#356: Link, Lara, and Josué discuss Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Queer Love and the particular enjoyment and disgust of watching reality TV.

Link Keller 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that the best way to understand ourselves and each other is through the media we care about. I am one of your co hosts, link, and I’m joined by Lara.

Lara Taylor 0:29
Hey,

Link Keller 0:30
and Josué.

Josué Cardona 0:32
Hello.

Link Keller 0:33
Hi, guys.

Josué Cardona 0:35
Hi, Link.

Link Keller 0:36
I’m so excited to talk about this topic today. I recently watched Netflix’s new season of the ultimatum, colon queer love. It is a reality TV show about relationships. The premise is a couple comes in where one couple, one member of the couple has given a marriage ultimatum to the other proposed to me or I’m leaving. And they go on this show. And they date other couples and pretend to be married for a couple of weeks and then reunite with their original partner who they gave the ultimatum to have a pretend marriage with them for a couple of weeks. And then at the end, they decide if they’re actually going to get married to each other, or breakup, or potentially date one of the other people that they dated. It is as I would academically refer to it as a hot dumpster fire. And I love it. And it was I watched the first season of the ultimatum which was straight couples, but this season is about sapphic couples, so women and non binary people. truly a joy. All of the drama, you’re looking for

Lara Taylor 2:06
the whole first episode, I was screaming like who thinks this is a good idea to solve your fucking problems? who??

Link Keller 2:13
It is truly antithetical to building a healthy relationship to put yourself into a eight to 10 week filming production, that you’re still having to live your regular life. But also, you’re going on extravagant dates and drinking a lot and trying to maybe fall in love or figure out what you’re missing from your relationship and all this introspective work and

Lara Taylor 2:44
and they can’t talk to anybody about what happened on the show for at least a year.

Link Keller 2:49
Yes, the I think that is an important thing to touch on right at the beginning, this show was filmed in the beginning of 2021. And it didn’t come out until two months ago. So there is a fair gap there. They did also record a reunion episode in January of this year. So like two years out from when they did it. They did the reunion episode and then several, six months out from that is when the episode started coming out. So I imagine that was quite the experience for the people who actually were on the show. But yeah, I wanted to talk about reality TV sort of in general. Focusing more on like the romance, love and relationship reality TVs shows not so much the like Survivor ones but or other competition ones but also more specifically on this particular show. One because there is not a lot of queer rep in reality TV. I did watch another show on I think I watched it on Hulu, and it was called Love trip colon Paris. And that one was four American women who were straight bi pansexual and lesbian. And they went to France and moved into a beautiful apartment building and then all these hot French singles moved in and they dated each other. truly wild. The height of that one was one woman got another woman’s name tattooed on her knuckles, and I truly thought I would never recover from that. But then I watched the queer ultimatum reunion episode and I was like no, actually, this is the craziest thing I have ever seen. So yeah, what, let’s start with like, what are your guys’s familiarity with watching like relations Ship reality TV. Have you watched other shows before? Is this absolutely not your bag? Like, where are you guys coming from?

Lara Taylor 5:07
I love reality TV, or I used to watch a lot of it. Nina doesn’t like it. So I don’t watch a lot of it unless she’s not around to watch it. Because it stresses her out. I love it. I’m focusing on other people’s problems, not my own. At least it’s not that bad, like. But I was hooked on the real world, which it’s even though that one is like people living together, it’s all about relationships and who’s hooking up with who and who people are hooking up with outside the house and bring into the house. I watched a lot of the real world back in the day. And mostly a lot of MTV like and VH1 one reality shows like, shot at love with tila tequila.

Link Keller 5:57
Just gonna say I think that was like one of my first ones that I ever watched I was truly sets the scene.

Lara Taylor 6:04
I was obsessed with Danny Campbell, I was obsessed. I have met her twice at different clubs, that she came to do appearances that have a curve magazine, which is a lesbian own magazine, signed by her in it. I have a T shirt. This is Team Danny on it. Still, it’s a relic of the early 2000s. And there was a joke that like with my friends that you know, she was a firefighter in Florida. Still is a firefighter in Florida. We were like let’s find out which firehouse she’s at. And I will just leave a trail of fires from there to California, so that she would meet me. Yeah, so obsessed with reality TV shows. And that was the first time I had someone like me on a reality show. I mean, there were other queer people on the real world. But like, this was like, the focus of the show. Was Was her so and then of course, I watched this. And I am obsessed now with the ultimatum queer love. Yeah, I binged. Like, I rewatched a few episodes, because I had to I miss parts of it, but I binge, like six episodes Monday night, so yeah. I love it. It’s great.

Link Keller 7:33
What about you Josué?

Josué Cardona 7:36
I also watched, like the MTV stuff, right? And like survivor and real world and road rules. He was like, Oh, what’s this? After that I’ve never really watched anything. And I don’t know when this happened. But I also don’t watch sports anymore. Because I don’t like watching people live their lives. Like for me, sports isn’t. For me. Sports is like, Oh, this principle of just doing their job. Plus, you’re getting paid so much money. I mean, whether they’re paying getting paid a lot or not. I’m like, I’m just watching somebody do their job. I love a good what is it? Like slam dunk competition. I like highlight reels. I like admiring superhuman acts of physical activity, but reality TV is very much more like just people living their lives. And I know how produced it is. I know how unrealistic it can be because of how think things are set up. Like, like the setup for the ultimatum is so So absurd, it’s um, I was like you, Lara When I was watching the first time I was like,

Link Keller 8:52
in what way? Does this make sense? What Wait, what? To this?

Lara Taylor 8:57
I can get giving someone an ultimatum. Like there are plenty people on the show in their 30s that want to have kids. Like I get it you it’s the whole thing shit or get off the pot like okay, that makes sense. But like this experience what what is it gonna do?

Josué Cardona 9:13
I even understand that there was like a group of people in a room who you know, with a random number generator came up with an idea for a show or thought that it was a good idea. But the fact that people sign up for it right like I have so many questions like it’s

Link Keller 9:28
a spin off of Netflix’s Love is blind. I don’t know if that

Josué Cardona 9:32
I never watched it

Link Keller 9:33
clarifies anything to y...