Netflix 'The Ultimatum' is the most chaotic, messy dating show we have to binge
If you couldn’t keep your eyes off the chaos that is Love Is Blind, new Netflix reality dating show The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On is an even more bizarre mess, also hosted by Nick Lachey and his wife Vanessa.
The whole premise of the show screams drama. Six couples enter this process, one person in each relationship gives their partner an ultimatum, they have eight weeks to propose or the relationship ends. But that’s not all, each person has to pick a new potential partner to move in with for three weeks. They repeat that process with their original partner before ultimately choosing what their future will look like, and who they'll be spending it with.
If you think this isn’t awkward enough, the men and women can actually talk to each other throughout the experience, so they have to sit and listen to another person talk about how their long-term “ex” partner was turned on by another person. If you need even more drama, there’s also a pregnancy scare in the show, so it's definitely a full bag of entertainment.
“Psychologists agree an ultimatum is not a good way to get somebody else to do what you want, but it is the best way to get you the answers you need on a timetable you can live with,” Nick Lachey says at the outset of the series, setting up just how strange this whole process will be.
The show even made the Lacheys open up about a period of time where both Nick and Vanessa dated another person, after initially moving in together, leading to the ultimate decisions that they missed what they left, ending up in marriage.
The couples with the most drama on 'The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On'
There are some similarities in the grievances between the couples, in most cases like April and Jake, Hunter and Alexis, Shanique and Randall, Rae and Zay, the woman in the relationship is very ready to get married and start a family, while their partner don't feel like they’re at that point yet.
For Madlyn and Colby, who have been dating for a year and a half, Madlyn is the one who isn’t ready to get married yet. In Lauren and Nate’s circumstance, after dating for two and a half years, Lauren is still strong in her stance that she does not want to have children, but Nate is firm that anyone he would consider marrying needs to want to start a family.
The tensions between the couples, as you can expect, start to rise quite quickly. Like Alexis admitting that if Hunter wasn’t making enough money that was “reasonable,” she would walk away, which she factored into trying to find a new partner, wanting a “more than comfortable” financial situation.
“Hunter is not perfect for husband material yet because I make more than him,” she says. “I have no desire to be the breadwinner in the relationship.”
Then Alexis had to face a harsh reality with Colby, who told her right to her face that he is not attracted to her.
But the couples to really watch throughout the show are April and Jake, and Rae and Zay. April is the epitome of the world “spunky,” high energy, she knows what she wants and she has no problem saying it. Her aggravation comes quickly as Jake and Rae start to bond, and have a visible connection.
A beautiful disaster is really the best way to describe The Ultimatum, with way more arguing than we’ve seen in Love Is Blind, and also less restraint than The Bachelor. It somehow, even more so than other reality dating shows, really makes you feel like you’re pulling back the curtain on a situation that, outside of entertainment, would seem completely twisted.
Wth the final two episodes, the finale and the reunion, available on Netflix next week, April 16, we’ll be waiting to see how this chaos turns out.
