[PREVIEW] Ranking Enemies & Friends On 'Love Is Blind: After The Altar' Season 2

Planning a family reunion can be stressful, because there are so many ways it can go wrong. Someone gets too drunk. Someone gossips loudly about something they shouldn’t. A few key family members simply opt out altogether which gives everyone even more to gossip about! You know the kind of family we’re talking about… the one where everyone dates everyone else, and then some of them get engaged sight unseen, and then eventually all of them break up? That kind of family. A reality television family.That’s right, babies, we’re talking about the cast of the second season of Netflix’s ~experimental~ dating show, “Love Is Blind.” And because any family reunion is bound to be full of chaos, that’s exactly what the second 3-episode “After The Altar” special delivered.In some ways, the whole thing was kind of a bummer. After all, weeks before the special dropped, both married couples — Iyanna and Jarrette, and Nick and Danielle — announced in quick succession that they would be divorcing. “After The Altar” provides some insight into why Iyanna and Jarrette may not have been fundamentally compatible, but Nick and Danielle’s split remains a mystery. We also see the ways in which on-screen conflicts and the audience reaction to season 2 can work to create festering resentment, which we see play out between Sal and Mallory (and Sal’s extremely-hot-theater-kid-energy new gf!), as well as Natalie and Shayne. But it’s not all cringey sadness. There is always something comforting about checking in with characters (humans?) who you have grown to feel an affinity to. And we get some heartening updates from Deeps and Kyle… the semi-convincing will-they-or-won’t-they couple. Either way, we knew what the task was for this viewing. We ranked these characters during the season, so we simply had a duty to check in with our feelings. Some people held steady in our BFF rankings, and others precipitously dropped. Plus, we have a new minor nemesis. Hope you enjoy the episode! xoShareWe’ve been watching…I am officially obsessed with “Bad Sisters,” the new Apple TV series from Sharon Horgan (of “Catastrophe” brilliance). It’s an adaptation of a Swedish show about five sisters and their nightmare of a brother-in-law. After watching their sister become diminished in an emotionally abusive relationship — and after he enacts his own unique brand of torture upon each of his four sisters-in-law — the sisters decide to take matters into their own hands. Like John Tucker and Earl… John Paul has to die. The show is dark and comedic and full of raw insights on what it looks like to be a woman backed into a corner. -EmmaSeason 2 of “Rutherford Falls,” the Peacock comedy about a Native museum curator (Jana Schmieding) who is passionate about preserving her people’s cultural heritage — but whose best friend (Ed Helms) happens to be a clueless scion of the white family that colonized the land generations ago. In season 1, their friendship, and the balance of power in the town, was turned upside-down after a podcaster comes to town and unearths secrets about the history between the town and the (fictional) Minishonka nation. Schmieding is fantastic as Reagan, the self-deprecating but ambitious curator, and it’s wonderful to see a fat, Native woman not only in a starring role, but at the center of an extremely charming love triangle. I didn’t realize it had been picked back up for a second season, but it’s a delightful, easy watch — “Parks and Rec” energy — and I’m glad to have it back in the rotation. -ClaireWe’ve been reading…Finally started Gabrielle Zevin’s “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” and it turns out that the debut novel about two friends who meet as children and go on to become video game designers is just as good as everyone says it is. (Also… the gaming elements should not deter anyone who, like me, has zero interest in gaming.) -EmmaFriend of the pod Esmé Weijun Wang wrote the foreword to a new Penguin Classics edition of Joanne Greenberg’s “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” so I had to get it. The title was familiar, but I never knew anything else about the book until I heard about it from Esmé, and it’s absolutely fascinating. An autobiographical novel about a teenage girl, Deborah Blau, who is sent to a mental institution by her desperate parents, the book takes us deep into Deborah’s inner world of Yr, the fantasy realm she first retreated into and then felt trapped within. -ClaireWe’ve been listening to…The Mindy Kaling episode of Meghan Markle’s new Spotify podcast, “Archetypes.” She speaks openly about being an unmarried woman in her 40s, professional success, and more. It’s a really beautiful episode, and I have to shout out my BFF (and our OG Here To Make Friends producer!!!) Katelyn Bogucki who is the Executive Producer on the project. I recommend listening with a glass of wine and a good cry. -EmmaI’m just on my usual rotation this week! I think I might be running out of room in my listening schedule for new shows… -ClaireWe’ve been buying… I mean… is it any surprise? There was a new Hill House drop for the beginning of fall, and I snagged a few pieces I am super excited about, including this cozy Grandpa Cardigan in cream (the pearl buttons!!), this wrap skirt in pink (I have this in another pattern/fabric and I really love it), and this “Nap Top,” which I hope will be a good, slightly elevated layering piece, in the artists’ edition print. -EmmaA safety hair-cutting razor and Jayne Matthews’ DIY shag classes! Remember that early part of the pandemic, when everything was locked down and people were getting really into cutting their own hair and baking their own bread? I was a bit busy doing my own childcare and working at my own job and cooking my own meals and breastfeeding my own baby, so I just watched enviously on Instagram as people learned, from the hairstylist whose famous retro shags inspired my 2019 bangs revival, how to cut their own hair. And now, bitches, it’s my time. I watched, I hyperventilated, I awkwardly used a straight razor to “carve petals” into my hair. It is definitely edging closer and closer to mullet territory (because I CAN’T STOP) but I love how capable I feel and how proud (on good hair days at least) of what I have made. -ClaireShare Rich Text