‘The Bachelor’: Shrimp overboard

by Therese Odell, posted in the bachelor: season 26

The Bachelor
February 14, 2022

We begin our sixth episode mid-two-on-one date, but back at the hotel where all of the other women are chewing their cuticles over the possibility that Monster Truck Villain could, like slasher in an 80s horror film, live to see yet another day.

As for the date itself, the trio has taken their boat ride through the Falls, and are now on the riverbank, awkwardly sharing a bench.

Clayton asks to speak to Cake Girl first, and once alone, Cake Girl immediately becomes teary, discussing how hard this week has been, how awkward the house is, and how being vulnerable is difficult for her. She’s sorry she sometimes seems distant, but she really is here to find love and she is all in.

Clayton: “Me thank you. Good words you make.” They then make out while Monster Truck Villain watches from the bushes.

Monster Truck Villain rolls her eyes, insisting that Clayton can’t trust Cake Girl for … reasons … and that she’s irritated that all the other women are being so sympathetic towards her. WHAT ABOUT POOR MONSTER TRUCK VILLAIN?

It’s Monster Truck Villain’s turn to speak with Clayton and he opens with the obvious: “You and ladies no like each other. You make trouble. You say sorry. Things better now?” Monster Truck Villain insists that it is … everything except for the “Cake Girl Situation,” as she puts it.

Monster Truck Villain goes on to explain that it’s hard to trust Cake Girl after she overheard Cake Girl just last night say that she wants to go home. In fact, Cake Girl sounded so certain that she was going to pack her bag and go home that frankly, Monster Truck Villain was surprised to see her still in the hotel this morning. She thought this was going to be a one-on-one date, not a two-on-one. Monster Truck Villain then goes on to use the same attacks on Cake Girl that she used on Family Heirloom: she’s fake, she’s two-faced, she’s throwing red flags everywhere.

But it’s only when Monster Truck Villain says that Cake Girl is giving off “an actress vibe” that Clayton perks up. “She actress?”

“YEP,” insists Monster Truck Villain, “she doesn’t want to be here. But I do! I am feeling the feels and I am being open and vulnerable. Also, isn’t it so sad that I’m 29 and never have been in love and that for some mysterious reason I haven’t had a boyfriend in five years?” Monster Truck Villain then squeezes out a few tears while she maintains that she wants to feel everything with him.

“Me do like you,” Clayton replies before smashing his face against hers.

Monster Truck Villain walks away from this certain that she’s about to get the rose, and declares that when she does “it will feel better than sex.”

Clayton and the two women are then all together back on that bench. Holding the rose, Clayton declares that he has a question for Cake Girl: “You actress? You lie to Clayton?”

Cake Girl is blindsided by this, and is like, “What are you even fucking talking about?” And Clayton is all, “Uh … me no know … me walk away now.”

While Clayton wanders off to “think” …

… while back on the bench, Cake Girl and Monster Truck Villain hiss at one another about who is actually there for Clayton.

Clayton eventually returns, and sits between the women. “Me like both things ladies say. Rose go to ladygirl who help Clayton see truth. Monster Truck Villain? You no get rose. Cake Girl, you take rose?”

Monster Truck is STUNNED as she watches Cake Girl and Clayton walk off together, and returns to the Falls to scream into them, “FUCK YOU, CLAYTON, YOU ASSHOLE!!!!”

And while I definitely understand the sentiment, that’s certainly enough out of you. Goodbye.

Back at the hotel, a production assistant enters the room and after dramatically pausing for several beats, drags Monster Truck’s Villain’s suitcase into the hallway.

The women cheer and literally pop champagne.

But don’t celebrate too hard, ladies. We still have a rose ceremony to get through.

Clayton joins the women and tells them that he knows they’re happy Monster Truck Villain is gone. “Me heard ladies sing in elevator. We in better place now.”

Tony the Tiger is the first to take Clayton aside to Marinara’s visible irritation. Alone, Tony the Tiger says this: “I just want to keep like assuring you and like telling you how I feel and like I think I shared with you the other night like I truly am feeling confident … I can sit and spend time with you and like not think about anyone else and that’s like really exciting. Like it’s feeling really real and just so like synonymous with real life. And it’s just like — I mean it’s always like felt like real life but now it’s real real life. Like you’ve said it the whole time but now it’s like … real.”

I did not embellish this.

This is a literal transcript.

Like, for real.

Clayton has another whispersation with Pilot Rachel, and they roll around on a fur rug in front of a fire. Snake Charmer dances with him; Teddy Bear plays pool with him; and Hannah Brown Jr. takes Clayton to the roof to make out with him.

Meanwhile, Marinara, in her 2003 prom dress, is brooding the entire time about how little time she’s had with him, and how he hasn’t had a chance to see that she’s a “keeper.” Eventually, she has her opportunity with him. Marinara sits him down in front of a take-out container of poutine, and is only able to shovel one forkful into his face before That Snitch Serene comes in and interrupts them. Marinara sobs to Olympian that she CAME HERE FOR LOVE AND SHE IS SOOOOO TIIIIIIIIRED.

But there’s no time for tears; it’s time to line up.

Rose #1: Tony the Tiger
Rose #2: That Snitch SErene
Rose #3: Hannah Brown Jr.
Rose #4: Teddy Bear
Rose #5: Germann Sausage
Rose #6: Marinara

This means Clayton is sending Snake Charmer and Olympian home. Snake Charmer isn’t particularly surprising: she had virtually no screen time (though I thought she was funny and charming in the 90 seconds we saw of her); and Olympian, she deserved better. Let’s hope her weird attack on Tony the Tiger last week doesn’t bar her from joining Paradise.

After everyone has said their goodbyes, Clayton announces that they are headed to Europe … “WE GO TO CROATIA!” And all the women scream as if they’ve heard of Croatia.

Seriously, before any of these people — Clayton included — get on that plane, I would like them to point to Croatia on a map for me.

So they arrive in the charming island town of Hvar, and there is a lot of excited shrieking at picturesque alleyways and completely unremarkable hotel rooms.

The women are herded into a cafe where Clayton finds them. “Me go on date right now. Teddy Bear, you go on date with Clayton?” Teddy Bear happily accepts, while Marinara seethes. In fact, as Clayton and Teddy Bear head off for their date, a storm rolls in, while Marinara goes on a rant about him choosing women who are not “girlfriend material.” As thunder rumbles, Marinara stares into the camera and explains that she’s the one “bringing that,” adding menacingly, “you think I’m kidding.”

As for the date itself, Clayton and Teddy Bear just wander around Hvar, visiting a lavender stand and an ice cream shop. At one point, Teddy Bear makes a comment about wanting a big dog to cuddle, and Clayton is all, “ME BIG DOG.”

Even Clayton is confused by that:

ANYWAY. Clayton and Teddy Bear go to fake dinner that night, where Teddy Bear announces that she has something very important to tell him: she’s a virgin.

Clayton: ~blink~

Teddy Bear goes on to explain that her mother had her first baby at a very young age, and so there was always pressure on her growing up to not make the same mistake. However, as Teddy Bear has grown older, she realized that maybe she doesn’t have to wait until she gets married to lose her virginity, maybe this is a decision she gets to make about her own life. THAT SAID, she does want to wait until she is in love.

Clayton finally speaks up: “Me no know you virgin. Me attracted to you.”

But we don’t fixate on that, because he’s soon asking her if she’s ever been in love before. When Teddy Bear admits that she hasn’t — that she’s always put walls up and avoided allowing herself to become vulnerable, Clayton wonders how she’ll know once she does fall in love.

HOW DOES ANYONE KNOW, YOU BIG DUMB CONCRETE BLOCK? YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE HAD SEX TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT YOU’VE FALLEN IN LOVE, YOU MOUTHBREATHING DOLT.

In any event, he gives her the rose, even despite being an unconvincing virgin and all that.

Back at the hotel, the group date card is delivered: “That Snitch Serene; Pilot Rachel; Bachelor Groupie; Hannah Brown, Jr.; German Sausage; Cake Girl; Marinara: It’s an honor to fall in love with you.”

This means that Tiger the Tony is the first recipient of two one-on-one dates — this when four of the other women haven’t had one. And the woman who is most pissed about this is our resident 32-year-old “cougar,” Marinara, who fumes that Clayton seems to be giving all his one-on-one dates to the youngest women, women who Marinara doesn’t believe are actually ready for marriage.

And you know? Clayton giving the youngest women in the competition most of his attention is a valid concern. It certainly says something — entirely about him. An adult would process this information and recognize that Clayton is not mature enough to want to date a grown-ass woman. And a grown-ass woman would read this as the red flag it is and remove her grown-ass self from the situation. 

But then again, grown-ass women don’t go on televised dating competitions, so.

As for the group date itself, the women are given a lady knight challenge that involves them participating in a shoving game; eating gross foods; and declaring their affections for Clayton in front of him, the other women, and the embarrassed Croatian cosplayers they’ve dragged into this mess. In the end, despite Marinara’s best and most focused efforts, That Snitch Serene is declared the winner by the embarrassed Croatian cosplayer.

That night at the cocktail party, Clayton asks Pilot Rachel, “Me meet you parents?” Pilot Rachel whispers something that I think is a confirmation but who can tell. They make out.

When it’s her turn to talk to Clayton, Marinara announces that she’s going to “speak her truth,” before telling him that she’s disappointed that he keeps choosing these little girls who aren’t ready for marriage for the one-on-one dates instead of a mature woman like herself, and frankly, it’s becoming discouraging.

Clayton is all, “Who no ready for marry? What they say?” And Marinara, she doesn’t name names, but says that she heard someone say early on that they couldn’t imagine being engaged in two months.

And now let’s stop right here and call some bullshit on all of this. I don’t doubt that someone in the cast said this — in fact, I’m sure MANY someones on the cast said exactly this. What I do doubt is that they meant it in a literal way instead of an “Oh my God, I can’t imagine that in eight weeks I could literally be engaged to marry some dumb chunk of balsa wood in a suit whose last name I don’t know!” BECAUSE THAT IS HARD TO IMAGINE.

But despite the fact that he himself certainly said something similar — possibly even in his introductory montage, I’m too lazy to confirm — Clayton seems Very Concerned about this, and decides that she must be talking about Tony the Tiger, as she’s the youngest in the competition. He thanks Marinara for her honesty, and she congratulates herself for “coming from a place of caring.”

Clayton then gives the group date rose to Pilot Rachel.

Somehow, Marinara is shocked by this, and doesn’t know WHAT MORE SHE CAN DO besides throw everyone younger than her under the bus. WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

That evening, when Clayton returns to his hotel room, a note is slipped under his door: “Clayton: Meet me at the clock tower.”

Confused and concerned, Clayton heads out into the night only to find Hannah Brown, Jr. waiting for him for a romantic secret rendezvous. She was concerned that Clayton’s other relationships were advancing faster than theirs were, so instead of manufacturing some bullshit about the other women, she decided to create her own mini-date with him.

And it works. The two of them climb to the top of the clock tower where she confesses she’s falling in love with him and they make out. Clayton is positively gleeful: “ME SO HAPPY. ME MAYBE FALL IN LOVE WITH HANNAH BROWN, JR. WHO KNOW?”

Finally, it’s Tony the Tiger’s one-on-one date, but who knows what they did on it: thanks to Hannah Brown Jr.’s detour and the 30 minutes we had to spend eliminating Monster Truck Villain, there’s not enough time to show them spending the day milking goats or hang-gliding or going on a boring picnic. Instead, we begin this date at the fake dinner.

But before that, Clayton meets with Jesse Palmer to discuss what to do with this information about Tony the Tiger supposedly not being ready for marriage. Jesse Palmer is all, “I dunno, dude. Trust your heart?”

At fake dinner, Tony the Tiger thanks Clayton for choosing her for their date today where they visited the King’s Landing set for Game of Thrones and reenacted Cersei’s walk of shame. Did they actually do that? Maybe! Who knows? Not us!

Clayton in response is all, “People say you no ready for marry. You ready for marry? Me worry you no ready for marry.”

Tony the Tiger bursts into hot angry tears, and insists that she told him from day one that she was on this dumb show for him. She has been open, she has been vulnerable, and yes, she can see herself engaged at the end of this, that is WHY SHE IS DOING ANY OF THIS.

Clayton seems genuinely surprised at her response and has to go walk around for a little bit. Meanwhile, Tony the Tiger is FUCKING FURIOUS, and through her tears is demanding to know WHO WOULD PULL SUCH A BITCH-ASS MOVE AS TO THROW HER UNDER THE BUS? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING?

Clayton eventually returns, and Tony the Tiger explains that she’s not upset because someone said this about her, but because she’s worried she could lose him over something that just came out of left field and is a blatant lie. (Which, of course, is a roundabout way to say that she’s mad someone said this about her, but I digress.) Clayton is all, “Journey be scary. Must be careful. Me give you rose now.”

Tony the Tiger accepts the rose with relief and gratitude, but her entire attitude changes as she heads back to the hotel to FIND THE BITCH WHO DID THIS.

To be continued.

Here are the ladies who have been eliminated along with their very not good nicknames:

Here are the women along with their dumb nicknames who are still “dating” Clayton:

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

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