This article contains spoilers about the first six episodes of Love Is Blind season 9.
We’re not sure who Kacie McIntosh gaslit more on Love Is Blind season 9: Patrick Suzuki, or all of us viewers.
Throughout the first six episodes of Netflix’s reality dating experiment, Kacie and Patrick fell in love in the pods. Of course, their path to engagement was not smooth after Patrick’s first love, Anna Yuan, left the show without any warning. He was shocked and hurt, but bounced back enough to give his “distant No. 2” option, Kacie, a shot, and ended up proposing to her.
During their dates in the pods, Patrick was very vocal with Kacie about his insecurities over his physical appearance and ethnicity as an Asian man, but Kacie said all the right things to validate their connection despite never having dated “someone who looks like him.” She even said that all her siblings were with non-white partners, and that her family would be accepting of their relationship.
Netflix
It was what Patrick needed to hear to overlook some major red flags, including that she only dated based on physical appearance in the past, had previously been recruited by another dating show before this, and that her last relationship was with a guy she found on Instagram because he was hot.
Ultimately, they got engaged, but their love story ended immediately after — or maybe even during — their in-person reveal. While it started off strong, with a big hug and kiss, the vibe felt off pretty quickly. Kacie kept kissing Patrick, but wouldn’t actually look at him, and kept repeating the same question, “How are you?” She said she was “at a loss for words,” and it did not seem like she meant that in a good way.
Kacie told Patrick that he was “handsome,” that she was “feeling good,” and that it was “such a relief.” But she walked out of the reveal immediately, not waiting to look at Patrick as the door closed, like newly engaged partners usually do at the end. And in her interview afterwards, her enthusiasm over her engagement was — well, quite clearly faked.
We didn’t have to wait long to see this drama continue to unfold. At the end of episode 5, cameras followed Kacie to the women’s hotel where a producer asked her to explain what happened.
“He deserves someone better than me,” she said. Patrick came to meet her, and she was already in tears. But she was also smiling, saying she loves him, and continued touching his face.
Netflix
The episode ended on that cliffhanger, but episode 6 picked up immediately with Kacie telling Patrick that she couldn’t “do this anymore” and that she wanted to go home. In her interview, she told producers that “he’s not a bad-looking guy in any sense, but he deserves somebody that is so obsessed with him,” and that’s not her. “I understand how that is about to look,” she added.
But cue the major mixed signals, because that’s not at all what she told Patrick. He point-blank asked her if she was trying to break up with him, and she said she just didn’t want to go on the trip to Mexico. She claimed that it’s not because she’s not in love with him, but rather that she just didn’t want to do the TV show anymore.
Patrick took it surprisingly well, because Kacie kept making out with him and confirming that her choice had nothing to do with her feelings for him. She cried as she claimed the producers were trying to make this about how she felt about his physical appearance, and she denied that was the issue. Of course, Patrick believed her. How could he not? She was making a convincing case with tears, kisses, and confessions of love.
She apologized for breaking his heart, playing out a completely different scenario in her head than what Patrick thought the moment was. He simply thought she wanted to quit the show and continue dating when they got home to Denver. He was smiling and comforting her through the whole thing, promising that this wasn’t going to change anything for them. At one point, she even agreed to go to Mexico with him the next month without cameras following them.
The only time she actually vocalized that this was, indeed, a breakup was when she whispered, “I don’t know if I’ll be there with you,” after he said he’ll see her back home. He didn’t hear what she mumbled, so he asked her, “What’s that?” And she just stayed quiet as she hugged him. Oof. She then wrapped her legs around his waist as she made out with him outside the hotel, further confusing him on what was happening.
Netflix
And here’s where it got truly hard to watch. Patrick told producers after their encounter that he still felt good about his relationship with Kacie! He felt that she was genuine.
“I don’t think she’s gaslighting,” he said. “You can tell we’re attracted to each other. It has nothing to do with physical attraction.”
Despite his words, he was clearly still nervous and asked producers if she gave them any explanation other than she just “needed to go home.” We — but not Patrick — got the answer with what looked like secret camera footage captured 45 minutes earlier of Kacie confronting producers about why she wanted to leave.
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“I just unfortunately don’t think my attraction to him is going to grow that much,” she said. “And it sucks. I just know it won’t. And I think it would be so unfair to him to have us go to Mexico, and then me have to, like, tell him there that I just don’t think I could get there with him, like, period.”
So this is about his appearance after all. Yikes. So who’s going to tell Patrick that he just got dumped?
Love Is Blind season 9 releases episodes 7-9 on Wednesday, Oct. 8, with episodes 10-11 on Wednesday, Oct. 15, and the finale on Wednesday, Oct. 22.
