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It was sometime last year that it started to feel like Big Conversations about marriage and divorce were *everywhere.* David Brooks was lecturing young people to “obsess less about your career and to think a lot more about marriage” because marriage rates have been falling. Emily Gould was contemplating leaving her husband and then not over on The Cut. High-profile writers like Lyz Lenz , Leslie J...

Last week, New York Magazine’s The Cut published an all-time banger of a hate read — which is saying something, considering the run they’ve been on recently (from the “$50k in a shoebox” piece to the “tried to leave my husband and then realized I was just having a breakdown” piece). Grazie Sophia Christie’s floridly written and smugly framed essay, “The Case for Marrying an Older Man,” argues, wit...

One of the first things you notice about “Irish Wish,” the latest output of Lindsay Lohan’s deal with Netflix, is just how… saturated the colors are. The pink accents in her plaid knee-length dress look a little too pink. The green grass of the Irish countryside is a little too green. The blue of the water is a little too blue. Are we in Ireland at all, you start to wonder? Is that real clothing?...

UPDATE: On the afternoon of March 22, Princess Catherine announced that she is undergoing treatment for cancer . Our thoughts are with her and her family, and we wish her a swift recovery. This discussion primarily focuses on what the public reactions to her stepping back from public life say about the culture / the role of the royal family. Nearly three months after the last official appearance o...

It only took six seasons of “Love Is Blind” for Netflix and Kinetic to get Nick and Vanessa Lachey some real media training. At long last, our fair hosts seem to have discovered the power of a follow-up question! (They did seem to basically forget to ask about the majority of Jimmy and Chelsea’s relationship, but… baby steps.) This year’s reunion had some real production value behind it, was (bles...

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains some spoilers for the finale of season 6 of “Love Is Blind.” The Charlotte-based “Love Is Blind” season that started out so promisingly is looking pretty diminished by the finale — at least when you’re counting couples. Season 6 ended up being as short on weddings as season 5, and similarly gave us more mess than romance. But the finale was no less rich of an epis...

Just when we thought things had reached peak insanity on season 6 of “Love Is Blind,” receipts pointing to some questionable off-screen behavior of cast members started popping up all over TikTok . Full disclosure! We taped our recap of episodes 10 and 11 last week, but then the gossip started pouring out: about Jeramey’s previous engagement , about the serious girlfriend Trevor allegedly had DURI...

On this week’s pod, we recap episodes 7-9 of “Love Is Blind” season 6, which has begun to take some unexpected twists after a strong opening. Though the first drop of “Love Is Blind” episodes ended in a grim place, with at least two of the five engaged pairs collapsing into conflict within hours of attending their first social function together, their honeymoon in Punta Cana ends with all five cou...

Season 6 of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” dropped its first six episodes on Valentine’s Day, and (obviously) we binged them all. The verdict? So far, so good. After an absolutely disastrous season 5, which left multiple lawsuits in its wake, and two couples fully erased from the season, we were wary heading into season 6. But six episodes in, LIB’s Charlotte, North Carolina season is off to a strong s...

Ever since one-time Bachelor — and famed “Kissing Bandit” — Arie Luyendyk, Jr. appeared on the first season of the Peacock reality series “The Traitors,” the show has been on our radar. We heard about it on social media and from friends; we heard that Arie showed a different side of himself in the strategy competition setting, and that the show itself was wildly entertaining. Nevertheless, we resi...

“What is the penis to me? What is its nature?” Jacqueline Novak asks early in her show, “Get On Your Knees.” After some consideration she concludes that the penis is tender, responsive, and has “the soul of an artist.” Like the organ it explores, “Get On Your Knees” has a tenderness at its center, wrapped in a package of genital humor. It is a show that exists in the liminal space between comedy s...

Just when you thought “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” would never be able to top the moment when federal agents tried to arrest Jen Shah during filming , the season 4 finale raised the bar to the heavens, delivering a finale as shocking and suspenseful as a scripted thriller. In the final episode, a classic Real Housewives girls’ trip dinner turns into a “Knives Out”-style showdown as the...

Content warning: We will be discussing infertility and IVF during this episode. If those topics are sensitive for you right now, we totally understand. Feel free to skip this week’s episode. Take care of yourselves, first and foremost. When Sami Jacobson decided to start trying to have a baby, she was 33, and, anxieties assuaged by a doctor friend, she figured, “it’ll just happen.” But then… it di...

This week, we finally got around to discussing the movie everyone has been talking about: “May December,” a film “loosely inspired” by the Mary Kay Letourneau-Vili case. Directed by Todd Haynes and written by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, it stars Natalie Portman as Elizabeth Berry, an actress researching her role playing Gracie Atherton, a woman who became a tabloid celebrity in the ‘90s after be...

FBoy? F, Hi. Again! After being unceremoniously axed by MAX in 2022, our favorite, innovative reality dating show has made a moderately triumphant comeback. “FBoy Island,” a show from the creative brain of former “Bachelor” EP Elan Gale, just wrapped up its third season on The CW, and boy do we have thoughts. First, there’s the good. We’ve been “FBoy Island” devotees since its first season in 2021...

The holidays are here at last, and one thing Netflix guarantees us during this magical time is a Christmas-themed chick flick starring one to three early aughts icons. The plot? Thin as a single snowflake. The message? Don’t stop believin’ (in Santa). “Best. Christmas. Ever!” wraps this whole package up in a shiny bow: Brandy Norwood, Heather Graham, and Jason Biggs star alongside Matt Cedeño in a...

Over the four months that Claire was on maternity leave, a whole lot happened, both in our lives, and in the greater cultural sphere. So we figured it would be a good opportunity to catch up, An entire, absolutely deranged season of “Love Is Blind” aired! Charity Lawson found love with Dotun Olubeko on “The Bachelorette,” and “The Golden Bachelor” premiered! (Claire is still recovering from the tr...

This week on the pod — Claire’s first official week back from maternity leave! — we dig into the latest season of the Netflix show about the Oppenheim Group, a luxury L.A. real estate brokerage where maternity leave is grounds for removal . Back in the fantasia of Calacatta marble countertops and glass pocket doors that is the Los Angeles luxury real estate market, our gals are still clacking arou...

There is a particular pleasure in listening to other people give relationship advice. This is why I keep podcasts “Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel” and “Dear Shandy,” — shout out to our brilliant friends Sharleen Joynt and Andy Levine! — in my regular listening rotation, and can’t get enough of reading Heather Havrilesky’s Ask Polly and Alexandra Hayes Robinson’s Hello Hayes columns. It’s...

As a girl in the late ‘90s and early aughts, few figures loomed larger than Britney Spears. She was IT. Her blonde waves, her sugary sweet voice, her sexy-but-virginal winking public image, she represented an ideal I knew I was supposed to strive for and also knew I’d fail to achieve. I choreographed dances to “…Baby One More Time” in my best friend’s room, tying our shirts up in knots in a paltry...

Houston, we had a problem. We continued to have problems. The problems spun out far beyond our TVs — like this lawsuit — and now the problems have ended. That’s right, baby, “Love Is Blind” season 5 has come to a whimpering end. We got two weddings, one double “I Do,” and a shockingly calm and mature reunion episode. (Raise your virtual hand if you were SO relieved that Vanessa didn’t pressure any...

Season of 5 of “Love Is Blind” continues to be an absolute mess, top to bottom. Episode 8 was full of hard-to-litigate conflicts (Johnie and Izzy, Uche and Lydia, Johnie and Stacy, Uche and Miriam…), and then episode 9 was like emotional whiplash as we prepare for the two — only two! — weddings we will see in the finale. We also saw our final two couples — Izzy and Stacy, Milton and Lydia — face s...

This season of “Love Is Blind” is less about rooting for any of the couples, and more about watching with fascination as relationships fall apart and — maybe — come back together. And this week, the couple that did NOT defy the odds, is horny-for-Americana J.P. and sweet kindergarten teacher Taylor. After forcing his partner to endure three days of painful awkwardness, in which he answered every q...

My main reaction to the first four episodes of “Love Is Blind” season 5? OY. There are certain conventions of “Love Is Blind,” as there are with every dating show, that we’ve grown to understand and, in a sense, feel comforted by. There will be a Golden Couple who emerges as a sure thing from episode one. There will be at least one major love triangle. By the end of the first drop of episodes, the...

In my humble opinion, few things feel as good as a promising, burgeoning friendship. As inept as I’ve historically been at finding great men to date, I excel at making new friends. We all have our strengths, and that’s one of mine. Friendships have been the building blocks of my adulthood. I reached 36 as an unmarried, childfree woman with a solid career and a full life. For the last decade and a...