The Ultimatum: Queer Love Gives Us the Most Dramatic Love Square Ever

The Ultimatum: Queer Love features some of the messiest romantic moments on any dating reality show. Because everyone in the five original couples is queer, there are even more possibilities for post-breakup pairings, and from the start, it’s clear that everyone is open to recoupling with just about anyone else (well, not Vanessa and Lexi). And things get real deep, real fast within the new pairings. When the couples get back together with their original partners, that makes things all the more complicated, and all the more compelling to watch. Heading into the finale June 7, it makes each person’s ultimate choice even harder to predict.

Two of the couples entangled in a complicated web are Vanessa and Xander and Mal and Yoly. Xander and Yoly were the initial ultimatum givers, and instantly bonded over their serious views on commitment, each giving 100% in their trial marriage together. Vanessa and Mal ended up in trial marriages with other people, but during that time, both were able to find the positives of spending a lifetime with someone.

Now that the original pairings are back together, Vanessa wants things to work out with Xander and Mal wants to step up for Yoly — but Yoly and Xander can’t seem to keep their hands off each other whenever they’re near each other, even with their original partners nearby. And while Vanessa and Mal didn’t spend their trial marriage together, they did go on dates in Episode 1 and had a palpable attraction early on. Forget a triangle, folks, we’ve got ourselves a love square!

The complicated predicament forces each couple to have very real conversations. It’s not enough to decide who makes each person feel the most comfortable or loved in any given moment. As Yoly herself points out in Episode 6, it’s much easier to be “cute” in a relationship when you’ve only known someone for three weeks, and whenever each of these possible pairings are in a one-on-one situation with each other, it’s clear that everyone involved still feels very “cute.” Showing up for someone everyday for years with all the ups and downs is a much more solid foundation for forever, but whether or not someone will truly do that is difficult to confirm in just three weeks.

In a show with emotions running so high and a very tight deadline in place, it’s easy for all rational thought to be forgotten in the heat of the moment. That means come the finale, heartbreak will be almost unavoidable. That’s when each person must decide if they want to leave engaged to their original partner, engaged to their new partner, or alone.

When it comes to these two couples, that means there are at least six possible endgame pairings when Mal and Vanessa’s trial marriage partners, Rae and Lexi (also an original couple), are thrown into the mix. Hell, why not seven, if we throw in the very slight chance that Mal and Xander will decide to just give it a shot despite never spending any time together? And then of course, add in the very likely possibility that they all just end up walking out by themselves. It makes the ending truly impossible to predict, promising an especially climactic — and entertaining — finale.

The Ultimatum: Queer Love finale streams on Netflix June 7. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Brianna Wellen is a TV Reporter at Primetimer who became obsessed with television when her parents let her stay up late to watch E.R.