The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On
最後通牒 〜結婚、それともさようなら?〜
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Couples where one wants to marry and one does not swap partners for three weeks; Queer Love (2023–) is its better half.
The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, created by Chris Coelen, who also made Love Is Blind, and hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, gathers couples in which one partner has told the other: marry me or it is over. For a week the couples split up and date the rest of the group. Each person then chooses someone else's partner and lives with them for three weeks in a trial marriage, before moving back in with the original partner for three more. At the end of eight weeks each couple must marry or part.
The first season, released in April 2022 and filmed in Austin, Texas, brought together six couples. Alexis and Hunter, then Nate and Lauren, who was unsure she wanted children, got engaged at the dinner where the choices were announced and left before the swap. In the trial marriages Jake lived with Rae, Colby with April, Zay with Shanique and Randall with Madlyn. Jake, who said April had dragged him into the experiment after two years together, and Rae were drawn to each other from the start. Zay had been hesitant to start a family; he and Rae fought over poor communication and her closeness to Jake, and broke up in the eighth episode after he stayed out all night without telling her where he was. On the final day Jake told April he was not ready to marry, and they parted; he then met Rae and proposed a trip together anywhere in the world. Randall proposed to Shanique, who accepted. Colby, whose partner Madlyn had doubted marriage, proposed in a cowboy hat, and they married on the spot.
At the reunion Colby and Madlyn were still married and expecting a child. Alexis and Hunter had a wedding planned; Nate and Lauren had been through therapy and agreed on one child. Shanique and Randall had broken off their engagement, then reunited. Jake and Rae never took their trip. Shanique and Randall, Alexis and Hunter, and Nate and Lauren all later married. A spin-off, The Ultimatum: Queer Love, began in 2023.
Starring
Nick LacheyHost
The singer who co-hosts the series with his wife, Vanessa, as the pair also do on Love Is Blind.
Vanessa LacheyHost
Nick's wife and co-host, who guides the couples through the stages of the experiment with him.
Madlyn BallatoriParticipant
Colby's girlfriend of two years, unsure she wants to marry, who ends the season married to him on the spot.
Colby KissingerParticipant
The partner who issued Madlyn the ultimatum and, on the final day, proposed in a cowboy hat.
Rae WilliamsParticipant
Gave Zay the ultimatum after two and a half years, grew close to Jake in the trial marriage and left without either man.
Jake CunninghamParticipant
April's boyfriend of two years, who tells her he is not ready to marry and offers Rae a trip instead.
Why it matters
The Ultimatum takes a moment many couples know in private, when one person is ready to marry and the other is not, and turns it into a format. Its central device is cruel and revealing at once: to learn whether a partner is the one, live for three weeks with someone else's. What it exposes is how seldom marriage is the real question. Underneath are arguments about children, about fidelity, about who sets the pace of a shared life, and about whether a relationship can survive being tested in front of the person it might be left for. Critics split sharply. Variety called it, with Love Is Blind, a new standard-bearer for romantic reality television; others found the premise shoddy and the pressure manipulative. The first season's outcomes, a wedding on the spot and a holiday offered instead of a ring, leave open whether an ultimatum produces commitment or only a decision.