Love, attraction and vulnerability test ‘Married at First Sight’s’ two Black couples

We unpack and recap the latest with BelleJolie & Mecca and Nikki & Shawn on “Married at First Sight” season 20.

“Married at First Sight” may have sent a record seven couples down the aisle for its 20th season, but as the Seattle-set experiment inches closer to Decision Day, there are two marriages in particular that have Black viewers talking—BelleJolie Force and Mecca Amen, and Nikki Jefferson and Shawn Best.

They are this season’s two Black couples, and after episodes 10 through 12 dropped on Peacock on Thursday, Aug. 6, both relationships have reached a point where the issues that have been bubbling since their wedding days are becoming much harder to ignore. 

BelleJolie and Mecca have spent the past few episodes unpacking why Mecca seems to struggle to fully accept the love and affirmation his wife has been offering him, while Nikki and Shawn are still trying to bridge the gap between the physical attraction Nikki hopes will grow with time and the level of sexual intimacy Shawn wants out of their marriage.

With two weeks left until Decision Day—when the couples decide whether to remain married or divorce—let’s unpack where things stand with them bot; and boy, there’s a lot going on underneath the surface here. 

BelleJolie & Mecca

When it comes to BelleJolie and Mecca, that girl likes that man. She has been earnestly into him from the start, while he has been somewhat of a romantic enigma throughout. The 28-year-old singer-songwriter, makeup artist, and dance instructor rated her new husband a nine out of 10 while talking to his father on their wedding day and has continued to be openly affectionate and supportive toward him, while Mecca’s feelings have taken a more winding route. Most notably, he told the group at an earlier dinner that while BelleJolie was “150%” attracted to him, he was only about 80% attracted to her, a comment that understandably left his wife wondering whether she needed to protect her feelings.

That moment resurfaced during the show’s new group therapy sessions when fellow cast members questioned how Mecca could go from publicly announcing that he wasn’t as attracted to BelleJolie to being considerably more affectionate with her. Relationship expert Paul C. Brunson went further, questioning whether Mecca had been performing during the dinner and telling him that it didn’t always feel like he was truly “choosing” his wife, which Mecca did not take well.

During a joint confessional afterward, BelleJolie remarkably defended her husband, saying she didn’t believe he had been performative, and Mecca later confronted Brunson about the comment himself. Brunson apologized for making him feel attacked, but used the exchange to open the door to a larger question: Is he protecting himself so fiercely from rejection that he could sabotage something good?

Episode 10 offered considerably more context. Mecca opened up about his relationship with his mother, explaining that he grew up without the close bond he saw others have with their mothers, which eventually led him to question whether he was somehow unworthy of that kind of love. Brunson linked that history to Mecca’s marriage, describing him as a self-saboteur who has chosen fear over love. He challenged him to actually step into what BelleJolie has been offering. 

The theme followed them into their home visits, where the newlyweds got a better look at each other’s lives. BelleJolie took Mecca into the studio as she worked on her music, while he brought her along to his family’s portable toilet cleaning company, which his grandmother proudly said is the only one of its kind owned by a Black family in the Northwest. BelleJolie was a really good sport about lending a hand while helping him clean a toilet, something even his grandmother questioned him on—because now why would you make her do that? 

While the two were at the studio, they admitted to having had their first major disagreement. After worrying that the couple had stayed out too late the previous night, Mecca admitted to BelleJolie that he felt like he was “in trouble,” prompting her to ask whether he often feels that way. When he confessed that it was something he struggled with, she noted how a lifetime spent worrying that you have done something wrong can eventually follow you into other aspects of your life.

It was another moment where the aspiring songwriter showed remarkable grace and understanding for her husband. With BelleJolie, it feels as though Mecca has found a patient, graceful, kind of love of which he fully deserves. Anyone does. Whether he can see that remains to be seen. 

For now, there is some reason to hope. BelleJolie has started opening up again after pulling away to protect her feelings, while he has become more affectionate and, by the end of the latest batch of episodes, he said he would say “yes” to staying married on Decision Day.

Nikki & Shawn

Now, with Nikki and Shawn, their biggest problem has been staring them in the face since the moment they met, literally. When the 46-year-old HR leader for a tech company walked down the aisle, she initially didn’t realize the 47-year-old college VP of administration was her groom. Although she later described him as having kind eyes and a nice smile, she admitted she wasn’t physically attracted to him. She has, however, remained open to the possibility that attraction could grow, which has essentially become a quasi-experiment within their experiment—and it’s been quite the journey. 

Nikki has consistently said she needs emotional connection and time for the physical side of their marriage to grow, while Shawn has been equally open that physical intimacy is important to him. That mismatch of ideas, combined with a real tendency to get defensive with each other, has, unsurprisingly, fueled the bulk of their biggest arguments.

Which is why their recent progress initially felt like a genuine breakthrough. During a picnic, the pair finally looked comfortable together, flirting, laughing, and listening to each other instead of cutting in with their next rebuttal. Shawn gave Nikki his jacket, the two talked openly about where they stood, and things were going so well between them that they eventually progressed from the occasional peck to a real makeout session on the couch. Then Shawn brought up sex again, sigh. 

Knowing Nikki wasn’t ready for intercourse, Shawn asked whether she might be open to other forms of sexual activity, including mutual masturbation, while also talking about his need for release and what he expected from her as his wife. Nikki was uncomfortable and told him plainly, “I’m not ready for that yet.” In her defense, that’s a lot over the breakfast bar first thing in the morning. 

Nevertheless, they persisted, kept moving forward, and even had a playful date at home, where Shawn blindfolded Nikki and teased her senses with different foods. But, when Nikki later returned to the sexual conversation and explained that she had walked away feeling as though Shawn considered satisfying him part of her “wifely duty,” all that progress really started to slip.

Shawn vehemently rejected that interpretation and became defensive about what he had meant, while Nikki continued trying to explain that she was telling him how the conversation made her feel, not simply accusing him of using a particular phrase. She also tried to get a clearer sense of what a natural progression toward physical intimacy would look like to him, but he offered little beyond allowing things to happen according to the vibe of the moment.

In a confessional, Nikki admitted she sometimes feels as though Shawn believes being married gives him physical or sexual access to her, and she firmly does not. 

Still, by episode 12, the couple had seemingly managed to smooth things over again, and the frustrating thing about Nikki and Shawn may be that there are flashes where you can actually see what the experts thought they saw. Both are accomplished, cerebral, and capable of connecting when they stop sparring long enough to hear each other, and Nikki’s attraction does appear to have grown significantly from where it began. Now, whether it has grown enough is another question entirely.

We won’t know where either marriage lands until Decision Day, and unfortunately, the internet’s usual detective work has only made things messier. Nikki and Shawn still follow each other on social media, which feels promising until you remember they’re the couple who can barely agree on what a makeout session means. Meanwhile, Mecca follows BelleJolie, but she does not appear to follow him back, despite the two currently looking like the stronger couple. 

So, what does any of this mean? Your guess is as good as ours. Somebody could be happily married, somebody could be headed straight to divorce court, and somebody could simply be very disciplined about not spoiling their NDA. Looks like we’ll have to tune in and see. 

New episodes of “Married at First Sight” drop on Thursdays on Peacock.