We’ve seen giant mullets, dangerously long nails, and magical Spotify logins. But will we see anyone leave here happy?
Episode 8: Backtrack of the Century
It’s two weeks until the Ultimatum comes to term and we open with Haley and Pilar. Poor Pilar is feeling crappy about Haley being in love with someone else (Magan), and about the lack of support from her family.
On Magan’s side, her original girlfriend Dayna is pissed.
I’m not sure what Dayna expected. Isn’t that the point of the show? To connect with someone else, and then come back to your original partner? And, as Magan points out, Dayna had a sexual and emotional relationship with Mel during their three weeks too, so…
Marita and Ashley meet with Ashley’s twin sister and her non-twin sister. I unfortunately don’t hear much of what’s going on because I’m too busy trying to figure out which one is the twin.
Mel recaps her fears that if she got married, it would be like the strained and violent relationships she’s seen growing up.
Mel explains that the problem isn’t that she thinks she doesn’t deserve being safe and stable, but that she doesn’t know if that’s what she really wants. At this point I turn to my wife and go, “What’s that called? Disorganized?”
A few days pass. Magan and Haley both think they’re being snubbed by each other. Surprisingly, Dayna says she thinks Magan needs to talk to Haley alone…
Nevermind, she wants Magan to do that so she can tell Haley to stop talking to her completely.
Bridget and Kyle meet up with Kyle’s parents in some kind of bizarre human aquarium.
Kyle’s parents don’t think they should get married yet until they both get better with money. Ouch!
We finally get to see AJ and Britney as well. They’re doing okay overall, just still dealing with some insecurity on AJ’s end.
We have another cocktail party. Ashley says she and Marita have been fighting a lot. Mel and Dayna have an aside in which Mel says Marie has made her feel insane for four years. Mel’s feeling abandoned by Dayna, who previously said that they’d still be friends no matter what.
Magan and Haley have a talk as well that doesn’t go so well. Haley says Magan has been treating her the same way that Magan hated Dayna treating her (i.e., ignoring her). Like Mel, Haley is feeling abandoned.
A few days later, Haley and Pilar have dinner with Haley’s dad, Dave. It warms my heart a bit because it seems like Dave is a supportive parental figure for Pilar in a way that her own parents aren’t.
Pilar, very self-awarely, says that if she was watching herself and Haley as an outside observer, she’d be like, “That couple is fuckeddddd.” But they’re still going to try. She seems so sincere and real to me. I think she may be my favorite person in this whole season.
It’s already the final night of the trial marriages. I swear we spent like three and half episodes with the new couples and it’s barely been one episode with the original couples’ trial marriage.
Marita and Ashley are still breaking up in slow motion.
Marie and Mel, and Dayna and Magan, are determined to be together despite all the mess.
Episode 9: Ultimatum Day
We start with Haley going to meet with Magan.
Haley gives Magan a t-shirt she ordered for her, that arrived after their trial marriage ended. Then she lets Magan know that she doesn’t want her in her life in any capacity. Magan basically says okay, cool, and they separate.
Britney is worried, but I’m not. I think she and AJ are probably the most solid out of anyone here. AJ says she wouldn’t want to marry anyone else, and proposes. We love it.
Back with Haley and Pilar, Haley’s waffling a bit.
By now I’d forgotten that Pilar was the one who originally received the ultimatum. She proposes to Haley, and Haley accepts. I do wonder how different things would be if Magan and Haley’s relationship didn’t implode so quickly after their breakup. But I think they’ll probably be fine.
And now for two people who will certainly not be fine: Ashley and Marita.
This poor couple is resisting it so hard but it’s so clear they’re going to break up. They finally pull the trigger and blame it on a black cat.
They needed to break up, but man, was it painful to watch.
Let’s see if Bridget and Kyle do any better.
Kyle says that her trial marriage with Pilar revealed things she needed to work on. They’ve only been dating two and a half years, so I’m not surprised new issues would come up. But Kyle does propose, and Bridget says yes!
This is a lot more proposals than I was expecting. Three out of four! But now we have Mel and Marie, and Dayna and Magan left, so we might be about to see big drama.
Dayna meets with Mel first. Dayna lets Mel know she and Mel won’t be a thing. They end up arguing again. I once again find myself trying to respectfully not look at Dayna’s chest, which looks like it’s trying to escape the conversation.
It sure sounds like Mel was going to ask to be with Dayna if Dayna hadn’t come in immediately with a no. Mel then says she’s going to propose to Marie and Dayna asks if she’s doing that for herself or for Marie. Mel says it’s for Marie. Dayna points out that it’s a bad idea because if she doesn’t really want to marry Marie, she’s just delaying hurting her. For perhaps the first time this entire season, I have to agree with Dayna.
And that’s a wrap on Mel and Dayna. Time for Dayna to talk to Magan. They both wrote notes to read to each other. These people love reading off notes.
They end up double-proposing, Magan first, then Dayna. It’s cute, I guess. I’m just kind of done with these two.
Whatever. It’s not my life.
We get to our final couple, Mel and Marie. Marie is wearing an angel numbers necklace again, 333, which apparently means support. She says she feels very calm… interesting.
Mel proposes with a ring pop, which makes Marie laugh, at least. They talk about knowing and accepting that they’ll probably both have doubts. At least they’re not getting married today, but I don’t know how long this engagement will last…
But I will soon!
Episode 10: The Reunion
Okay, let’s get real. The number one thing I want to know is if Dayna and Mel actually fucked or not.
It’s been one year since the ultimatum came to term and already from the entrances it looks like Mel and Marie have split. But all the other couples who got engaged still seem to be together.
AJ and Britney definitely win for most coordinated couple. They look like they’re going to an Under The Sea themed prom together.
AJ talks about her fellowship with God, attributes her choosing Britney to Marita, and then we get a montage of her talking about herself in the 3rd person.
Bridget’s mullet has begun its slow takeover of the world by indoctrinating Kyle’s hair into its ways.
Marie and her 333 necklace are still together. Melrie has nothing on Mari333.
It seems like Netflix is trying to manufacture some drama by asking some leading questions that don’t really go anywhere, but they don’t have to for long, because Ashley and Marita have come back with enough drama for everyone.
Is this how ancient people felt watching gladiators kill each other for sport? I know it’s wrong, but I can’t look away…
Marita says they were together (Ashley says they weren’t) and that Ashley cheated during the time that Marita was out of state with her dying grandfather. And then Ashley comes back by saying she can name at least five times right now that Marita cheated on her.
Marie tries to mediate a bit and gets told off by Marita. Marie’s vibes are very exhausted schoolteacher right now.
The next few lines of my notes just say “what the fuck?” Marita says she doesn’t care that Ashley’s grandmother is dying. Ashley runs off crying with Mel chasing after her. Britney comforts Marita.
Marita says that Bridget and Kyle had talked to Ashley and convinced her to reverse the Ultimatum on Marita. Kyle’s eyes crack me up because you can see her looking around the room trying to remember if that conversation actually happened.
But let’s talk about Marie and Mel. Marie asks Dayna point blank if she hooked up with Mel during the show. Dayna says that they only kissed… before the first cocktail party. After that they hooked up.
At least Dayna feels bad about it and apologizes to Marie. Mel seems embarrassed too. Another burning question is answered when Marie mentions that of course she knew Mel can’t have kids, Dayna was not the first person to learn that.
We get into the Spotify receipts for a moment and get some funny asides from everyone during the show about it. Seems like the cast is split on whether it’s proof that they were fucking, but Mel and Dayna say it was sad songs, not a sex playlist. Mmkay.
They also get into some asides about how everyone defines sex.
I’m glad they do though, because it seems like that was part of the confusion over whether Dayna and Mel actually had sex. They said they didn’t, but I personally think they did by some people’s standards, if not theirs.
Dayna says she and Mel didn’t have sex “in that way” (referring to oral or fingering each other). So my final verdict is: probably they tribbed.
JoAnna asks Magan how she feels about all this and Magan gives a noncommittal politician’s answer. And Mel gives the realest breakdown of her relationship with Dayna.
We take another short break to look at everyone’s pets.
Kyle and Bridget are still doing well. They waited until they were desperate to live together to move in together. I’m glad they’re taking it slow. We also get a video message from Kyle’s mom, who quotes Wicked.
Pilar and Haley are going strong as well. Pilar talks about having always pictured a really healing conversation with her parents and realizing she doesn’t need to wait for that to happen to live her life. It was touching to hear that both she and Magan had made progress in being more out to their respective families.
They also started planning a wedding, then got stressed thinking about the guest list and started planning an elopement. That made me laugh because my wife and I literally did the same thing.
JoAnna also asks about the kiss at the club between Pilar and Kyle. It sounds like they’ve talked about it since then and worked out that it was a misunderstanding.
Magan and Dayna’s parents are going to meet soon, which is lovely to hear as well. But it’s nuts to hear that they went on the show in part to demonstrate that they were a happy and normal couple.
Magan also talks about how she wishes she and Haley hadn’t gone so far physically, because they could have been amazing friends. Ain’t that the rub of lesbian friendships.
We end with everyone being hopeful that they could all be friends after this, even Marita. And AJ makes the host cry by giving her a shout-out for being an ally.
We end with a promo for the Ultimatum mobile game, because I guess that’s what Netflix is doing now, and one final shot of everyone hugging except Marie who was probably very happy to get back to her cats after wrap. And honestly, who could blame her?
Overall, a decent season. I sort of hope we get more, but I also feel bad watching these people destroy their relationships for our entertainment. The entire premise of The Ultimatum is bad, but dammit if you can’t make me watch it by putting lesbians in here.
Television gods, I call on you now: give us more lesbian versions of TV shows. We can go bigger. We’ve cleared The Ultimatum hurdle, now where is the lesbian Bachelorette? Lesbian Love Is Blind? And WHEN are we getting an all-lesbian remake of Friends? I can only hope it’s soon.
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