The Blogchelor

Weekly Recaps on America's Favorite Trainwreck 

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelor Week One aka Good Vibrations

Here’s What Happened Monday

In a Pennsylvanian palace 2,000 miles from the La Quinta, thirty women in sequined monochrome (if anything at all) vie for the affections of a Bachelor newcomer who is wholly unprepared to be accosted by dildos so soon into his journey. 

Matt James 101

Last season, the producers took one hard look at the footage of Clare screaming at suitors for not knowing who she was after three failed runs on The Bachelor, Bachelor In Paradise, and Bachelor Winter Games, and decided it was time to bring in some fresh meat for the new season.

Hence, Matt James: spared from Clare’s clutches on The Bachelorette and kept pure to test the theory that ignorance is bliss.

Here is what we know: Matt James is a 28-year-old real estate broker who enjoys taking children out to eat. He lives in New York City and on Bachelorette alum Tyler Cameron’s Instagram.

Matt James has twenty-six abs on his torso and gets a cute little furrowed brow when he talks to Uncle Chris Harrison about the crushing responsibility to do role of first Black Bachelor justice.

We will love him, and we will hate anyone who comes near him. These are the rules.

Nemacolin 101

A quick editors note on locale. Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, where this season was filmed, is tucked away in a beautiful part of the Appalachian Mountains, deep in rural Yinzer country just southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

My family once tagged along to my dad’s American Epilepsy Society conference when it was hosted at Nemacolin in the late 1990s. I was a wee lass, but I do remember riding a horse for the first and last time in my life while my dad was off giving a presentation on seizures.

It is important to me that you know that.

Let’s Meet The Ladies: A Bulleted Summary

Alicia is a ballerina who insists on doing on-camera ballet at every available opportunity. Ballet Girl will be this season’s Guy With Guitar.

Jessenia is a social media marketer looking for her rock, possibly The Rock.

Sarah is a very young weatherman.

Carolyn is a journalist who mistakes lavender for sage and tries to burn it near Matt for whatever reason one burns sage.

Saneh is an IT consultant who arrives wearing goat slippers, a staple of the IT consulting wardrobe.

Kaylah is a healthcare advocate who arrives in a pick-up truck almost certainly borrowed for $20 from someone three miles outsides the resort in Trump Country, PA.

Alana brings cold pasta that she forces Matt to slurp with her, Lady And The Tramp style, without ever disclosing if she has oral herpes.

The Ladies, Continued

Kaili is a hostess from Chicago who arrives in lingerie with two dress options, neither of which opts to put on even after forcing Matt to choose.

Abigail is deaf, but ready for love.

MJ the hairstylist brings a pizza, Kimberley the airline recruiter brings a fish.

Katie the bank marketer introduces her new boyfriend, Matt James, to her current boyfriend, her vibrator. She later names it MJ, after MJ with pizza.

Kit is a 21-year-old fashion entrepreneur who has the face of a Downton Abbey villain.

Queen Victoria arrives on a throne carried by four resort bellhops, who hopefully got a fat bonus for that embarrassment.

Pure Depravity

Everything about the holding room of lingerie and dildos begs for the presence of some Jesus, so Matt kicks off his first interaction with the women with a group prayer.

Later, Matt gets to know the girls a little better – at least, the gentle ones, the ones who praise his vulnerability and challenge him to a nice game of chess – until Katie taps Mari on the shoulder with her dildo and sparks a small feud because Mari did not want to be touched by Katie’s dildo.

Meanwhile, Queen Victoria – the 27-year-old woman who never outgrew the phase of demanding birthday parties at Limited Too – incites new discord amongst the women by taking extra turns with Matt while many of the other women are still drinking up the courage to speak to him once.

The only person who could not be bothered is sweet deaf Abigail, who is too busy making out with Matt in the other room and earning herself the First Impression Rose to notice the drama.

The Rose Ceremony

At the Rose Ceremony, roses are only given to women whose names Matt can remember. Unfortunately, this means the more memorable Victoria gets to stay and a number of girls probably not actually named Sparkle Tits have to go home.

Until next week!

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Eleven Part Two aka Lowest Budget, Highest Stakes

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

It feels like an eternity ago that Clare said Dale’s name so many times the word started to sound wrong, and now here we are, the finale of an entirely new Bachelorette ready to accept a proposal from whoever is willing to put a ring on her finger so they can finally check out of the La Quinta.

The Rose Ceremony

Last night we witnessed the great 2020 B Swap: Brendan for Ben, turtleneck for wide-neck crew. Ultimately, Tayshia pulls a Tayshia and defers her decision on Ben to the Rose Ceremony because, if he’s going to be here, she might as well make him sweat through a full suit one more time.

Ivan and Zac do not appreciate the appearance of Ben at the rose stand – especially not Ivan, who, moments later, is summoned by Tayshia and given the Bachelorette version of being taken out back and shot.

Goodbye, sweet Ivan, you civil rights-advocating, ice bath-surviving, eggroll-burning aeronautical engineer and future king of Paradise.

Ben Meets The Fockers

Ben is the first up to meet Tayshia’s family and there are a few immediate strikes against him. First, he is an Army man amongst a Navy family, and as we all know our branches of the military revile each other. Second, Tayshia has already dumped him, which technically makes him her ex-boyfriend. And third, Ben is aggressively sweaty and feels the need to verbally draw attention to it at every opportunity.

Ultimately everyone succumbs to Ben’s golden retriever-esque sincerity wrapped in the body of a Greek god. Except Tayshia’s dad, who will approve in public and quietly sabotage Ben’s chances later.

The Adams Family // Zac C Collab

Zac arrives at the family meet and greet dressed in black from head to toe, looking like something between a restaurant host and an undertaker. In his conversation with Tayshia’s parents, Zac fluctuates between diving into intense and serious assertions of love and flashing his disarming boyish dimples. Zac’s is a consistently perplexing, damp energy.

For no reason I can explain, the producers make the entire family eat cold, congealed pizza before Zac is allowed to leave.

Zac’s Final Date

Tayshia has devolved into a full-blown existential panic in the wake of her father’s surprise visit to gently request that she rethink all her choices to this point. She gets roughly ten minutes to mask her cranky, cranky mood before heading out to meet Zac, a man she has to appear to love despite the fact that he is sweating through every stitch of his clothing.

After a brief chat near a scenic waterfall that we are only now seeing at this point in the season because it’s an audio nightmare, the two proceed to a ballroom dancing class. Their tango is stiffened by Tayshia’s stress, setting a chill in the air chill reminiscent of Ivan’s genitals mere days ago.

Later, at candlelit snuggle time, Zac and Tayshia have a chance to address the tension and reaffirm their love. Zac vows to love Tayshia even if she becomes “a stay-at-home mom or a waitress,” which are clearly scenarios he has made his peace with.

Ben’s Final Date, In A Sense

If there are small mercies in this show, they may be that Tayshia never lets any of the big guys get blind dumped at a Rose Ceremony, and the producers never let them leave without at least one shirtless bathroom hairstyling moment.

And thus, this is how it ends for Ben, freshly showered, sitting in his hotel room practicing cursive T’s in his journal. Tayshia shows up – importantly, as my friends pointed out, in the same dress she spoke to her father in – to tell Ben her dad is making her break up with him.

Ben, dumped for the second time in two episodes, leaves to fall into the arms of the internet’s loving embrace and steady stream of sponsorship income.

The Final Rose

One of the most special traditions in the Bachelor Franchise is when the lead allows two finalists to pour their hearts out in proposal, only to step over the one’s dead body to accept the proposal from the other.

Tayshia gives us no such satisfaction. We know the ending before Zac even steps out of the limo – blue suit, black shoes, red flags and all. He shows up to the desert’s Allergy Forest, complete with all the dry kindling needed to burn the La Quinta down for good.

After ten full minutes of uncomfortable whispered speeches, Zac slips a ring on Tayshia’s finger and she magnets the final rose on his lapel. Then they climb into their cardboard taxicab and shuffle off to wherever it is two people go when recently engaged but still imprisoned at a La Quinta. Congrats, lovers.

Until Matt James!

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Eleven aka Suites, Hold The Fantasy

Here’s What Happened Monday

Ah, Fantasy Suites. In the Before Times, Fantasy Suites were an occasion for the final three men to touch down in an exotic location – both literally and figuratively, if you catch my drift. But alas, in 2020, Fantasy Suites looks a lot more like having sex with your shared girlfriend in the hotel where you’re already quarantining from the plague

Ivan’s One-On-One

Traditionally the one-on-one date preceding the Fantasy Suite is something aphrodisiac, something intended to get the romantic juices flowing. Tayshia and Ivan’s date, instead, is one that guarantees that Ivan’s testicles will retreat so far into his body they may never reemerge.

Climbing into two baths of ice water – a Cialis commercial meets advanced interrogation techniques – Tayshia and Ivan put their mouths on each other’s mouths for six and a half minutes straight. They break the world record for both the long, coldest kiss and for longest kiss with the fewest combined number of remaining toes.

Later, at dinner, Ivan tells Tayshia that he is falling for her, and Tayshia invites him to spend the night with her in the Fantasy Suite. Hopefully Ivan’s idea of fantasy is a redneck-chic Airstream on the property of a luxury resort, because that’s where he gets to take Tayshia and – how should I say this? – recreationalize his vehicle.

Zac C’s One-On-One

Borrowing from one of last Paradise’s more memorable sexytime dates, Tayshia and Zac spend the afternoon covering each other in paint, rolling around on a canvas, and eventually making out with such ferocity they both blend into a sickly shade of Pepto Bismol.

Later, after showers and booster shots for their inevitable urinary tract infections, Zac and Tayshia discuss a few important topics. “Your mom told me you don’t want kids even though I already told you I wanted five kids,” Tayshia questions. “Of course I want five kids,” responds Zac, simultaneously eyeing the Fantasy Suite envelop on the table and double checking the handful of titanium condoms in his pocket.  

When Zac tells Tayshia she loves him, she squeals and declares that she loves him too – not falling in love, but fully fallen. The two then retreat to their Fantasy Suite to, um, spray-paint the basement.

Brendan’s One-On-One

While the other boys got to break Guinness world records and dry hump in technicolor, Brendan gets to try on symbolic objects of permanence. He tries his best to mask the panic threating to suffocate him at any moment while Tayshia gleefully tries on the biggest engagement rings that ABC can buy and Neil Lane adorably relishes in just being part of the gang.

Later, under the twinkly light dinner tree of doom, Brendan confesses that he is not ready to sign onto his next divorce by rushing into an engagement with the second girl he’s dated at this La Quinta.

Brendan leaves to go pack up his turtleneck in his suitcase, and that’s not even a euphemism.

Ben’s… One-On-One?

Mere moments before her Rose Ceremony, Tayshia is confronted with a visitor and a déjà vu.

I understand the vitriol I will invite by making this comparison, but these is the facts: Ben standing at Tayshia’s door is just Bennett standing at Tayshia’s door with more childlike innocence in his eyes and less savings in his 401k.

Ben admits to Tayshia that the heat of the desert, the tightness of his pants, and the pressure from Top Chef Antonia Losafo had all combined to short out his brain, and he forgot to tell Tayshia he loved her and wanted to spend eternity in her presence.

Before responding, Tayshia takes a moment to disappear behind the producers’ curtain to ask advice from the people who make a living putting her in perilous situations.

Until tomorrow!

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Ten Part Two aka La Quintowns

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

Four onsite dates in the desert heat to test the integrity of Tayshia’s final four relationships, two nieces, one celebrity chef. It’s non-hometown Hometowns.

Revelations

Traditionally, the Bachelorette’s final four boyfriends invite her to their respective hometowns and intentionally take her to bars where they know the popular kids from high school will still be hanging out so they can show off their reality television girlfriend and in a “look at me now” fashion.

But because we are living in the Dark Times, Hometowns must come to the boys by way of tangentially relevant themes on resort property.

When Chris Harrison informs the men of which family members are currently in quarantine waiting to see them, Ben comments that he would cry if he could.

Brendan then cries, right in Ben’s face.

This should go smoothly.

Brendan’s Hometown: Carnival Near A Tree

Brendan’s brother and sister-in-law opt into makeshift Hometowns in the 120-degree desert heat in the hopes that they might get a single goddamn minute to themselves for the first time all year.

While mom and dad are “napping,” Brendan and Tayshia get to babysit Brendan’s twelve-year-old niece, Aliyah. Carnival games are set up under the shade of a tree, which hardly offsets the danger of child heat stroke.

Later, Brendan introduces Tayshia to Daniel, Brendan’s older brother and lifelong hero, and Christine, Daniel’s wife who takes up way too much of Daniel’s attention for Brendan’s liking.

Brendan suffers a mild existential crisis at the introduction of people from his real life to his non-reality plague bubble girlfriend. It may also be heat stroke.

Zac’s Hometown: New York a la Flinstones

Tayshia mentioned New York City once, and one of the producers did set design for West Side Story in high school once, so by that math the logical theme for this date is a cardboard cutout taxi that transports Zac and Tayshia from one vaguely NYC-related activity to the next.

Zac and Tayshia judge each other’s cab-hailing techniques and bagel choices while sweating through their clothes. Eventually they ditch the theme entirely and jump into a nearby fountain to bring their core body temperatures back to non-critical levels.

Zac’s family is exactly my favorite kind of Hometowns family: the kind who absolutely hates it. Zac’s brother and father find the nicest ways possible to ask Tayshia if she is a treacherous whore, but they also must admit that she’s at least a treacherous whore who makes their baby boy smile.

Ivan’s Hometown: Chris Harrison’s Kitchen Suite

An indoor date! Ivan and Tayshia prepare niece Kehlani’s recipe for lumpia. Not surprisingly, considering it was written by a five-year-old, the recipe is inedible.

Later we meet Ivan’s parents, who are impossibly cute. His mother is wearing the same dress as Tayshia and is deeply suspicious of any breathing female who comes within fourteen feet of her son. Her father is quiet but emotionally open, and secretly relishes their bond over a shared scandalous divorcée past.

The plot twist really lands when Ivan’s brother Gabriel shows up: the tatted, bad boy version of Ivan. Without a second thought Tayshia jumps on the back of his hog, wraps her arms around his floral button-down, and drives off with him into the sunset.

Ben’s Hometown: Several Sidewalks

Ben takes Tayshia to the captivity version of Venice Beach: cruising in someone’s old rollerblades, taking turmeric shots out of crunchy obligation, buying overpriced sweatshop sunglasses, dipping in an STD-ridden pool.

Later, Tayshia gets to meet Ben’s girl gang: his sister Madeline and (somehow casually unmentioned) Top Chef Antonia Lofaso.

While Tayshia is elsewhere asking if Ben is just a guarded mystery at default (per Madeline, yes), Ben is speaking to Top Chef Antonia Lofaso about the concept of love.

“YOU LOVE HER,” Top Chef Antonia Lofaso screams at Ben. “I’m in love with her!” Ben confirms, stunned that she baked the feelings right into him.

After several repetitions of practice saying the words, when it comes time to say “I love you” to Tayshia, Ben panics and flees.

The Rose Ceremony

Tayshia is disappointed that it is already thirteen days into their relationship and she has not yet heard a declaration of love yet from Ben. (It’s there! Just trapped inside him!) She decides Ben’s celebrity cameo was not enough to earn him a rose.

Taking him outside, Tayshia asks Ben to blink twice if he’s registering any emotion. Ben stares and mumbles a few disjointed syllables before finding himself loaded into the go home mobile, his body to be dropped off in the desert and devoured by vultures per Bachelorette elimination protocol.

This will not be the end for our sweet Ben. We will see a reassuring emotional maturity in Paradise before one more heartbreak and eventual casting as the post-Matt James Bachelor.

Until then: Fantasy Suites, where Tayshia gets to test drive her three remaining WAPtions. (I’m sorry)

[theblogchelor]

The Men Tell All: A Summary In Dialogue

Here’s What Happened Monday

Whole buncha dudes screaming.

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Ed: Chasen had a boring voice and used all the same adjectives for Clare and Tayshia. Everyone: What is different about your face?

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Noah: *practices what he’s going to say to Bennett every time he’s in the shower* Noah: *also practices what he would say to Kenny, just once, just in case* Noah: ONE DIRECTION MANAGER PARTY BOY CAMO SUIT STAR TATTOO MOTHERFU–

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Chris Harrison: Let’s discuss the nudity incident. Yosef: I was only defending my naked brothers. Jason: *screams in testosterone* Chris Harrison: But do we want to address the misogynistic underpinnings of your reprehensible dialogue with Clare before you get cancelled into oblivion? Yosef: No.

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Chris Harrison: How did it feel to get the call? Tayshia: I never expected to be The Bachelorette! You literally called me while I was eating donuts. Chris Harrison: This… is the first we are hearing of the donuts.

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Bennett: Okay but do you still need a financial advisor? Tayshia: Chris Harrison does my money.

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Blake: I would understand if you had regrets for breaking up with me. Tayshia: Op–

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Chris Harrison: Riley, this moment looked painful for you. Shall we watch it again? Riley: No I’m– Chris Harrison: Who wants to see it again! Riley: We really don’t need to– Chris Harrison: Roll the tape!

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Ten aka Chakras and Awe

Here’s What Happened Monday

The final days before Hometowns and tensions are high, socks are gone, crystal wizards are on call.

Blake’s One-On-One

Tayshia and Blake visit a Crystal Master, which I’m sure would be extremely flattering title in Florida. Here, it means an elderly woman in knee-length braids who perceptively identifies what we all could tell without the rocks: that Tayshia and Blake are bad at communicating.

Of all the ways to realize you don’t love someone, Tayshia’s is perhaps the most brutal: sitting directly on top of Blake, eye to eye, crotch to crotch, performing a tantric breathing exercise.

Tayshia makes him put his shirt back on before dumping him with the crystal lady standing three feet away.

Basically a Game of Thrones Style Execution

It is never a good sign when the Bachelorette shows up while the men are dressed like schlubs: Zac in a hoodie, Ivan in a cutoff, Ben in a t-shirt whose neck hole is an unusual standard tightness for Ben.

Tayshia enters the room, sobs, then asks Riley to come with her outside. The men stare with mouths agape at the spot where Riley stood just moments ago. Killing off a character with so little warning, so little gravitas, is usually a game only played by HBO. And yet here we are, watching Riley get sent home in his sweatpants.

The Rose Ceremony

Tayshia now has a taste for blood and no patience for frivolity like a cocktail party. She chooses to proceed straight to the Rose Ceremony.

In the meantime, the men are greeted by a surprise Bennett, adorned in a purple suit and a smirk. He can sense the disdain of the other men but has the same number of fucks to give as he has socks, which is zero.

If there was any justice in Bennett’s return, it was that Bennett and Noah could finally be sent home together. They are cut at the Rose Ceremony, meaning that our final four are Zac, Brendan, Ivan, and Ben.

Tune in next week to watch Tayshia find love during Hometowns only to be exposed to one of the guy’s sisters who went out to a bar the night before filming and endangers everyone’s wellbeing.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Nine aka Bowling Alley Sexytime

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

More Bennett than we bargained for and a lie detector date that would have been an absolute terror in Clare’s hands.

One Hour of Television on One Slide

Let’s pretend this two-on-one situation is a bargain bin version of The Notebook. Tayshia is Rachel McAdams, a natural fit as they have equally perfect teeth. Bennett is James Marsden, with less of the decency and none of the dimples. Noah is Ryan Gosling but perpetually stuck in his uncomfortably manic carousel-dangling phase.

Weighing her options, Tayshia dumps James-Bennett and his serial killer jawline. She keeps Noah around for time being, holding out to see if he can progress to the better stage of smoldery, wrapped-in-a-blanket-on-the-balcony, depression-beard Ryan Gosling.

In this scenario, Tayshia is simultaneously dating the rest of the town as well.

The Rose Ceremony

Later, at the Rose Ceremony, roses are distributed to all but Spencer, Demar, and Ed. Pour one out for Ed’s massive neck and for the twenty minutes that Spencer was the villain of the season.

Ben’s One-On-One

Ben and Tashia’s date is something of a fever dream. You and this boy get on scooters. You must find the giant pool of tennis balls. Flash forward, you are battling an army of piñatas. Now you’re in a fountain and inexplicably pantsless.

Then you wake up and realize that on a show famous for its lavish, exotic overseas trips, this is really your date. And it is 120 degrees.

The dinner portion of the date is a different kind of nightmare for Ben, the kind where he has to explain, on national television, all of the worst events of his life. He glances to check and is at least still wearing pants.

Outside, Ben and Tayshia slow dance to the acoustic serenade of a man named Adam Hambrick, which my group chat promptly renamed Adam Spam.

The Group Date

The boys enter a dimly lit interrogation room to find Jojo dressed in a hot pink silk jumpsuit like Special Victims Unit Barbie. One by one, Jojo and Tayshia hook the boys up to a lie detector test to gauge their feelings about their mothers and to verify Riley’s identity.  

Later, Tayshia tells Zac C. that she’s falling in love with him, mere seconds after Zac C. tells her that he once cheated on his girlfriend by Frenching another girl in a bowling alley.

Riley also takes a quiet moment with Tayshia to explain his late-in-life name change resulting from family trauma. Tayshia lets him blow his nose on the train of her gigantic paper towel dress.  

As a game-time decision, Tayshia asks for an extension before distributing a hometowns-bound rose to any of the men.

Danger

Re-emerging from the real world, unquarantined and likely harboring the plague, Bennett returns to tell Tayshia that he – the wealthiest, whitest man in her orbit – is entitled to his first of many second chances.

Unmasked and sitting closer than six feet away, Bennett’s droplets hang suspended in midair with Tayshia’s stunned silence.

She asks for more time before she decides what to do with him, proving that even beautiful people can be chronic procrastinators.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Eight aka Hauntings, Flauntings, and Tauntings

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

Passive aggressive gift-giving.

Paranormal activity.

Love blossoming, love wilting.

Ben’s junk.

Zac C’s One-On-One

If you’ve been counting along at home, Jojo Fletcher’s arrival as the Bachelorette-spirit-guide-turned-Chris-Harrison-stunt-double marks the fifth Bachelorette to grace this season. When she walks into the holding room, at least half of the men wonder if Tayshia has been hit by a bus and they have to start over again.

But alas, with Tayshia perfectly intact, Jojo hands Zac C an invite to his one-on-one. For the date, our ever-sadistic producers force Tayshia and Zac C (two divorcées) to don wedding outfits and have their photograph taken by a man in shorts so short that a testicle could escape at any moment.

Later, at dinner, Tayshia admits that she’s been married once before. Politely asking Tayshia to hold his beer, Zac C informs Tayshia about his brain tumor, drug use, DUI, stint in rehab, and divorce.

“Ideal,” says Tayshia. Zac C gets the rose.

The Group Date

The group date is a wine-and-paint night but stone-cold sober and with brown clay that leaves the artist with a limited range for interpretation. Thus when the men follow their primordial male instincts and craft a collection of turds and genitals from it, they can hardly be blamed.

Next, the men are asked to use any supplies they can find to create a self-portrait. Brendan uses a blank frame to explain that he’s only part of the picture. Blake draws a crayon picture of turtledoves, his favorite animal lovers. Ben exposes his actual penis, and Tayshia runs out of the room crying.

Rebranding the spook she got from the flashing incident, Tayshia thanks the guys for their moving display of vulnerability. Later, when she debriefs with Ben, he exposes himself emotionally instead of physically, which this is a considerable improvement.

Ben gets the rose and is asked to keep his pants on for the remainder of the season.

Eazy’s One-On-One

Running out of ideas, the producers turn off the lights at the La Quinta, give Tayshia and Eazy a heat sensor, and just wait to see what happens.

A hotel regular myself (in the before times at least), I am surprised to see how much of the property is not being used for housing and guest services, but rather for maintaining the old timey office, scrolls, and haunted doll collection of its resident ghost, William Morgan. I find this atypical.

After an evening of ghost hunting and eye strain from squinting in the dark for so long, Eazy and Tayshia retire to supper. Eazy tells Tayshia he’s falling in love with her, but Tayshia does not reciprocate. She snaps her finger and Jojo arrives, dressed as a bouncer, and escorts Eazy off the property.

The Two-On-One, Kind Of

2020 has taken many precious things from our lives but ruining the traditional Bachelorette two-on-one is a step too far. Instead of helicoptering to a remote desert location and leaving the reject behind to be eaten by vultures, this pre-Cocktail Party two-on-one cop out is happening in the lobby of the La Quinta without a chopper in sight.

Bennett meets Noah ahead of time, bringing him a box filled with underhanded insults passed off as gifts: socks in memory of his former mustache, a textbook on emotional intelligence Bennett found in a box in his mom’s basement labeled “Harvard.” It is both psychotic and well-curated.

Tayshia shows up and listens to approximately twenty-seven seconds of their bickering before motioning to Jojo to bring her a drink. The episode ends here, meaning we will have to endure Bennoah for another week.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Seven aka Reality on TV

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

A glimmer of real conversation about the most pressing issues in American society by two Black cast members of a historically all-white show… followed by an orgasm sounds competition because this is still The Bachelorette.

The First Group Date

The group date is fundamentally a qualifying round for the real one-on-one date. The men must write and perform songs for Tayshia’s attention, proving that they are both confident and literate.

Bennett feels confident in his abilities, citing that he had “spit some flow for some of his high school buddies over retreats” in the past, and we are left to wonder if “retreats” are what the rich call rehab.

None of the people who you may think would have an edge on musical ability – the Soul Cycle instructor, the boy band manager – have any advantage over the people who shouldn’t.

With an equal playing field of cringe to compete on, Ivan the aeronautical engineer wins the one-on-one.

Ivan’s One-On-One

Let us acknowledge up front: Tayshia and Ivan’s one-on-one breaks every rule in the Bachelorverse handbook.

Instead of a spa day in the mountains of Thailand or a helicopter ride over the rainforests of Costa Rice, Tayshia and Ivan have a is fourth grade slumber party in her hotel room. They destroy the furniture playing True American, partake in a pillow fight with sacks of loose feathers, and even attempt to play Twister without stretching first.

Instead of being served a five-course meal in a candle-lit cathedral, they order a four-gallon sundae and actually take bites. We have never before seen The Bachelorette eat food.

And, most significantly, they opt out of the standard, superficial date conversation typical of self-delusional fairyland of The Bachelorette and instead, we watch two Black Americans discuss George Floyd, police brutality, Black Lives Matter, and Covid, almost as if life actually exists outside the La Quinta.

The Second Group Date

The longer this season goes, the more of a stretch each date becomes. This time, Tayshia brings on Becca Kufrin and Sydney Lotuaco to lead the men through a series of challenges designed in some producer’s fever dreams.

Each pair must chug smoothies made of cow intestines, obtain Chris Harrison’s John Hancock on their Jake Butt, and broadcast orgasm noises into the resort’s speaker system. Why not.

Lastly, the men must eat hot peppers before practice-proposing to Tayshia. It seems just as ill-advised to make white men try to pronounce the word “habanero” as it is to encourage a challenge that induces coughing in the time of Covid.

Later, at Booze Date, Bennett reveals that his proposal was real and that they are now legally engaged, Demar tells Tayshia (a divorcée) that he’s terrified of divorce, and Zach gets in the hot tub and lets his hairy chest do all the talking. Zach gets the rose.

Conversational Booty Calls

Ben and Ed concoct simultaneous plans to go to Tayshia’s room and express their feelings, which is typically what men are after when they show up at a woman’s door at 2:30am.

Ed, the man with the neck and relative personality of a buffalo, is conveniently sent to Chris Harrison’s room instead for some whiskey, and we can only assume, fatherly mentorship.

Ben, the Army vet, says, “I haven’t done a secret mission in years” in what strikes me as a slightly hyperbolic war comparison to walking to a girl’s hotel room.

At her room, Ben apologizes for not claiming time at the previous date and Tayshia indicates that Ben should work harder to “show up.” Before he has the chance to, a room service delivery man literally shows up and Ben is upstaged yet again.

The Rose Ceremony

After some time to process, it becomes clear that Ben takes “showing up” to mean that he should appear at random as frequently as possible.

Noah takes it to mean “arrive and incite rage.” Dressed in all black and too few buttons done, Noah suggests to Tayshia that the men all assume the worst in her. Operating on false information, Tayshia reams the guys and cancels the remainder of the cocktail party.

The men confront Noah for his malevolence. Bennett accuses Noah of being a 14-year-old and then of needing to be breastfed. I am too concerned with the thought of Bennett breastfeeding a 14-year-old to unpack the intended meaning of that metaphor.

Roses are given to all but Kenny, Chasen, Jordan, and – unjustly – Dr. Joe. And by the scathing looks of the remaining men, this will be Noah’s last night with the current configuration of his face.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Six aka A Grown Ass Man

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

Fom the shadows of complete obscurity emerges Ed, whose slender lower body becomes the target of impassioned rage from Chasen, a man with the intellectual fortitude of a waffle cone. It’s an odd week on The Bachelorette, but one with all the familiar trappings of cocktail parties and oiled-down shirtless dudes.

The First Group Date

Living Bachelor franchise redemption story Jared and Ashley I arrive at the La Quinta to analyze the skills of manhood needed to satisfy our archaic notions of patriarchal standards. But, perplexingly, because the Grown Ass Man challenges are basic algebra, vocabulary quizzes, and tug-of-war games, we can assume that the skills of Grown-Assedness can be achieved by the age of twelve.

Bennett, a Managing Director at a wealth management firm who is responsible for people’s financial assets, proves he cannot do basic math. He can, however, deliver a beignet in a bathrobe. He wins the Grown Ass Man award.

Ed is the least Grown Ass Man, thus earning the title of Man Child. This carries the punishment of being given an additional baby, even though he was basically just crowned a baby. This entire date is a good reminder not to look for logic where there is none.

The First Group Date (Booze Time)

While Tayshia is setting off a super-spreader event of oral herpes out on the patio, the others bicker on the drama couch.

Chasen is at the heart of the arguments. He criticizes Bennett’s eveningwear bathroom. He insults Ed’s chicken legs, right in front of Ed’s fake baby. Ed, a man who could play Joey Fatone’s drunk cousin in a bad mob movie, goes and tells Tayshia that Chasen is only there for the Instagram followers.

Tayshia is shocked by this revelation, not because someone would only be on the show for Instagram followers, but that they would so blatantly break that sacred fourth wall.

Ultimately, she gives the rose to Ivan, the aeronautical engineer who fed her blindfolded strawberries and then his own mouth. Army vet Ben in the wide-neck shirt considers this a personal failure.

The Rose Ceremony

Chasen addresses the men prior to the cocktail party and continues to posture as California’s failed idea of an alpha male. He notes that Tayshia is a “smoke show,” a term he most certainly learned from the internet’s indoctrination camp for frat boys and misogynistic teenagers, Barstool Sports.

Tayshia, frankly, has little patience for any interaction that doesn’t involve tongue at this point. She listens to Ed whine, then to Chasen whine, then tells them to go work it out amongst themselves and send in someone shirtless.

Words are exchanged. Nothing is resolved. Ed’s SAT scores from twenty years ago are discussed in detail. Both get a rose.

The Second Group Date

Somewhere behind the scenes, a producer with an unquenchable bloodlust decides that now would be a great time to schedule the violence-themed group date: actual cage fighting.

While folks like Dr. Joe are just there to have a good time and folks like Brendan are just trying to not die, they are only the warmup act for the heavyweight title match between Chasen and Ed. Ed, however, requests a medical pass from Chris Harrison, citing arms that pop off at random like a Mr. Potato Head doll.

Mustache Noah, the kind of crazy who needs to get hit to feel something, jumps in the cage to fight Chasen in his jeans instead.

The Second Group Date (Booze Time)

Noah’s act of bravery (which some would consider psychopathy) earns him a surprise invitation to the private after party portion of the date. He takes advantage, whisking Tayshia away to the back patio only to learn that she hates his beloved mustache.

He leaves to retrieve his clippers and returns to find Jordan explaining to Tayshia that Leos are characteristically known for their unwavering loyalty. Noah mercifully interrupts and gives Tayshia an opportunity to shave off his face ferret once and for all.

This earns Noah the group date rose, a target on his back, and a babyface he can’t bear to look at in the mirror anymore.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Five aka A Peaceful Transfer of Power

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

A second lease on life arrives for the sixteen remaining losers with the arrival of Tayshia, our new Bachelorette. Unfortunately for them the surprise train keeps rolling, this time carrying new guys and more speedos.

Sausagefest

The standard introduction methodology for the new Bachelorette is a phased approach wherein the Bachelorette meets one man at a time before rejoining the full quorum for light refreshments and casual conversation. It is an orderly, civilized, structured affair.

The experimental new Tayshia methodology, as evidenced, is to throw the new Bachelorette into a hotel lobby crammed with sixteen confused rejects sweating through full suits in 120-degree desert heat and just see what happens.

Tayshia is a breath of fresh air: disarmingly charming, refreshingly beautiful, and has the unique differentiating factor of being not Clare. They take to her immediately.

Foreign Invasion

A surprise vehicle arrives at the La Quinta, described astutely by Brendan as a “big ass limo lookin’ like it’s full of men.” For the existing contestants, the arrival of the four newcomers is a threat to their already fragile cultural ecosystem; for us, it is a reminder that we never learned the original men’s names in the first place.

Spencer, Montel, Peter, and Noah appear to be added if for no other reason than to stress test the homicidal impulses of the others. Beard Blake, who can be seen in the background of most shots mumbling to himself and dragging a shovel, is my bet for first to crack.

New Spencer, likely Blake’s first victim, looks like a handsome but evil Derek Peth. He get’s Tayshia’s First Impression Rose.

An Unfathomable and Unjustifiable After The Final Rose

Please use this slide as a moment of silence for the thirty minutes of our lives spent on Clare and Dale this episode that we will never get back.

The Group Date

In a repeat of their most problematic nudity group date thus far, the men don speedos and let Tayshia watch them play splashy basketball. There is something distinctly delightful about seeing ten testosterone-fueled men peacocking for a woman’s attention by overperforming at a game you played in your friend’s pool at the age of eleven.

Unlike the splashy basketball of our youth, this game has decidedly fewer Old Navy tankinis and much more violence. Spencer is the first to draw blood, hitting Riley’s elbow with his face.

The men do not take kindly to new Spencer. “To put this in layman’s terms,” says boy band manager Kenny, “you kind of come off as a dick.” If these are layman’s terms, I would love to know what Kenny considers the technical jargon.

Meanwhile, Jason self-eliminates citing lingering feelings for Clare. Tayshia respectfully accepts and gently reminds him that there are therapists on the internet now. Like now, like right now.

Brendan’s One-One-One

The premise of Brendan’s date is to underwork two horses by forcing them to do laps around a hotel property and overwork one Chris Harrison by forcing him to do the same.

Eventually, Tayshia and Brendan find a pool where the horses can’t shit near them and Chris Harrison can’t hand them a snack. Brendan takes the oasis as his chance to plant a fat one on Tayshia.

At dinner, Brendan summons the nerves to reveal his divorcée status, which he qualifies was achieved “without cheating or abuse or addiction.” Tayshia puts him at ease by revealing that she, too, has been divorced, but because she does not specify, we can only assume hers was flush with cheating and abuse and addiction.

After dinner, the two watch a private fireworks show ignited in the California desert during the most active wildfire season in a generation. For love.  

Until next week!

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Four aka Daleiverance

Here’s What Happened Thursday

Just when the nation can’t take any more coverage of Maricopa County ballot counting, Chris Harrison giveth the sweet reprieve. On the potential eve of the shakeup in the White House we’ve all been waiting for comes the shakeup in the Bachelorverse we’ve been waiting for harder.

Harrison Therapy

Everyone’s overly-involved coworker Chris Harrison stops by Clare’s proverbial cube to pry into her feelings on Dale, the guy she met at last year’s Christmas party and who she has stalked incessantly on Teams ever since.

In reality terms, Clare has decided that her La Quinta boyfriend of seventy-two hours, Dale Moss, is her pick for life.

Harrison informs the men that there will be no Cocktail Party or Rose Ceremony. Instead, Clare will don her most tit-forward finale prom dress and shoot her final shot egregiously ahead of schedule.

The Rehearsal Dinner

Clare sits Dale down for a poolside candlelit dinner and tells him that her parents, James and Lily Potter, met and got engaged after an interminable three-week wait. Thus, Clare’s infallible genetic instincts for permanence are signaling that the time is right.

Dale reveals that going on The Bachelorette was the only way to avoid the out-of-body haze of suffocating grief from the death of his mother, and Clare takes this as an excellent sign.

Clare tells Dale she is falling in love with him. Dale, seeing a producer brandish a knife in his waistband nearby, apprehensively reciprocates.

Everything is moving so quickly that Chris Harrison doesn’t even have time to provide a handwritten invitation for the two to spend a night in the Fantasy Suite, but Clare takes it upon herself to bring Dale back to her room to – how should I say this – cast his ballot in her designated dropbox.

Harrison Therapy, Part 2

The next day, Chris Harrison returns to Clare’s room where she tells him that she and Dale are in love, hopefully pregnant, and ready to spend the rest of their lives together.

Chris Harrison does another line of cocaine off the coffee table and suggests immediate engagement.

The Group Dump

Clare gathers up the remainder of men still dating her to inform them that it’s collectively over. She tells them that she has too much respect for them not to own up to the fact that she found it so annoying that they were always there.

Kenny suggests that Clare should apologize to them, and Clare asks Kenny to remind her what his name is.

Elsewhere, Dale hears Chris Harrison’s words to prepare for engagement like an astronaut hearing instructions from Houston to prepare for ejection six thousand miles from the moon.

The Final Rose

Dale never expected to have to propose before he even figured out where the resort bathroom is, yet here we are. He blacks out for a minute and when he comes to, he is engaged to a woman with a glint of crazy in her eye that tells him that he will never make it back out of this relationship still breathing.

It Wasn’t Over; It Still Isn’t Over

Somehow when it’s Dale proposing, the narrative of the other men is “it’s only been a week,” but when Chris tells them they’re getting a new Bachelorette, the narrative is “but I’ve already emotionally invested in this journey with Clare.”

The men are given twelve hours to decide if their hearts can handle seeing a brand-new woman in a bikini ten years younger than Clare so soon after devastating heartbreak. In an act of true bravery, every man chooses to endure.

Until next week.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Three aka Dale.

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

Clare develops deeper feelings for Dale while I begin to suspect that the reason they disappear in the upcoming episodes is because the rest of the men have gang-murdered them in the La Quinta parking lot.

Last Week’s Cocktail Party, cont’d. 

Last week, Clare proposed a game of dodgeball that began with all the monochromatic trappings of a ‘90s high school movie but quickly devolved into a scene from one of the more niche corners of Pornhub.

Yosef, a man who I would not assume would be above reproach considering he has the hair gel game of someone well-versed in sending unsolicited dick pics, takes the most issue with Clare’s purportedly classless dodgeball game.

He confronts Clare, gently suggesting that she is a trashy elderly swamp witch who does not live up to his Alabamian sense of propriety. In need of a tried-and-true comeback, Clare spits the same line at Yosef that she spat at Juan Pablo, leaving us to wonder how many men she has used those words against in the intervening decade.

Yosef leaves, and Dale swoops in for the rescue hug, his broad chest making Clare forget that someone just uttered the word “forty” in her presence.

The Rose Ceremony

Cutting the Cocktail Party short due to her perceptive recognition that she would not be able to maintain small talk with the non-Dales in her moment of emotional fragility, Clare proceeds directly to the Rose Ceremony.

Roses are distributed to Dale and, reluctantly, others.

Gossip Interlude

After a night of chaos, Clare has a refreshing conversation with someone who has been in her hooker heels before. Deanna, former Bachelorette, has a babysitter for the weekend and gleefully encourages all of Clare’s most destructive instincts.

Clare tells Deanna all about Dale and hands her a pair of his pants to sniff. While we are made to believe the producers indeed procured Dale’s pants, I suspect there is a Chris Harrison standing in his boxers nearby.

Elsewhere, the men try to psych themselves up for the mandatory group date, wondering if it will be dongs in or dongs out this time.

The Group Date, Kind Of

Clare cancels the day portion of the planned group date, not able to stomach another makeshift hotel date when she was promised Thailand, and proceeds directly to the night portion instead.

Dale jumps to request the first steal-away with Clare, promising only five minutes of her time, but instead lays on top of her for an hour in her suite.

Clare has already begun removing her white silk short suit when Eazy arrives at the door, demanding that Clare speed date with the rest of them. Only horny for that Dale, Clare goes through the motions until Dale returns, interrupting one of the guys who was in the middle of showing Clare how he learned to blow bubbles.

Outside, Dale tells the other dudes he got lost leaving the bathroom, or must have wandered into Clare’s room in a fugue state, or some combination of the two.

Zach J’s One-On-One

Zach J is one of the non-Dales who Clare is required to take on a one-on-one, so she brings him on the errands she was planning to run anyway. Zach J’s ticklishness as he suffers through his first pedicure is a major drag on Clare, who just wanted to get rubbed down by some Eastern European women in peace. Or by Dale. Mmm Dale.

Later, in the pool, Zach J and Clare share a hellacious moment that involves breathing into each other’s open mouths but not kissing, and then Zach J pawing at Clare’s neck but still not kissing.

Chris Harrison breaks up with Zach J on Clare’s behalf, which is how I now plan to destroy a man in the future.  

The Second Group Date

The premise of the second group date is a roast. A roast, for the unfamiliar, is a pre-internet tradition of cyberbullying one person directly to his or her face in front of everyone they know.

The men are encouraged to roast each other, by which they interpret “each other” to mean “Dale.” Jealousy breeds creativity as each man works harder writing his digs than he did on any paper he wrote in modeling school.

Later, at the booze portion of the date, Clare grills each man about his Dale roast with the white-hot interest of a woman poised to snap at any moment. The rest of the men sit outside and try to make sense of the rejection, collectively bolstering their fragile egos like a waddle of penguins protecting their eggs.

Clare gives herself the rose.

And Finally…

The moment you knew was coming if you’ve been on the internet at any point in the last month: from the watery ashes of Clare’s self-destruction rises the Bachelorette phoenix Tayshia.

Our rescuer is coming, and she’s bikini-ready. Good night and God bless.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week Two aka A Case for the Importance of Therapy

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

With great power comes great responsibility. But if responsibility isn’t your thing, try splitting your boyfriends into teams and forcing them to do nude sports on television.

Let’s dive in.

The First Group Date

Clare loves any date that can both challenge the men and educate them on early 1990s Christian marriage counseling concepts. And thus, the Love Languages date proceeds as follows:

WORDS OF AFFIRMATION: The men recite mushy speeches to Clare, who beams atop a fake Veronian balcony like the polygamist Juliet to her harem of Romeos.

GIFTS: Without any prior notice, the men must give to Clare whatever they can find in their suitcases that doesn’t smell like ass, including Ben’s shirt which surely smells like ass.

PHYSICAL TOUCH: Instead of fully fornicating on the floor, what we had to watch was worse: fully-clothed blindfolded groping, unsolicited tickling, and extensive neck sniffing.

QUALITY TIME: Quality time is a relative concept, since sometimes time feels less like quality and more like a root canal. Thus is the atmosphere after Clare berates the men for not immediately volunteering to spend time with her, when obviously they wanted to spend some quality time with the open bar first. 

ACTS OF SERVICE: The fifth and final Love Language was callously ignored on the show, but I still included here for education’s sake. My act of service to you, Bachelor Nation.

Riley gets the rose.

Jason’s One-On-One

A nightmare first date scenario for any two strangers: Clare unleashes all her insecurities on Jason under the guise of healing and expects Jason to reciprocate cold. When asked if he would prefer to heal via a primal scream or a deep breathing exercise, Jason wisely chooses the primal scream.

Next, the two find notebooks and write down the years’ worth of trauma and neuroses that have put their therapists’ children through college. When Jason reads his list aloud, Clare’s eyes light up.

“Is there darkness?” she asks, softly salivating. “Is there darkness inside you?” Jason weeps in affirmation. “Yes. But I don’t wake up in the morning and want to be a player.”

Later, Clare symbolically tosses her Juan Pablo dress in the bonfire while wildfires ravage the state of California around them for reasons equally as stupid.

The Second Group Date

The second group date is a game of strip dodgeball, wherein a lost point correlates to a lost article of clothing. Each man silently reflects that he would rather have his testicles chafed by a Bachelor-issued banana hammock any day over having to go through Jason’s journaling-and-screaming date.

The losing team must return home to the hotel in with their buttcheeks to the breeze, which does not sit well with Beard Blake. He finds pants and crashes the winning team’s booze date with Clare, infuriating the winning team who admonishes him for not training his whole life for reality tv dodgeball like the rest of them.

Next, Brandon commits the cardinal sin of The Bachelorette: admitting that he did not watch Clare on Juan Pablo’s season. Brandon is executed by Chris Harrison on the spot.

The Rose Ceremony

Yosef plans to confront Clare at the Rose Ceremony over the egregious exploitation of strip dodgeball – on a show, I will remind you, that has at least one tits-out mud-wrestling date per season when the roles are reversed.

But first, Clare must pull Beard Blake out of the group, take him to a remote corner of the resort, confront him about stepping out of line, and then give him a rose all in the name of not wanting him to worry.

Lastly, because she does not seem to understand the concept of a Rose Ceremony, Clare brings Dale around back and invites him to stick his tongue down her throat for as long as she sees fit.

Thus concludes the preamble to the Rose Ceremony, which is in and of itself an abbreviated Rose Ceremony and one dry humping session.

Until next week.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelorette Week One aka Love In The Time Of Cholera

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

The tragedy of Clare Crawley: she spent a lifetime telling Bachelor franchise men to eat rocks while patiently awaiting her moment in the Bachelorette sun, only for a man across the globe to eat a raw bat and crush her dreams in an exquisitely unfortunate way.

But alas, not all hope is lost. After one hundred and thirty days of self-pity and desperation baking, a conversation with Chris Harrison that went something like “so we cancelled all the international trips but could only afford a La Quinta?”, and two weeks of quarantine in just a La Quinta, Clare is back.

But First! Let’s Quarantine

The men, like Clare, must undergo two weeks of Quinta Quarantine and a battery of Covid tests before Chris Harrison can violate all HIPPA protocol and inform them of their test results. The men spend their time doing what restless men in isolation do: reminding invisible women that they went to Harvard, practicing juggling and other lady-wooing skills, and refusing to wear shirts.

Somewhere, just a room away, Clare waits to meet her dashing suitors, all of whom react to every Covid nasal swab as though they have just been lobotomized by an ice pick.

All cleared, it is time to pretend that the world isn’t burning and load the testosterone mobiles for night one.

Let’s Meet The Men

We don’t have to spend much time on the first string of clowns: Riley with the esoteric attorney jokes, eight-foot tall Jordan, pregnant Jason.

Ivan is a multilingual aeronautical engineer, which immediately over-qualifies him to be anywhere within a hundred yards of Chris Harrison.

Kenny is a boy band cover band manager. Please take a moment to reread those words. Please also remember that Lou Pearlman, the manager and creator of both the Backstreet Boys and N*SYNC, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for many, many crimes. This is a dangerous line of business.

Mike brought flip flops for Clare to change into when her heels started to hurt. It would be impossible to understate how devastatingly sexy yet underrated of a move this is. He is the anti-Pearlman.

Bennett, the wealth management consultant in a tuxedo, most certainly watched American Psycho at a formative age and found something that resonated with Christian Bale’s performance of working in finance and murdering women in his apartment.

Let’s Keep Meeting Men Since We Have Nothing Else To Do

Jay greets Clare in a straitjacket, which is romantic in a way that only physical confinement from bodily harm can be.

Not to be outdone by the straitjacket, Chasen shows up in a knight suit, removing his armor to reveal the face of a man who has never read an entire book.

Yosef brings moon pies, which infuriates Eazy. According to Tyler C. (no, this downgraded version), Yosef also allegedly messages women on Instagram, much like the middle-aged men who invite themselves into your inbox with greetings like “hello beautiful how is your day” and “please beautiful send photos of your feet.” Tyler C. is sent home.

Blake Moynes was also guilty of an illicit Instagram DM slide, but because Clare was the recipient of his late-night horndog messages, he gets a pass.

Dale is unmemorable. Just kidding; Dale releases his pheromones and Clare becomes instantly weak in her sequined knees. If in nine months People Magazine runs an exclusive on Clare’s night-one immaculate conception, we will know it was from seeing Dale walk out of that limo.

The Calm Before The Shit Show

ABC is promising quite the drama this season, riding on the plotline of Big Dale Energy. To be honest, Clare answered a phone call from Chris at the beginning of this episode by saying, “oh my god, sick, hi,” so if we have to part ways with a 39-year-old woman who still says “sick,” I think I am okay with that.

That being said, we have already made emotional connections with Clare’s dogs, and thus I am praying the dogs have a season-long contract that is separate and distinct from Clare’s.  

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelor Week Ten Point Five aka Sweet Mercies Are In Endings

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

Proposals, breakups, Babs, photobooths, deeply hateful rhetoric, Kelley?

Let’s dive in, finale style.

The Proposal

Peter, a man left with one subpar option, employs a method that men have been employing for centuries of subpar options: willful self-delusion. He gives himself a Hannah Anna pep talk, chooses a ring from Neil Lane’s briefcase of mysteries, and facetimes Father Sluss to ask for his blessing.

Hannah Anna, faced with the knowledge of being potential second best, employs the method that women have been employing for centuries: just napping through it. Eventually she wakes up, now hours late for her proposal, and calls an Uber to drive her into the middle of the bush to meet Peter.

And thus commences the marriage proposal equivalent of someone going in for the handshake while the other goes in for the hug. Peter explains that his heart had been pulled in two different directions, but that Madison already left, he’s scared of his mom, and she’s his only remaining option. Hannah Anna emphatically accepts.

The Un-Proposal

A month later in LA, Hannah Anna sits on Peter’s lap while he tells her that he can’t give her his full heart. Hannah Anna takes off the ring which was never sized for her and gives it back to Peter. Hannah Anna has questions. How dare he take her precious first engagement from her? Why does he have a photobooth in his home? What kind of creepy shit is that?

Fast forward to now. Hannah Anna has spent weeks with her defense attorneys prepping for her After the Final Rose opening statements. Somehow she manages to flip the script of signing up for a reality TV show to not being given the full information of what her proposal acceptance would mean, and even more significantly, she gets Peter’s mother to provide a character testimony for her. Barbara, from the crowd, actively claps as Hannah Anna tells her son to take a long walk off a short pier.

The Madison Revival

Back in Alabama, Chris Harrison throws pebbles at Madison’s door until she lets him in. He informs her of the pending-to-unpending nuptials, then encourages her to fly to LA and rekindle the spark – a spark that died, I’ll remind you, because these are two completely incompatible people. But this time it miraculously sticks.

If looks could kill, Barb would have Madison lying dead on the live stage floor while Madison confesses that she still loves Peter. Dressed in her best funereal blacks, Barb vocalizes her deep detestation of Madison, a woman who made her wait three hours and didn’t even let her son get it. Madison smiles at her and reminds her that her son’s penis is not her only priority. And, after a season of pain, that’s basically where we leave it.

I need a drink.

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelor Week Ten aka Barbarapalooza

Here’s What Happened Monday

Ding dong the witch is dead. Which old witch? Victoria F.

We are down under with our final three women: Hannah Anna, Madison, and Peter’s mother Barbara. It’s a lot more sauce than any of us bargained for.

Let’s dive in.

Hannah Anna Meets the Fockers

Peter brings Hannah Anna to meet his family: his mother, an emotional faucet; his father, a vestige of 1970s pilot sex symbolism; and his younger brother, mini-Pete.

Peter’s mother, Barbara, has consumed so much proverbial Bachelor koolaid by now that Hannah Anna could walk in dragging a bloody axe behind her and Peter’s mother would still be enamored by what a perfect match she would be for her son.

Peter’s father, mustache fluffed and shirt unbuttoned two buttons too many, asks Hannah Anna how she truly feels about his son. She says, “when I look at Peter, like, I look at my heart” and he responds, “ok.”

And, just like that, Peter’s family’s standards are met by Hannah Anna: a pretty biped human female who will absolutely not question a single thing about their perfect grown adult son who they only call “bud.”  

Madison Gets Eviscerated By the Fockers

Madison and Peter yet again discuss the damage caused by Peter’s decision to maximize his ROI on sexytime and neglect her values. As I sit here trying to decide which of their expectations was more unreasonable, I notice an elderly woman hacking into a mask six feet away from me in O’Hare and remember that none of this actually matters.

Peter’s family prove to be distressingly obsessed with his freedom to get laid. Peter’s little brother inquires if Madison’s aversion to premarital sex will inhibit Peter’s ability to go line dancing. His mother, separately, expresses the same concern over the line dancing. The likelihood that “line dancing” does not actually mean line dancing to this family is growing by the minute.

Peter’s family’s preference is clear as they beg him to choose confection over conviction. When Peter’s mother goes on the emotional offensive and breaks down in tears for second time, Peter begs her to stop. It’s the most we’ve agreed with Peter in weeks.

Madison’s Final Date

After a tour of the sacred Uluru in the Aussie outback, Peter and Madison get eaten alive by flies while Madison slowly dumps Peter. She confesses that the last two days have brought her a lot of clarity on their difference in opinion on marriage, faith, and… line dancing.

Ultimately, Madison swats her last fly and climbs into the go-home car, leaving Peter to sob alone until the three-foot Australian spiders emerge at nightfall to claim his body.

Hannah Anna’s Final Date

If you want to ensure that one date beats another, have one involve bugs and tears and the second involve cuddling baby kangaroos. Hannah Anna’s ability to hold a baby animal without killing makes Peter even more confident in his decision to choose Hannah Anna, even though she is literally the only choice he has left.

Later, whilst snuggling in the hotel (this being a particularly snuggle-heavy date), Peter tells his potential future fiancé that this experience has been absolutely the worst thing that has ever happened to him and cannot wait for this waking nightmare to be over.

Tomorrow should be fun!