You can say that you watch Love Is Blind because you genuinely want to see a perfect couple come together, but you’d be lying. What you really want is drama. The mess. The Irina. The blunt troublemaker made the first five episodes of Love Is Blind Season 4 a delicious, drama-filled feast, but then she disappeared. And so did all of the most interesting elements of the show. Yeah, viewers were hating on Irina a lot, but her elimination cut the most engaging storyline of the season short, leaving fans to just watch the other bland, blissful couples just talk about nothing.
Irina’s villain status was cemented in one moment toward the end of the dating pods segment. After competing with Bliss for Zack’s attention, Zack finally decided to propose to Irina, so he broke up with Bliss. As Bliss cried over the emotional breakup in the women’s lounge, Irina and her bestie Micah cackled in the corner, even creeping closer to Bliss to better overhear her tearful conversation with the others. Was it a terrible thing to do? Yes. But it was also pretty much the only thing every Love Is Blind fan was talking about all week. This girl was giving us content, people! Plus, not to defend her actions too much, but there is a competitive element to Love Is Blind, and Bliss was Irina’s competition — she was kind of just playing the game, in a sense. The mocking laughter was definitely obnoxious, but this is just a silly reality show at the end of the day.
Fans were also turned off by how Irina treated her fiancé Zack, but I don’t really fault her for it too much. She realized instantly that she wasn’t physically attracted to Zack, so of course she wasn’t super gung-ho about marrying him. Sure, the premise of the show is to try to take looks out of the equation, but that’s not very realistic for most romances. Sometimes, you’re just not attracted to someone. It happens. So you don’t marry that person. Except Irina didn’t really have the option to end things right away. And to her credit, she recognized that Zack deserved to be with someone else and told him that during their breakup in Mexico.
“I’m literally treating you so poorly. I know it. And you don’t deserve that,” Irina told her soon-to-be ex. She even encouraged Zack to explore things with her rival Bliss: “I think about Bliss. I hope you get the chance to see her when you go back to Seattle.”
Zack did end up seeing Bliss again in Seattle, and started a relationship with her instead of Irina. And so far, it’s been a snoozefest.
Irina’s exit didn’t just ruin the intrigue of one couple, but also the juicier drama that was building in another pairing. When Irina started flirting with her BFF Micah’s fiancé Paul, it looked like a super spicy love triangle was forming. But then, that whole situation was nipped in the bud before it could ever really become anything. What could have been a torrid betrayal between the season’s two “mean girls” got watered down into a tepid coupling where Paul just nods along with Micah’s wedding plans, and it’s all because Irina got booted from the show.
At this point, I’m just waiting for the reunion so that Irina can bring back all the drama that we missed out on after she left.
