‘The Bachelorette’: The men tell all, and Jenn puts the men in their place

by Therese Odell, posted in the bachelorette: season 21

The Bachelorette
August 27, 2024

Welcome to “The Men Tell All” Special, the penultimate episode of The Bachelorette that pads 15 minutes of TV with an hour and a half of filler nonsense.

We begin with a video of Grant “Beatboxer” Ellis calling his mother to let her know that he will be the next Bachelor which … great! But also, is this the least exciting rollout of a Bachelor ever? They usually save this announcement for a special episode like “The Men Tell All” or “After the Final Rose,” but this time, they announced it a couple of weeks ago, following his elimination, and the response seems overwhelmingly to be … “That guy? Ok. Sure.”

With that, we’re off to the Bachelor Studio where Jesse Palmer informs us on which men will be participating in “The Men Tell All” reunion: My Eyes Are Up Here, Buddy; Too Much; The Up House; Jaso Kelce; Dr. Pedestal; Overcompensating; Win-Nyguen; PUPPIES; Dr. Stethescope; The Twin; Breakfast Shots; Golden Retriever and Love Virgin.

But before we hear what these jabronis have to say, we return to Hawai’i to find out how Temu Pete Davidson’s conversation with Jenn went. Last we left these two, Temu was having a meltdown because he had told Jenn that he loved her and she basically was like, “Cool.” He decides to confront her about this because feeling like “an option” just hurts too much.

I’m going to gently hold your hand when I tell you this, Temu, but you are “an option.” Literally.

When Jenn opens her door, Temu explains that he needs to have a tough conversation with her, before sitting her down and explaining that he needs to know where her head is right now. He knows he should have brought this up on overnights, but he didn’t want to pressure her. Well, not then. But right now is clearly the perfect time for a little squeeze.

Temu goes on to whine that he’s always been the “safe bet,” the second or third option, he’s felt wanted, but not needed. And now with a proposal happening next week, he’s terrified to move forward without knowing how she feels about him.

Jenn, who excoriated Breakfast Shots for not being able to express how he felt about her, is suddenly arguing that she’s not good with words or expressing her feelings.

She apologizes for not reassuring him, noting that he’s fought so much for her, and that she wouldn’t know what to do if he wasn’t there. She then adds, “Temu, I do love you, you freaking idiot,” to which the Bachelor Studio crowd cheers wildly.

But, yeah, I’m not so sure. If she had wanted to tell him that she was in love with him, she certainly had ample time to do so. Ask Major Tom.

But Temu is buying it, and reassured, he takes his leave, with the two of them playing the “I love you more” game.

And then it’s Rose Ceremony time. Leading up to it, we hear a whole lot from Cheeky Mummy talking about how he can see Jenn as a part of his family, and he’s never worried about their relationship until right now because he just doesn’t know how his relationship compares with the other men. He regrets not diving in sooner and hopes it’s not too late.

Which, of course, means only one thing — it’s too late:

Rose #1: Temu Pete Davidson
Rose #2: Major Tom

The audience GASPS, but, y’all. Come on. She’s not going to dump Temu moments after telling him that she loved him, and she’s not going to dump Major Tom even though he’s told her that he’s not in love with her and doesn’t think he can get there and has no intention of proposing because she’s a broken human being.

Jenn walks Cheeky Mummy out, sitting him down for a last goodbye. There, Cheeky Mummy tells her that he knows this is all his fault; he’s his own worst enemy. He found clarity last night, but it was too late: she was perfect for him, but he was not perfect for her.

Jenn’s like, “Yeah yeah, you were a good friend and I appreciate how I was able to be myself with you, but it’s time to go now, bye.” And with that, she shoves him in the Aloha van, and sends him to the airport to catch a ride to the Bachelor Studio for “The Men Tell All” special.

The Men Who Are Soon Going to be Dumped by Jenn:

The Men Who Have Been Dumped by Jenn:

When we return to the studio, Cheeky Mummy is seated with the rest of the men, and Jesse Palmer is asking him about his connection with Jenn, which he describes as “instantaneous, fun, and free.”

Jesse Palmer then turns his attention to My Eyes Are Up Here, Buddy, as if any of us remember him or care what he has to say, and asks him how it felt to be eliminated on the first night.

Jesse Palmer then turns to Jason Kelce and notes that no one else received as much love on social media as this man, before reading some of the more … interesting comments ranging anywhere from “you’re suchhhh a stud,” to “ur so hott” to “do you do foot content?” to “I can’t believe you didn’t get a rose. I’m here with open arms, open mouth, and open …”

We are treated to our first montage of the men being hyper-competitive with one another before Jesse Palmer begins the grilling with The Twin: what was the deal where right before you left the show, you warned Jenn that there are men who aren’t ready, without naming names? The Twin admits he was talking about Temu Pete Davidson, Love Virgin, and … Golden Retriever?!? Golden Retriever … and everyone else … is like, “the fuck?”

But The Twin claims it’s because as a divorced man, he can tell Golden Retriever isn’t fully healed from his broken engagement. The other men are outraged, and Too Much is like, “Who are you to say when another man is healed? Maybe you should go reread that self-help book you tried to give Temu.”

The Twin then tries — WITH A STRAIGHT FACE — to claim that when he gave Temu Pete Davidson the self-help book, it was because he cared about him as a person, not because he was trying to be condescending. Also, too, he was unaware that his twin brother Noah was on the opposite side of a similar interaction because I suppose we’re supposed to believe he didn’t watch his twin brother’s season of The Bachelorette?

Speaking of Noah, he’s there in the audience with his fiance, Abigail, and he’s unimpressed with his brother’s behavior. Noah points out that when he was offered a self-help book on the show, it was a way for that douche to tell Noah he was better than him, before telling The Twin that “the book was not the move” and that no one should think that they know if another person is ready for a relationship or not.

I mean, when even your twin brother is disappointed in you …

As for Love Virgin, he’s there in his bad boy denim jacket:

… and he defends his choice to avoid stripping on that one date by deflecting and announcing that he was falling in love with Jenn by claiming that everyone has their own journey and, as you can see from above, love isn’t linear.

That non-issue out of the way, Jesse Palmer turns to Win-Ngyuen and is like, “why’d you pick all the fights, dude?” Win-Ngyuen tries to argue that he was standing up for Mullet who didn’t receive any time with Jenn because Temu Pete Davidson was hogging all of her time …

… Wait, where is Mullet? Why isn’t he here tonight?

But the other men, My Eyes Are Up Here, Buddy specifically, are like, “Temu Pete Davidson was just playing the game, it’s not your job to referee.”

And Overcompensating, he points out that at least Temu was “keeping the main thing, the main thing — which was Jenn.”

This provides Jesse Palmer the perfect segue to the real menace of the season: Breakfast Shots, who warrants his own montage. “How often did you hear ‘keep the main thing the main thing’?” Jesse Palmer asks the other men. “EVERY SINGLE DAY,” they respond, “Along with Ten toes down; authentic self; and best foot forward.” Overcompensating adds that Breakfast Shots “kept the main thing the main thing if the main thing was Temu Pete Davidson” before comparing Breakfast Shots to Cady from Mean Girls, who hates Regina George so much all she can talk about is Regina George.

Breakfast Shots is dragged up to the couch where he’s forced to watch his montage which ends with him calling Jenn “dull” after she dumped his ass.

There on the couch, Breakfast Shots insists that he had very strong feelings for Jenn, and that he was being sincere when he told her he loved her, and it was not a hail Mary to stay on the show.

The other men are not buying it, specifically The Up House who reveals he has four sisters (!!!), and if some yutz showed up to his house claiming that he was in love with one of them but couldn’t explain why he loved her, there would be a problem.

Golden Retriever asks what Breakfast Shots meant when he called Jenn “dull” and Breakfast Shots tries to sell some bullshit about her eyes being “dull” when she was speaking to him.

Overcompensating tries to thread this idea of “eyes” into a comment about Breakfast Shots only having eyes for Maria or Daisy, and Breakfast Shots is like, “I’m actually glad you brought that up! We all thought it was going to be either Maria or Daisy, don’t lie. Also, I told my parents it wasn’t going to work out with either of them.”

Overcompensating — and everyone else — is like, “Then why did you come on the show?”

Dotun speaks for all of us.

Breakfast Shots goes on to say he didn’t know anything about Jenn, but after two conversations with her, he was like, “Damn! This girl is legit!” Also, he didn’t mean any disrespect. And also too, he’s going to learn from this and grow.

Next, it’s Cheeky Mummy’s turn. After the requisite montage, Jesse Palmer asks Cheeky what was special about Jenn. He explains that from day one they had a friendship, they just had fun together. Cheeky goes on to say that it got to the point where she was in love with Major Tom, and Temu Pete Davidson was out there telling her that he was in love with her, while the two of them were just comfortable, and it wasn’t moving forward.

That out of the way, Jesse Palmer extends the first invitation to Paradise to Cheeky Mummy, who happily accepts, and where I suspect he will be a hot commodity.

ABC then runs an ad for an upcoming Hulu reality series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and some genius has the idea to keep a camera trained on The Up House’s face for his reactions.

Give that person a raise. Also, I am willing to watch this series, Hulu, but only if there is a picture-in-picture with Hakeem’s reactions the entire time.

We then have a super boring conversation with Grant Ellis, our next Bachelor. He’s excited. He wears his heart on his sleeve. The Up House strongly approves of him being the choice. He’s been doing 100 push-ups a day to get ready. There have been 10,000 applications to be on his season so far.

Finally, Jenn comes out to greet the men, and Cheeky Mummy is the first to address her, telling her that the dress she’s wearing that night is his favorite so far. Apparently, he remembered every dress she wore over the course of the season, which … what? Sir.

He goes on to say that he’s sorry that he came to his epiphany about her too late, but that he’s so happy he had the chance to meet her.

As for Love Virgin, he says he’s proud that she was his first “girlfriend” and Jenn assures him that she’ll find his person someday, and that second girlfriend will be his first kiss.

Jenn then scolds WIn-Ngyuen for focusing more on Temu Pete Davidson than on her, which was especially disappointing after she felt like they had connected on their shared backgrounds.

But she saves her real ammunition for Breakfast Shots. Jenn talks about how she had a strong physical connection with Breakfast Shots, but soon realized that she and this man were not having real conversations and he didn’t know her at all. Jenn then turns to Breakfast Shots and says she’s going to “keep the main thing the main thing” with him. With that, she tells him that she wasn’t upset that he couldn’t describe love, because they are on two different emotional and intellectual levels. But she was upset when she learned how disrespectful he had been to everyone and how he treated the other men while watching the season unfold. She’s especially disappointed that he then attempted to avoid accountability for his on-screen behavior by blaming the producers and the edit, and that as a GROWN MAN he had his friends and family out there defending him on social media. At the end of the day, Jenn goes on, the man she knew was the man she saw on TV, and she hopes he learns and grows from this entire experience, because she’ll feel sorry for whomever he does end up with if he doesn’t do the work.

Breakfast Shots makes some noise about wishing he could go back and do things differently. He claims that she saw walls built up around his heart before he did and for that, he’s grateful. OK BUT WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN THOUGH?

Jenn then offers some very unique advice to Grant before he starts his “journey” as The Bachelor: stay true to yourself. So original. So novel.

Jenn then discusses being the first Asian-American lead of The Bachelorette and how the response from the Vietnamese community has been overwhelmingly supportive. She knows that her mother would have preferred that she not become The Bachelorette, as dating multiple men and being intimate on camera is not exactly embraced by their conservative culture, but in the end, she’s happy she did it and that she was able to be her most authentic self in the process.

And then ABC announces they are giving Charity and Dotun another trip to Greece for some reason. And then they put another giant spider on poor Up House before telling him that he’s got a ticket to Paradise. And then there are bloopers. And then we are done with another tedious “Tell All” special for at least a few months.

Seriously. Hakeem better be getting married a year from now. See y’all at the finale.

The Bachelorette airs on ABC and streams on Hulu.

Leave a Reply