Netflix's The Ultimatum might possibly be one of the most savage reality television shows to have ever aired. It's so painful to watch these couples date other people in front of their significant others, all while knowing that their other halves are also, possibly, maybe, falling in love with someone else just down the hallway at a Marriot in Austin, Texas. It seems like a living nightmare, even if you're enjoying your new partner, and knowing just how long and when The Ultimatum filmed makes it all the worse. These people went through it.
Unlike Temptation Island, which is the closest concept to this evil format, the couples that come in together must not only choose a partner to have a trial marriage with, they vet the options right in front of each other. Sure, the bonfires on Temptation Island are rough, but edited. It's another thing entirely to hear your girlfriend's voice go up an octave while flirting just a lounge chair away from you. And unlike on Love Is Blind, where the new couples are seemingly in the same building, given the decor, for the month before their nuptials, these are couples that came in after being together for years. While I'm sure production keeps them away from each other, it's not impossible that they would pass each other holding hands or something in the elevator, right? Trying to figure out these logistics is pure chaos.
The initial dates and group cocktail parties are held at the downtown Marriot in Austin, as the saddest group gathering in episode 2 takes place at the Lobbyist Bar and Lounge, which is one of the hotel's bars. It looks like they might have moved the couples to another sterile location for the three week trial marriages and then the three weeks when the original couples reunite (in the same apartments/beds, no less) but the webpage might just not have updated photos of the suites (the ones on the website currently don't show those uncomfortably placed shelves as headboard). In any case, Netflix did not confirm.
Netflix did confirm that the series filmed in the spring of 2021 for eight weeks. EIGHT WEEKS. This tracks — couples spend three whole weeks apart with another human, then three whole weeks back together, with an extra week on each end for the initial set up/dates and then the fallout afterwards. What makes this all the more mind-blowing is that they are all in the same building, even going to work and living their "regular" lives, and some of the guys reference hanging out together off camera, which means that information is being swapped in real time, as these relationships ebb and flow.
Some of them, like Colby and April, didn't even choose each other in the first place, and I don't know about you, but sharing a hotel suite with my best friend for a long weekend makes me irritable, so it's hard to imagine really adjusting with all of this other foolery taking place day to day. It all makes for great television, but I do need to ask whatever evil genius conceptualized The Ultimatum...who hurt you??
Images: Netflix