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If anyone tries to tell you that reality television isn’t full of culture, tell them to watch the first drop of “Love Is Blind UK” season 2. Not only does it provide an American audience with a crash course in a wide array of British accents and terminology, but viewers can also learn about the grift of “human design” — and perhaps most importantly, “splenic awareness.”

The latter is thanks to Patrick, a man who (spoiler alert!) does not find lasting love in the pods, but does provide us with running commentary on the significance of his spleen. For the uninitiated, a few nuggets of wisdom from Patrick: (1) The spleen is more potent than the gut. (2) The spleen is the center of all intuition. (3) Therefore, the spleen’s inherent wisdom at any given moment simply *must* be followed. Is this all a crock of shit? Yes! Does it mean that Patrick makes for excellent TV? Also yes!

During the first drop of “LIB UK” episodes, we meet our 30 UK singles, see six couples form in the pods, and watch five of those couples get engaged and jet off to a romantic honeymoon in Cyprus. The season starts a little bit slow, which left us wondering if the sophomore run will be able to recreate the magic of the first season. But some tantalizing threads left dangling at the end of episode four make us hopeful for the episodes yet to come.

In this episode, we discuss it all: the two major love triangles, our predictions for the couples, the disappointing lack of villainy, whether Clayton was following his spleen on “Perfect Match,” and, of course, our friends-enemies scale.

We hope you enjoy! xo

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“Love Island” and “Love Island: Beyond the Villa” may have wrapped their latest seasons, but if anything the drama has only gotten more explosive — and unsettling — off-camera.

JaNa Craig and Kenny Rodriguez, one of the “Love Island USA” season 6 runner-up couples, broke up abruptly at the end of last month, just hours after posting together at YouTuber David Dobrik’s birthday party. JaNa’s closest friends from the villa, Leah Kateb and Serena Page, quickly unfollowed him — and then, so did essentially everyone else associated with the show, from his male costars to Ariana Madix herself. Scandalous rumors swirled about what Kenny could have done to earn the ire of even his best bros. Cheating? Financial malfeasance? A secret child? But, as JaNa posted in a statement on her Instagram story last week, the truth was still more twisted.

Meanwhile, season 7 antiheroine Huda Mustafa has been seen stepping out with Netflix star Louis Russell (currently starring in “Perfect Match” season 3), and some notable unfollowings seemed to hint that “LIUSA” season 6 stars Leah, Serena, and JaNa might be upset by the relationship. Leah’s boyfriend from the show, Miguel Harichi, had a longstanding friendship with Louis, but has publicly distanced himself from the Netflix personality, as he and Leah have both hinted that they believe Louis is pursuing Huda for clout.

In this episode, we discuss how the JaNa and Kenny breakup unfolded and dig into the rumored reason for the breakup, based on public statements by JaNa and her friends. We also get into the perils of insincere men on reality dating shows, and how racism and misogynoir put Black women in particularly vulnerable positions when dating on TV. (In this conversation, we reference Taryn Finley’s excellent Refinery29 essay, “JaNa Craig’s Split Proves A Pattern & It’s Black Women Who Pay The Price." We also discuss the Huda and Louis relationship, the apparent rift it has caused among the “Love Island” and “Too Hot to Handle” crews, and the warped incentives of sudden fame and dating on TV.

We hope you enjoy! xo

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“The Hunting Wives” is one of those rare shows where nothing makes much sense, but it still somehow works. Thanks to her very middling husband, coastal liberal Sophie O’Neill (Brittany Snow) gets dropped into the gun-toting world of East Texas socialites, led by Queen Bee Margo Banks (Malin Åkerman). Longing glances are exchanged, handguns are casually purchased, dark secrets are uncovered, and a local teen girl ends up dead.

It’s an absurd, sudsy, romp through MAGA-land — with a healthy dose of murder and an even healthier dose of illicit sexual encounters. Before you can say “bless your heart,” Sophie — who is initially disgusted when she and her husband show up at his new boss’ NRA party — is buying a gun she doesn’t know how to load and blacking out at honky tonks with her new girlfriends and their teen sons/paramours.

As Judy Berman points out in Time, “The Hunting Wives” falls beautifully into the grand tradition of “wives” pop culture. Stories about single women are often stories about finding love. Stories about wives are stories about what happens after an alleged happily ever after is procured. And there’s pretty much always darkness and conflict lurking underneath the glittering surface of a group of (rich) women’s lives. Men are still there, but they’re no longer at the center.

Nothing about “The Hunting Wives” is subtle. Not the fashion (Margo looks like she could be going out for a night in Vegas during her husband’s political fundraisers); not the sex (see: pegging); not the political rhetoric (Margo’s local kingpin husband, played by Dermot Mulroney, toys with a gubernatorial run by making a speech about “personas malos” crossing the border); and certainly not the dialogue. (One character literally croaks out “you cunts” as she dies.)

It’s also a study in the allure of hypocrisy: Church leaders who preach about Godliness while doing blackmail. Women who express anti-abortion sentiment and then procure abortion care when they need it. A sheriff who is eager to solve a murder only when it can bolster his own career ambitions. Wives who perform traditional hetero-femininity publicly while engaging in queer relationships privately.

As Margo tells Sophie early in the season of her arrangement with Jed: “Open marriages are for liberals. We just keep it simple. I don’t sleep with other men, and when Jed and I see a girl we like, we go for it.”

In this episode we talk about the right-wing political backdrop of the show, the abundant plot holes, how hetero the whole thing feels despite the queerness, and what we’d like to see from a second season. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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Titling your new Netflix rom-com series “Too Much” is the sort of move that comes off as either a provocation or an easy set-up. It’s as if co-creator Lena Dunham is inviting critics to assess whether her show and her heroine are, indeed, too much. And given the decade-plus of fevered discourse around her last semi-autobiographical TV series, “Girls,” it makes sense that Dunham would not only be prepared for outsized reactions, but ready to take them head-on. But ultimately, “Too Much” isn’t a defiant, confrontational show; it’s an intimate exploration of how falling in love can seem to heal us, but also expose how we’re broken.

The show opens with Jessica (the hilarious, if sometimes overly schticky, Meg Stalter) moving to London for a work project in hopes of getting over a devastating breakup with her live-in boyfriend, Zev (Michael Zegen). He has quickly moved on with a stunning knitwear influencer named Wendy (Emily Ratajkowski), and Jessica has become obsessed with watching Wendy’s social media videos, responding to them in emotional videos posted to her own private Instagram. But in London, the die-hard romantic Jessica, fueled by visions of meeting her own Mr. Darcy, immediately falls in love with Felix (Will Sharpe), a brooding indie musician. The show follows them as they fall in love, confront demons from their pasts, fight, break up, and find their way back to each other.

In short, this series has all the trappings of a classic romantic comedy, despite its fractured rom-com episode titles (“Nonsense and Sensibility,” “To Doubt a Boy”). Yet “Too Much” has the signature Dunham sharpness — crackling banter, precisely observed skewerings of modern archetypes, sweet moments punctured by humiliating or gross realities. Like “Girls,” “Too Much” puts the flaws of its characters under a spotlight, including those of its winsome lead. But it’s gentler, more forgiving, even a tad sappy at times. Perhaps, Dunham seems to say, these imperfect people, with their self-delusions and their petty cruelties, can still find ways to love and be loved.

In this episode, we talk about the legacy of “Girls” and the perils of continuing to make art after an unexpected debut classic, our favorite and least favorite things about “Too Much,” Jessica and Felix’s emotional journeys, Zev’s villain edit, and more. Hope you enjoy!

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Pedro Pascal + Dakota Johnson + Chris Evans + love triangle + New York City + an exploration of modern dating should = pure joy. Unfortunately, the math behind Celine Song’s sophomore feature, “Materialists,” simply doesn’t add up.

You know things aren’t going great when you watch a movie and can’t stop mentally cataloguing each item of clothing the protagonist is wearing. That ruffled Doên dress? $398. The work bag that looks like a dupe of the Khaite one? $650. A floral Reformation dress? $278. Knee-high Paris Texas boots? $766. Sexy Simkhai top? $375. A cerulean Proenza cocktail dress? Originally $1190, but now on sale for $365.

Alas, the minute Dakota Johnson’s Lucy — an immaculately-dressed, 30-something star matchmaker living in a modest but beautiful Brooklyn Heights apartment — declares that she makes $80k/year (before taxes!!!), I knew we were doomed to do the mental tally. Song has said that including this specific number was an intentional choice; she wanted the audience to linger over the financial realities of the not-uber-wealthy. But in a movie thin on character development, it served more as a distraction.

“Materialists” follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a 30-something star matchmaker and self-described expert on the romantic marketplace who says she’s looking to marry rich. At the wedding of one of her former clients, she meets the groom’s brother, Harry (Pedro Pascal), a private equity multi-millionaire (billionaire?) who believes that love is about transaction and sees intrinsic value in Lucy. She also runs into her broke actor ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans), the former love of her life who is now working as a cater waiter and living in an apartment where his roommates leave used condoms around their shared kitchen. Thus the movie sets up its central questions: Will Lucy choose Money or Love? And if being loved is about being viewed as valuable — a thesis that Lucy states plainly early in “Materialists” — where is that value derived and who gets to decide what it is?

The movie is at its sharpest when examining the cold realities of a dating marketplace — a marketplace where buyers are also commodities — devoid of human intimacy. The app-ification of courtship is laid bare in Lucy’s intake meetings with new potential clients. (Song herself previously worked as a matchmaker, and it shows.) A 48-year-old man expresses a desire to finally settle down with a mature woman, by which he means a 27-year-old. Another man tells Lucy that “39 is 40,” and then requests “nothing over a 20 BMI.” Lucy’s services are luxury goods, acquired by people of means in order to guarantee the acquisition of luxury spouses. But as Lucy tells one client later in the movie, “this is not a car or a house. We’re talking about people. People are people are people are people. They come as they are.”

But who are Lucy and Harry and John? They are less people, and more paper dolls, gesturing around at vague, potentially fascinating ideas. And even all the money in the world can’t buy substance.

“The Materialists Trailer Is A Liar,” Andrew Gruttadaro, The Ringer

“Materialists Is an Inert Misreading of Modern Romance,” Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture

“How a Salary Figure Changes Everything in ‘Materialists,’” Alissa Wilkinson, NYTimes

“'materialists' is a romcom for the money diaries generation,” Viv Chen, The Molehill

“Rich Suitor/Poor Suitor,” Heather Schwedel, Slate

“Is Materialists Actually a Horror Movie?,” Jesse Hassenger, GQ

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Let’s talk reunions, y’all! We’re back from our summer vacations, rested and ready to reunite for all the reunion specials we missed during our OOO week: “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” and “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” Hosts Joanna Garcia Swisher and Nick Viall took their best swings at the Andy Cohen crown, with varying results, but each reunion offered at least a few juicy moments.

In “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” there were more happy updates than usual. And we love to see our queens thriving! But the reunion drama was somewhat dampened by all the couples who showed up ready to protect their relationships. Only the single cast members came out throwing elbows. Ashley and Marita shared a particularly bruising exchange, while Marie seeped poorly suppressed rage throughout the special. In a surprise twist, Mels’s Brussels sprout recipe played a key role in the conflict. Joanna was present and warm as ever, but ineffectual, leaving many intriguing questions and follow-ups unasked. We get into all the updates from the couples and former couples, assess the hosting, and try to make sense of the hot-button topics that weren’t even broached. (Like… what do Magan and Dayna have on Joanna??)

Next, the “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” reunion! The questions were sharper and the follow-ups were on point, but the absence of season villain Demi took the thrill out of most of the conversations. (She was, she alleges, unable to cancel a family vacation to Disney.) Instead, the women have to respond to clips from a pre-taped interview with Nick, in which Demi talks shit with the confidence of a woman who does not have to actually face her targets. Meanwhile, Jessi has a lot to say about how she can’t say anything at all regarding Marciano’s allegations that they had an affair after meeting on “Vanderpump Villa” (to learn more, we’ll have to watch season 3). But there are some explosive moments — notably, Jen and Zac producing an audio recording of Demi instructing Jen to positively spin Demi’s own rumored dalliance with Marciano during “VPV” — as well as some poignant ones. We get into it all in the second half of this episode.

Hope you enjoy! xo

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“The Ultimatum: Queer Love” finale had it all: Proposals! Confrontations! A dramatic breakup! This season was a true emotional rollercoaster, in all of the best ways.

We got to see some real growth from both couples — Pilar & Haley and Magan & Dayna faced potentially relationship-ending challenges during their trial marriages — as well as individuals — Ashley seems to find her voice and reckon with the potential incompatibilities that she and her longterm girlfriend Marita have. Other couples are resistant to untangling hard truths right up to the end. (Yes, we ARE talking about you, Mel and Marie.)

We taped this episode ahead because of our insane schedules, so this podcast will only include discussion of episodes 8 and 9 of “Queer Love” S2. A separate podcast about the (honestly quite juicy) reunion will be coming soon.

Hope you enjoy! Xo

Special thanks to Jonathan Behar for editing today’s episode.

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Just in time for the end of Pride Month, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” has returned to our screens. And after watching the first seven episodes of season 2, we couldn’t help but wonder… why does the straight version even exist when “Queer Love” is so far superior?

The new season follows six couples who have reached a crossroads in their longterm relationship. One partner wants to get married, and the other has reservations. For some couples, the hesitancy has to do with familial rejection or disapproval; for others it’s a more run-of-the-mill uncertainty about fundamental compatibility. (Looking at you, Marita and Ashley!)

So, shepherded through the process by host Joanna Garcia Swisher (who remains an inexplicable choice for a show about queer love), the couples break up, date everyone else on the cast, and choose a new partner for a three-week trial marriage. And oh boy do these people take their trial marriages SERIOUSLY. Some become each other’s therapists/besties (Marita and Britney), and others fall into full-on new relationships (Haley and Magan, Mel and Dayna). After those three weeks are up, they return to their original partners and figure out if they still can (and want to!) make it work.

It’s transcendent reality television — a true window into the human experience, full of love, sex, betrayal and emotional messiness. We talk about everything from the first seven episodes we could fit into one taping, and we had an absolute blast doing it. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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If one can say anything uplifting about season 2 of “The Valley,” it’s probably that the show is, at least, providing video documentation of Jax Taylor’s misdeeds — and his slimy attempts to throw blame for his horrific behavior on everyone around him, his ex-wife Brittany Cartwright in particular.

In this latest batch of episodes, Jax steps up his harassment of Britt. He continues to rage-text her, reaches out to their mutual friends and family to try to convince them he’s truly changed and needs Britt’s sympathy and care, watches her from the family home’s interior surveillance cameras, apparently fakes (or at least exaggerates) a medical emergency, dumps his disastrous financial problems on her, and continues to imply (under the guise of taking full accountability) that Britt is responsible for his bad behavior. After all, she should have held him accountable before! She should have left him! He wishes she had! Oh, if only someone had forced him to be less of a piece of shit!

Meanwhile, the side-plots continue to play out. Jesse continues to fixate on Michelle having cheated on him, and Michelle airs her own grievances in front of the group. (At least Jesse has the backing of their former relationship coach, now his solo coach, who seems particularly gifted at feeding into the aggrieved mindset of the recently divorced male.) Nia draws fire from her friends when she doesn’t openly trash her husband Danny for getting drunk at a wine-tasting in Santa Barbara. Jasmine realizes she may not be over Danny groping her and Melissa last Halloween. Defending Danny and Nia, Kristen spreads a rumor about Jason taking off his wedding ring at bars, which somehow leads to a blowup between Jason, Janet… and Jasmine.

In this episode, we catch up on these central plot points and try not to let Jax raise our blood pressure. Hope you enjoy! xo

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Carrie Bradshaw is swanning about in tulle in her massive Gramercy Park townhouse. Her boyfriend is in Virginia, her jewelry designer millennial neighbor is now living in her old uptown apartment, and her friends are busy fucking nuns and stalking elite college counselors.

Naturally, that means it’s time for her to sit down and write a novel. About women. Women who “toss and turn” due to their “insecurities,” and obsess over the past. But it’s not the past, it’s the present: May, 1846. Or is it 2012? When you’re talking about “And Just Like That…”, one can never be sure.

The show may be set in the year of our lord 2025, but the cultural discussions are straight out of the early 20-teens. Reality dating shows — did you know smart women can enjoy them? Hate-watching, baby! Everything happens on our phones now — even dating! Have you heard???

Not only does the cultural zeitgeist of “And Just Like That…” season 3 feel woefully dated, but our heroines are now ensconsed in such absurd levels of wealth that it feels as if there are no real stakes to… well… anything. As David Mack put it in a fantastic piece for Slate: “If SATC was once a revolutionary show about sex and dating, AJLT is now too often a series about money and the carefree lifestyle that wealth provides the leisure class. … In its third season, AJLT is more content than ever plodding along (albeit in Manolos) as little more than a pedestrian fantasy that’s lost most of the spunk and spark of the original series. Like its characters’ lives, AJLT is just… comfortable.”

And yet, there’s still so much to laugh about when discussing this show. And we don’t just mean Carrie’s historical romance novel! We had so much fun (and secondhand embarrassment) talking about that Aidan masturbation scene, Seema’s showdown with matchmaker Cheri Oteri, the character development we are actually *enjoying* from Miranda, and what we hope to get from Carrie and Charlotte as the season progresses. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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