell with something nice on the inside. I’m not sure I see what she saw in Matthew, but I certainly agree that he’s a nut.
9.
Laura and Jessica (tied)
Laura and Jessica are two people who talked a big game but in reality wielded little influence over their other castmates or on the overall plot this season. For all of Jess’s talk of EpiPens, she demurred when she was actually confronted with Jimmy. And while Laura was rightfully incensed by Jeramey’s antics, even that breakup seemed more like a mutual decision than Laura kicking him to the curb. These women are the real Megan Foxes of the season: They look like they’ll ruin your life, but deep down they just want that weird blond man to love them.
8.
Trevor
Not powerful, not weak, simply vibing out. Trevor is the control group among this season’s cast, the benchmark against which power is measured.
7.
Jimmy
No one had quite as surprising an arc this season as Jimmy, who seemed at first like he might be the season’s resident Douchebag Disguised as a Nice Guy. But when Chelsea showed her true colors over a series of increasingly villainous onslaughts, and Jimmy displayed an excess of patience and restraint in response, the tide quickly shifted, and Jimmy and his “clingy” allegations were vindicated. After all, he had set boundaries with Chelsea, and when she violated them, he communicated with respect. When Chelsea expressed that he wasn’t affectionate enough with her, he calmly explained that it was because his lips hurt really bad due to a taquito-related injury. And, finally, when he realized he couldn’t marry her, he let her know before their wedding day. The bar is low, but he still rose above it.
6.
Kenneth’s phone addiction
An addiction so powerful that it caused the demise of an engagement. Admittedly, this is a bit of an exaggeration. The truth is that there was little chemistry between Kenneth and Brittany once they left the pods (hence Brittany’s absence from this list), but the phone wasn’t not a part of the problem. The only explanation for how a phone could be more powerful than a new fiancée? He must have discovered the Cinematrix.
5.
Sarah Ann
Before you come for me, remember that this is a power ranking, not a likability ranking. Fully stealing an engaged man with one Instagram DM and a few hours at Lost & Found was impressive, but men are simple creatures and that could have been a fluke. It was her behavior at the lake party that proved that Sarah Ann doesn’t just wield power, she takes it for a spin on a Jet Ski while her victims are forced to watch from the confines of the shore. It’s how Cersei Lannister would have acted if she was a millennial from Charlotte who was cast on Love Is Blind. Was it nice? Obviously not, but if you think power is reserved for kindhearted people, you are as detached from reality as Chelsea’s expectations of Jimmy.
4.
Lost & Found in Charlotte, North Carolina
No, Sarah Ann wasn’t the ultimate winner of the Jeramey-Laura-Sarah Ann love triangle. That honor belongs to Lost & Found, the infamous site of Jeramey and Sarah Ann’s reunion and their (alleged) conversation in the (alleged) parking lot (allegedly). Leaning into the free promo, the nightclub now appears to be hosting Love Is Blind watch parties and making specialty drinks including the “EpiPen” cocktail and “What Parking Lot?” espresso martini. Opportunism is a risk, but it’s paying off for Lost & Found. The club is milking every second of its 15 minutes, and I have to respect that.
3.
Johnny, Amy, and the Power of Love
It’s been a few seasons since we had a couple who was easy to root for, and a love that was nontoxic and uncomplicated. Johnny and Amy gave us just that — they were a breath of fresh air amid the chaos of bean dips and EpiPens. Even their conflicts were easy to digest: Johnny’s levelheaded pragmatism versus Amy’s dreamy idealism, Amy’s anxiety over obtaining her father’s blessing, and their respective readiness to start a family all were reminiscent of a simpler show that presented an easier premise, before the love triangles and over-the-top mess that has plagued recent seasons. Can two people, who meet and fall in love in a bubble, make it work when they’re thrust back into the real world? If Johnny and Amy are to be believed, the answer is “yes.” And that’s a powerful delivery on such a lofty premise.
2.
AD
AD had a rough go of it this season. At the best of times, she was subjected to all manner of unsolicited commentary about her body from her so-called friends. And at the worst of times, she was left at the altar. AD was trusting, honest, and open-hearted through the whole process, all wonderful qualities, but they’re the same ones that led her to a fall from a very great height when the man that she’d placed her trust in let her down. She followed him off a cliff, just like she said she would, but Clay wasn’t there to catch her. Through it all, AD displayed levels of grace and self-possession that defied the very show she was on. Where her counterparts melted down over much smaller injustices, in the face of the greatest heartbreak of the season, AD held her composure, spoke her mind, and walked off to find her happy ending.
1.
Clay’s Mom, Margarita
There has been no greater display of simultaneous grace and dignity on this season — and maybe during the run of this entire show — than that of Clay’s mom in the aftermath of Clay and AD’s (non)wedding. Almost as if she had prepared for what was coming, she navigated her family through the nuclear fallout of the breakup with the calm assurance of a woman who’s been through some shit. Though she had to reopen old wounds of her own in order to do so, she held her ex-husband, Clay’s father, accountable for the behavior that directly resulted in Clay’s emotional trauma, and drew the line to his fear of marriage and subsequent betrayal of AD. And even while she had her own family to contend with, she still managed to give AD a show of support that she desperately needed during a gut-wrenching moment. She was the supportive mother that Clay needed, and yet she didn’t shield him from the hard truths he needed to hear. She did all this calmly and deliberately, and all without centering herself. It was a master class in wielding wisdom and power as a force of good.
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