The Bachelor
January 28, 2020
Pack your bags, ladies, it’s time to leave the McMansion. And our first stop? GLAMOROUS CLEVELAND!
And listen, I’ve never been to Cleveland, I don’t know, it might be super cool and beautiful and a great place to have a romantic getaway. But when you feel the need to include clips of the women saying, “I didn’t expect Cleveland to be this nice!” …
At the hotel, the first date card arrives: “Dry Humor: Today our love soars to new heights.”
Dry Humor, who has seen this show before and knows what the score is, explains that she’s terrified of heights and worries that they are going to make her go skydiving or bungee jumping some other bullshit. These fears are not dissuaded when she arrives at an airport, but Pilot Peter promises they aren’t going skydiving: they’re flying to an amusement park. Seems excessive, but sure.
They have the park to themselves, where they ride one of those terrible slingshot contraptions and other attractions, before Pilot Peter announces that he has one more surprise for her. He then leads her to one of The Bachelor specialties: a concert by some small-time country singer that they act like is super famous but you’re sure you’ve never heard of them: Chase Rice!
EXCEPT.
YOU GUYS.
Chase Rice, whoever the Hell he is, happens to be Dry Humor’s ex-boyfriend.
Dry Humor, she tries her best — and fails — to act as though everything is fine, dancing her way through the song, looking nauseated. After the performance, she has a panic attack at one of the producers — THE VERY PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR SETTING THIS WHOLE THING UP — explaining to someone who definitely knew t that she just dated this guy and he didn’t want her to come on the show.
The Producers:
Meanwhile, this Chase Rice person makes small talk with Pilot Peter about being on The Bachelor and the date that he is currently on. After, Dry Humor takes this Chase Rice person aside where she explains that this whole thing is SUPER AWKWARD, and he encourages her to do what’s best for her. Just yikes to go around for days.
Before Pretend Dinner, Dry Humor continues to worry that this is going to mess things up with Pilot Peter — EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT HER FAULT THE PRODUCERS BLINDSIDED HER WITH THIS STUNT — while Pilot Peter giggles in an interview that the date is going well, and who knows, maybe Chase Rice will be playing at their wedding one day.
Wouldn’t count on that, Champ.
At Pretend Dinner, Dry Humor makes the big reveal: she used to date the rando singer at their date earlier. Pilot Peter is like, “Chase? Chase Rice? The singer? Chase Rice the singer? The one that was singing earlier? Chase Rice? Wait, Chase Rice?” fully incapable of grasping in his hamster brain that The Producers are not actually his best friends and not only sabotaged his date with Dry Humor but COULD NOT BELIEVE THEIR GOOD LUCK.
Pilot Peter’s inability to process this information just confirms for Dry Humor that she’s RUINED EVERYTHING and she gets up and runs away from the table and her fake food. Pilot Peter finds her in a hallway crying and is like, “Is this weird? Absolutely. Is it your fault? Nope. You didn’t hire the band. You didn’t organize this date. The Producers did and they knew EXACTLY what they were doing, and you’re just as much a victim as I am So let’s go back to that table and pretend to eat and let me offer you that a date rose.”
Back at the hotel, the group date card arrives: “Miss Louisiana, Contortionist, Ally McBeal, Windmill Costume, Purity Ball, Little Red Corvette, Air Sickness Bag, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Alabama City, Van Gogh, Non-Consensual, and Mom Jeans: Let’s tackle love together.” The only woman left off the date card, Champagne Wishes, realizes she has the second one-on-one, and everyone tries to pretend they are happy for her. They are not.
The women are taken to Cleveland’s football stadium where some sportsball player explains that they are going to play a football game: the winning team goes to the after-party; the losing team goes back to the hotel. To prepare for the game, the women run drills, all but Miss Louisiana who claims that her back is bothering her, and therefore has to remain on the sidelines, flirting with Pilot Peter.
The other women:
Eventually, the game happens and SURPRISE! There’s a tie. Both teams get to go to the after-party! Yay?
That night, Miss Louisiana is the first to take Pilot Peter aside for a chat, only further infuriating the other women who actually played football and hurt themselves for the privilege of being there. And, in fact, using her time with Pilot Peter, Air Sickness Bag calls his ass out for pushing the rest of the woman aside in favor of a woman who didn’t make the minimum effort that day. Meanwhile, the other women worry that the Miss Louisiana drama is going to consume all the energy at the after-party.
Oh, sweet babies. There will be drama that consumes all the energy at the after-party, but it’s not about Miss Louisiana.
The other women:
Miss Texas doesn’t stop to chat, but instead marches right into the room where Pilot Peter is visiting with Air Sickness Bag and demands to speak with him. There, Miss Texas demands a chance to defend herself against the LIES that Miss Louisiana said about her. FOR INSTANCE, they knew each other more than three hours. IN FACT, they went to Las Vegas together after the Miss USA pageant AND they talked every day leading up to The Bachelor. HE IS BEING LIED TO AND MUST CALL WITNESSES.
To that end, Pilot Peter takes Miss Louisiana aside, presents to her Miss Texas’s claims and asks her to explain herself. Miss Louisiana insists that she is just baffled and frustrated and can only assure him that she was honest with him.
Meanwhile, out in the lobby:
Pilot Peter decides to have this conversation with Miss Louisiana and Miss Texas together. There, Miss Texas is all, “I know all these other bitches don’t like me and lied about me, BUT YOU, MISS LOUISIANA? YOU? I THOUGHT WE WERE BFFS.” To which Miss Louisiana replies: “~sniffles~”
Pilot Peter is distraught: EVERYTHING HE THOUGHT HE KNEW HAS BEEN TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. WHITE IS BLACK, DOWN IS UP, DOGS ARE CATS, MISS LOUISIANA IS A LIAR AND MISS TEXAS IS TELLING THE TRUTH. THEY WENT TO LAS VEGAS TOGETHER.
Cue the ad for Las Vegas.
When we return from the cross-promotion, Pilot Peter joins the rest of the women holding the hand of a very smug Miss Texas. He explains to the women that he told them from the beginning he was going to “follow his heart” during this process but that he failed that promise when he sent Miss Texas packing. And that’s why he’s giving Miss Texas — who had not been on the date, and who did not get tackled once — the date rose.
The other women:
After Pilot Peter leaves, Miss Texas chats with Mom Jeans and Van Gogh, where she insists that they catch her up with everything that she missed in the past two days. For instance, she knows that Champagne Wishes has the next one-on-one date and that Dry Humor had the one-on-one the day before and that Dry Humor had been dating that singer Chase Rice. Mom Jeans is all, “WHAT?” And Miss Texas is like, “What, y’all didn’t know that? Because it was all over the internet.”
The next day the ladies are PISSED. OFF. and wondering if Pilot Peter is ready for what they’ll have to say to him at the Rose Ceremony. BURN IT ALL DOWN, WOMEN. SET FIRE TO THIS RETROGRADE, DEMEANING INSTITUTION ONCE AND FOR ALL. SAVE YOUR DIGNITY. SAVE YOURSELVES.
Meanwhile, Pilot Peter goes on his date with Champagne Wishes where he begins by telling her that he brought Miss Texas back on the show — a fact that I suspect she would have known by the time they went on the date unless she had been kept in solitary confinement. And in contrast to the other women’s understandable outrage, Champagne Wishes delivers a diplomatic response to Miss Texas’s return: If Pilot Peter chooses Champagne Wishes in the end, she wants to know that he had every opportunity to explore every relationship and not have any regrets. Pilot Peter loves this answer because it doesn’t force him to confront his own spinelessness and they continue with their date.
On the date they eat street pierogi, dance some polka, and race soapbox derby cars, where are allowed to win by some very generous children. That night over Pretend Dinner, Champagne Wishes cries about her parents’ divorce and Pilot Peter offers her the rose.
Back at the hotel, Dry Humor is PISSED that Miss Texas is going around telling her business with this Chase Rice character and confronts her about it, to which Miss Texas shrugs, and says that she thought everyone knew. “HOW WOULD THEY KNOW? NO ONE HAS THEIR PHONES HERE,” Dry Humor correctly points out, and Miss Texas is all, “Rude,” because what else is she going to say?
The next day, Pilot Peter, this ding dong, he trots into the Rose Ceremony cocktail party chirping about how good he feels, how that he knows this is going to work, and that he has “100% full confidence in [himself] that he knows what he’s doing.”
And he goes in, greets the women, and believing, bless his dim-witted little heart, that he is in complete control of this situation, asks to speak to Miss Louisiana. Which is when Alabama City and Come Hither are like, “EXCUSE ME. WE HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY: HOW DARE YOU. WE HAVE NEVER FELT SO UNDERRECOGNIZED. WE STILL HAVE BRUISES FROM THAT FOOTBALL GAME. AND YOU’RE JUST GOING TO COME WALTZING IN HERE WITH MISS TEXAS AND GIVER HER OUR HARD-EARNED ROSE? IT WAS A SLAP IN THE FACE. WE CAN’T EVEN LOOK AT YOU.”
Pilot Peter who, somehow, did not see this coming, is knocked backwards, and apologizes, explaining that he regretted sending Miss Texas home and that he felt he had been influenced incorrectly. But he’s sorry! He’s really sorry.
He then, again, asks Miss Louisiana to talk with him, and she’s all “I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU RIGHT NOW. BUT I WILL. NO, YOU KNOW WHAT? I WANT TO TALK TO YOU. LET’S GO TALK RIGHT NOW.”
And as they leave to go outside, all of the women look angry/irritated/sad with the exception of my girl, Ally McBeal, who clearly can not believe this hilarious nonsense is happening right in front of her face and tries — but fails — to cover her smirk with a sip from her glass:
I love her so much.
Pilot Peter and Miss Louisiana go outside where she reams him out for throwing her under the bus and blaming her for this mess with Miss Texas. Furthermore, he betrayed her confidence, basically told everyone that she manipulated him, all the while Miss Texas is the one who is really manipulating him. Miss Louisiana also suggests he should ask Dry Humor what happened yesterday … Pilot Peter is like, wait, what happened yesterday. But Miss Louisiana won’t say any more. THAT’S DRY HUMOR’S STORY TO TELL.
Inside, the other women give Miss Texas shit for coming back — if it was only about clearing her name, as she claims, she would have waited until the Women Tell All special, not come back and started all this DRAMA — particularly the drama with Dry Humor. And while I understand their anger, shouldn’t they really be pissed at Pilot Peter for bringing her back? While I think Miss Texas is a bald-faced manipulator and I find her pageantyness cloying and obnoxious, I have to rule in her favor here on the ancient precedent of “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Pilot Peter eventually does take Dry Humor aside to find out What Happened Yesterday, and she explains that Miss Texas told all the other women about Chase Rice, something that Dry Humor had decided to not share with the others because it was embarrassing. Pilot Peter sighs that he feels bad and worries that bringing back a woman who he eliminated and whom all the other women went out of their way to warn him was trouble is now “backfiring” in his face. WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THAT THIS PERFECTLY PREDICTABLE THING WOULD HAPPEN?
Pilot Peter decides to talk to Miss Texas who cries that it’s just that the other women are intimidated by her “big personality.” Pilot Peter, he doesn’t know what to do! He’s so confused! Who should he believe? Miss Texas or literally EVERY OTHER WOMAN ON THE SHOW?
Me right now:
Here are the ladies who were eliminated along with their very not good nicknames:
Here are the women along with their dumb nicknames who are still “dating” Peter:
The Bachelor airs Mondays on ABC at 7/8 p.m.s
Thought you might find this fun: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/entertainment/han-and-ann-get-answers-is-watching-the-bachelor-making-us-dumb/2018/02/14/6f6b9308-11c0-11e8-a68c-e9374188170e_video.html
Like, am I the only person who like notices that like every other word out of these girls’ mouths is like LIKE? That, and LITERALLY. I even noticed one girl who started a sentence with “Like literally…” and proceeded to say that she was “Like literally getting ripped to shreds.” Ouch. What’s going on? Like, literally?
PS I love your blog. I think it’s better than the show itself, literally.
Like, thanks! Literally!
-T