Netflix is home to some of the most bingeable reality shows that viewers can currently enjoy, and several of those series are actually buzzed about dating shows, with two of them, Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum, becoming firmly planted in the Top 10 upon release. Both dating shows set the internet ablaze with all of the drama between cast members and surprising finale / reunion twists, and they also share a creator in Chris Coelen. With The Ultimatum Season 2 now filming, though, Coelen has revealed why fans should expect big changes.
Why The Ultimatum Fans Should Expect Big Changes In Season 2
Love Is Blind became an instant hit when it debuted in early 2020, so it makes sense that Netflix would bet big on Chris Coelen’s next show, The Ultimatum, by granting it Season 2 before the first season even premiered. Considering the kinds of feelings I (and probably many fans) had about The Ultimatum Season 1, it would be understandable to wonder whether things will play out in a similar fashion with similarly aged participants for the next season (which features an all queer cast). Coelen was asked about this by The Hollywood Reporter, and said:
No, not at all. You want to put groups of people together who have something in common and who would have a genuine interest in one another. This was a particular group of people who were all interested in the topic; there’s not a single person there who said, ‘I’m not interested in getting married.’ And then you have to think about, as a group of people, you want them to be able to support one another and to explore the idea of potentially being with one another. If we took two 50-year-old people, and you threw them in there, all of a sudden you’re introducing a different dynamic, which is, are the two 50-year-old people going to be interested in the 25-year-old people? So if we had a group of cast members who were more mid-30s, which is a really interesting, viable cast, to me it’s less about the ages than the fact that they’re participating in something where there’s going to be some mutual interest.
Well, color me intrigued. One of the things I really wanted to see for the upcoming season of The Ultimatum (which is said to be coming along “soon”) was for them to include older cast members who’d been in relationships for much longer. Everyone in the first season was 30 or younger, with most of them being around 25, and the youngest being 23, and most had been in their relationships for about two years. While Coelen’s words don’t exactly confirm that the daters who’ve chosen to issue ultimatums to their partners and swap mates for a few weeks this time around will actually be older, I’m more hopeful for the prospect now that he’s shown interest in that idea.
And, one of my big questions before watching the first season was about whether or not the members of the six couples at the center would even be interested in swapping partners with anyone from the other couples, which is part of the point of the show. But, Coelen and his team seem to have been able to get a group together for both seasons that all have some basic things in common, so that it’s more likely that the partner switch is at least an option for everyone involved.
While Chris Coelen is, as expected, still keeping most of the details on The Ultimatum Season 2 under wraps, he was also asked about whether or not he wishes he’d changed anything about the format prior to starting filming on the second season, and said:
I honestly don’t think so. We’re already well into Season 2, and it’s amazing. Honestly, it’s so good — stories are so interesting. The cast of participants in Season 2 is a very different set of participants than we saw on Season 1. This is a very big, common question, and a huge milestone for people who are interested in getting married. Just setting up the experience and the stakes of that, and then just allowing them to really go through this in the way that makes sense for them. It turned out to be very different, but equally as great, as Season 1.
We like “different,” right? I mean, if everyone in Season 2 is just going to have the same arguments about marriage and babies as in the first season, we might as well just rewatch The Ultimatum Season 1 through the big moments in the reunion. Luckily, it definitely sounds like with a completely different set of (hopefully older) couples, we’ll get to see a lot of different conversations that lead to brand new kinds of drama on The Ultimatum Season 2.
