Checking in With ‘Love Is Blind’ Season 3 Cast After That Game-Changing ‘After the Altar’
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We’re finally bidding farewell to Love Is Blind Season 3. Love Is Blind: After the Altar dropped its three episodes on Friday, February 10 on Netflix, and the episodes check in on the cast members one year after the tense reunion.
Still together are Alexa Lemieux (née Alfia) and Brennon Lemieux, who are the best couple to come out of this season (and one of the show’s best overall). Alexa’s lavish birthday party serves as the Reunion Part 2 for the whole pods crew. There’s a weird dynamic between Brennon and his father-in-law, but he’s handling it in stride. And of course, Cole Barnett hits on Alexa’s step-mother (who’s her age) at the party, unable to understand the distinction between mother and step-mother.
Matt Bolton and Colleen Reed are still together in the episodes and though married, are still living separately. Their biggest issue in the three installments is Matt’s refusal to neuter his dog, which Colleen cites as her reason for not wanting to live together yet. It’s a thin veil covering their actual reason, which is that they’re nervous as hell that things won’t work out if they take this next leap.
They take Matt’s mother’s advice by the end of the third episode and choose to commit to taking the next step together. They end the episode looking for houses and asking if they would still love each other if they were worms (Lord, give us strength).
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Then comes Raven Ross and SK Alagbada. The couple is going strong in the episodes, excelling at long-distance communication. SK is back in Dallas for the summer while on break from grad school in California, and they’re living together in an apartment they decorated as a couple.
Their dynamic is peaceful and loving, which culminates in SK proposing to Raven for the second time. She says yes in the final moments of the last episode, and then it cuts to Raven several months later with no ring on her finger. The episode confirms that SK cheated on Raven, ending their relationship altogether. There were previously rumors of the infidelity and their subsequent split in November 2022 when a woman on TikTok posted receipts that SK had strayed. Raven shares her feelings about the ordeal, but not the specific details of it, at the end of After the Altar Season 3 Episode 3.
As for Zanab Jaffrey and Cole, Zanab went no-contact with her former fiancé after the reunion. They speak for the first time at Alexa’s birthday party, and it’s as civil as it can be for these two. While Cole seems genuinely apologetic in talks with Zanab, that genuine nature only goes so far.
At three points in the episodes, he lists his ideal traits in a woman. The last trait is always someone who “looks good in a bikini.” All this time later, and he seemingly has no grasp on the fact that him saying he wants someone who looks “good” in swimwear implies that he doesn’t believe Zanab does.
Lastly, there’s Nancy Rodriguez and Bartise Bowden. They kept a friendship in secret for the last year, meeting up periodically. Bartise told Brennon, Matt, and SK during a night out that he believes Nancy knows there’s no chance of romance for them in the future. Nancy never says she’s interested in that in the first place.
Her desire to remain friends with Bartise is out of her belief that not being friends would invalidate her experience of once being in love with him. Her mother and brother are the voices of reason once more when they (along with the other women of the cast in a separate moment) encourage her to cut ties with the man who hurt her so badly.
It’s not clear why Bartise wants a friendship with Nancy. Based on his demeanor in the episodes, it seems he felt it made him look like a good guy. But Nancy dumped Bartise as a friend at Alexa’s party (reader, I clapped), and he was angered that she was getting advice from her friends and family about him. When she said she doesn’t benefit from their friendship, he said she was wrong to expect a friendship to have benefits. Not sexual ones, mind you. She just meant that this bond does nothing good for her, and he got mad at that prospect and argued it shouldn’t have to. Wild take!
Here, we check in on the Love Is Blind Season 3 cast’s social media to glean what has possibly changed since After the Altar was filmed.
Alexa & Brennon are family planning
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Brennon and Alexa excitedly talked about having kids in After the Altar, saying they could start with one and then go from there. Ahead of the season’s release, the couple told Us Weekly they’re actively trying to begin their family.
[We’re] working and twerking on it,” Alexa joked, adding that Brennon’s relationship with her father isn’t as tense as the episodes implied.
“It’s all in love,” she said. “It’s how my dad treats me. He doesn’t treat Brennon any different than he treats me.”
“If I was in his position, I would’ve gone way harder than what he went on me,” Brennon shared. “I try to be open-minded, but it’s hard to put yourself in those shoes.”
Based on Alexa’s Instagram post above (“This right here is all that matters. For everyone watching, it’s a show”), she and Brennon are still head-over-heels in love.
Raven is moving on from SK
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“Since [the second engagement], a lot has changed,” Raven said in the After the Altar finale. “My world is completely different because, you know, SK cheated on me and now our relationship is over.”
“It’s so crazy to watch it back and, like, remember my feelings then. … I was so happy,” she continued. “I really was so invested in the person that everyone saw and everyone loved, like, that’s the person that I saw and I loved every day too. So, to see everything that has happened since then is so hard because that was not the person that I thought that I was with.”
Now, Raven is taking in the life lessons and trying to move on gracefully. The pilates instructor shared a video on her Instagram the day of the After the Altar release hinting at where she’s at emotionally.
“Life is about learning from your mistakes and growing along the way. Sometimes things don’t go as planned but thats part of the journey and I’m learning to embrace it,” she wrote. No hints that she’s currently
Is SK dating anyone?
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SK has remained tight-lipped about the After the Altar revelations. As of time of publishing, he hasn’t posted anything since the episodes dropped. But in the weeks leading up to it, he highlighted his work and travels. It doesn’t seem he plans on addressing the series.
Is Zanab dating again?
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Zanab said she’s looking for love in After the Altar, but that the most important man in her life (at the time) was her therapist, Paul. She claims her “DMs are open” for anyone interested, but she also found a “forever love” through Love Is Blind that isn’t a romantic partner. Zanab became best friends with Ashley Randermann, who was part of the pods but didn’t leave engaged, and they’re loving life as roommates.
“Just because I didn’t come out of LIB with a husband, doesn’t mean I didn’t find forever love!” Zanab wrote in her roomie “hard launch” Instagram post. “Meet Ashley, she’s the Roomaloo, rooms and Ezgo. Our friendship is made up of cooking dinner, boat rides, church, deep conversations on balconies, dancing on fireplaces, gym dates, impromptu trips, farm rides, all white parties and so much more. You are a big part of so many of my fav mems. Love you Bash xoxo.”
The women of the cast are also still close. The day After the Altar came out, Zanab posted a video on her IG story of her and Nancy watching the episodes together.
Cole might be dating again
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Cole recently sparked dating rumors after a flirtatious exchanged with The Bachelor Season 26’s Susie Evans on the Nothing’s Ever That Serious podcast on December 15. He went on three Love Is Blind-style phone dates, hitting it off with Susie in their chat. He told her to “hurry up and get in my DMs,” and she replied, “I’ll shoot you one over.” They don’t seem to follow each other on Instagram, but the flirting made fans question if a fling was brewing. Outside of that, Cole’s Instagram is relationship-free.
Are Matt & Colleen living together?
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As far as we can tell, not yet! Colleen said in a November Instagram video (per Entertainment Tonight) that she and Matt intended on moving in together in May 2023. As Raven noted in After the Altar, and based on what’s seen in the episodes, the couple fights a lot. Hopefully, they’ve ironed out any squabbles with their seemingly improved ability to communicate with one another. Matt’s parents think their not living together is actually what’s holding them back from forming the deep partnership they desire. Hopefully, the springtime brings productive changes for the pair.
Nancy is on dating apps
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Well, one dating app. She told USA Today she joined the app Chispa, a dating app for Latinx people. At this point in her life, she wants to prioritize dating people from the same cultural background as her.
“I think initially, without having that be a requirement, it did tug at my heartstrings because it’s so nice to know that my culture, my language is there,” she said. “[It’s such] a rich culture. I love being Latina. And I think if anything it just took me to a place of being home.”
She doesn’t regret leaving her friendship with Bartise behind.
“It was something that I knew that I needed to do to remove myself from that kind of environment,” she said. “If you’re not doing anything for me personally, you’re not helping me grow in any kind of way.”
Bartise is on Perfect Match
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Bartise has two reality show drops in one week with After the Altar on February 10 and the series premiere of Netflix’s Perfect Match on Valentine’s Day. Given the premise of the show (Netflix’s “most infamous singles” from reality shows look for love with each other), he’s seemingly looking for a relationship. Find out if he finds one on Tuesday, February 14.
Love Is Blind: After the Altar, Season 3, Streaming Now, Netflix
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