‘The Bachelorette’: Isn’t It Bromantic …

by Therese Odell, posted in the bachelorette: season 17

The Bachelorette
July 26, 2021

This is billed as “The Men Tell All” episode, except we begin back at the resort? Where everyone is beginning to feel the weight of this whole “hometowns” business? And yammering about how this is a Very Crucial Stage? I mean, alright, I’m happy to humor anything that reduces the amount of time I have to spend on the reunion portion of these dumb shows which are boring, repetitive, and almost impossible to recap as everyone is yelling over everyone else. So definitely, let’s go back to the desert.

Katie takes a long walk with Tayisha to discuss How Important This All Is, how she has a tough decision between four really great guys, and how she never went on any hometown dates because Matt James eliminated her weeks before all that, so she doesn’t really know what to expect. Katie also notes that she is falling in love, but that she hasn’t told anyone yet because she wants to save that moment for The One, a point that will actually be VERY important soon enough. Like stupid important. Emphasis on stupid.

Meanwhile, Michael Bluth takes a FaceTime call with his four-year-old son and reassures him that he will be home soon and they will take a vacation together. But four-year-olds have a very limited grasp on time, so his son doesn’t quite understand why his dad isn’t home with him right at that moment. Four-Year-old then uses some four-year-old logic to come up with an explanation: “I know what the problem is! Daddy left because he doesn’t want to see me! OK! Bye Daddy!”

The little jerks are manipulative.

Michael Bluth, who already feels horrible about having left his son to be on a reality dating show, is understandably crushed by this, and it’s bad enough, even the producers express human emotions:

But Michael Bluth knows what he has to do, and he heads to Katie’s room to break the shitty news: he’s going home to try to soothe over the psychic wounds he imparted on his motherless son when he abandoned him to date a stranger on national television take care of his kid who clearly needs him.

Michael Bluth tells Katie that their one (1) date was great and all, but he’s got a kid at home who already lost his mother and who thinks daddy doesn’t want to see him anymore so he needs to go take care of that whole situation. Like now.

Micahel Bluth, who has a bit of a flair for the poetic, re-gives her the watch he gave her on night one (apparently, he hung onto it that night because she didn’t have pockets and I am NOT going to go on a rant about pockets on women’s dresses BUT I COULD)(YES, EVEN EVENING GOWNS), explaining that he knew time and love would be the most important obstacles in this process. He thought love would be the harder one to obtain, but it turns out it was time.

Katie, who is clearly both hurt and PISSED at this moment, does assure him that she gets it — he’s a great dad, and he has to do what’s right for his kid. She would love to beg him to stay, but she knows the internet would absolutely MURDER her if she did, so she’s going to pout about it instead.

And that leads us to tonight’s main event: The Men Tell All. And by the “Men” I mean: Q; Lars and the Real Girl; Shit-Stirrer; Ball Pit; Oh Canada; James-in-a-Box; Captain Underpants; Aggro; Cat Man; Cold Fish; Accent Guy; and Michael Bluth. And by “tell all,” I mean rehash shit that really wasn’t all that interesting the first time it happened.

After reminiscing about meeting Katie on the first night, we get to our first montage: CAT FIGHTS! Kaitlyn and Tayshia start with the very first (and very weird) fight of the season, when Aggro approached Lars and the Real Girl on the first night and was like “I DON’T LIKE YOU BRO,” with absolutely no explanation given by the producers. And Aggro’s response is similar to the one that he gave on the show, “He’s a little bitch and I don’t like his Instagram posts.” Aggro does note that one of Lars’ Instagram posts read “I will be famous in 6 months,” which he took as meaning he was going to use parlay being on The Bachelorette into some sort of Insta fame. Which, you know, it probably was! But considering 99% of all 20-something Instagrammers are convinced they are going to be the next influencer, he might also have a more innocent, and stupider explanation.

Shit-Stirrer decides he needs to stir some shit and begins yelling at the men for being an angry mob who ganged up on Lars and the Real Girl and then him. And look what happened: he was right about Half-Witted Villain being a villain (and half-witted) so how do they feel now? The other men point out that Shit-Stirrer didn’t actually name Half-Witted Villain as the villain to whom he was referring, and, additionally, he made it sound like there were multiple villains in the house all the while refusing to actually name names.

After Shit-Stirrer accuses Oh Canada of only being on the show for the beer and the free trip to the United States (which honestly does sound like something that dingbat would say), the two of them are standing up and getting into each other’s faces.

 

And it’s fun because literally no one cares about these two dipshits, and neither ever had a real chance with Katie.

The conversation then turns to Half-Witted Villain, who suspiciously is not there with the men that night. And before they go down that particular rabbit hole, Ball Pit makes a point to say that contrary to what a lot of people on the Twitters are saying, most people do not join the cast of The Bachelorette with their sights set on becoming the next Bachelor. Which, OK, but speak for yourself, dude. I guarantee at least half of the men on that stage went on the show with that very goal in mind.

Cold Fish, who had his own issues, notes that he tried to stick up for Half-Witted Villain because he doesn’t think he is a bad person, but that the show makes people do things that they wouldn’t normally do. And all the men are like, “OH REALLY, GUY? LIKE MAKE UP TOP FOUR LISTS AND TELL DRAG QUEENS THAT YOU’RE NOT IN LOVE AND THEN TURN AROUND AND TELL KATIE THAT YOU ARE FALLING IN LOVE? LIKE THOSE THINGS?” Cold Fish tries to play semantics: being in love is not the same thing as falling in love, but the other men, they are not interested in his word games.

Cat Man interjects to defend Cold Fish, arguing that he was falling in love with Katie, he saw it for himself. This then leads to the Cat Man montage, which, hilariously and memorably, ends with Katie dumping him for being a terrible kisser.

Kaitlyn and Tayshia ask if he asked any exes about his kissing skills, and Cat Man cops to doing exactly that, and insists that they told him he was not, in fact, a trash kisser.

And then the most obviously staged thing that has EVER happened on one of these “Tell All” shows happens when a woman in the audience stands up and tells Cat Man that she thinks he’s absolutely adorable and that there is no way he can be a bad kisser, and she’d like to test this hypothesis. So he invites her down and they begin making out while the audience whoops and hollers and the at-home audience glares skeptically.

They bring this crisis actor onto the stage with Cat Man where they continue to make out and gush over each other and he offers her a rose that just happens to be there on the stage.

The next montage belongs to Accent Guy. After reliving his trauma, he proceeds to say all the things the Bachelor producers want to hear from their next star: he had never before felt for anyone the way he did for Katie; he’s a hopeless romantic who grew up watching rom-coms with his mother; he is not afraid to shoulder the responsibility of representing Black men on this show; and he wants someone who will pick him for him.

I mean, he’s a shoo-in, right? Sure, there’s still Michael Bluth, sensitive single dad/poet, but there’s a strong chance he won’t take the gig if it takes him away from his son again. So who else is there? Cat Man and his stanky kisses? Or one of the three men still on the hometowns? BECAUSE I REALLY DON’T THINK IT’S GOING TO BE ANY OF THE MEN STILL ON HOMETOWNS, but we’ll get to all that in the next recap.

The next montage is about Sad Dad Michael Bluth, which leaves even Kaitlyn in tears. Michael Bluth discusses the struggle of single parents to find love without sacrificing their children’s needs and how even though he and Katie had an immediate connection, he wouldn’t change anything. If love exists, it will find a way. The hosts ask him if he were given another shot with Katie, would he take it, and he admits he would, 100%.

Then there’s an incredibly boring montage of the men trying to trash talk. They fail. We are not going to spend any time on that because it is not as nearly as hilarious as someone in the editing bay seems to think it is.

We also bring out Jason Tartick for some damn reason and watch him propose to Kaitlyn on her podcast, which I’m happy for them and all, but her season ended years ago, guys.

They finally bring Katie out, and the first person to address her is Michael Bluth who apologizes again for having to leave the show, and thanks her for the opportunity. The hosts inform Katie that Micahel Bluth said he’d be up for a second chance if she’s open to it, but Katie’s like, “Nah, I’m good, thanks.”

Next, Accent Guy tells her that while it was hard to rewatch their ending, he thinks she’s going to be an incredible wife and mother and that he wishes her nothing but the best. And she admits she has a lot of “what ifs” about him (OH I BET SHE DOES AFTER MICHAEL BLUTH UP AND LEFT AND AFTER WHAT COUSIN GREG DOES TO HER NEXT WEEK BUT, AGAIN, WE WILL GET TO ALL THAT LATER), but wishes him love and respect and notes that she is excited to see what life brings him going forward because we all know he’s going to be the next Bachelor, right?

Ball Pit beings talking about how much he loved being on the show, but like, no one asked him?

Aggro then tells Katie that he knows his storyline was full of conflict, but he genuinely only had her best interests at heart, and he’ll always be in her corner. And that’s when, AMAZINGLY, Katie says, and I quote: “Thanks, Half-Witted Villain.”

Aggro, literally:

Cat Man then stands up and pulls out a ukelele and begins singing a song about their cast’s “bromance.” To be fair, it really was something.

And then, live from Zoom, they patch Half-Witted Villain in, who couldn’t be in person because he didn’t want to be eviscerated in front of the studio audience … WAIT, NO, he claims he couldn’t take a few days off from his work obligations to drive to Los Angeles from San Diego.

My dude, it’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive.

In any event, he is there via video chat, and he immediately apologizes for making Katie doubt any part of her “journey” and taking time away from the other men. But he does have one question: why did everything shift so suddenly? Where’d it go wrong? I mean, apart from the thing where he was a manipulative liar who admitted to the entire cast that he was only on the show to be the next Bachelor? What else could it have possibly been?

And Katie, to her credit, does give him a different answer: that when he came to her before the rose ceremony to plead his case, he didn’t seem genuine. Half-Witted Villain is like, “fair enough!”

And they cut the feed to play some bloopers. And y’all know how I feel about bloopers.

ALRIGHT. THE REAL DRAMA IS UP NEXT.

The Men Who Have Been Dumped by Katie:

The Men Who Are Going to Soon Be Dumped by Katie:

The Bachelorette airs on ABC on Mondays at 7/8 p.m.

 

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