Episodes

  • The 'Love Is Blind' DC Reunion Dropped Every Ball
    Nov 1 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    Warning: This post and episode contain spoilers for the “Love Is Blind” season 7 reunion!

    This “Love Is Blind” DC reunion had it all, if “it all” refers to every one of Nick and Vanessa Lachey’s well-documented inadequacies as hosts: corny dad jokes that Nick’s punch-up writer clearly prepared well in advance, missed lines of questioning and failures to follow up on important points, muddled back-and-forth disputes between the cast that dragged out for long minutes while the moderators mentally checked out, Vanessa claiming dubious familial relationships with the “Love Is Blind” babies, and, of course, a couple of the biggest villains of the season being let off the hook with barely a slap on the wrist apiece.

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    14 mins
  • 'Love Is Blind' DC's Devastating Finale
    Oct 25 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    Warning: This post and episode contain spoilers for the “Love Is Blind” season 7 finale!

    The first 15 minutes of the “Love Is Blind” season 7 finale was riveting and wrenching. The following hour was largely boring, with sides of sweetness and dramatic irony. This is one of those finales that should have jumped straight into a reunion. (Not that we think…

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    13 mins
  • 'Love Is Blind' DC Is In Its Breakup Era
    Oct 18 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    The psychologist John Gottman has posited that there are four horsemen that portended doom in a relationship: contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling. If this theory didn’t already exist, it could have been developed simply by watching this season of “Love Is Blind,” in which contempt and criticism have infected several of the relationships root and branch.

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    13 mins
  • The FBoys Of 'Love Is Blind' DC, Revealed
    Oct 11 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    At this point, it feels like it happens every season. You think you know who the villains are… and then more episodes come out and the TikToks start rolling in. Move on over, Leo. Stephen and Tyler (sob!) are ready to take your place.

    In this week’s batch of “Love Is Blind” episodes, our couples finish out their time in Cabo…

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    14 mins
  • 'Love Is Blind' DC Gets Messy
    Oct 7 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    Our nation’s preeminent insta-marriage reality show has taken its talents to the capital for season seven! It’s “Love Is Blind,” DC edition, and this mammoth first drop (six episodes, some close to 75 minutes long) showcases that special DMV flavor. Cast members work at think tanks and ponder whether they would have spoken to each other if they’d met “on the Hill.” In this episode, we recap drop one -- episodes 1-6!

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    14 mins
  • 'Emily in Paris' Is Still Our Perky American Paper Doll
    Sep 23 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    After four years and four seasons of television, Emily Cooper has finally been in Paris for an entire year. That’s right: despite seasonal hopscotch, some misleading pregnancy timelines, and a general sense among the show’s audience, characters, and seemingly even writers that our plucky young marketing phenom has been in Paris forever, t’s really only been about 12 months in “Emily in Paris” time.

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    14 mins
  • 'The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives' Is Our Latest Obsession
    Sep 16 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    The minute the beat drops on Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” during the opening scenes for Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” you know you’re gonna be in for a god damn ride. The camera is trained on social media star Taylor Frankie Paul, a mother of two in her late 20s who is all hair extensions and highlights. She’s also the closest thing this series has to a protagonist. A producer asks a question to set the scene: “So tell us how a couple of Mormon moms, getting together, making TikToks, suddenly turns into this crazy swinging sex scandal?”

    The show is ultimately more about Whitney Leavitt leaving the group chat than about a Mormon sex scandal... and yet we are HOOKED. In this episode, we discuss Paul’s tricky role as the show’s emotional center, saints and sinners, Whitney’s villain edit vs. the real villain (Zac), Demi’s feminist soapbox, Jessi’s company branding, and whether MomTok “can even survive this.” Hope you enjoy! Xo

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    15 mins
  • 'Selling Sunset' S8 Is Meta AF
    Sep 9 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit claireandemma.substack.com

    Last season of “Selling Sunset” saw Chrishell Stause victorious, the undisputed queen of the Oppenheim Group and, more importantly, of the reality show about it. In season 8, her power can go unstated, but it’s felt; she and her clique run the school (complimentary). But as their stars are rising, and other agents jockey for similar clout, the narratives on the show seem to be driven less and less by real estate affairs and more and more by reality TV production affairs: Who set up what on-camera conversation, and for what purpose? Who said what about whom during an Instagram Live or in a social media conversation about the show? If a show depicts the personal lives of its stars — their marriages, family lives, romances — is everything pertaining to their personal lives fair game, or are some things too sacred or too sensitive to be used as TV fodder?

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    14 mins