When are the next episodes of Love is Blind season five airing and where does it take place?

First four episodes of new season air on 22 September

Netflix’s hit reality dating show Love Is Blind officially made its return in September, with 30 new singles entering the pods in hopes of finding the one.

The fifth season of the show follows the same premise as seasons past: Contestants attempt to form romantic connections with people that they’ve never seen before. If they successfully pair up with someone while in the pods, the couples will then get engaged and meet for the first time. From there, couples will spend a few days on a romantic vacation, before officially moving in together, weeks before their wedding day. Once they get to the altar, they then decide if they want to say “I do” or “I don’t”.

Following the release of episodes one through seven of season five of Love Is Blind, the rest of the episodes will be airing this month, with eight and nine coming out on Friday 6 October. Once the season finale is released on Friday 13 October, fans will officially discover which couples chose to get married at their weddings.

Love Is Blind season five followed singles who are based in Houston, Texas. Once contestants got engaged in the pods and completed their short vacations, they officially returned to their lives in Houston as newly-engaged couples. In the city, the pairs officially started living together, while continuing their everyday lives as they normally would. They also went on to introduce their partners to their family and friends, before their wedding day.

Warning: Spoilers for season five of Love Is Blind below.

In season five, viewers saw three couples get engaged before exiting the pods: Taylor and JP, Lydia and Milton, and Stacy and Izzy. However, one of the pairs broke up during their vacation, as Taylor and JP struggled to communicate with each other outside of the pods. When Taylor addressed those issues, JP claimed that he was surprised by how she looked in person, due to the amount of makeup she wore when they first met. The next morning, Taylor decided to call the engagement off.

The season also saw its fair share of drama in the pods, resulting in two contestants, Johnie and Chris, starting a relationship after leaving the experiment. As they were dating in the pods, Johnie had initially opted to break things off with Chris because she had a stronger connection with Izzy.

However, Izzy later broke ties with Johnie, since he felt like his connection with Stacy was stronger. From there, Johnie tried to pursue Chris once again and asked him if he’d give her a second chance, but he turned her down. In episode seven of the season, it was then revealed that Chris and Johnie had met face-to-face at the airport while on their way back to Houston, and had decided to enter a relationship.

Leading up to the release of the new season, Chris Coelen, the show’s creator, spoke candidly about the series, noting the experiment within “is very simple, so it’s not at all a gimmick”.

“It’s not like there’s a twist in the experiment from season to season. In fact, I think the beauty and the broadness of the potential of what Love Is Blind can become every season is really elevated by the individuals who come on and enhance the story through their authenticity and their real journey to find love,” he said, according to Variety. “It doesn’t evolve over time in terms of, ‘Oh, we’re going to do something different as producers.”

You can find the entire cast of Love Is Blind, and their Instagrams, here.