Note: This story contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Ultimatum: Queer Love.
One of the core tenets of reality television is that, in order to appear on it, you usually have to do something undesirable: eat bugs, lose a ton of weight, date Hugh Hefner, et cetera (with the exception of the Real Housewives, that is, who pretty much just go to lunch and spread weird rumors about each other, God bless them). The contestants on the most recent season of The Ultimatum: Queer Love, though, have me wondering: For what reason would a person subject their hard-won love to the Vitamix of emotional chaos that accompanies being featured on this particular show?
In case you’re not familiar with the rules of The Ultimatum: Queer Love—better known to most simply as Queer Ultimatum—allow me to enlighten you: Five couples meet up, choose new partners from amongst each others’ ranks, then spend three weeks living together in what I think is a gigantic condo complex in Miami (unclear at this time) before rejoining their original partners to decide whether they’re going to get married, get together with someone they met on the show, or go home single. Talk about some high gay stakes!
There was lesbian mess aplenty on the last season of Queer Ultimatum, and I became addicted to the point that I still follow several of the principals on Instagram. (Guys, Aussie and Sam are still together, I think! And Rae and Lexi both have new partners, which rocks because they were…ill-suited!) Season two, though, makes the last look like a particularly polite episode of The Great British Bake Off, with sex, lies, drama, and allegations of Spotify-cheating abounding from every direction. What is Spotify-cheating, you ask? I wouldn’t want to give away too much, but just know that you should always make your Spotify playlists private, especially if you share an account with your ex and you’re holed up with your new “trial wife,” cooking truffle-infused foods and listening to alleged sex music.
As a queer person myself, I totally get the appeal of being around a bunch of other queer people—with no straights in sight—for almost two months, and I always think the cast members look like they’re having the most fun at the show’s outset, when everyone is just cruising and flirting and giggling in beachwear. One thing I simply do not understand, though, is why a couple that seems to be compatible and reasonably happy—like season two’s Bridget and Kyle—would sign up to go on a show that’s basically the reality equivalent of U-Hauling with someone you met at Woods Wednesdays for three weeks straight, only to realize that you don’t actually have as much in common as you thought you did over margaritas and subtle vape drags.
Of course, there are some Queer Ultimatum couples who genuinely seemed to grow into their relationship on the show, like Britney and A.J., and some who probably never should have dated in the first place (Ashley and Marita seem like a classic case of “We’re from an area with a reasonably small queer community and everyone threw us together because we’re both gay”), but as someone in what I’d like to think is a healthy and non-codependent queer relationship, those “this and never going on Queer Ultimatum” memes are very real.
Obviously, nobody’s going to force me and my partner to appear on a Netflix reality show, but even the thought of watching the love of my life literally hand-select someone new from a small cluster of queers to play house with for the next three weeks sends a frisson of fear down my spine. Does this mean I’m not as emotionally evolved as the people on Queer Ultimatum, or just that Queer Ultimatum is the most chaotic queer reality show there has ever been? Either way, someone greenlight season three stat, and maybe throw in a masc-for-masc couple while you’re at it!
