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Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX
The couples are back with their original partners, and that means it’s time to have some hard conversations, which three of our four couples actually do. Kat attempts a real conversation with Alex, who says, “Sure, honey, whatever you say,” then goes right back to calculating how much money for Tesla stock and crypto he expects to make from the exposure this “experience” has given him.
I can’t decide if meeting Kat’s friends makes me less worried for her or more. On the one hand, Kat has a couple top-tier ride-or-dies, clearly. The lady on the left in particular was giving Alex absolutely no quarter, which had me whooping from my couch. On the other hand, I have to assume these friends have been here all along, and if they haven’t been able to convince Kat that this guy’s bad news yet, it’s not looking promising for the future.
Other supporting characters who give grade A performances this round include Roxanne’s parents. In particular Roxanne’s mother, who sagely advises that, “money can come and go but love… You’re making it harder than it is, babe.” Because Roxanne is definitely making it harder than it is. Roxanne (who I actually do love, even if she did tell Antonio to his face that she’s out of his league) is still worried about Antonio’s lack of drive, even though we learn during their lunch with her parents that he actually does have his own business now. He’s out here doing deals, and signing paperwork, and whatever else it is business people do, all so that he’ll be worthy of her.
If Roxanne is worried that, married to Antonio, she’ll wind up solely responsible for the household finances, then I understand that. I’m just not convinced that’s the actual problem. I kind of suspect that Roxanne wants to look like a power couple, and Antonio’s energy is 100 percent stoner softboy (an energy that I personally love). I also get the feeling that Alex isn’t the first quote-unquote successful man who’s had Roxanne run crying back to Antonio. I guess what I’m saying is that Antonio is trying to give himself a whole-ass new personality for Roxanne and all he wants in return is for her to say, “I love you, too.” Not even “I love you.” Just say it back.
On their last night together before ultimatum-time, they ask each other what kind of spouse they think they’ll be. Antonio, bantering a little, says he’ll be Roxanne’s “champion.”
“So I’ll have a champion?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t say the same here, though.”
“Yeah, no, that’s not what I signed up here for. No offense.”
Weirdly, it’s very adorable. Like, I can see the chemistry. It works. Listen to your mom, Roxanne.
Elsewhere in town, Trey and Riah are also having a breakthrough. Unfortunately, it’s leading toward the inevitable: They should break up. I haven’t talked much about Riah yet, mostly because I just don’t have anything much to add. Riah has been pretty clear with Trey and with James about the areas where her needs are not being met. It’s not her fault if they don’t listen. Like when Trey said he had feelings for Ryann and Riah got upset. Trey keeps saying he’s “in the dog house,” but as Riah has explained several times, she’s not angry, she’s hurt, and she doesn’t know how to move past it. He asks what she thinks about marriage now, and she points out this is basically the first time he’s ever actually asked her that. It’s always been about when he wants to get married and when he wants to have kids, and he’s trying to drag her along on his timeline. She says she feels like he’s rushing her. He thinks of it as getting her to “skip steps.” We learn that he’s given her this ultimatum but they have never discussed where they want to live or how many kids they’d want to have. And you say you’re ready for marriage? My good sir. You are not ready for marriage.
Trey talks a good game about “compromise” and “partnership,” but at the first actual test of this he refuses to budge. She’s young and she wants to move to Atlanta because she wants to live in the city. He’s trying to move this girl out to the suburbs immediately. Fellas, let this be a lesson. If you love a woman enough to marry her, you damn well better love her enough to move to Atlanta with her for a year.
Riah tells the confessional camera that she’s grown a lot over the past few months. “Has my growth made me move past him?” Quite possibly, babe.
By far the hardest of the hard conversations we witness are the ones between James and Ryann. Because, woof.
It starts with one of those emotional, all-nighter fights where no one is 100 percent wrong and no one is 100 percent right and everyone winds up hurt and tired and sobbing. Ryann taps her nails impatiently on the counter, which triggers an extreme reaction from James because he says he gave him flashbacks to his mom when she was angry, and he breaks one of the metal glasses. He says he has PTSD and she can’t tell him to just get over it. She says she can’t spend her life walking on eggshells without being allowed to say something about it because that affects her life, too. It goes on until 3:30 in the morning, according to the Netflix timestamps, and we all need a drink at the end of it.
In the morning, after everyone has cooled down, James finally tells Ryann the secret he’s been keeping from her for his whole life. James felt abandoned by his mom growing up, because she was away for work most of the time. He says he also felt pressure to live up to the perfect image she painted of his dad, who died when he was two. Under all of this, James says he began self-harming at age 9. He tells Ryann he was afraid to tell her this because what if she judged him or thought he was weak. “I couldn’t be enough for my mom. I couldn’t be enough for my dad. How could I be enough for someone like you?” That sound you hear is my own heart breaking for him right now. “You may have issued me the ultimatum, Ryann, but I’ve never not known that I wanted to marry you,” he says. “I guess I was just always scared.”
Says Ryann, “This is some heavy stuff.” You can say that again. Their problems aren’t over (based on that preview clip, certainly not), but at least they present a united front when they get drinks with James’s mom who is, I can confirm, a real pill.
There are only two episodes left, and I just hope they go the way I want them to go. My heart can’t take anything heavier than that.
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