Love to See It with Emma and Claire

Buckle up, we’re catching up on news & gossip! With Mikayla and TFP out the door, ‘SLOMW’ is down to a skeleton cast. Was there ever any other outcome? And what’s next for the franchise? Then, the breakup between Taylor and Clarke of “Love Island” S7 has gone from amicable to messy, after she claimed on a podcast that Taylor stranded her at a gas station in Oklahoma and he countered with equally troubling, but vague, allegations posted on Instagram. Then, Chris Harrison’s upcoming MAGA-coded dating show on Fox Nation, “The Vow,” dropped a teaser that takes some obvious potshots at “The Bachelor” – so, of course, Warner Bros fired back with a cease and desist. Was this part of a longshot attempt by “The Vow” to get some actual buzz going? Finally, the “Love Is Blind” Boston bios are out, and we trawled through all the Italian-food-loving New Englanders, searching for standouts.

With bodies and banishments piling up, the game is really underway now – and while Joe Vanella is playing his own secret angle, casting doubt on the athletes of the castle, the three Traitors are leaving a breadcrumb trail straight to their teeniest member. The Faithfuls are casting about wildly for clues, and Jay has decided to just cast about wildly in every sense. He drops knowing hints about his secret theories, which will be revealed at the round table – and, once at the round table, he announces that he is a body language expert but unfortunately has been taking a mental health break from observing body language. While he is chaos personified, Victor is flop-sweat personified, though he has finally decided to lean back into his strength: flirting with pretty girls. Can Katie survive another round table? Or will Jay’s chaos be so unbearable that his fellow Faithful just kick him out? We have to wait two weeks to find out!

A cast of non-celebrity American players feature on this season of “The Traitors: New Blood” – an unusually “Harry Potter”-inflected season, especially considering how radioactive J.K. Rowling’s brand has become. (Why, exactly, are the Weasley twins here?) The cast is packed with standout personalities – a funeral director, a dog trainer, a mulleted executive, a 23-year-old, a baseball scout, a lawyer posing as a basketball coach – though some of these newly minted reality stars have done more strategic preparation than others. The first two episodes feature some classic “Traitors” blunders, including one that cruelly ended a blossoming showmance. Is “The Traitors” a dating show? Sadly, not at the moment.

Season 5 of “SLOMW” ends abruptly, after an on-camera revelation that Dakota’s friend has called CPS to report Taylor. But it’s not entirely out of the blue. The last two episodes contain ample signs that Taylor and Dakota’s toxic pattern is escalating dangerously. Meanwhile, Jen is trying to get her “pink back” by becoming a musician and returning to the Mormon fold, Jessi and Jordan throw a housewarming brunch that becomes a de facto divorce brunch, and Mayci and Mikayla have reached their wits’ end with the Taylor-Dakota situation. Annemarie Navar-Gill joins again to finish our discussion of this truncated season – and the path ahead for Taylor and the show, which has chosen to keep her on the cast.

Back in March, when Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of “The Bachelorette” was yanked just days before premiering, cameras were rolling for season five of her original reality show: “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” Production was ultimately paused, but season five wasn’t canceled – and all five episodes of the abbreviated season dropped last week. Annemarie Navar-Gill (the cohost of Bachelor in Retrospect) joined for a discussion of episodes 1-3, including a conversation about why this season aired to begin with, whether that was the right decision, and what it means for “The Bachelor” franchise that this season includes so many spoilers – and so much post-show drama that punctures the franchise’s fantasy brand.

By the second half of “Love Is Blind” UK, all is not well! Our crop of six robust couples has begun to dwindle, thanks to motivational speaker Ryan’s energetic hangovers and Jordan’s failure to find the spark. Ciara pushes Ajay’s boundaries just a bit too far, in the midst of her self-admitted quest to find the outer limits of his patience. And Jack pushes the limits of his ability to trek across London in shower sliders. Will any of these couples say “I do”? And, more importantly, what will they have to say about each other by the reunion? We finally have the answers by the end of this recap, and for once, those answers were pretty satisfying. Except for how Jack’s Find My Friends got turned off – that’s a question to which we may never get a straight answer.

The pods are open, to be fair! Claire and Leigh are finally catching up on “Love Is Blind” UK season 3, and it is a rollicking good time. We have a resident jovial love-bombing lad and a resident soft-life pink-pill girlie, plus an English MAHA type who only eats eggs produced by chickens who listen to “frequency music.” Despite this, and some classic love triangles, it feels like love really is brewing in the pods. In this episode, we talk about great sexpectations, great financial expectations, pot-stirrers, plaid Speedos, jacket potatoes with tuna, and ecstatic dancing.

The “Love Island” USA and “Let’s Marry Harry” reunions finally dropped this week, after we’d finally allowed our brains to move on. The two-hour “Love Island” reunion was shapeless, often boring, and felt as though it would never end. The cast re-litigated endless minor beefs, and rarely introduced new information or found any resolution – though we did finally establish how many times Sol was pied (two, as shown on TV) and how many times Bryce pulled Kayda (one, as shown on TV). Melanie had issues with half the cast, while Sincere just popped up every twenty minutes or so to issue a blanket apology. The women’s behavior is hyper-scrutinized, while the men skate by. Overall, the cast seems sad, tired, and defensive after a summer of being analyzed to death. Please, let’s put this season to bed! Then, we dip into the “Let’s Marry Harry,” where the women are aggrieved and Harry is up to his old tricks: reciting softboy emotional platitudes in order to distract from his proven track record of douchey behavior.

Season 20 of “Married at First Sight” is safely in the can, and, as we hoped, six of the seven couples are safely separated from each other! In this recap, Claire and Leigh talk about Decision Day, from the reveal of Felipe’s vile off-camera comments to Tori to the oddly timed gifting of a Ninja Creami, before diving into the action-packed reunion. Relationship experts Paul and Dr. Lisa have taken off their therapist hats and donned their tea-spilling host ensembles, and they’re ready to take stock of the emotional wounds inflicted on the show’s cast by their mostly short-lived marriages. Mecca and Bellé discuss their post-show split, while Michelle and Cam share mostly happy updates from the first year of married life. Marissa is finally ready to share her truth: She despises Adam and his cooking. Tori wants to know why she was ever even placed in Felipe’s vicinity. Adam makes fun of Courteney’s pickleball skills until she cries, all while wearing his most attention-seeking ensemble yet. Caitlin and Devin somehow slide under the radar, but Nikki and Shawn? They have no shortage of grievances to air.

This batch of “Married at First Sight” episodes leaves us at the brink of decision day – and teasing a scandalous off-camera conversation between Felipe and Tori. But first, the remaining six couples head off on a couples retreat that is more fratty than therapeutic. Felipe leans into his womanizing reputation, and expects Tori to be as tolerant of his foibles as his mother is. Mecca and Caitlin get flirty, and somehow Bellé is the last person anyone is concerned about. Nikki is ruminating on why Shawn told her she was a Seattle 10, but a New York 7. Adam is more focused on stirring the pot than finding compromises with Marissa. Michelle and Cam seem fine, but everyone else is fed up with their meddling and judgment. Even us! Should any of these couples actually stay married – and will they?