The second season of Love is Blind premiered its “After the Altar” special this weekend. It wasn’t as dramatic as the first season’s same special, but it did deliver. The reasons for Iyanna and Jarrette’s divorce became very apparent; but Nick and Danielle seemed fine, making their recent divorce announcement seem a bit more surprising. The drama with Natalie, Shane, and Shaina was still going on; Sal paraded his new girlfriend in front of shady ex-fiancee Mallory and spilled some tea; and a new couple from the season two contestants rose from the ashes: Deepti and Kyle. After months of the “will they or won’t they,” these two crazy kids finally decided to give it a go and had their big conversation on camera, no less.

Love Is Blind for Kyle Abrams and Deepti Vempati.

The two, who have been teasing their relationship status since their season of Love Is Blind first premiered on Netflix in February 2022, finally confirmed they’re dating in the show’s After the Altar episodes, which dropped on the streamer Sept. 16.

Throughout the three episodes, both Kyle and Deepti admitted to having strong feelings for one another, but worried about losing their friendship. But after a weekend of reuniting with fellow cast members and exploring their relationship, Kyle decided to finally make the first move.

“I wanna just start a relationship—like a legitimate relationship with you,” Kyle admits as the two stand on a chilly Chicago balcony. “And be exclusive, instead of just, like, in limbo.”

“We’re gonna actually try this?” Deepti asks him in response.

“Yeah, sure,” Kyle says. “I want to.”

“I want to, too,” she says.

Deepti seemingly acknowledged the relationship on her Instagram Sept. 16, posting a compilation of snaps from shooting After the Altar to the song “Woke Up in Love” by Kygo, Gryffin and Calum Scott, though she did not confirm if the two are still together.

The confirmation comes after E! News’ exclusive Love Is Blind first look premiered Sept. 15, in which Kyle gushes over his feelings for Deepti.

“I care about you so much,” he says to her in the clip. “I do have so much love for you, and whatever problems you have, they feel like my problems. If there’s something that goes wrong—even when your tire was flat, I felt like this is my problem. I will help you, I will take care of it for you because I just care about you.”

Fans of the show will remember that both Kyle and Deepti originally came out of the pods with different people—Kyle proposed to Shaina Hurley, while Deepti came out engaged to Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee. But Kyle raised eyebrows during the show’s reunion when he admitted he “should’ve asked Deepti to marry me.” Do we hear wedding bells ringing for these two already?

[From E! Online]

Kyle in particular did a lot of hand-wringing throughout the three-part special. He really bent the other guys’ ears off about having feelings for Deepti and wanting to be with her, but being wary of ruining things because he wanted her in his life no matter what. Each called the other some variation of “the best human I know” in their confessionals, which I thought was cute that they were in such lockstep with each other they even phrased it similarly. And their conversation where Kyle finally professes his feelings and asks Deepti to be his girlfriend had me on pins and needles. It was so awkward and tentative, yet hopeful, that it definitely rang true. Deepti had said previously that although the series didn’t show it, she was torn between Kyle and evil supervillain Shake when they were in the pods. And Kyle said he should have proposed to her. It’s sweet that they took the time to have a solid foundation and ultimately chose each other.

As an aside, because that’s really all he should be: Shake did not appear on the special at all. He says the producers wanted him to be on to reconcile with Deepti, but it was clear from the mentions on the show that all his fellow castmates hate him and at least one of them said on camera that if he attended the cabin weekend they wouldn’t go. Shake isn’t exactly a bastion of honesty, so my read is that maybe the producers did want him to be on the special in some capacity, but the other cast members didn’t want to see him and so he wasn’t invited to the cabin weekend at all, and then he didn’t want to appear in any of the city scenes to save face. (Shane also didn’t attend the cabin weekend because it was for his ex-fiancee’s birthday, but he did appear in the city scenes with the other guys and Shaina because the others aside from his ex like him and no one likes Shake).

Also, Deepti wrote a book that published yesterday.

Update: After I wrote this, Kyle posted an Instagram saying that he and Deepti broke up already! That was really quick so I guess it’s for the best that they realized quickly, but I hope they can keep their friendship. I remember hearing speculation they were dating others and playing up their relationship for show, but I couldn’t find any proof and their dynamic did seem genuine on the special. Oh well, best of luck to them with their next relationships and at least they got some IG-fame from this.

 

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photos credit: Aarón Ortega and Adam Rose for Netflix and via Instagram