Friday Donuts: 'Love is Blind' Power Rankings and Career Update
I'm writing about the Miami Heat at a new place and I don't care if Paul touched her butt.
🍩 What I’m up to: So in case you missed the extremely online announcement, I’ve recently taken a new gig as the editor-in-chief of All U Can Heat.
Quick backstory: I ran this same site — a Miami Heat site under the FanSided umbrella — from 2013-2017. Left to pursue other writing opportunities. Eventually became the Warriors beat reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. Then moved back home to South Florida and started this Substack (while also doing the Locked On Heat podcast and freelancing at The Ringer, Miami Herald, etc.). So why am I going back? Three reasons
I miss writing daily. I know no one reads anymore, but I sure hope you check it out.
I love building things, and at AUCH I’ll have the ability to hire a staff and dictate the tone of the site. I think there’s a real void in quality, written analysis, reporting and commentary on the Heat, and my goal is to create that. For a deeper look into my mind grapes: I want to make All U Can Heat what The Athletic should have been for Heat fans — only free.
It pays.
And I’m doing it all just in time for the playoffs and a very, very important offseason. Again, I do hope you check it out and follow along. I’ll still be doing Locked On Heat and freelancing at other places. I will have a weekly column about the NBA playoffs at FanSided and the occasional thing at RealGM. Working on more pitches for The Ringer as we speak.
🍩 ‘Love Is Blind’: Power ranking everyone at the reunion (that should not, and should never have been, live. In the future, Netflix, just record it and edit it down to 60 minutes. Thx.)
Micah: Did a good job of not talking when she wasn’t being spoken to but also talking when she was being spoken to. The stuff with her and Paul did sorta ramble, but the fact that the special ran long wasn’t her fault. For the first time in the show, she came off as, uh, likable? Might have been the only one.
Bartise: The cameo no one was asking for, but then HE HAS A BABY?! Whose kid is it? Is it even his? Did he steal that baby?
Breffany: I give you Tiffany and Brett, your annual Aw that’s cute. K I’m bored get them off my screen couple.
Chelsea: Got what she wanted. Has no idea — or does not care — that Kwame is miserable.
Kwame: Is it just me or is Kwame the Leonardo DiCaprio “screaming internally” meme personified? Every time they pan to him, it looks like he’s thinking “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Zach: Loses points for the beard. Started to make those points up when, out of nowhere, he decided to defend Paul but instead of being the Vince Vaughn to his Jon Favreau and delivering the “your so money baby and you don’t even know it” speech, he kinda sorta just fizzled out like the La Croix of a person that he is.
Irina: The above comment about editing down the special, start right here Netflix. For someone who desperately wants to be famous, she sure has nothing interesting to say. Free drinking game idea: Rewatch the special and take a shot for every time she says “and I hold myself accountable for thahhttt.”
Paul: Did he touch the butt on purpose? Does anyone really care? Is this how far we’re reaching for “drama” in Season 4? Season 4 sucked.
Bliss: Did she talk at all? Come to think of it, was she even there?
Jackie/Josh/Marshall triangle: Welcome to the most disinteresting and toxic triangle of all time. Jackie and Marshall was a hurricane of damaging gender tropes. Marshall was too feminine because he talks about his feelings, Jackie was a crazy woman because she has a panic attack every once in a while, and Josh struts in like if the algorithm put Cuts clothing and Dude-Who-Watches-UFC-Fights-at-Buffalo-Wild-Wings together. I hate all of it. All of them deserve each other.
Josh’s drunken cauliflower ear
The Lacheys: Here’s a free idea for the producers at Netflix: Hire someone to teach the Lacheys how to host a TV show. Or, y’ know, read. Best thing I saw about Nick was that he was like if ChatGPT hosted a reality show. Relate to male human on set now. Make joke about wife and sleeping on couch now.
Nailed it. Those humans will never know.
Meanwhile, Vannessa Lachey is doing her best to dethrone Tyra Banks as the most annoying person with a microphone on television. If she ever points those fingernails at me…
(Were these power rankings just an excuse for me to take out my frustrations on the Lacheys? Who’s to say.)
🍩 Where I’m drinking: Rosa Sky in Brickell. Jules took me there for my birthday, cocktails were solid and the food was better than expected but you really go for the views. Of the city and for the people. 10/10 people watching.