In season 6 of Are You The One, it took the perfect matches up until the very last minute to figure out the 11 couples who would win them one million dollars. But they did it! Over 12 long episodes, they managed to finally put together all the puzzle pieces and come out on top. When MTV flew the cast out to Los Angeles for the reunion, we got the chance to talk to a few of the housemates and figure out what things were like behind the scenes, why some of those matches make more sense than you think, and what drama was still yet to come. We chatted with Kareem, Nurys, Jada, Malcolm, Audrey to get all the details. We even caught up with host Terrence J after sitting down with him before the season back in September. So what’s the deal? Here’s a quick run-down of the characters we had this season, then check out our exclusive clip from the second part of the Are You The One Reunion, airing Wednesday, December 20th at 10 p.m.

Are You The One Season 6 Cast Superlatives

We got to know everyone on screen — but we only saw the moments that made it to air. According to the housemates, there was plenty more behind the scenes. And lots of people had a different opinion on who was the funniest, the hottest, and the most dramatic. But a couple names came up over and over.

Kareem seemed like a total hot head on the show, constantly blowing up. But according to the cast, he was also one of the funniest people in the house. “He is hysterical and they don’t show that at all, they just show him yelling,” said Audrey. “He has such a loud, funny personality, he just says the wildest stuff. He like puts on a wig, he puts on glasses, he creates different characters. He’s so funny, he always has someone laughing.” Jada agreed: “At night, when it was time for us to go to bed, he would legit make random noises and it would crack me up.”

Though Uche seemed mainly quiet on stage, she was also known around the house as a jokester. “She [would do] comedy hour,” Nurys shared. “So every time the girls [were] getting ready, [she’d] just sit there and like make jokes the whole time, so we’re just laughing and entertained. I’d say she’s the funniest one.” Don’t believe it? Just check her Twitter.

And when it came to who’s the nicest in the house, Shad got more than one shout out. “One of the people that’s treated me the nicest would probably be Shad,” admitted Nurys, with Kareem backing her up. “Nicest guy in the house, I would have to say Shad. Shad was really just a reserved person, didn’t really start s–t with anybody. You gotta take that as nice.” Zoe and Geles also got props for always checking in with their friends.

The most strategic by far was Keith, the one who put the winning answer all together. “We wouldn’t have won this money without him,” Jada said. “Legit, this is all because of him. That’s my match!” Pretty much everyone agreed. “Dude is just f–king unbelievable,” Malcolm said. “We put all our money on Keith.” When we talked to Terrence, he admitted that the show knew about his statistics background from college, but nobody expected him to pull that off. “We all knew he could play ball,” Terrence said. “Nobody knew he was LeBron James.”

So how did they guess all eleven perfect matches?

We mean other than just Keith managing to pull it off at the last minute. For Kareem, it was hard to know what the matchmakers were thinking. “Is it based on how I can help you, how you can help me, do we live close, do we live far from each other, our family issues, our goals?” he asked. “How are we matched with one another? Is it based on similarities or non-similarities?” They just kept trying scenarios until they found one that worked.

“Basically what we did is we went in the living room, and we all stood next to each other,” Audrey explained. “So [we’d say] like week one, stand next to your perfect match so we can physically see… Alright, so the people we think are the perfect matches, raise your hands as if you’re a beam. Then we’d try to figure it out and we’d switch it [to] week two, see if that makes sense… We were physically moving our bodies so we could visually see it. And the last week, it worked. One of them finally worked and we were like, ‘Oh my god,’ we were so nervous… Alexis and Anthony are a perfect match. And that doesn’t make sense, at all. It didn’t make sense, so we didn’t know if it really was gonna work, but we were like, ‘This is our best shot.'”

Luckily, their best shot was right — but there were plenty of speed bumps along the road. “[Terrence] gave us a lot of tough love,” Nurys shared, but it didn’t help their problem. “A lot of us opened up our hearts to one person, and then after doing that and seeing the no-match, why would you wanna open up your heart again? A lot of us were closed off after seeing no-matches and that’s why we stuck with our no match, because we just didn’t want to get hurt again.”

Kareem agrees those initial couples were hard to break away from. “Obviously, you know, physical attraction is going to be the first thing you see when you get into the house… And then you start really getting to know that person, talking to them and really trying to dig deep into their background and what they’re looking for in a relationship… But I feel like a lot of people did fall into what they’re used to and ignored some of the things that they wanted in a relationship or needed in a relationship… A lot of people were just sticking with who they were with because they didn’t want to be alone [in the house.]”

They were just not playing the game right, focusing too much on their hearts and what their hearts wanted rather than they needed. “There were certain game play things that just made sense to me, that they weren’t doing,” the host said. “There might be a night where they got four or five beams… Next challenge, all of the couples that were together at that match up ceremony should try to get the challenge together. If you get one of those couples into the Truth Booth, you’ll at least know if they were one of those beams… But they wouldn’t do that at all.”

Terrence’s girlfriend was with him in New Orleans for most of filming, but by the end of the season, she had to leave because of a schedule conflict. “The night before [the final match up ceremony], we talked and we were like, this is it, they’re not gonna win. And when I called her [to tell her they did it], she was like yelling up and down. This was just like the little engine that could.”

Understanding the Are You The One perfect matches.

This show produces plenty of no match and perfect match couples that manage to make things work once the cameras stop rolling. But at first, the matchmakers’ plans don’t always make sense. Even after figuring out who their perfect match was, it took some of the house mates a while to understand why — like Nurys and Dimitri.

“It’s funny because, out of all eleven guys, he was the one guy that I was like, ‘No,'” Nurys said. “I was actually one of the only females to get to know every single guy the first day, so I was friends with every single one of the guys… So I completely was like, Dimitri’s not my match from knowing him. Then he ended up being the one, obviously, and I’m like, of course. He’s like my opposite. I see why he’s my match now… I was the most mature girl in the house and he’s the most immature, so he needs someone like me to put him in his place, to tell him like, stop talking, stop doing these things, stop acting this way… He’s someone who gives his all when he loves, and he loves hard. And I need that, because I get cheated on all the time, and I want someone to just be about me, and that’s what he wanted.”

Shad and Audrey knew in their hearts they were a match even before that final match up ceremony. “I knew it, because he is not someone that I would typically go for, and vice-versa,” Audrey said. “When I was first talking to him, I ruled him out because I misunderstood some of the stuff that he said, but when he’s in a relationship, he is all about the girl. He really focuses, he doesn’t cheat, he doesn’t do any of that. One thing I stressed is that I don’t want to just be some housewife… I need someone that has everything together. And Shad stressed that [he doesn’t] care if [his] wife wants to do work or whatever, [he wants] to support everything she does.” They also worked on a personality level. “He’s good at communicating! He really is… He’s easy-going, he’s not jealous, he’s very understanding… There were multiple times where I was upset and he calmed me down.”

As for Keith and Jada, she says they should’ve known sooner. “He’s kind of the male version of me,” she shared. “We’re both that one spouse that’s always helping that other spouse, but that other spouse is never helping us… He’s like my best friend, I love him so much… And now that we’re done filming, we actually got closer. Because like he’ll help me out, I’ll help him out with his problems. He’ll always call me, text me.” The only issue? It took an MTV show to bring them together. “I was like, ‘We both live in Jersey, why didn’t we just meet in Jersey? I didn’t have to come on a TV show to meet you, Keith.'”

But some of the couples straight up didn’t get it… like Alexis and Anthony. “I don’t think they ever really talked about it, actually,” said Audrey. But when they figured out the ten other matches, they knew they had to be the eleventh by default. This wasn’t just a couple that we didn’t seen on screen — although there was plenty that didn’t make it on screen. They didn’t talk in the house either. We’ll have to wait to see if they’ve gotten to know each other since.

What didn’t make the cut for Are You The One season 6?

Apparently, lots of personality — and friendships too. With so much happening in the house, not everything could make the screen, even with two extra hours of air-time. And for some of the house mates, who they really are just got lost in the shuffle. “Someone has to be the villain here, and they showed me as hot-headed and bothered,” Kareem said, “but if they really, really wanted to, they could’ve shown me as lazy and relaxed. They could’ve portrayed me any way they wanted to, but I was a person that spoke up a lot, spoke my mind, but other than that I was a jokester in the house the entire time.”

“They don’t really show personalities,” Audrey said. “They just show the drama. They don’t really show friendships either. Like I’m just a girls’ girl. [Nurys and Jada] are my best best friends, and Uche too. But in the house it was always us three and then Geles and Zoe. We were always very close. But they don’t show any of that!” She worries the screen-time gave some viewers the wrong impression. “I just wish they showed friendships more. Because then they’ll understand why Kareem was so mad at Michael, because they were very close… Same thing with Uche and Jada… They made Nurys really look like a side bitch, so they kind of gave [her] a bad edit. Same thing with Kareem, they don’t show his personality.”

Did Are You The One help prepare them to find love — even if they didn’t find it on the show?

Audrey and Nurys definitely think so. “It definitely showed me the type of guy I should go for,” Audrey said. “It helped me with my dating problem, because I always avoid the red flags and I went through another lesson in the house where I made the same mistake that I did with my past. It’s definitely [made] me more aware. And just to be more cautious and careful.”

“You know, I didn’t really know what my relationship problem was [going onto the show],” Nurys said. “Leaving the house, I completely understand it, and it’s like I evaluate everything so much more. Even when I’m just having conversations with people now, when I’m just getting to know them, the questions I ask them are different… I want to know what you want to do with your career, I want to know what your deal with your family is, I want to know what your deal breakers are, I want to know if you’re willing to compromise in a relationship… That’s what I like about the show, because I didn’t know how to go about any of these things beforehand.”

The drama continues in the Are You The One reunion.

For some of the cast mates, the drama didn’t end at the house. It followed them home — and we can look forward to seeing it on screen when the two-part reunion airs the next two Wednesdays, December 13th and 20th at 10 p.m. Malcolm hinted that there might be a show-down to come, and Jada admitted that social media has only fanned the flames.

“I feel good, a little nervous [for the reunion], I’m not gonna lie,” Malcolm said. “Because I don’t know what’s going to be said… I feel like Diandra got something up her sleeve. But you know, I got a little something on her, too… It all depends on how far she want to take it. Everybody else is cool, you know, but she’s still reliving everything as if it just happened yesterday so.”

Ready to see the drama for yourself? Tensions continued to rise on the Are You The One reunion. In this clip from last week’s part one, Nurys and Didi confronted Malcolm for the way he behaved in the house. And Malcolm tried to spill the tea about what he thought of Didi’s actions.

Though Jada settled her beef with the no match couple Uche and Clinton on-air, it eventually bubbled over into the real world — especially with Clinton. “I have like a burning pit of hatred in my heart just bubbling for him,” she said. “When we stopped filming, we were friends, like we were cool, everyone was on the same page. But then I guess like when people were being on social media and watching it at home, it’s kind of a different outlook. They started really getting Twitter fingers and saying hot stuff… I don’t think he’s making a joke, he’s being deadass serious. And that’s what really bothers me.” As for the reunion, she says, “Bring that energy in person, that’s all I’m saying.”

In part 2, airing tomorrow, Clinton and Jada finally get to have it out. And the conversation takes an explosive turn when Jada accuses him of getting in the middle of things instead of letting her and Uche work out their business on their own. Watch the clip below.

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