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Tag: Bachelor recap (Page 3 of 3)

Bachelor Clayton starts his ‘journey’ with two rejections

January 4, 2022 /
Clayton Echard started his “journey” as “The Bachelor” on Monday night.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs John Fleenor/ABC

It’s been confirmed: there is at least one person who isn’t a member of the production team who wanted Clayton Echard to be the Bachelor.

Luckily for Clayton, it’s the woman who got his first impression rose and also his first kiss on Monday’s season premiere.

Teddi, a surgical unit nurse from California, told Clayton she picked him out as her ideal Bachelor from photos of Michelle Young’s “guys” because, as she told her sister at the time, “I think he’s really cute and he has such a kind smile.”

So Teddi got her wish. The rest of us? Well . . .

If you were hoping we’d learn something in the season opener that would justify why Clayton, 28, was chosen before Michelle’s season had even aired, you likely came away disappointed.

Clayton’s own explanation for why he’s the man is “because I truthfully believe in this process I think more than anybody else” — which is a pretty nifty trick after appearing on one season of “The Bachelorette” in which he was basically wallpaper.

Also, you know, he cried when he got those (possibly fake) letters from Michelle’s students after their one-on-one date. The producers weren’t going to let us forget that.

On Monday we found out that, um, Clayton’s tall, he has dimples, he used to play football, he’s “a Midwest guy who doesn’t really like the spotlight” from Eureka, Missouri. And he really, really wants to get married and have kids, so much so he tried to give his first impression rose to an emotionally unavailable woman who was still traumatized about her ex-fiance.

Like, what the hell was that?

Salley Carson, whose job description is “previously enagaged,” visits Clayton in his room.

Could the producers really be Machiavellian enough to cast a woman who was engaged to be married a month before filming began, just so she could break up with Clayton before the season had even started, stoking his fear of rejection?

Honestly, I wouldn’t put anything past them at this point.

It turns out Salley from Virginia was supposed to have been getting married the weekend she was in L.A. filming, so she wanted to go home and be with her family instead of, you know, competing with 29 other women for the attention of some dude she’d never met. “Ever since I’ve been here I’ve been an emotional wreck,” she said.

But first she decided to tell Clayton what was going on, and Clayton decided there was chemistry between them and offered her a rose.

After a tearful conversation with somebody back home, Salley rejected the rose, telling Clayton she liked him, but “my heart is just not ready.”

It all felt so manipulative, from the fact Salley was there in the first place to her showing up at Clayton’s room — why the hell would she need to tell him she was leaving if he hadn’t met her yet? — to her getting to keep her cellphone to Clayton’s bright idea to give her a rose.

Salley wasn’t the only woman who rejected Clayton on Night 1.

Clayton and Claire as their “tailgate party” was interrupted.

Claire, a spray tanner from Virginia Beach, started loudly proclaiming that Clayton wasn’t the guy for her after their one-on-one time turned into a “catastrophe,” in her words.

I don’t know what happened. Initially, the football fanatic was “super excited” about spending time with Clayton at the tailgate party the producers had set up for her. Was she mad that Mara interrupted? Was it the fact that Claire beat Clayton at cornhole? Did he not show enough appreciation for the chicken wings with ranch sauce she loves so much she put them in her “bachelorette biography”?

Claire said Clayton was “100 per cent too nice for me.”

“I dont need ‘Hi, I love America and I am a sweetheart,'” she complained.

And then it struck me: Claire is all of us.

After schoolteacher Serene tattled to Clayton that Claire was telling people she hated him, Clayton confronted Claire before walking her out. No, she didn’t hate him, she said, “I feel like we just haven’t, like, clicked.”

Exactly! Bachelor Nation doesn’t hate you, Clayton, but we clicked a lot more with Rodney, Olu, Brandon and even Rick.

When Clayton stepped back into the mansion to explain why he’d ousted Claire, he invited other women to leave too if they weren’t that into him.

“Oh hush, we’re not going anywhere,” said Cassidy, an executive assistant from L.A. who was one of several women Clayton kissed on Night 1.

Clayton bestows the first impression rose (or maybe the second?) on Teddi Wright.

His first makeout sesh (or at least the first one we saw) was with Teddi, who revealed in her intro package that she’s a virgin. So if she turns out to be one of the two or three women that Clayton confesses to having sex with, hoo boy!

Clayton said, not once but twice, that Teddi made him “feel some type of way” — the type of way that makes you hand over a rose, I guess. Bonus points for the fact that Teddi hadn’t just broken off an engagement.

Clayton also locked lips with doctor Kira, who showed up in lingerie and a lab coat and told Clayton she was going to give him a full body physical; Eliza, a marketing manager who spent her childhood in Berlin and asked Clayton in German if she could kiss him; Cassidy, who made her entrance in a miniature car, which was then run over by pickup truck-driving hell raiser Shanae; and Rachel, a flight instructor whose shtick was to have a 63-year-old retiree named Holly get out of the limo first and then introduce her. (Listen, as a fellow 60-something, let me just say Holly really pulled off that dress.)

And while we’re talking about wacky entrances, human resources specialist Hunter brought a snake; real estate agent Kate invited Clayton to hold one of her “nips,” as in a mini bottle of booze; architectural historian Jill brought an urn that she said contained the “ashes of my ex-boyfriends”; Jane, a self-proclaimed cougar at 33 (!), drove up in a vintage convertible; ICU nurse Gabby brought a pillow with Clayton’s face on it because, you know, she wanted to sit on Clayton’s face; real estate adviser Elizabeth brought a whip, which she used on Clayton’s butt; and Samantha showed up in a bikini and a bubble bath, prompting Rachel to say, “Mom, can you pick me up from the Bachelor mansion? I’m scared.”

With the one notable exception we’ve already discussed, the women seemed to eat up Clayton’s aw shucks, “I’m just a guy from a small town,” I can’t believe I’m the Bachelor demeanour. He even spilled his drink while making his toast to potentially falling in love, etc. etc.

Clayton also had a cheerleader in newbie host (and doppelgänger) Jesse Palmer, although it’s worth noting that while they’re both football players, Jesse is a Canadian, born in my hometown of Toronto. “I got your back buddy. You are not doing this alone,” Jesse told Clayton.

As daylight peeked through the mansion windows, Clayton finally handed out 21 roses and I’m not going to list all the names because we won’t remember most of them.

Tessa, another human resources specialist and one of the women of colour in the group, toasted to “the most supportive and beautiful group of women I’ve met in my whole life,” while Cassidy shouted out “everyone’s support and kindness” and looked forward to “getting to be friends.”

You could almost hear the chuckles of glee from the editing room since the next thing we saw was a montage of crying and/or arguing women, along with Shanae getting in someone’s face, grabbing and throwing away a trophy (it’s not quite a flight jacket in the pool, but beggars can’t be choosers).

Since drama increases in inverse proportion to the boringness of the Bachelor, I will paraphrase the great Bette Davis in “All About Eve”: fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

You can watch the next episode Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Finally, we get a real conversation about race on ‘The Bachelor’

March 16, 2021 /
Host Emmanuel Acho and Bachelor Matt James on “After the Final Rose.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW HOW “THE BACHELOR” SEASON ENDED DEFINITELY DO NOT READ THIS YET.

Remember all those times we were told a “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette” season finale was the most dramatic ever? Or those “After the Final Rose” episodes that seemed really tense because the couple had broken up or weren’t getting along?

Those seem trifling now compared to what we saw Monday, which at times was searing, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking — and I’m not talking about Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell breaking up.

With one question — “How much pressure was it being the first Black Bachelor?” — Emmanuel Acho started a conversation on “After the Final Rose” that laid bare the unfair burden placed on Black men, of “making people comfortable with your blackness, and going above and beyond to show that in stature and in personality you’re not as threatening as you come off as,” as Matt put it.

Whereas any other Bachelor (i.e. white, though Matt didn’t use that word) would have to worry only about finding love on the show, Matt said he felt like he carried the weight “of everything that was going on in the country at that time frame regarding social justice, everything going on in the franchise surrounding diversity and inclusion.”

Add to that he had to be on his best behaviour, he said, because “for a lot of people that was the first time having someone like that in their home,” by which he meant having a Black man on their TV.

All that was sobering enough, but things got really raw when it came to Rachael. She and Matt didn’t get engaged at the end of filming, but they were in a relationship and Matt told Emmanuel that when allegations first started going around about racist social media activity on her part he dismissed them as “rumours.”

When Rachael acknowledged the activity and apologized for it, Matt said he realized that “Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America.”

As tough as it was to break up with her, “if you don’t understand that something like that is problematic in 2018 there’s a lot of me that you won’t understand,” he said, noting that he grew up in the South, with memories of events, people and places that weren’t welcoming to him.

Host Emmanuel Acho with Rachael Kirkconnell on “After the Final Rose.”

2018 was, of course, the year that Rachael posed for a photo at an antebellum-themed party. As Emmanuel told Rachael when she had her time in the hot seat, antebellum in Latin means “before the war,” as in the U.S. Civil War, which means it’s about honouring the South at a time when slavery was still practised.

A contrite Rachael said she was living in ignorance when the photo was taken without thinking about who her actions might hurt, and she seemed sincere in her desire to rectify that ignorance, but it also seemed clear that whatever she does isn’t going to win back Matt, not that I’m suggesting that should be a priority for him.

Rachael and Matt had an uncomfortable reunion.

When Matt joined Rachael onstage, she apologized for hurting him and for not understanding at first how hurt he had been by her actions, and he just nodded. When Emmanuel asked Matt what he wanted to share with Rachael there was an uncomfortable almost minute-long silence during which he seemed to be struggling with some painful emotions.

Finally, after Emmanuel urged him again to share what was on his mind, Matt told Rachael, “The most disappointing thing for me was having to explain to you why what I saw was problematic and why I was so upset . . . when I questioned our relationship it was on the context of you not fully understanding my blackness and what it means to be a Black man in America, and what it would mean for our kids when I saw those things that were floating around the internet, and it broke my heart.”

Heartbroken or not, Matt said he couldn’t be “emotionally responsible” for Rachael’s tears even though it hurt to see her shed them — she was crying after having told Matt she’d never love anyone the way she loved him — and that he could play no part in the work of reconciliation that she was doing.

Emmanuel invited them to share one last embrace and Matt made no move toward her side of the couch.

Now that we know how it ends, and since this is technically a recap, I should probably say something about what came before “ATFR.”

The episode began with the usual business of the final two meeting Matt’s family. His mother Patty and brother John were charmed by both Rachael and Michelle Young, and vice versa. But Patty went from being ready to welcome one of them into the family to telling Matt that “people fall in and out of love, and love is not the end-all, be-all,” nor did it automatically have to mean an engagement.

That in turn sent Matt to “a very dark place,” thinking about his father not being ready for marriage and destroying his family, which led to Matt thinking he himself wasn’t ready to get engaged.

This being “The Bachelor,” it was hard to tell if Matt was genuinely having second thoughts or this was just a finale fakeout.

Matt and Michelle rappelled down the hotel, which was the easy part of the date.

He seemed attentive enough during his final date with Michelle, which involved rappelling down the front of the Nemacolin. Little did Michelle know walking down a building on a rope would be the easy part of her time with Matt.

Later, in her suite — after she gave Matt matching Mr. and Mrs. James basketball jerseys, signifying their status as life “teammates” — Matt delivered the very bad news that he was having doubts and he didn’t think he could “get there” with Michelle.

They parted with tears on both sides. When then host Chris Harrison showed up to commiserate, Matt reiterated that he wasn’t going to put any woman through what his mother had gone through by rushing into marriage and that he needed time to think things over.

What that meant in practice is that Rachael’s final date was cancelled, but it didn’t stop jeweller Neil Lane from visiting or Matt from picking out an engagement ring.

The pear-shaped beauty, however, stayed in his pocket when Rachael arrived at the lake the next day to learn her fate. There was a certain irony, given the “ATFR” conversation, to hear Rachael talk about knowing Matt had been hurting the day before and how “when you’re hurting I’m hurting.”

Rachael and Matt during the finale non-proposal. There was still a final rose.

Matt told Rachael that he couldn’t propose to her, but he also said he loved her and could see her as his wife and the mother of his children. So it seemed about as idyllic as an ending could get, with Rachael and Matt exchanging giddy “I love you’s,” oblivious to the reality that everyone watching already knew was coming.

As for Michelle, she is indeed, as was reported last week, one of two new Bachelorettes. Katie Thurston is the other one. Her season will air first this summer, with Michelle’s in the fall.

A not so secret Bachelorette reveal: there are two of them, Michelle and Katie Thurston.

Michelle had one bit of unfinished business with Matt on “After the Final Rose.” She told Emmanuel that after their breakup she’d asked production for two minutes to speak to Matt, but Matt refused.

When Matt joined her onstage, Michelle told him she hadn’t been trying to change his mind or to fight for him, but just to find some inner peace before she left Pennsylvania.

Matt apologized for not talking to her. He also praised her both for the way she carried herself through the show and for the “emotional weight” she had carried as a Black woman. Michelle told Matt, “I hope you find your happiness; I hope you move on, kissing with your eyes closed, and I hope you come up with more phrases than just ‘thanks for sharing.'”

I hope that sense of humour is on full display in Michelle’s “Bachelorette” season. I expecting I’ll be recapping that one too.

Until then, you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

3 fantasy suites minus 1 tent equals 2 Bachelor finalists

March 9, 2021 /
Matt James ended up with a final two on Monday night and I’m sure you can guess who one of them was. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Here’s a “Bachelor” pop quiz for you about “fantasy suite” week. One woman got a spa day and then a night in a huge luxury suite; another woman got to make pottery with Matt James a la “Ghost” and enjoy a fireworks display from a tastefully appointed room; the other woman got to hike through the chilly woods, pitch a tent, roast marshmallows then spend the night in a small wood-panelled space.

Which one do you think got the short end of the stick . . . with burnt marshmallow attached?

Yes, Bri Springs’ misgivings about being the last one to get a rose two weeks ago proved to be prescient. Matt sent her home, keeping Michelle Young and Rachael Kirkconnell as his final two.

I’ll be honest: I was hoping he’d get rid of Rachael, as unlikely as that seemed.

I mean she whinged, moped and cried throughout much of the episode over the fact Matt was spending “intimate” time with the other two women, so I was hoping she’d melt down and send herself home. It’s what the producers encouraged us to think by showing promo footage two weeks ago of a teary Rachael saying she “can’t do this anymore” and a teary Matt telling Chris Harrison he didn’t know if he could do it anymore either. But guess what? We didn’t see either of those scenes in this episode.

Rachael goes into next week’s finale as the clear favourite to get engaged to Matt and as Matt very eloquently said after Serena Pitt dumped him: “It sucks to hear that.”

Maybe Rachael is a lovely human being; maybe she and Matt are perfectly matched, but she’s tainted as a contestant for many of us because of the controversy over her social media posts, the one that has, for now, cost Harrison his job (although he vows he’ll be back).

There’s also the fact she just seems so young to me, even though at 24 she’s the same age as Bri.

Before Monday’s dates kicked off, there was someone else Matt had to see: his father. In an emotional conversation, Matt and dad Manny both aired their hurts: the fact that Manny hadn’t been there for Matt as a child; the fact Manny’s own father was killed when he was 5; the fact Matt’s mom walked out on Manny over his cheating when Matt and his brother were 2 and 3.

“I remember growing up he’d come around every now and then, drop off some shoes . . . pizza. I didn’t need any shoes, I didn’t need pizza, I needed a dad,” said Matt with tears running down his face in a heart-wrenching confessional.

In the end, Matt and Manny seemed to make their peace, exchanging hugs and I love you’s and saying they wanted to be in each other’s lives.

Matt framed the conversation as one he needed to have to convince himself he wasn’t like his father and could commit to getting married, so I’ll take his word for it. He brought it up on each of his three dates.

Matt and Michelle check out the milk bath, part of their spa day.

Michelle, 27, was first up. She got a “traditional Pennsylvania Dutch spa day,” which involved she and Matt soaking their feet in oatmeal, slathering each other with butter and taking a milk bath. Hey, supposedly it worked for Cleopatra.

Michelle is my favourite — if not to end up with Matt, at least to be the next Bachelorette — because she just seems so worthy: fun-loving but mature, warm and wise.

Take the conversation with Matt in which she talked about the importance not just of falling in love and being in love but of “staying” in love and how you had to plan ways to keep showing your love as life changed it. So smart.

Michelle told Matt she was in love with him. He did not say it back and when she repeated it in the morning his response was “Thank you for sharing that,” which did not inspire confidence considering he’d already told Rachael he was falling for her way before the fantasy suite.

On the other hand, Michelle didn’t have to strap on a heavy backpack and hike through the woods, then put up a tent and sit around a campfire, which is what Bri did. If you thought that tent was going to be Bri’s fantasy suite you’re not alone, but luckily she did get to sleep indoors albeit in a room that was more rustic than swanky.

Why did Bri and Matt have to put up a tent if they weren’t sleeping in it?

Nonetheless, Bri was ecstatic after spending the night with Matt. Like Michelle, she told Matt she loved him and was ready to get engaged. But Matt foreshadowed what was to come in his confessional when he said he could see a life with Bri but also that it was going to be hard sending someone home.

By the time Rachael’s date came around she’d convinced herself she was the one getting dumped. She was supposed to be throwing pottery on a wheel, but instead she was spinning herself into a funk.

I’m going to guess that, given how happy Rachael looks, this was taken after her talk with Matt.

She and Matt left the studio for a chat during which Rachael expressed her fear that Matt’s feelings for her had changed after his dates with Michelle and Bri. Not only did Matt bring up Rachael’s parachute mishap again and how much the thought of losing her had scared him, he said he had fallen in love with her. “I’m completely in love with you,” Rachael responded.

At dinner, Matt was practically bursting with excitement as Rachael told him she was “100 per cent completely ready” to have a life with him.

“Tonight, I’m just thinking about what life would look like with Rachael,” enthused Matt in his voice-over. “She’s smart, beautiful; she’s articulate, she’s sexy and everything she embodies, it’s incredible.”

It sure sounds like a done deal to me. The fireworks outside their window as they passionately kissed were like an exclamation point.

So it was obvious Rachael was getting a rose at the next day’s ceremony. And when Matt handed the first one to Michelle it was clear that Bri was done.

(Rachael is also Harrison’s favourite, it seems. He greeted her before the rose ceremony as Rach and told her it was “so good to see you.”)

Bri left tearfully but told Matt she couldn’t be upset or angry with him. At least we know that Bri’s mother, who promised to help mend her broken heart if things didn’t work out, will have her back. And she’s now free to join the Bachelorette race.

Next week we’ll go through the motions of seeing Matt pretend to choose between Rachael and Michelle. It looks like there’ll be tears all around.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

CLARIFICATION: I edited this Tuesday afternoon after reading a couple of other recaps that said Matt told Rachael he had “fallen” in love with her. I swear I heard him say “falling.” I even played that bit over again to double check, but when I listened again today with the volume cranked way up I did hear the word “fallen,” so yeah, sorry Michelle.

A ‘toxic’ Bachelor season? Not according to ‘Women Tell All’

March 2, 2021 /
From left, Serena P, Anna, MJ, Mari, Pieper, Chelsea, Victoria and Serena C on the somewhat misleadingly named “Women Tell All” episode of “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Oh the irony. There was erstwhile “Bachelor” host Chris Harrison Monday night talking about how there’s been more “explosive drama than any of us were prepared for” this season. Little did he know when that “Women Tell All” episode was taped, just five days before that fateful “Extra” interview with Rachel Lindsay (a fact noted with a disclaimer at the start of the program), that he’d be at the centre of the most explosive drama the franchise has ever seen.

As I write this, there’s still no word on how long Harrison’s hiatus from “The Bachelor” will last or whether it will be permanent (if you’re not sure what’s going on, go google Harrison and Extra and/or Rachel Lindsay and/or Rachael Kirkconnell). We now know that author and TV host Emmanuel Acho will replace Harrison on “After the Final Rose.”

Here’s another thing I know: it was maddening to watch Harrison soft-pedal the drama that did occur this season — the name-calling, the bullying, the gaslighting, the overall meanness — by not calling out the women behind the worst of it and basically just sitting and nodding along while some of them talked more crap.

I mean, come on, we’ve all seen Harrison ask tough questions in these types of situations before, but they were MIA here.

Victoria was still milking the “Queen” nonsense on “Women Tell All.”

So we had Victoria, the Queen of Mean, suggesting that the fact that contestant Ryan was upset about being called a “ho” and an idiot and a “shady bitch” on TV was down to Ryan being overly emotional.

“It’s hard to hear yourself being called a ho on national television,” Ryan said.

“Do you think you’re a super sensitive person?” asked Victoria. And then, noting that she herself had been subject to social media backlash, Victoria added, “I’m a little bit puzzled as to why you’re holding on to this emotional anger right now.”

At least Kit and Chelsea defended Ryan’s right to be angry over being called “horrible things” on TV.

From left, Katie, Jessenia, Ryan and Brittany on “The Women Tell All.”

And Victoria did apologize to Katie for calling her disgusting. But then several contestants piled on Katie for having the nerve to bring up the unpleasantness in the house to Bachelor Matt James.

Chelsea actually said, and I quote, “The house wasn’t toxic until you made it toxic by bringing it up to Matt and then causing the domino effect that led to every single drama in the house that you were involved in.” Hello, shoot the messenger much? It’s complete bullshit. Personally, I was writing about how nasty women like Victoria and Serena C and Anna were being several weeks before we saw Katie talk to Matt about it. She didn’t cause the drama; she just brought it to Matt’s attention.

After Serena C recycled her BS about how Katie “wanted to do it to light a flame and start a fire,” I was the one feeling “emotional anger.”

Katie did a great job of keeping her cool and later got to sit in the “hot seat” with Harrison, saying all the right things for a prospective future Bachelorette, for instance that she’s “embraced exactly who I am” in the past year, that she’s hopeful her “person’s still out there,” that she’s “the most confident I’ve ever been.”

But, as much as I like Katie, the women who brought the most grace and class to an otherwise disappointing episode were Brittany and Abigail.

Brittany was invited up to talk about the rumour that Anna spread about her (and that “Bachelor” producers chose to broadcast) that Brittany was a high-end escort.

“When you google my name now, the first 20 results say ‘Bachelor contestant Brittany Galvin accused of being an escort,'” Brittany told Harrison, adding that there’s nothing wrong with escort work, “but that’s not me.”

“I didn’t sign up to get bullied, I didn’t sign up to get slandered.”

Brittany added that Anna had not reached out to apologize to her despite having had weeks to do so. But gee, Anna was “so, so sorry” at “Women Tell All.” Yet, despite how “awful” Anna said she felt about letting her anger and insecurity get the better of her, she kind of doubled down by telling Brittany she’d heard the rumours about her from people who knew her ex-boyfriend and went to school with her, noting that “Chicago is a small town.”

Brittany very graciously accepted Anna’s apology, saying, “I don’t want people to destroy your life as well.” And if we’re talking about potential Bachelorettes, we could do way worse than someone with that kind of maturity and generosity of spirit.

Abigail was looking every inch a potential Bachelorette on “Women Tell All.”

And then there was Abigail. If anyone had a right to be bitter about how the season turned out it was her. Since when does a first impression rose winner not get a one-on-one date? Has that ever happened before? I’d have to do a little research to find out, but it certainly seems odd. Frankly, it seems like Matt led her on. Abigail said merely that she had “a big what if,” as in could she have been a frontrunner if she’d had a whole day with Matt.

She also focused on the positive feedback she’d had from the deaf community about the fact that a deaf person was shown in a romantic light, since “disability isn’t always romanticized.”

And she mentioned that she was now “a much better version of myself, to share with whoever wants to share that with me.”

Pieper, another hot seat occupant, had a similar sentiment about her time on the show, saying she’d grown as a person. Serena P was invited onstage as well, where she confirmed that, no, she wasn’t having second thoughts about dumping Matt, even though “I care about him still so much.”

(As an aside, I don’t think Serena P is in the running for Bachelorette, but perhaps she’ll pop up on the newly announced “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” coming to Citytv. You never know.)

No offence to Matt, but I am not a fan of the beard.

Finally, I hate to end on a negative note, but Matt’s time in the hot seat was aggravating for me.

Given the chance to comment on the toxicity among the women, all Matt could say was that he was “a little surprised.”

“I just tried to be empathetic to the women and what they were going through because I hadn’t gone through it, so I couldn’t say I (would) have acted differently in their position. There’s a million different factors you have to take into account, so I try not to hold them to an unrealistic standard.”

So not calling other women sluts and ho’s is an unrealistic standard? Good to know.

Matt basically apologized to MJ for sending her home on the two-on-one and then Serena C piped up, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, about how she hoped Matt wouldn’t think the women were bad people or mean ones.

“I’ll be the first one to say I am not a perfect person so I’m no one to sit up here and judge how any of you all decided to handle yourselves and deal with that emotion in real time.”

I guess you could say Matt was being a good Christian, but just know, Serena C, that I am judging you and, yeah, definitely mean.

The distasteful icing on the cake was that Victoria, who up until then had maintained her sangfroid, got all weepy about her dramatic exit — you know, the one in which she loudly called Ryan “the shadiest bitch” and said she, Victoria, was the only one with “a brain” in the room — and blamed it on her “fear of rejection.”

And Matt actually apologized to Victoria if she felt offended. And he also said he “dropped the ball” on their relationship. Their relationship? They had a relationship?

I’m just going to leave it there.

Next week, it’s fantasy suite dates and, yes, more drama, but we’re in the home stretch, just two more episodes to go.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

One woman’s exit leaves Matt speechless on ‘The Bachelor’

February 23, 2021 /
Matt James didn’t get the rose ceremony he expected on Monday’s episode of “The Bachelor.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

Matt James asked a rhetorical question on Monday’s hometowns episode of “The Bachelor,” on which he met the relatives of the four women still in the hunt: “The fact that their families are here to meet me and spend time with their daughter, how can you not be excited about that?”

I wasn’t excited at all, truth be told. This has felt like a gruelling season, first because of the nasty behaviour among some of the contestants, later because of the racism controversy that led to Chris Harrison stepping down as host. It’s the first time I can remember that I started to appreciate weekly episodes less as entertainment than as milestones to the end of the season and not having to watch anymore.

But then the first “hometown” date, with teacher Michelle Young, chipped away some of the stone where my “Bachelor”-loving heart used to be. There were cute children on Zoom asking awkward and funny questions. There were lovely moments of affection and care between Michelle and her parents.

By episode’s end, I was feeling sorry for Matt, who seemed to have the wind knocked out of him when Serena Pitt told him he wasn’t her “person” and sent herself home. The stunned silence with which he greeted her pronouncement was raw and real. He hasn’t seemed that disturbed about anyone else leaving, which makes me think that Bri lucked into what would have been Serena’s rose. More on that later.

Back to Michelle’s date. Taking questions from the children of Ms. Young’s class was probably good practice for Matt meeting the parents later on.

Matt got to “meet” teacher Michelle’s students on their hometown date.

The kids weren’t messing around. “How many girlfriends do you have?” asked a girl named Marnie. “Are you going to have babies?” queried Kelsey and Luke. “Are you going to marry her?” asked Tyler. Matt wasn’t saying, but promised he’d give Tyler a Zoom call when he knew.

Michelle’s dad Ephraim wasn’t quite that direct, but he did ask Matt if he was in love with Michelle. “I am falling for your daughter,” Matt replied. He also said he’d be willing to move to Minnesota if they ended up together.

Michelle had emotional conversations with both her mom and her dad, not just about her feelings for Matt but about how they supported her after what I presume was a bad breakup two years before. “That’s our job, to be there when things get tough,” Ephraim said, which gives me hope Michelle will be just fine if Matt doesn’t pick her.

Later, Michelle told Matt she was falling in love with him. He did not say it back, but he did seem happy she said it, so we’ll see.

Rachael gets a rose from Matt. Should I read anything into the fact that her hometown date
was the only one that the ABC website didn’t provide any photos for?

The next date was with our problem contestant, Rachael Kirkconnell.

If you’re like me, you’re probably hoping that Matt doesn’t pick Rachael because if her social media blunders were more than just youthful ignorance, and the allegations that she bullied high school colleagues for dating Black guys are true, then her getting engaged to Matt can’t end well.

Matt certainly does seem attached to Rachael, however. There was a mishap when they went skydiving and Rachael came in for a rough, face-first landing. She was fine other than bruises, but Matt said the near-miss had put his feelings in perspective. “It’s a different feeling when you’re falling in love and that person’s, like, potentially really hurt and the thought of losing you set in in that moment . . . I didn’t realize how strongly I felt until something like that happened,” he said.

When it came to her family, Rachael’s father Darrell was skeptical, but he wasn’t rude about it. “To me it would be difficult to care about someone when you’re seeing other people,” he told Matt and who the hell can argue with that sentiment?

Rachael wasn’t dissuaded when Darrell suggested Matt was telling the other three women the same things he was telling her. “I don’t think he is,” she said. “It might be a little naive of me to think I’m different, but I really think that I am.”

What could Dad do but tell her she had his support?

Rachael was a little put off, however, by the fact Matt hadn’t asked her father for permission to propose. “That’s not a conversation I want to have with four families,” Matt explained and I applaud the hell out of that remark. He promised Rachael he’d phone her pop when the time came.

If there’s a wedding for these two, Bri might need to pull out the step stool at the altar.

Bri’s date was the most uneventful of the four. There was only one child in view, her mother Lauren’s new baby, and she was too young to ask questions. There were no injuries despite the fact Bri took Matt off-roading.

Even though Matt said he was falling for Bri, her mom wasn’t sure if he meant in love or lust. But when Bri tearfully told Lauren she was falling in love with Matt, Mom was all for sharing that with him. “Worst case scenario we are mending a broken heart together and we’ll survive,” she said.

I could be wrong, but I suspect there’ll be mending to do, only because when Bri told Matt she felt like she was falling for him, he responded, “Thank you for sharing that with me tonight.” It seemed too polite a reaction.

Serena and Matt indulge in a Canadian pastime.

And now for Serena. Like her, I am a proud Canadian so I was most interested in the Toronto publicist’s date. One room of the Nemacolin was turned into a mini Canadaland. There were stuffed moose and beavers; there was maple syrup; there was a map of Canada and Canadian flags; there was a quiz in which Matt couldn’t distinguish between a toboggan and a toque. I’ll be honest: unless you popped into a souvenir store you wouldn’t see any of that stuff just wandering around Toronto. Although, yes, I occasionally eat poutine and BeaverTails and Nanaimo bars, but hold the peameal bacon.

Serena whupped Matt at hockey and beating Americans at hockey is something all Canadians like to do, or at least to see being done.

But there was to be no cross-border love story here. It wasn’t that Serena’s mom and dad and sister were opposed to Matt; it was that the more questions they asked Serena about him the more confused she became about her feelings. She was the only one of the four women who didn’t tell Matt she was falling for him. In fact, she told him very candidly that she was having doubts.

So the next day, Matt went to Serena’s suite to try to resolve those doubts after telling Harrison it was a relationship worth fighting for. Except it turned out to be a pretty fast knockout.

Matt told Serena he could see a future with her. Serena told him that despite the fact he had everything she could want in a husband, “it just comes down to the fact that I don’t think that you’re my person.”

For at least 20 seconds, Matt just sat there stunned before finally responding, “It sucks to hear that.” Serena walked him out and hugged him and handed him into an SUV. And Matt had tears running down his face in his confessional, so that one definitely left a mark.

My guess is that Bri would have gone home had Serena stuck around and that’s just because he seems more into Michelle and Rachael. But with Serena gone, all three got roses — after a warning from Matt that accepting a rose meant accepting everything that came it, including a potential engagement.

Next week it’s “Women Tell All” so expect rancour and tears, including from Victoria, and maybe even some apologies, fake or otherwise.

Then in two weeks, there’s some sexy time on the overnight dates, buckets of tears, including from Matt, Rachael saying she “can’t do this anymore” and Matt telling Harrison that maybe he doesn’t want to do it anymore either, so make of that what you will.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Bachelor Matt James’ final four include controversial contestant

February 16, 2021 /
One of Matt James’ one-on-one dates on Feb. 15 involved a driving manoeuvre called “drifting,” which seems like a good word for the season as a whole. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

After six weeks of spinning its wheels, Matt James’ “Bachelor” season got back on track Monday, at least insofar as the ostensible purpose of the show, which is him getting engaged. Let’s call it “The Fast and the Serious.” And I’m not talking about Jessenia’s “Hail Mary” one-on-one date, which involved a race car and “drifting.”

After weeks of telling pretty much every woman he spoke to that he was into them, Matt finally buckled down and separated the “maybe I can fall in love with you’s” from the “I kind of like you’s,” ending the episode with the four women who’ll get so-called “hometowns” next week.

But first there was a little detour into Red Herring Land. Yes, I’m talking about Heather Martin, who strutted in last week seemingly convinced that she could turn Matt’s head despite how far along the season was, all because her bestie Hannah Brown said Matt was perfect for her.

My eyes are rolling so hard over the idea that Heather jumped on a red-eye flight to Pennsylvania all on her own initiative that they’re doing backflips.

It was one of the more ridiculous production tricks we’ve seen and a mean one too. Like, duh, Matt wasn’t going to let Heather stay, even though he claimed he needed time to think about it. He even told Chris Harrison (who is host at least until the pretaped episodes run out, more on that later) with a straight face that he didn’t know what to do: “When someone I respect like Hannah, who knows me and has dated my best friend, puts her stamp of approval on somebody, that carries a lot of weight with me,” Matt said. Spare me.

In the meantime, Heather was getting the Mean Girl treatment from the other women. It started with a reasonable question from Serena P: Why hadn’t Heather tried to date Matt before he became the Bachelor? Then Pieper accused Heather, who was on Colton Underwood’s season, of Bachelor-hopping. And when Heather apologized for interrupting Pieper’s time with Matt, Pieper replied, “I still do not understand why you’re here Week 6.” Kit added, “Like, bitch, what are you doing?”

At that point, Heather started to cry and say that she felt sad, and Serena C. snarked, “OK, talk about it (in your) interview because I don’t want to hear your tears right now.” Heather walked away.

Was Heather coming there a dumb, dead-end move? Yes, but it was humiliating enough to get sent home by Matt without getting verbally torn apart for it.

Clearly Matt wasn’t listening in when the women unloaded on Heather — or when they cried and grumbled and blustered about her being there — because he commended them just before the rose ceremony for how they handled the “surprise.” Then he gave roses to Bri, Rachael, Serena P, Kit, Jessenia and Abigail, cutting Chelsea and Serena C loose.

The question then became who would get the two one-on-one dates this week. Since Jessenia and Abigail were the only women left who’d never escaped group date purgatory, it seemed logical it would be them. But then Serena P got her second one-on-one and blew that theory out of the water.

Matt and Serena P. hanging out a few episodes ago.

Mind you, Serena might have had second thoughts if she’d known Matt was taking her on a tantric yoga date. I mean, seriously, who thinks practically having to grind your partner on TV with some yoga instructor breathing down your neck is a good time? Oh wait, Matt thought it was great. Serena did not enjoy it and told Matt so, which made me like her even more.

As it happened, Serena’s intense dislike of tantric yoga seemed to be a main topic of their dinner conversation, with Matt blathering on about how much he liked her being real and honest and open and . . . sorry, dozed off there for a second.

Serena got the rose and with it a guaranteed hometown date, although hello, quarantine, so we won’t see Matt visiting Toronto.

The group date was next and sadly Abigail was on it, along with Pieper, Michelle, Rachael, Bri and Kit.

Here are Abigail, Kit, Rachael, Michelle, Pieper and Bri on the part of the group date we never saw on TV.

I really have no idea why Matt would give Abigail the first impression rose and not take her on a one-on-one. But that group date card was the kiss of death for the franchise’s first deaf contestant.

We never saw the daytime portion of the group date, just the cocktail party. Matt actually had the nerve to tell Abigail that all he’d wanted was more time with her. THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU TAKE HER ON A ONE-ON-ONE?

First impressions didn’t count for much for Abigail, unfortunately.

When Abigail told Matt she could picture a future with him you knew it wasn’t going to end well. He told Abigail that giving her the first impression rose had been a no-brainer and he’d been so comfortable in their relationship he’d decided to explore other relationships and, oops, those other relationships got stronger than theirs. None of that clears up the mystery of the missing one-on-one and, in fact, sounds like bullshit, but Abigail took her dismissal with grace and class.

And now, obviously, she’s in the running to be the next Bachelorette, assuming the whole franchise hasn’t blown up by then.

As for the rest of the group date: Bri confessed to Matt that she’d quit her dream job for the chance to be with him. Matt called that huge, but not huge enough to give her the date rose. He gave it to Rachael after telling her that he thought about her whenever he wasn’t around her, yet another indication of her front-runner status.

Rachael and Matt on their one-on-one in a previous episode.

(As an aside, Rachael being a front-runner is obviously going to be a problem for a lot of people after she was called out — and issued an apology for — social media activities that were seen as racist. Chris Harrison has stepped aside as host for an unspecified period of time after defending Rachael, who as you can see is white, in an interview with former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay, who is Black. I don’t think this controversy is going to just go away nor should it, but I don’t want to address it in detail as an aside in a recap.)

Kit with Matt back when she still thought she had a chance of ending up with him.

Seeing Rachael get the rose shook Kit, who had used her time with Matt to tell him she wanted to delay getting married and having kids until she finished her education and did some travelling. When Matt said he was cool with that, Kit figured it was full steam ahead for the two of them. But seeing Rachael get the rose and get whisked away for a private concert with Aloe Blacc spurred Kit to jump before getting dumped.

Kit went to Matt’s suite and told him she didn’t have the “clarity” she needed and was heading home. Matt tried to dissuade her, but Kit went anyway, saying it was “the right thing for both of us.” Except, in the SUV of Shame, she expressed doubt about her decision, which makes me wonder if she’s going to pop back up in a future episode.

Next on the list of lost causes was Jessenia’s one-on-one date.

Matt and Jessenia went drifting on their date, in more ways than one.

Bless her optimistic little heart: after spending some time learning “drifting” with Matt, which looked like basically a lot of crazy-ass, reckless driving, Jessenia said, “Today really feels like the first day of what could be a long future together.”

That future was measured in hours, however. Matt, who talks a good game about honesty, led Jessenia on by asking her what meeting her family would be like and picking up the rose after she told him she was falling in love with him. He could easily have given her the “you’re great, but” speech without picking the damn thing up. What nasty producer taught him that trick?

Matt told Jessenia they were missing “that intangible love and connection” needed for an engagement and it was so long Jessenia, who was feeling blindsided.

Just like that, it was time for another rose ceremony. Predictably, Matt gave Bri and Michelle the remaining two roses, leaving Pieper feeling like her soul had been stomped on. Considering she just had a one-on-one last episode during which Matt told her to trust him with her heart I can understand why.

Next week, it’s “hometowns,” which means Matt meets the final four’s families at the Nemacolin resort. Expect the usual mix of protective parents and skeptical siblings — plus we’ll be another week closer to the end of this disappointing season.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

The Bachelor sends home a favourite and lets in an interloper

February 9, 2021 /
Pieper and Matt spent part of their date at a carnival in the woods at Nemacolin. Wheee!
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

Matt James took one of his dates to a private carnival on Monday night’s “Bachelor,” but it felt like viewers were the ones being taken for a ride.

I mean, is there any good reason why Heather Martin, a contestant from Colton Underwood’s season, would show up halfway through Matt’s season other than to stir up as much shit as possible?

Are ex-Bachelorette Hannah Brown and her pals in charge of casting now? Have the producers decided that Matt’s journey for love is a lost cause and they might as well pump up the drama any way they can?

I get that Matt’s chances of settling on someone to marry seem to dwindle every time he takes another woman on a one-on-one and claims he can picture a life with her. It’s like frontrunner roulette: Oh, he’s really into Bri . . . no wait, it’s Sarah . . . never mind, it’s Serena P . . . spoke too soon, it’s Michelle . . . oops, now it’s Rachael . . . er, it’s Kit? . . . sigh, now he’s into Pieper.

All this while his first impression rose winner, Abigail, is consigned to group date purgatory week after week.

And now Heather comes strolling in like she’s freakin’ Cinderella at the ball? Ridiculous. The only purpose it serves is to drive the other women crazy, just when things were settling down after weeks of sniping and bullying in the house.

Matt with MJ back before he got tipped off to her new girl-baiting ways.

So about that, one of the last of the mean girls got dispatched early in the episode.

You might recall from last week that MJ and Jessenia were on an instant two-on-one after Jessenia outed MJ as an “antagonist” for making the newer contestants feel unwelcome.

MJ figured she could fluff her hair, put her “weak bitch moment” behind her and that Matt would believe her crap about spreading harmony and peace. He did not. She got escorted to an SUV of Shame and driven away, complaining about how “petty” Jessenia was.

Matt was supposedly so exhausted from refereeing MJ vs. Jessenia that he couldn’t endure a cocktail party with the rest of the women ahead of the rose ceremony. That made Ryan and Pieper cry. Serena C, a.k.a. Mean Girl Jr., blamed it on Katie. Like huh?

Matt gave roses to Serena P, Michelle, Pieper, Bri, Chelsea, Katie and Serena C (Jessenia, Kit, Abigail and Rachael already had them), thereby ensuring the Katie-Serena C drama would continue. Magi, who seemed like a sweetheart from what little we saw of her, went home, along with two of the new girls, Ryan and Brittany, which makes you wonder what was the point of bringing them in in the first place. Oh right, drama.

Speaking of drama, the next day Serena C confronted Katie to complain that Katie’s “antics” were costing her time with Matt. “You’re lighting all these little fires everywhere. You’re the freakin’ arsonist,” complained Serena. It escalated into a shouting match. The silliest part? Neither Serena C nor Katie stood a chance in hell of ending up with Matt, so WHY ALL THE YELLING?

Little did they know an even more disruptive force was pulling up at the gates of the resort. It was Heather Martin asking to see host Chris Harrison.

“Heather, what are you doing here?” asked Harrison, echoing all of Bachelor Nation.

Heather explained that her pal Hannah Brown, who met Matt early in the pandemic when she quarantined with him and Tyler Cameron, had told Heather that Matt was her “perfect match.” “I couldn’t let him get engaged and not meet him and not try my best,” said Heather.

Well, we’re six weeks into the season now, so yeah, you could.

Harrison said he had to talk to some other people before deciding if Heather could stay, which meant he and some other people were going to pretend to debate letting Heather in while having a good laugh about how upset the other contestants would be when they saw Heather on rose ceremony night.

Matt and Pieper with country trio Temecula Road. Don’t worry, they all had their COVID tests.

In the meantime, Matt had a one-on-one with Pieper. He waited till after dark, drove her to a wooded area of the resort, made her walk into the trees and voila: a whole mini carnival with rides and games and junk food.

Yes, it was pretty sweet. Later, Pieper told Matt about how her family doesn’t use the word “love” and so it was hard for her to express her emotions, but she somehow summoned up the courage to tell Matt she was falling in love with him. Matt told Pieper he wanted her to continue trusting him with her feelings and her heart, which seems like a really bad idea if you ask me.

There was a rose, there was kissing, there was a band. Yes, a country band. What else?

Serena C. works off her Katie aggression with some bowling.

Next up, the group date ladies — Bri, Kit, Rachael, Michelle, Jessenia, Serena P, Abigail, Chelsea and Serena C — went bowling with Matt. They were split into two teams, even though there were nine of them, and the losing team was banished from the cocktail party even though they came back from an almost 200-point deficit and lost by a measly six points. What’s worse is that Matt let them walk back to their suite, frustrated and angry, and waited to send over a date card inviting them to the party.

Double the drama: the losing team was riled up and then they got to disappoint the winning team, who’d been thrilled they only had to divide Matt’s time four ways.

Chelsea took it particularly hard, until Matt assured her that he could see himself with her — well, who can’t he see himself with at this point? — but Michelle got the date rose.

And then it was Katie’s turn for a one-on-one, but first Matt reconnected with his bestie Tyler Cameron over a game of pool and talk of Katie’s “cactus-size vibrator” (um, ouch?). Matt said getting advice from Tyler gave him confidence because he’d seen the process “work” for Tyler except . . . did he actually watch Hannah’s season, because I’m pretty sure she picked Jed. And now she’s apparently dating some model.

Anyway Katie arrived for her date and it looked like she and Matt were going to spend the afternoon at the hotel spa. All right, not a carnival in the woods, but OK. But then Matt told Katie that Tyler was coming in for a massage, and Matt and Katie were going to hide in a little room watching on a monitor and secretly telling the actor pretending to be a masseuse what tricks to play on Tyler and . . . this is a date? I mean, yes, Tyler without a shirt on, I get it. But really?

Matt and Katie have a laugh on a previous episode.

The choice of date was the first clue that Katie was stuck in the friend zone. The unsmiling look Matt gave her at dinner when she said she wanted her love story to be Matt’s love story was another. But then he picked up the rose, so maybe she was going to stick around after all.

Instead Matt blathered a bit about how much their relationship had grown and how she set the tone in the house and how much she meant to him, but sorry, it wasn’t enough to give her a rose.

Katie kept her head high and her eyes dry as she left. Hopefully she remembered to pack the vibrator.

There’s already a groundswell of support building for her to be the next Bachelorette.

It was time for another cocktail party and rose ceremony. The women seemed friendly and contented. They figured the drama was behind them. And then Heather showed up, got stuck in the revolving door, smiled and waved at the women as she walked past them, and interrupted Matt with Pieper.

Matt laughed so hard when Heather walked in I figured maybe he’d heard a clip of her saying she was ready to fall in love with Matt and get engaged. As if.

The other women were not laughing. As my Toronto girl Serena P put it, “If she gets a rose tonight I’ll be rageful.”

Next week, yes, there’s definitely some ragefulness and some tears and Heather complains that people are being mean. Like, what the hell did she expect?

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

New blood brings fresh meat for the Bachelor’s Mean Girls

January 26, 2021 /
Matt James started his night with 18 women at the rose ceremony and ended up with 23.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

Dumping new women into the cauldron of insecurity and jealousy that is “The Bachelor” several weeks into the season is kind of a no-miss move if drama is the aim.

At the very least, the original women will be flustered enough to generate lots of bitchy B-roll when the new ladies arrive. If the Bachelor keeps at least one of the newbies you’re guaranteed at least another day or two of tension.

But I imagine the producers practically peed themselves with excitement when Matt James kept (or agreed to keep) four of the five women parachuted in on Monday night, then took one of the four on a one-on-one date, leaving several of the OG contestants in a lather.

And when the jealousy reached new levels of verbal nastiness, well, high fives all around in the production room.

It seems like last week‘s gang-up on Sarah was perhaps a rule and not an exception given what went down this week. As usual, Victoria was the chief Mean Girl, but Anna was a close second, with assists from MJ and Serena C.

The episode began with Matt moping about Sarah’s departure and a few of the women gloating about it. “The trash took itself out,” sniped Victoria. When Katie asked her to stop being mean, Victoria responded, “No, I won’t stop, Katie. I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”

Matt and Katie, who had no time for Victoria’s nonsense.

During the group date, Victoria tried to get Katie to apologize: “You told me to stop when I wasn’t done expressing myself.” When Katie pointed out that Victoria’s self-expression consisted of calling Sarah names, Victoria retorted, “I can express myself with name-calling if I choose to.” When Katie didn’t back down, Victoria tried to shame her by bringing up the vibrator from Night 1, but Katie — bless her heart — stuck to her guns.

Model Chelsea, who chatted with Matt about the emotional weight that Black women attach to their hair, got the date rose.

By the time the rose ceremony cocktail party rolled around, it looked like the drama had died down. Matt gave a very unconvincing speech about how he was eventually “hoping to get down on one knee” and distributed kisses and compliments to Pieper and Kit and Katie and Bri. And then, just as Victoria started blathering to Matt, host Chris Harrison interrupted and told Matt he had to talk to him. Right. Now.

Matt liked newcomer Brittany way more than the OG contestants did.

Was Sarah back? That’s what the women thought when an SUV pulled up outside. But brunette bombshell Brittany quickly became their new target when they saw her from a window planting a big smooch on Matt (for the love of god, will someone tell Matt to close his eyes when he kisses?).

She was quickly followed by teacher Michelle, dancer Ryan, nurse Kim and Catalina, a former Miss Puerto Rico whose crown “Queen Victoria” stole right off her head.

Victoria fumed that the interlopers were “random-ass hoes”: Anna said she was having a mental breakdown; Katie worried they were “new and exciting eye candy.” Matt called them “a nice surprise” — so nice in fact that he kept Brittany, Michelle, Ryan and Catalina and sent home Khaylah and Kaili, not that it mattered much in the grand scheme of things. It’s mostly changing up the group date fodder.

Speaking of group dates, the next day Matt took Brittany, Ryan and Catalina on a group date with Mari, Bri, Abigail, Magi, Anna and Victoria.

Former Bachelor Ben Higgins was back to oversee a group date.

It was an obstacle course supposedly planned by former Bachelor Ben Higgins: a “Fall in Love Fest” in which the women had to kayak in “pumpkins” across a pond (fall, get it?), then dress in squirrel costumes and hunt for stuffed acorns in a pile of leaves before racing to the finish line.

There was no drama to speak of, unless you count Anna hiding Brittany’s acorn, but that changed at the cocktail party when Brittany interrupted Anna’s time with Matt.

Anna started trash-talking Brittany, egged on by Victoria, who called Brittany “slutty.” Anna claimed to have heard rumours from their mutual hometown of Chicago that Brittany was — gasp! — an escort.

Brittany denied it, saying it was shitty that Anna was drawing conclusions without knowing her. “I know you guys don’t care at all, but it’s really hard,” said Brittany, to which Victoria retorted, “OK, then get out of the house” and laughed.

First off, so what if Brittany was an escort? Would that disqualify her from coming on a dating show? And have we not moved past women slut-shaming each other on this series?

Newcomer Michelle got a coveted one-on-one with Matt.

Against that background, Matt’s one-on-one date with Michelle the next day was a nice respite. The ziplining and hot-air ballooning were fine (some of the other women spied on them with binoculars from a hotel balcony), but it was the dinner conversation that made it clear these two had really bonded in their short time together.

Michelle talked about her work as a teacher, how much she loved her job, how hard the year had been for her students between the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd, and she paraphrased Maya Angelou: “People don’t always remember what you say. They remember how you made them feel,” which happened to be one of Matt’s favourite quotes.

Matt said Michelle had “the type of depth I’m looking for in a woman” and “could be someone that I called my wife,” and you had the feeling it might be game over for the women back at the hotel.

There was fighting as well as fighting words on “The Bachelor,” with guidance from Mia St. John.

Nonetheless, the show must go on, so there was another group date. This time 10 of the women — no newbies, luckily for them — got to train with former world boxing champ Mia St. John and then beat each other up in the “Battle for the Bachelor” while the rest of the women, Harrison and alum Wells Adams watched.

The women didn’t pull their punches, so much so that one bout was stopped after Serena P. got smacked in the throat and the nose by Lauren.

At the after-party, the women began complaining about the new girls again, undeterred by Katie telling them, “At some point we’ve got to get over it and welcome them into the house a little bit.”

It was worse back at the “house,” where Anna and Victoria were tag-teaming again, with Victoria calling Brittany “serial killer weird” and Catalina “the dumbest ho I’ve ever met.”

Katie, who knew firsthand how upset Brittany was about the escort story, decided to tattle. She ran outside to tell Matt there was bullying going on and rumours being spread about the new girls that “could literally ruin their lives.”

So it looks like the poop will hit the fan next week just ahead of the rose ceremony.

There will be tears, recriminations and it looks like Victoria will have a fainting spell of her own.

You can watch all the drama on Citytv next Monday at 8 p.m. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

On ‘The Bachelor,’ the ‘Mean Girls’ drive a frontrunner away

January 19, 2021 /
Victoria reads Matt a filthy bedtime story on “The Bachelor.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

There was some real ugliness on Monday’s episode of “The Bachelor.” The shock is that it didn’t all come from “Queen Victoria.”

In fact, the season’s reigning villain was sidelined for much of the episode while the wrath of the house fell on an unlikely target: front-runner Sarah Trott.

Sarah’s sin was to interrupt a group date that she wasn’t on to talk to Bachelor Matt James, resulting in some of the women on the date not getting time with him. And then Sarah stayed in her room the next day rather than speak to the women she pissed off. So by the time she finally did come down to apologize to them it was like sticking her head in a hive full of angry bees. It was made clear that life with the other women was going to be, in Kit’s words, “horrible” from then on.

The next morning, Sarah decided to go home.

Matt and Sarah during last week’s episode, in yes, happier times.

I have sympathy for Sarah, I really do. First off, Matt and the audience knew what the rest of the women didn’t: that her father was seriously ill, which had to be stressing her out for the three weeks she was at the Nemacolin resort (although one does wonder why, if her father was so sick he could have been weeks away from death, as she told Katie, she would have come in the first place).

Secondly, I can’t imagine what it would be like to really be into someone and not only know that they were dating other people, but have to watch them go on dates with those people. Yes, it’s how “The Bachelor” works, but knowing it and living it are two different things. Not everyone is cut out for it.

Thirdly, how much of a role did production play in Sarah interrupting the date to talk to Matt? Sure, it’s possible that she independently decided she absolutely had to see Matt right there and then. But I have a hard time believing she didn’t get a nudge from production.

The episode began as it ended, with Sarah drama.

You’ll recall that last week we saw her collapse in some sort of fainting spell partway through the rose ceremony. She was fine once she went outside to get some air — with Matt by her side, which had the other women grumbling.

The rose ceremony continued. Victoria got the final rose. Marylynn, whom Victoria had told Matt was toxic, got sent home. Does that suck? Absolutely. My theory is that if if Marylynn had given as good as she got — if she’d argued with Victoria instead of trying to have a calm, adult conversation with her — they both would have been kept around for the drama.

With Marylynn dispatched, Victoria set her venomous sights on Sarah, declaring that the fainting spell seemed fake and Sarah was worse than Marylynn. Hold that thought.

Host Chris Harrison and Ashley Iaconetti Haibon with Matt.

Next up there was a group date that served two time-honoured “Bachelor” traditions: making the group do something embarrassing and bringing back a “Bachelor” alum. In this case, Ashley I. was on a stage reading an erotic passage from host Chris Harrison’s novel “The Perfect Letter” (what’s up with that? has he been listening outside the fantasy suite doors?) as Matt and 10 of the women walked in.

And — surprise — they all had to write their own sexy stories about Matt and read them in front of a live audience, i.e. the other contestants. Most of the prose was more suggestive than salacious, except for Katie’s and Victoria’s, which was filled with words that had to be bleeped out. But Victoria’s seemed to make everybody laugh really hard — except for Sarah.

Sarah said hearing the other women read their stories was “like a knife went through my heart.” She also said that seeing Matt with other people was “triggering” issues from her past involving faithfulness, commitment and jealousy.

Next thing you know Sarah was interrupting Katie’s conversation with Matt so she could tell him how hard she was finding the “process.”

Katie, who is nothing if not forthright, came back to claim her time with Matt, but Sarah said she needed five more minutes. When Katie came back a second time and refused to leave the room, Matt walked Sarah out of the room so he could continue reassuring her — and kissing her — in private.

Sarah then tried apologizing to the women on the group date, but they weren’t having it. Sarah left in tears; everybody else was mad, except for maybe Rachael, who got the date rose.

Would things have blown over if Sarah had come downstairs the next morning and apologized again? I don’t know. But Sarah staying in her room and Matt going upstairs to find her when he was supposed to be taking Serena P. out on a date just made everything worse.

Sarah told Matt she’d been ready to leave the night before; he told her he had “real feelings” for her and convinced her to stay. And oh yeah, not to worry about what the other girls think, which is easy for him to say.

I’d rather show you the donkeys than this photo of Matt and Serena P. from last week.

Then we got a respite from “The Sarah Show,” as Victoria called it, while Matt and Serena Pitt, a publicist from Toronto, went horseback riding. They had a picnic and bonded over the idea of not living life the way other people want you to , and then their smooching session was interrupted by adorable donkeys.

Did Serena get a rose? You bet. She didn’t even have to make any harrowing confessions at dinner. She just talked about her one serious boyfriend and told Matt she could see herself potentially falling in love with him. And then they fell into a hot tub for Champagne and kisses.

Back at the part of the resort where the other women were hanging out, Sarah finally made an appearance just as the second group date card arrived. She apologized both for interrupting the first group date and for not coming down to “clear the air,” but it was a very, very tough crowd.

Serena C. accused Sarah of not taking anyone else’s feelings into account; Victoria said Sarah was treating her time as more important than anyone else’s; and Anna said Sarah’s actions felt calculated.

“Manipulative, toxic,” added Serena.

“I concur. You’re all three of those things, Sarah,” said Victoria.

“Why would you think that we want to make amends with you?” she added. “I do not accept your apology even if you say it 20 more times.”

Kit delivered the coup de grace: “I hope your connection with Matt is very strong right now because the rest of your living situation here is going to be horrible.”

“Yeah,” agreed Victoria, smiling and laughing.

(Just as a reminder of how classy Victoria is, she said if Matt sent Sarah home she’d want to fuck him, because it would be so “hot.”)

Is this the same group of women who said last week they could feel happy for another woman who was going on a date with Matt even if they wanted to be on the date themselves? What happened to that generosity of spirit?

Thank goodness for Katie, who went to see Sarah the next morning to tell her she’d been uncomfortable with the gang-up of the night before.

At first, Katie tried to talk Sarah into staying, saying that otherwise she and Matt would always wonder “what if.” Then Sarah confided about her dad having ALS.

“My dad passed away in 2012, so I 100 per cent encourage you to be with him,” Katie said, with tears running down her cheeks. “I missed out on my goodbyes with my dad so I would never want that for you.”

Sarah stopped to see Matt before she left and he tried once again to convince her to stay, but when she said that she’d prayed about it and she felt “called” to go home, it was clear it was a lost cause.

Sarah left in tears and Matt sadly watched her go.

It would be nice to think we could get back to focusing on some of the nice women who are left, like Abigail. But next week, the producers screw with everyone’s heads by sending in five more contestants, which probably means another week in which Victoria isn’t public enemy No. 1.

You can watch all the drama on Citytv next Monday at 8 p.m. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

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