Here’s When Netflix Filmed The Ultimatum Season 2

Returning for a second season on Aug. 23, Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On features five couples on the brink of marriage or a breakup. The faces in the Charlotte, North Carolina-based season might be new, but the concept remains the same. Over eight weeks, the original couples split and enter into a trial marriage with a person from one of the other pairs to decide whether to get engaged or break up for good. Viewers hoping to nail down a timeline of exactly when the two-month experiment took place are in luck: Cast member Roxanne Kaiser confirmed to Bustle that The Ultimatum Season 2 was filmed in late 2022.

Joining Roxanne, 31, and original partner Antonio Mattei, 30, in the Season 2 cast are: James Morris, 24, and Ryann McCracken, 24; Jelisa “Lisa” Horne, 32, and Brian Okoye, 29; Kat Shelton, 28, and Alex Chapman, 32; and Treyvon “Trey” Brunson, 29, and Jeriah “Riah” Nelson, 25. Though the stars haven’t offered many clues about the production schedule, many seemed to have taken social media hiatuses between September and November 2022. Brian also revealed in a November 2022 Instagram caption that he’d just “celebrated two years of love & growth” with Lisa. Given that the couple’s Netflix bio says that they’d been together for a year and a half (following six months of “casual hookups”) when they joined the reality series, that might confirm production dates.

In pre-premiere interviews with Entertainment Tonight, several of the franchise’s newest stars reflected on the process, including some challenges they faced along the way. “To see [Brian] talking to another woman, I did feel a little bit of jealousy,” Lisa admitted, adding that joining the Netflix series wasn’t part of her life plan. “I know I’m an A-plus woman, so for me to have to go to this length to get you to marry me, it's a problem.”

Roxanne, for her part, had a similar experience with Antonio. “You think it’s going to be OK seeing your man dating other women,” the entrepreneur added to ET. “But when you’re in that situation, it’s really tough.”

Though The Ultimatum Season 2 reunion won’t drop until Aug. 30, the cast sitdown will not air live and was actually already filmed in summer 2023. Following Netflix’s disastrous Love Is Blind live reunion attempt in April, series creator and Kinetic Content CEO Chris Coelen opened up about the possibility of giving the live version another go in the future.

“Andy Cohen said it’s a bad idea to do a live reunion, and I tend to agree with that creatively,” he explained in a July interview with The Hollywood Reporter, citing the Bravo producer who hosts the network’s Real Housewives reunions. “Would we do a live reunion again? Possibly, but what is the benefit? I’d have to think about it and obviously talk to my partners about the real benefit of going live. A quick turnaround, sure, but we’d have to analyze if there’s a real benefit.”