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Tag: Bachelor (Page 4 of 4)

On The Bachelor, Victoria proves she’s the queen . . . of mean

Why does Victoria look so happy talking to Matt? Oh right, she’s throwing somebody under the bus.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

It’s time to abolish the Bachelor monarchy.

I’m not suggesting we go all Oliver Crowell on Victoria’s ass (he’s the fellow who had King Charles I beheaded in 1649), but it would be nice to see this particular “queen” deposed.

This being “The Bachelor,” however, Victoria will be with us a while longer so she can stir up some more crap. She was doing a fine job of that on Monday’s episode.

The drama started early. The first date card had barely been handed out before Victoria was bellyaching about how she was only there to be with Matt, she was sick of the other women (um, hello, after one day?), she wasn’t there to join a sorority and anybody who didn’t share her distaste for time spent with anybody but Matt was either lying or fake. Oh, and she didn’t want to go on a group date because she couldn’t be her “most authentic self.”

Which authentic self is that? The one who said “I literally am a queen”?

And when Victoria did get put on the group date, she warned the other women not to be “negative.” Oh the irony.

Anyway, while all that nonsense was going on, Matt was off on a one-on-one with Bri, the communications manager with whom he bonded on Night 1 over their shared heritage of being biracial and raised by single moms.

Bri’s reward for getting dumped off an ATV was drinks with Matt in a hot tub
and she got to count his abs, and said there were between eight and 60.

Bri survived with just bruises and a butt full of mud after Matt overturned their ATV while doing doughnuts. “Bri’s mom is going to kill me,” he said, which was kind of sweet and funny.

Never fear: there was a hot tub in the woods surrounding the palatial Nemacolin resort for them to clean off, drink Champagne and kiss in. No offence La Quinta, but this feels like a proper Bachelor franchise date.

And on a proper Bachelor date, you have to sing for your supper (whether you eat it or not), or more accurately spill your guts about whatever makes you “vulnerable,” a term that is giving “journey” a run for its money as the franchise’s favourite word. In Bri’s case that meant talking about the fact her mother was 13 (!) when she got pregnant with Bri, about her absentee dad and about the fact her mother was now pregnant again and had a new fiance, so “I don’t feel like I have a home to go to anymore.”

Naturally Bri got the date rose and a chance to kiss Matt some more while fireworks exploded overhead.

The fireworks were not confined to the outdoors. Inside the resort, Victoria was still whinging about how she didn’t want to spend time with the other women (note that nobody was forcing her to sit and complain ad nauseam to the other women) and now she claimed they were insulting her by questioning her view of things. And when Chelsea asked Victoria not to generalize with her accusations, Victoria zeroed in on roommate Marylynn for wanting to, in Victoria’s words, pick her brain and understand her better. Marylynn responded that she was merely suggesting that she and Victoria get to know each other. But Victoria, declaring that Marylynn was “psychologically disturbed, literally,” hauled her bags out of the room and decided to sleep on a couch.

(I had a look at the cast list just now because I wanted to see if Victoria was a lot younger than the other women, but no: she’s 27 and Marylynn is 28, so there goes that theory.)

So the stage was set for what Toronto contestant Alana (hello Canadian girl, I overlooked you last week) said was sure to be a “shit show” of a date. Truth be told, it was more of a paint show.

Eighteen Bachelor “brides,” including Victoria, second from left, on a group date with Matt James.

A whopping 18 women turned up for the group date and were given 10 minutes to put on wedding gowns for a photo shoot with Matt. Victoria butted in out of turn, of course, hauled up her dress to make Matt remove a garter from her thigh and laid a sloppy kiss on him — a little tasteless but on brand, I’d say.

Host Chris Harrison interrupted the photo shoot halfway through to tell the women they’d have to “fight” for Matt and by fight he meant form teams, run around trying to capture stuffed hearts from the opposite team’s goalposts, er, wedding arbours, and pummel them with objects like bouquets dipped in paint.

Here’s what the wedding dresses looked like after the game.

The dresses were shredded and so were the hearts of the losing team. All of them except for Mari, who was named “most valuable bride,” had to walk back to their rooms, leaving the winners to have cocktails with Matt.

So what was Victoria’s big confession during her alone time with Matt? She said she has insecurities and she thought, “Oh, I hope I don’t look fat” while choosing a wedding dress.

“I haven’t been deep with a guy like that in a while,” said Victoria.

Hold that thought; we’ll come back to it. In the meantime, Matt gave the date rose to lawyer Lauren, who told Matt she was looking for “a man of faith” because the key to her parents’ healthy marriage was “to keep God first.” That made Matt happy since the fact he’s a Christian sometimes turns people off, he said.

Moving on: it was Sarah’s turn for a one-on-one, flying over the resort with Matt in a biplane. Matt wasn’t steering, nobody fell out.

Sarah wasn’t ready to tell Matt about her family situation at the start of her date.

Conveniently, as he and Sarah drank Champagne on a couch in the woods, the topic turned to family and how Sarah’s dad felt about her being on “The Bachelor.” If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think Matt already knew about Sarah’s father’s health problems, wouldn’t you?

Sarah didn’t divulge anything right away, but the confession clock was ticking so, over dinner, she told Matt about her dad’s ALS and how she had quit her job as a TV reporter and anchor to be his caregiver.

I have no doubt that would be a hard thing to talk about with somebody you barely know and it’s a damn sight more “deep” than confessing to worrying you’ll look fat in a dress. Yes, I’m talking about you, Victoria.

Matt’s response was very classy. He said he’d pray for Sarah’s father, that he was “honoured” she had made such a big sacrifice to be there with him and asked, “What can I do through this experience to show you I can be somebody you’d want to be with?”

Sarah said, essentially, that he was already doing it. And she got her rose and her kisses.

There was nothing left by then but for Matt to hand out the rest of the roses. The cocktail party was going well. Matt reconnected with favourites like Abigail and Rachael. And when Marylynn expressed doubt about whether Matt really wanted her there since she hadn’t been on a date, he pulled out an orchid from behind the couch, which he (or somebody, anyway) had remembered was her favourite flower.

Poor Marylynn with Matt before Victoria threw her under the bus.

And then it all went to hell when Marylynn showed the other women her orchid. You could see the malevolent wheels turning in Victoria’s head. After blathering on to a producer about Marylynn’s “toxic energy,” Victoria trotted off to tell Matt that she could no longer sleep in her room because Marylynn was so toxic and manipulative.

I mean, it’s utter bullshit obviously. There’s only one person in the group so far who seems toxic and manipulative and that’s Victoria. But Matt dutifully went to Marylynn with Victoria’s allegations and all she could do was tell him none of it was true and hope that he believed her. Then Matt disappeared without talking to anymore of the women, saying he had a lot to think about.

Marylynn tried to clear the air with Victoria, hoping they could come to an understanding, but Victoria wouldn’t even allow Marylynn to sit next to her on the couch. She walked away saying that Marylynn was “too much for me” and then had the nerve to call Marylynn “crazy.” I don’t like to call other women names, but there’s a word that come to mind for behaviour like that and it rhymes with “itch.”

Anyway, Matt came back to hand out roses and had given away nine of them when Sarah, who earlier described herself as feeling “overwhelmed” by the Victoria drama, wobbled off the dais and, with the help of Bri, sank to the floor behind a couch. “I’m blacking out, I can’t see,” she told the medic who was called over as Matt hovered.

And then it was “To be continued.”

Clearly Victoria is going to get a rose because the promo for next week shows her getting into disputes with other women and she’s not wearing her cocktail party dress. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want,” she tells Katie.

Off with her figurative — as opposed to her literal — head, I say.

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

Watchable the week of June 7, 2020

SHOW OF THE WEEK: I May Destroy You (June 7, 10:30 p.m., HBO)

Michaela Coel as Arabella in “I May Destroy You.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Natalie Seery/HBO

Given the world’s focus on #BlackLivesMatter, there’s an undeniable timeliness to this series; it was created by Black U.K. artist Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum”) and its key cast members are Black. But its focus is not Black oppression, although that is touched upon, but how Coel, as Arabella, and her fellow Black millennials navigate their relationships with sex – particularly various forms of sexual violence.

When we first meet Arabella, she’s leaving her Italian boyfriend to return to London and sweating the deadline for a first draft of her new book. When she ditches the writing to go party with a friend, her drink is spiked at a bar and she is raped. She later experiences another violation in a consensual relationship.

Throughout the series, Arabella navigates the fallout of that, in ways that are both healthy and unhealthy, with the help of friends Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), a gay man dealing with sexual trauma of his own.

It can be uncomfortable viewing at times, particularly when the characters engage in self-defeating behaviour, but it is also compelling viewing. Coel, who wrote and produced the show as well as starring in it, makes us care about these people. We want to see them come out the other side of their pain.

While the subject matter is sombre, the series has moments of lightness, joy and even comedy. And Coel is extremely watchable.

The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever! (June 8, 8 p.m., ABC and Citytv) 

Oh, the drama! Surely you haven’t forgotten Tierra Licausi and her reign of villainy on Sean Lowe’s “Bachelor” season. PHOTO CREDIT: Francisco Roman/ABC

As I’ve mentioned on my “This Is Me” page, I got my start as a TV writer covering reality TV, and I have written about “The Bachelor” and its spinoffs longer than any other show. So you better believe I’ll be watching Warner Bros’ and ABC’s latest attempt to keep us hooked on the “Bachelor” franchise.

With “The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart” gone and mainly forgotten, and shooting of “The Bachelorette” delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, producers have repackaged the, well, greatest seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” into three weekly hours of highlights.

I wasn’t able to see any of the episodes in advance, but they will include commentary from host Chris Harrison, who shot his segments with his son behind the camera at his own home, and call-backs to the stars of the seasons.

It all begins with Sean Lowe, the man I feel quite confident calling the most popular Bachelor ever and the only one in 24 seasons to have married the woman he proposed to in the season finale.

I have a feeling drama-starved “Bachelor” fans will be on board with this one.

CORRECTION: I originally wrote that Harrison was shooting at the Bachelor mansion, based on information in the Starweek TV guide. If you’ve watched the show, you’ve already noticed this wasn’t the case.

Odds and Ends

Natasia Demetriou as Nadja, Kayvan Novak as Nandor and Matt Berry as Laszlo in the season finale of “What We Do in the Shadows.” CREDIT: Russ Martin/FX

I’m looking forward to the Season 2 finale of vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” (June 10, 9 p.m., FX) but also sad to see it go since it could be a while before shooting starts on Season 3. This episode promises surprise guest stars and I can’t wait to see how they’ll top Mark Hamill from earlier in the season or Tilda Swinton in Season 1.

Netflix has a bunch of stuff debuting this week, including Volume 6 of “Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj” on June 7; teen drama “Curon,” medical docu-series “Lenox Hill” and Brazilian zombie thriller “Reality Z” on June 10; and two crime dramas, “The Search” from Mexico and “The Woods” from Poland on June 12.

HGTV Canada has the socially distanced series “Design at Your Door” (June 11, 10 p.m.), in which homeowners receive virtual advice on their redesigns from HGTV experts, including former “Brady Bunch” kids Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb.

CTV Life Channel presents three wedding-related shows on June 9: the third season of “Where to I Do?” (9 p.m.), Jessica Mulroney’s “I Do, Redo” (9:30 p.m.), which previously ran on the main CTV channel, and the Canadian debut of “Bridezillas” (10 p.m.).

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