Tough Love Couples

While the rest of the world is yammering on about the final episode of Lost, I'd like to direct your attention to an even more disappointing finale: the season finale of Tough Love Couples.

Monday night, master matchmaker Steve Ward and his mom Joanne bade farewell to six (well, five) couples who had come seeking help for their flailing relationships.

Let me start by saying this: I love this show. It's like the slowest-moving of trainwrecks. I dare you to look away. In the first two seasons of Tough Love, Steve focused on finding men for single women. I had grown to love his tell-it-like-it-is attitude and generally sound advice. We had our differences at times, but overall I felt like the women left the experience with better attitudes.

Now that that's out of the way, Tough Love Couples was nothing like the first two seasons. In fact, these last 8 weeks have taken a serious toll on my relationship with Steve. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why anyone would take relationship advice from a single guy who owns a business with his mom.

Each of the couples on the show had serious, fundamental problems in their relationships; the kind that can't be solved in 8 weeks. Let take this opportunity to go on record saying that I firmly believe that if your relationship needs professional help before there's a ring in sight, you're better off cutting your losses and getting out. Before the couples were even introduced I was rooting for them all to break up.

But of course, that's not the point of boot camp. The goal was for each couple to make the now or never decision. By week eight, they were either getting engaged or breaking up. The decisions were revealed in an elaborate engagement ceremony. The men were provided with tuxes, and the women with wedding dresses. If they wanted to get engaged, they were to treat the ceremony as a game of dress up. If they wanted to break up, they could wear their own boring clothes.

Now, I know it's good television, but seriously? Wedding dresses and tuxes, just to get engaged? Do you think maybe the producers were manipulating the outcome with emotional bribery? All I'm saying is, a woman who lacks the maturity to deal with her relationship problems outside of primetime television probably isn't going to be able to look at a rack of wedding gowns and not put one on.

Heather and Danielle were perfect examples of this. Heather doesn't even like Larry. She spent the whole 8 weeks telling him to stop being clingy, bitchy and annoying (which he totally is, so I was with her there). Danielle couldn't say "I love you" without serious prompting, and now she wants to spend the rest of her life with a guy named Pawel. I mean, come on.

Simone and Dennis might just make it, if only because Simone doesn't want to be a single mom and staying together will be easier than splitting up the business they already own together.

Ryan and Axelle were the smartest couple on the show, only because they had the sense to break up before the worthless bootcamp was over.

Courtney also showed some sense, though you wouldn't know it from her awful hairstyle. I was glad to see her break up with Dustin, because she can most certainly do better. I think Steve did the best by these two, only because they were the only ones he actually encouraged to move on. Every one of the other couples deserved this same advice.

And finally, we come to Mario and Christina, the hottest of all hot messes. Before the engagement ceremony, Mario likened marriage to castration. Then during the ceremony he had to think a long time before he said he'd forsake all others for Christina. Look up "not ready to get married" in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Mario.

I still had a tiny glimmer of hope when Christina walked out in her silver dress, but VH1 decided to play it like some warped version of the Gift of the Magi. You see, Mario didn't want to get engaged, but he didn't want to lose Christina either, so he swallowed his common sense and put on the tux. Meanwhile, Christina realized that marrying a guy who doesn't want to get married is probably not the best life plan. So she swallowed her pride and decided not to get engaged so that Mario could be happy.

But instead of applauding Christina's sensibility and telling them to go forth and continue working on their relationship, Steve told them that this was a sign that they are ready to get engaged. Because nothing says romance like a dude who begrudgingly put on a tux so you wouldn't scream at him (again) on national television.

I'll be shocked if any of these kids actually make it to the altar. But in the off-chance that they suspend their self-awareness long enough to get married, I can't wait for the follow-up, Tough Love Divorcees.