- The Archer
Jewish Matchmaking Part 1
Netflix loves a weird religious cult. After the success of their show Indian Matchmaking they were like "you know who else does arranged marriages? The Jews." So, during COVID, they interviewed every single alive (including yours truly) and made a show about celebrity shadchan Aleeza Ben Shalom setting up a few lucky participants.
(p.s. I didn't make the show not because I wouldn't play well on TV (I would) but because my therapist said he didn't think that Netflix fame was the right move atm.)
I am watching this miserable slog of entertainment so that you don't have to. That's what singles are for: to summarize shows for their married friends.
I'm going in with a few preconceived notions like how I don't like Aleeza because I get her emails and most of them boil down to girls need to stop being so picky you can be happy with anyone if you sublimate enough of your own feelings. This is a method I like to call the close your eyes and open your legs technique. I'll happily do it for enough money but no one has sent anyone that fits the bill(s) my way yet.
I would promise to be unbiased but this isn't journalism, this is blogging. It's the wild wild west.
Episode 1
Obviously I put it on 1.25x speed. This isn't Succession after all.
Ok but also I hate the whole concept of the matchmaker as the miracle worker. Every matchmaker I've ever met just throws things at the wall to see what sticks.
First girl is in Miami, I assume because Aleeza wanted a free vacay.
Aleeza says there are 15 million jews and 15 million ways to be jewish and damn girl don't make me like you.
Dani from Miami is the eyebrow queen and I love this for her. Omg imagine if she and Robert Pattinson made a baby. It would just be an eyebrow.
Aleeza is showing the girl a picture of the guy so this is already FAKE. Women are never showed a picture because our arousal and attraction is DISGUSTING.
The b-roll is like random couples in Israel and I'm just saying if they want to show me how Jewish this show is I want to see a couple fighting over how she sent him to the store for a 9x13 and he brought home two 6x6s.
Now we're in LA. I should have done this show for the vacays.
We meet Ori, he's a boy, and he is wettttt. Literally, he's in one of those beach showers so we can decide how absorbent he is. He works for his mom, lives with his mom, his mom davens for him, and I'm calling it-he has sex with his mom. Maybe the step-dad watches maybe he doesn't but he likes the idea either way. Ori says the algorithm of the dating apps hates him. I think someone probably scrolled no to every girl because he was scrolling in bed next to his momfriend.
If a shadchan makes a bracha on Netflix, do I say amen?
OMG HIS MOM MATCHED HIM WITH HIS EX WHY AM I RIGHT ABOUT THEM FUCKING?
Aleeza: would you move to Israel?
Ori's Mom: THATS MY SONFUCK NO WAY IS HE LEAVING THE COUNTRY
Even Aleeza is side eyeing these two.
He wants an Israeli with blonde hair and blue eyes. A modern day Hitler ladies and gents.
Now there's Harmonie, a 44 year old who loves sequins, unicorns, and pink. A wise woman once said "Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby."
Harmonie is very shocked that at 44 her parents and grandparents are getting older. She's been hiding behind the unicorns to allow herself to stay eight and then she wheeled around and said "If I'm 8, then why is my dad 70?" Math, ladies and gentlemen.
She's the first woman I've heard say she had age restrictions for her husband because she wants a kid. Most 70 year old men say they want a 41 year old non vaccinated woman so they can have kids who will immediately die of measles and will get the cuuuutest casket you've ever seen. But most women are aware enough of their own age that they think through their fertility themselves. Harmonie is clearly not. But her parents gave her a stripper name so how can you blame her?
Dani is on a date at Harbor Grill. It's one of the only steakhouses I haven't tried in Miami. And don't worry, the guy, David, has eyebrows. He also goes to shul every day and Dani just felt her vagina clamp shut. The religious differences that early in a date is the worst because you have to stop yourself from making judgements both on your date and on yourself which is even harder because no one is actually happy with where they are religiously. And once you've found the difference you'll find more issues. Dani's noticing that he didn't pour her water or wine which she might not have noticed had she not already had snapped vag from his shul ness.
David who lives in Miami: "I live right by the beach" THIS IS SHOCKING.
LOL There's a Netflix billboard in preroll on Netflix.
Ori is so nervous to meet his date Adi because he's never been with a woman who didn't birth him.
Ep 2
Adi is HOT. She's that Israeli kibbutz sexy look. Ori immediately tells us he wants to sleep with her and he isn't ashamed to say it. Good for you Ori, we were all worried you hadn't developed likes outside of...you know.
Adi's vagina clamped shut when she discovered that this man in his mid thirties lives for and works with his mommy.
Adi: immigrated to new country, pursuing a difficult career in acting, bilingual, independent, variety of hobbies
Ori: Mom does everything for him always
A match made in heaven.
You can see Ori making up things like he wants to speak to his kids in hebrew, he's trying to move out and Adi is seeing right through it. When he asks her to go out again she thinks two things:
He's mildly hot, I can tap that and run
WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THAT I CAN'T SAY NO TO YOUR STUPID FACE
So far honestly I don't hate Aleeza in this. She's coming off as really empathetic and she hasn't told anyone to lose ten pounds once. Good acting.
Harmonie "I can't touch a man on a first date? Should I tie my hands behind my back?" Me at a baseball game y'all. Then, also like me at a baseball game, she immediately hugs him.
This guy (Aron) is a dean at a University of architecture and I'm going to guess now that he's wayyyy too smart for this woman.
I also wonder, did they cast like 50 people and Aleeza made matches between the already casted people? Or did they cast 10 people and then Aleeza found them matches and then the matches had to consent to being on Netflix? If it was the first way, do they have deleted scenes about each date in case they decided to make them main characters?
Aron: We had a great connection
read-she was hot and blonde and I could see down her shirt.
Aron also flew out to meet her, which is really nice but also did Netflix pay?
Now we head over to Eretz Yisrael. We know this is the holy land because a man is vacuuming his grassy backyard, like it says to in the Torah.
The man is Aleeza's husband and like all Shadchanim, they have a perfect marriage.
PSYCH! All Shadchanim believe they are dating and marriage experts but some of them have ordinary or even contentious marriages!
We meet Cindy in Yerushalayim. She explains how the multitude of guys out there translates into nothing and thank you Netflix for the disappearing men graphic I will have nightmares.
This girl's grandma fled persecution with gold in her bra and I have gold in my bra 24/7 it's called good breasts. bah dum dah.
Her dad reminds her her internal clock is ticking and reminders about fertility is truly why Hashem gave us Fathers.
Back to Ori. He told Aleeza Adi was not his look. He also told us he'd sleep with her. This is the definition of Chesed. Also she is a 9, he's a 7, but really he's a 1 because, and I don't know if I mentioned this, HE LIVES AT HOME.
It's honestly validating to see this because I think guys keep rejecting me for my personality but really it's because of their wildly overinflated self egos leading them all to believe they belong with Suki Waterhouse. It's you. Hi. You're the problem it's you.
He wants to add four children to his marriage in every sense of the word.
He told her she seems simple which is one way to get a girl to fall for you.
Honestly, I hate all adjectives the first two dates. You don't know me. Stop trying to define me.
Meanwhile Harmonie tells Aron she microdoses magic mushrooms, which the mentally ill call psychiatrist regulated ketamine infusions. Unfortunately Harmonie is the kind of mentally ill where the illness is that there's nothing in the mental space to be ill. \
Dani and David are jetskiing in a no wake zone which shows you how powerful Netflix is. he's wearing socks and shoes on the jetski to hide his webbed feet.
Honestly this is just boring. And I sat through all of My Unorthodox Life.
Ep 3
Jews in a deli tell us about love. Hashem actually made the world in a deli. It's corned beef all the way down.
Cindy is going out with Daniel. They go to an art exhibit. Anything vaguely smartish is a bad idea because either you or your date will sound dumb. Like I'm not into art but if a guy is like "I don't get art" on a first date I'm like YOU UNCULTURED SWINE. These two definitely have the least chemistry of any of our couples.
One of Ori's friends says his mom wishes she had a daughter to match with Ori. Ori and moms are the real shidduch. Also I am going to compile all of his clips and send it to my parents so they understand what I have to deal with.
Cindy says she wants to test guys on the first date to see if they'll be strong enough to be with her in labor. I do that too but labor is rehab.
Ori is flipping through matches with Aleeza and says "I feel like a douchebag doing this." If the shoe fits, ask your mom if you can buy it.
Other than hating on Ori, this show is boring. These are just attractive people dating each other. There really isn't anything special about this except that there's technically a matchmaker, but the matchmaker doesn't function as a shadchan at all. None of these people are outrageous enough that I want to watch them on tv. I just cannot get into the reality thing.
Now we meet Noah who is in to the outdoors even though he is filming this indoors. HAHA THAT'S SO FUNNY. Aleeza wanted a ski vacation so Netflix sent her to his mountainous villa. He's from Baltimore, which would explain his terrible sense of humor. He's also a Baltimore ten, which means he's bald with a weird scar, but I don't want to murder him. Can you tell I've dated all of Baltimore?
He doesn't keep Shabbat but he keeps the spirit of Shabbat. We may need to redefine the spirit of Shabbat.
Y'all...idk if I hate myself enough to keep watching this. I might do a fast forward finish. If I have more thoughts I'll write them, but it's pretty dry.
Which is the best Netflix could do for us. Yay!