Let’s be honest, the relationship we care about the most this season of “The Bachelorette” is the one between its two stars, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia.
But there couldn’t be a more apt metaphor for the shit that’s gonna get shovelled their way than host Jesse Palmer scooping up horse dung after beautiful Blanca, who carried in a shirtless dude named Jacob, dropped a load in the mansion driveway.
Mortgage broker Jacob pulls a Fabio with the help of Blanca. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC
Gabby pretty much called it, “Boys are dumb.” Or at least indecisive. It looks like she and Rachel will relive a version of the nonsense they endured from Bachelor Clayton Echard, who you’ll recall — and I’m sorry to conjure up the memory — strung them both along with sex and protestations of love, then dumped them simultaneously.
The good news: Clayton’s shenanigans couldn’t tear these best friends apart so I’m guessing none of this season’s dudes will either. We saw plenty of tears in the season promo and both women talking about wanting to quit; we never saw them turn on each other and if ABC had that kind of footage don’t you think they’d be gleefully promoting the hell out of it?
Still, Jesse promised “the most shocking season of ‘The Bachelorette’ yet” and that’s not a good thing if you’re more interested in seeing mature adults fall in love than divisive drama. But really, what did we expect?
Gabby and Rachel weren’t made dual Bachelorettes because Mike Fleiss and his team knew how much fans loved them both and wanted to make us happy. No, having two women choose from the same pool of men is about trying to pit them against each other. Just imagine the possibilities if they fall for the same guy!
But we’ll save the angst for later. Monday’s season premiere was a pretty congenial affair with a generous tone set by its two lovely leads, Gabby, a 31-year-old ICU nurse, and Rachel, a 26-year-old pilot and flight instructor, who supported each other every step of the way.
So much hugging and hand-holding and squeals of joy! I’m here for it.
It was almost enough to appease us for losing Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams as “Bachelorette” hosts — almost.
As for the 32 suitors, they were well behaved. No excess drunkenness, no trash talking, no playbooks on how to get screen time, no blatantly misogynistic remarks.
I wasn’t keen on Logan manhandling a couple of live chicks just so he could make a lame joke about Gabby and Rachel being “cute chicks,” but one of them got revenge by pooping in his hand — the chickens, not Rachel and Gabby.
Logan introduces Gabby and Rachel to Marybeth and Alejandra. Call the SPCA!
Cringiest limo exit was a tie between investment banker Jason and life coach Quincey. The former said that, like Clayton, he was in love with three women: his mom, his sister and his dog, and ewwww. Quincey said he hadn’t had sex in over a year to show how “intentional” he could be and, like, why did they need to know that?
Software developer Jordan H, meanwhile, had the cleverest shtick, bringing along wireless, noise-cancelling headphones so he could talk to Rachel and Gabby individually without the other one listening in. Props also to venture capitalist Spencer for bringing chairs so Gabby and Rachel could take a load off their high heels. And wedding photographer Alec, besides being a natty dresser, brought along a quartet to sing a song, the gist of which was “Clayton sucks.”
Alec brings his own musical accompaniment.
Aside from the hokey limo entrances, who are the standouts so far?
To be honest, with that many dudes it was hard to get a handle, which is why Rachel and Gabby chose to forgo a rose ceremony and keep 29 men into next week.
They made magician Roby disappear, along with 24-year-old twins Justin and Joey. Being the only three guys singled out for elimination must have sucked hard, but it was a fair call.
Luckily, our Bachelorettes chose very different first impression rose winners and didn’t swap spit with the same men. In fact, there was very little kissing considering the precedent set in other seasons.
Mario got Gabby’s first impression rose and her first kisses of the season.
Gabby’s first rose went to Mario, an affable personal trainer who danced his way out of the limo, but holy hell, did their kissing look awkward! Rachel’s smooching with Tino, a contractor whose forklift-driving skills she admired, was more palatable. He got her rose.
Gabby also kissed real estate analyst Erich, who also considered kissing Rachel, seemingly hedging his bets to get a first impression rose.
“I can see how this is gonna get complicated very quickly,” he said. Ya think?
Gabby also had good chemistry with investment director Ryan and she couldn’t stop looking at Jacob’s pecs, the Fabio wannabe with the horse. That’s just as well; paying attention to the list of attributes he was reading for his future wife might have otherwise bored her to tears.
Rachel had a sweet interaction with “leisure executive” Hayden, who made a hand-written card for her recent birthday. But she couldn’t figure out why neither sales exec Aven or drag racer Jordan V went in for a kiss. There was a fleeting knee grab by the first and the second held her hand, but that was it.
She and Gabby were both attracted to chick guy Logan, who hugged Rachel and bonded with Gabby over sneaking snacks into the cinema (hopefully nothing as big as the meatball sub that “meatball enthusiast” James brought with him).
But yeah, there’s still a lot of wheat to be separated from the chaff with this group. We’ll get another shot at figuring out who’s who next week.
It airs Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.
“Bachelor” host Jesse Palmer with Rachel Recchia and Clayton Echard. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ ABC
Let’s tell it like it is Bachelor Nation: we are in an abusive relationship with the Bachelor franchise.
On Tuesday night — which really was the most dramatic Bachelor finale ever — we got emotionally pummelled watching Clayton, and the show, completely disrespect his final two.
Then, after the catharsis of seeing Gabby and Rachel call out Clayton’s bullshit, we had to watch him get the happy ending he didn’t deserve.
And then ABC pulled out the equivalent of a makeup gift and made both Gabby and Rachel the new Bachelorette.
You want to talk about a journey? That was a seriously messed up roller-coaster ride. It was insidious and infuriating, and we all know we’ll be right back in front of our TVs come the new “Bachelorette” season.
We began the night in Iceland, where Clayton had decided that Susie Evans was the woman for him after all, making an absolute mockery of his claim to love Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia too.
And it wasn’t just Gabby and Rachel who were disrespected. When Susie was summoned by host Jesse Palmer to meet with Clayton, she had to do it at his parents’ rented Airbnb. Like, Clayton didn’t have a hotel suite they could use?
Luckily, Susie and Clayton had their conversation outside. Also luckily, she didn’t mince words telling Clayton how he made her feel when he angrily and coldly dismissed her after she objected to him having sex with Rachel and Gabby, and telling both of them he loved them.
“It was humiliating if I’m being honest,” Susie said. “I felt like a stray dog that had come into your home and you were shooing me out.”
Clayton was so sorry, he didn’t mean what he said, he was just scared of losing her, it was out of character, blah, blah, blah. He asked Susie for another chance and she told him she had to think about it.
So let’s take stock. Just days after breaking up with Susie and essentially begging both Gabby and Rachel to stay — in Gabby’s case, against her better judgment — Clayton was about to break up with them because he now knew his heart was with Susie.
Are we seriously supposed to believe that his heart wasn’t with Susie in the days leading up to fantasy suites? How was Clayton just coming to this realization now?
All season he’d been acting like a kid in a candy store, except instead of sweets he was gorging on women. Were fantasy suites about getting his fill before he had to pick just one?
Rachel and Gabby react to Clayton telling them his heart belongs to Susie.
To add insult to injury, Clayton broke up with Rachel and Gabby simultaneously, which surely wasn’t all his idea.
Yep, he walked into their hotel suite, told them he meant it when he said he loved them both and saw a future with them both, except “I realized it’s not feasibly possible for me to be in love with three women like I said I was.”
So in other words, he didn’t mean it.
Gabby grasped that right away.
“You asked me to stay because you were pissed and your pride was hurt because Susie left,” Gabby told him.
When Clayton protested that he did love Gabby, she snapped, “That is bullshit.”
She also scorched him for breaking up with her and Rachel together, saying, “You don’t give a fuck about us.”
When Clayton said he was sorry and asked to walk her out, she made a face like she’d just smelled something awful and said contemptuously, “No.” You could see the studio audience applauding and Grandpa John nodding in the inset at the bottom of the screen and it was glorious.
And then, in another demonstration of how much disrespect producers had for these women, Rachel’s exit was left hanging as the show cut to L.A. and Gabby was brought onstage.
There was a beautiful moment when Grandpa John got up to hug her, with tears in his eyes, and then she sat down to answer Jesse’s ridiculously obvious questions.
Gabby tells it to Clayton like it is on the live part of the finale.
When Clayton came out, Gabby did a marvellous job of cutting through his nonsense — “I’m incredibly sorry,” “I had love for you all,” etc. — by pointing out he was the opposite of transparent when he didn’t fess up to having told Susie he loved her the most, which would have been a deal breaker for Gabby.
“When you say you love someone you’re assuming responsibility to protect them, to care for them and to not hurt them, and you didn’t do any of those things,” she said as the audience applauded.
Like I said, glorious.
Back to Rachel in the Reykjavik hotel room. She was crying so hard that tears were literally dripping off her face, but the shoe dropped for her too. After Clayton, conspicuously dry-eyed, handed her into the SUV with the same stock line about being so sorry, she said, “I was in love, but he was never in love with me.”
Rachel cried again in the studio watching the footage, but she assured Jesse it wasn’t because she had any lingering feelings for Clayton. She had been blindsided and robbed of a chance to stand up for herself, she said.
She sure put that to rights when Clayton came onstage.
Rachel did not take one bit of crap from Clayton, not even a little bit.
“I became collateral damage in your journey for love,” Rachel told Clayton. “That was the most completely selfish journey.” Bang on, again.
Clayton sounded like he was reading off cue cards when he gave her a variation of the “I’m incredibly sorry” speech.
“I just don’t believe you,” Rachel retorted to applause.
Like Gabby, she blasted him for leaving out the part about loving Susie the most in his double declaration of love for Rachel and Gabby, asking him point blank, “Did you tell me you were in love with me because you wanted to sleep with me?”
Clayton said no, but you can draw your own conclusion.
And what of Susie, still in Iceland in our timeline?
After Jesse hand-delivered a syrupy letter from Clayton — “Without you I am nothing and with you I have everything” — Susie put on her glad rags and met Clayton in some house in the countryside as rain spit and wind whipped.
He showed her the diamond ring that was burning a hole in his pocket and vowed to prove his love to her if she gave him one more chance. And Susie said no thank you, basically telling him he was more into her than she was into him, and she was leaving Iceland alone and it was over, like over over.
Look, I don’t hate Clayton and I don’t get off on seeing people in pain, but it would have been a slap in the face if Susie had said yes. A man who can’t tell the difference between love, like, lust and lies — or worse, was following a script set out by reality TV producers — doesn’t deserve to get engaged.
So it was a shock and kind of a bummer to learn that Susie had gone back to him.
Susie and Clayton reunited and no, it doesn’t feel that good.
Clayton was blathering on to Jesse about how everything he did was because he was following his heart and he had become a better person because he learned so much. Maybe he even meant it, but I never got the sense he truly understood just what he put those women through.
But Susie said she loved him, and she’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions, even though I think her boyfriend is a tool.
Mercifully there was no surprise engagement, even though Jesse kept drawing attention to Neil Lane being in the audience, but Clayton did give Susie his final rose. And yeah, OK, fine. But if you’re expecting happy tears over that, you’re SOL.
I did, however, have happy tears over the Bachelorette announcement.
The most beautiful thing to come out of the shit show that was Part 1 of the finale was seeing the bond between Rachel and Gabby. So yeah, even though I have no idea how it’s going to work, I am totally cool with them sharing the next “Bachelorette” season.
Unfortunately, we don’t know what the franchise is going to throw at them, i.e. what kind of dorks it’s going to cast in the name of drama. But Rachel and Gabby have proven they’re capable of cutting through the BS, so fingers crossed they’ll be OK.
This has been a horrible season. Clayton was the worst Bachelor ever, no contest, and ABC had no business casting him. Was his lack of insight and self-awareness part of his charm for the producers? Or did it really come down to casting him because some grade school kids liked him?
It’s Door No. 1, I’m sure, but it’s basically a moot point because our collective outrage has only fuelled interest in the show.
Clayton, by clownishly claiming to love three women at the same time — so basically doing exactly what the format plays at — has made it blindingly clear just how ridiculous the format is. But I have no expectation that will lead to any substantial change. Unlike Clayton, the franchise hasn’t even said it’s sorry.
Oh, and one more kick in the pants: we learned that Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams are out as hosts of “The Bachelorette” and Jesse is coming back.
But yes, more fool us, we’ll watch anyway.
That’s it for me, recap-wise, until “The Bachelorette” starts on July 11. But I’ll still be posting my weekly Watchable lists. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
A rare moment on “The Bachelor: The Women Tell All” when the women weren’t yelling at each other. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
Did you think you were going to get some catharsis on the “Women Tell All” episode of “The Bachelor”? Not a chance.
A shit show of a season produced a a shit show of a “Tell All” that was at times a free-for-all of women yelling at each other. And by the end of it I was more annoyed with this ridiculous franchise, not less.
A large chunk of the first 45 minutes (minus commercials) was occupied by talk from or about uber-villain Shanae or, as Sierra called her, “a narcissistic, gaslighting beotch.”
Shanae in her “red flag” dress in the hot seat.
Make that a beotch who got to defend herself in the hot seat, complete with softball questions from host Jesse Palmer, clearly out of his depth.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. But it’s a travesty that the nastiest thing that Shanae did — suggesting Elizabeth was faking her ADHD and mocking her for the condition — was left out of Shanae’s clips reel. Nor was Elizabeth given equal time to defend herself.
I guess it doesn’t matter in the end because Shanae stuck to the same playbook she employed the rest of the season: attack, lie and make herself out to be the victim.
She even added a new lie, accusing Genevieve of having sex with “Bachelorette” and “Paradise” alumni Aaron Clancy after she got eliminated. (Genevieve says she didn’t and, even if she had, who cares?)
A real host would have called Shanae on her nonsense. Jesse? Hell, he actually thanked her, along with Genevieve, who joined her in the hot seat, for being “open and honest” with him.
My guess is Mike Fleiss and his minions are already preparing Shanae’s “Bachelor in Paradise” contract. You think they give a crap that people are tweeting and begging them not to bring her to Paradise? That’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
And speaking of red flags, that word came out of Shanae’s mouth in relation to other contestants; also her favourite, “fake”; pretty much everything but “sorry,” as in sorry for lying and generally acting like, well, what everybody kept calling her: a bitch.
But Shanae got as good as she gave, though.
Genevieve bringing some unintentional levity to the Shanae fray.
Besides repeatedly being called a bitch, she was called “one of the most disgusting human beings I’ve ever met in my life” by Hunter. When she stood up to walk onstage, the women snarked that her ass looked terrible. “Are you wearing a diaper?” called out Genevieve.
“From the bottom of my heart, fuck you, Shanae,” Lyndsey told her. “You can go rot in Ohio for all I care.”
I know all of us watching were supposed to find this thrilling. I mean, how exciting, a bunch of women yelling nasty things at each other and Jesse sitting there like a deer caught in headlights, barely able to rein them in. Ha, ha, what fun!
But it’s just more sleight of hand by the producers to distract us from the real issue: that this franchise is in thrall to drama, that its masterminds would rather give us episode after episode of women behaving badly than focus on what the show’s supposed to be about.
And even the supposedly nice women get brainwashed into upholding the franchise’s sexist standards.
The other contestant who got yelled at on “Women Tell All” was Cassidy, for having a boy toy back home and not forswearing him to devote herself heart and soul to Clayton. Cassidy said the sex was good and “I wasn’t gonna cut it off unless I was engaged.” And why should she?
And if Genevieve had decided to sleep with Aaron after running into him at a bar, why not if they were both into it?
Teddi would make a fine pick for Bachelorette.
The closest the episode got to a healthy conversation about sex and commitment was when Teddi was in the hot seat. Obviously her virginity was up for discussion, because that’s another thing this franchise has a puerile fascination with.
If she had made it to fantasy suites, Clayton might have been her first, she said.
“Society puts a lot of pressure on women that it changes who they are if they lose their virginity. I don’t feel that,” Teddi said.
“I think it’s OK if someone wants to wait until marriage. I think it’s OK if someone wants to have sex every weekend.”
Teddi and Serene were both breaths of fresh air in the hot seat: utterly uninterested in throwing anyone under the bus. Either one would make a great pick for the next Bachelorette.
Bachelor Clayton and host Jesse bracing for the next onslaught from the women.
And then there was Clayton Echard himself who, confusingly, said he wished he had done things differently but also that he had no regrets because “I had all the best intentions with all my actions I took.”
Sierra called him on that right away.
“I don’t know, Clayton,” she said.
“Why neglect all of the words you’re hearing from all of these wonderful women? We’re all telling you that Shanae is toxic and she’s hurting the entire house. Then she does this one fake apology.
“You chose to believe her over all of us. Like why? It doesn’t make sense?”
Neither did Clayton’s answer.
He claimed he hadn’t yet “built trust” with the women who complained about Shanae. When that didn’t fly, he admitted to having a connection with Shanae. And then he called her stunt of throwing away a group date trophy “indefensible” except, as Jill pointed out, he still kept Shanae around after that.
It all makes perfect sense, of course, if he was following producers’ instructions and keeping her long enough for the two-on-one date in Toronto, but it’s not like he would ever confess to that.
I could go on and talk about Sarah (Clayton said he absolutely did not cry on any of his dates with her, contradicting what she told Jesse earlier), or the fact that he apologized to Serene for holding back his emotions with her (it was the absolute least he could do), or that Dr. Kira hit on him, saying she’d been more and more attracted to Clayton with every episode she watched (were we watching the same show?), but I can’t be bothered. If you’re interested you can find the episode on demand and see all that for yourself.
The hollow feeling I’ve had all season was still there Monday night by the time they cued up the promo, the one that’s supposed to get us pumped for tonight’s fantasy suites episode and next week’s finale.
“The most dramatic finale in Bachelor history,” Jesse said. “How does it end? I was there and I still have no idea.”
The armadillo had the good sense to run away.
Maybe it will be the most dramatic ever, but it’s hard to care at this point. Let’s just get it over with and then we can all scuttle away like the armadillo we saw in the end credits.
You can watch tonight at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
Michelle Young on the beach in Mexico on proposal day on “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHO MICHELLE PICKED ON THE BACHELORETTE FINALE, STOP READING NOW!
You could say Michelle Young’s season finale was a textbook end to a “Bachelorette” season in the sense that she dropped the guy who seemed perfect for her and kept the one who was raising red flags.
That producers made it look like Brandon Jones stood a chance of getting the girl is another feather in their caps, I suppose, although it did seem inevitable that someone so heart-on-his-sleeve sincere was bound to be disappointed.
And oh boy, was he disappointed. On a scale of one to 10, the emotional brutality of that breakup was like a 20.
It always seems so pointlessly cruel to let a dude walk up in his best suit, an engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket, give a flowery speech declaring his love and then have the Bachelorette tell him sorry, I’m just not that into you.
You have to assume she knows where her heart lies before she hits the beach, or wherever the proposal happens, so why not head off the unlucky runner-up at the pass?
Well, for the drama, that’s why. And on Tuesday, we got to watch a solid eight minutes of agony, both his and hers, as Michelle told Brandon — just after he told her she was the “missing piece” he’d been searching for his entire life — that her heart had taken her in another direction.
But don’t worry, Brandon told host Kaitlyn Bristowe on “After the Final Rose” that he’s doing good and that he wants Michelle and Nayte Olukoya to be happy, and he seemed like he meant it.
As for Nayte, yes, I was as skeptical as the next person. How does a dude who claims never to have been in love before, who comes from an emotionally constipated family, make a lifetime commitment to someone he’s known for mere weeks when no one else seems to believe he’s ready for it?
Well, Michelle is a really smart woman and if she says Nayte is in it for the long haul, who the hell are we to doubt her?
In any event, the producers seem to have so much faith in the relationship that they gave Michelle and Nayte a $200,000 down payment for a house on “ATFR” — in Minnesota naturally, you think she was going to move for a guy?
Let’s just hope they patronize a different grocery store than the one used by Joe Coleman and his family.
Anyway, let’s backtrack and recount how Michelle got to her happy ending.
If you’d tuned in just for the “meet the family” part of the finale you would have been shocked as hell that Brandon lost.
Has a family ever loved a member of the final two as much as Michelle’s family loved Brandon? It seems unlikely.
They had already met him, of course, during that one-on-one in Minneapolis when her parents “surprised” Michelle and Brandon in the hot tub in her folks’ backyard. And Brandon charmingly brought dad Ephraim a pair of swim trunks to replace the ones he’d borrowed that day.
Brandon couldn’t have answered his and mom LaVonne’s questions any more agreeably if he’d had somebody from production coaching him on the sidelines.
No, he wouldn’t be threatened by Michelle finishing her master’s degree and becoming a school principal. “My mom in my family is the powerful woman.”
Yes, he was in love with Michelle, “the most incredible woman I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
Yes, he’d be thrilled to move to Minnesota. “I just want to marry her so bad.”
LaVonne Young bestows a welcome-to-the-family kiss on Brandon Jones.
LaVonne bestowed not one, but two cheek kisses on Brandon and beamed, “I would be so happy if you’re here in the end.”
Brandon was the “best friend” that Mom and Pop wanted her to marry.
And Nayte’s time with the Young fam? Awkward, at least the way it was edited.
He was vague about moving to Minnesota, telling Michelle’s sister Angela, “The thing about me is I’m all about the adventure. I’ve moved so many times in my life.”
To LaVonne, he said things like, “My mind and heart are definitely pointing at Michelle,” not exactly a declaration of undying love.
LaVonne told him point blank she didn’t think he was ready to get engaged and shared that sentiment with Michelle, which had Michelle saying she had to “reassess” things with Nayte.
Naturally that meant that when it came to the final dates with the final two, Brandon got the chill zooming around on Jet Skis date and Nayte got the uncomfortable “sacred ritual to make you spill your guts” date.
Brandon got the sun, fun and surf date; Nayte not so much.
There’s no point rehashing all the smiles, smooches and declarations of Brandon’s true, true love on his date. The most significant part — other than Brandon gifting Michelle with the sweatshirt he’d been wearing when they had their fantasy suite food fight — was her telling Brandon she was in love with him too.
Up till that point, the fact Michelle was already “in love” with Nayte but just “falling” with Brandon made the ending seem like a foregone conclusion.
I would never accuse Michelle of telling a fib — she seems far too principled for that — but what a gift to production! Despite Nayte having been the clear favourite for weeks, maybe Brandon did have a chance of being the last man standing or so it seemed.
Raul guides Michelle and Nayte in telling each other how they feel.
On their date, Michelle took Nayte to a “sacred place” where a shaman named Raul got them to waft smoke on each other and share their innermost feelings, although he sensed a “blockage” in Nayte.
Well duh, the man had already confessed to being raised in a home where emotions weren’t expressed and “I love you” wasn’t said. It takes more than sacred smoke to counteract that. And I get that you have to go beyond platitudes if you’re planning to marry somebody, but this show makes almost a fetish of the concept of “vulnerability.”
Michelle said in her voice-over that if Nayte stopped trying to pull down his walls it would be a “deal breaker.” Dunh dunh dunh.
Luckily, Nayte was more forthcoming when he and Michelle were alone in his suite. “All I do, all I do is think about life with you, that’s all I do,” he told her. “I think what’s scary is just looking at you right now knowing like, hey, I might wake up tomorrow and just never be able to see you again, you know? That’s scary as hell.
“So as crazy as it is for me to get down on one knee, I am more than ready to do that with you because I want this to be forever, you know?”
She did know. She left Nayte’s room saying, “I think my heart is telling me that this is my person.”
So Brandon was a goner then except, conveniently, there was a letter from Brandon waiting when Michelle got back to her suite — and I don’t blame the conspiracy theorists out there for suspecting production wrote it for him.
It talked about how “a world without you is a world I fear to face” and how he’d always place her happiness above his and he’d love her forever and he’d always see her, etc. Just the sort of thing you want to read the night before you dump someone.
So the narrative the next day, as Nayte and Brandon picked out engagement rings, was that Michelle was confused and her heart torn.
Production threw one more red herring our way by having Michelle say in voice-over as we watched her walk barefoot across the sand to the proposal platform that she was following her heart and was “never going to feel unseen again,” a clear callback to the words in Brandon’s letter.
But of course it was Brandon’s SUV that pulled up first.
Michelle and Brandon tearfully embrace after she dropped her bombshell.
There were so many heartbreaking moments to choose from as Michelle broke up with Brandon, while reassuring him that she still loved him — at least the ones we could hear since the crashing waves drowned out much of the sound, leading viewers to scramble to turn on closed captions.
“Giving you my heart was worth it. It’s something I’ll never regret,” said Brandon while struggling to hold back tears. But tears there were, many, on both their parts.
“I’m just so broken,” he said and there was nothing fake about that.
Michelle had dried her tears by the time Nayte arrived, vowing to make sure she was “always chosen first, seen now and today, tomorrow and for the rest of our lives.”
“I love you with my entire heart,” Michelle told him, adding that her soul mate “is definitely standing right in front of me.”
Yes, of course Nayte proposed to Michelle.
Nayte got down on one knee, pulled out the pear-shaped Neil Lane sparkler he’d chosen, and they were engaged and giddy with happiness.
“This is my soul Nayte,” declared Michelle.
A mariachi band serenaded them, and Kaitlyn and Tayshia Adams ran down the beach cheering to congratulate them (I must say I always get a kick out of that part).
So are they still happy and in love?
It sure looked that way on “After the Final Rose,” which Kaitlyn hosted solo since Tayshia had been exposed to COVID-19.
Michelle reassured Kaitlyn and everybody else that not only was Nayte continuing to let his guard down in their relationship, “he’s more vulnerable than me.”
“I really can say I’ve never been with somebody who makes me feel so beautiful truly inside and out,” Michelle said.
Perhaps, most importantly, mom LaVonne and the rest of the Young clan had fallen in love with Nayte too. And LaVonne was now “besties” with Nayte’s mom. They were in the live studio audience, which went from unmasked to masked about 40 minutes in after viewers complained about the lack of COVID precautions on Twitter.
So simmer down, doubters. Nayte might not have been your pick, but he and Michelle seem as happy as any couple who got together on a dating show can be. Plus he’s Canadian, so I have to support him, eh?
Now, for Brandon. And I apologize for the length of this recap, but damn you to hell three-hour finales!
Brandon and Michelle reunite for the first time since their breakup.
He was gracious while speaking with both Kaitlyn and Michelle, saying he’d always love Michelle but was thankful she’d found her person.
The only hint of frustration came when he said he felt “like a little bit my love was overlooked” and found it confusing that “you really had to push Nayte to that point . . . you never had to push me.”
Maybe we’ll see Brandon again on “Bachelor in Paradise” next summer, although part of me feels like he’s too pure for it.
Speaking of seeing people again, Kaitlyn also brought out the next Bachelor, Clayton Echard, “a man who does need an introduction because nobody knows who he is.”
That’s not true, though. We all know who Clayton is, at least on a surface level. We just don’t understand how he got to be the Bachelor.
Kaitlyn had Clayton read mean tweets about himself, some of which viewers thought were fake.
I will say that Clayton was a good sport. “I kind of wanted this too,” he said in response to the tweet “All I want for Christmas is for Rodney to be the Bachelor. #SantaSucks.” And he laughed really hard at one that read, “I hope Clayton uses protection in the fantasy suites, otherwise 9 months later there are gonna be a lot of baby Shreks running around.”
We also saw the steamy, bitchy, tear-filled promo for Clayton’s season, the one that gives away all the drama by revealing that he told all of the final three he loved them and was “intimate” with at least the final two.
Who am I kidding? I may not be excited about it the new season, but I’ll be recapping it, starting with the Jan. 3 premiere. So check back here Jan. 4 and, until then, have a safe, happy holiday.
Nayte Olukoya, Joe Coleman, Rodney Mathews and Brandon Jones wait to learn their fate on the hometowns episode of “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Sjodin/ABC
You could say the hometowns episode of “The Bachelorette” came down to an apple vs. a guy in orange shorts. Michelle Young tossed the man who will forever be known for dressing as an apple on Night 1 while the man who donned orange swim trunks on their date, the one we were meant to think she was having doubts about, maintained his frontrunner status.
I mean it’s hard to drum up drama when you have a final four that seems this benevolent, and not a mean brother or rude mother in the bunch among the families that Michelle met.
The closest we got to hometown conflict was when Nayte’s stepdad expressed doubt that Nayte was ready for an engagement, which set up the narrative that Michelle was “struggling” as she went into the rose ceremony with the fear that Nayte would break her heart.
But there was no way she was going to send the season’s frontrunner home; ditto for Brandon, since Michelle told him she was falling for him. And was she really going to ditch Joe after he threw her a prom?
So that left Rodney Mathews, the down-to-earth, good-natured fellow who wormed his way into viewers’ hearts.
I always figure you can tell a lot about a man by how he makes his exit. “I’m always gonna care about you, Michelle, like forever,” Rodney said. “You’re amazing Michelle, so thank you.” And he kissed her hand before he got into the SUV.
That’s class. And I don’t want to belabour the point, but like a lot of other people I’m wondering why we couldn’t have had Rodney for a Bachelor instead of Clayton Echard, whom ABC finally confirmed as its next male star.
While I had hoped we might get actual hometown dates this week, instead the men’s families came to Minneapolis.
First up was Brandon, who hails from Portland, Oregon.
Michelle gets a skateboarding lesson from Brandon Jones. My apologies for the crappy screen grabs, but ABC’s photo selection for the episode was really paltry.
The less said about the skateboarding part of the date the better. Whatever skills Brandon had gained from skating with his whole family deserted him with Michelle around and yes, it did make him look 14.
Skating around Brandon’s mother Carmen, father David and brother Noah was way easier. Noah was playing the skeptic of the group, but Michelle told him she could 100 per cent see herself with Brandon. She won David over by talking fishing and basketball. And she assured Carmen she could see who Brandon really was “and that’s why Brandon is still here, because I truly love who that person is.”
Speaking of love, Michelle told Brandon, “After today it is very clear to me that I am falling for you.” Combine that with the fact there was so much goodbye smooching that they were still lip-locked as Michelle sat in the back of the van and Brandon seemed like a shoo-in for a rose.
Next it was Rodney’s turn to take Michelle spiritually if not physically to Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., but they picked apples and Rodney fed Michelle apples blindfolded, callbacks both to the first night and their one-on-one date.
Michelle was clearly the apple of Rodney Mathew’s eye during their hometown.
If you didn’t know any better it would be easy to think Rodney stood a real shot at a rose. Michelle leapt on him and kissed him and told him she missed him. She said Rodney could be the “best friend” her parents had told her she should end up with. We never heard Michelle say she was falling for him, however.
When his mom, Carrie, asked Michelle if she could create a life with Rodney outside “The Bachelorette,” the best Michelle could come up with was that Rodney was the type of person she’d want to be stuck in an airport with for five hours if their flight got cancelled.
So yeah, I get why Carrie was fearing the worst for her son with three other men in the running, but Rodney told her Michelle was worth the risk.
Perhaps Joe, on the other hand, already had a leg up, since he shared his hometown of Minneapolis with Michelle, but he had the best non-family date activity hands down. He took Michelle to prom at his old high school complete with fancy clothes, snacks, balloons, dancing, a photo booth, king and queen sashes and crowns and, with no chaperones, all the smooching they wanted.
The prom do-over that Joe Coleman (and production) planned made Michelle happy.
This was a callback to Michelle’s group date spoken-word poem in which she said she was the last picked for prom, as well as the fact Joe had never gone to one.
“You’ll always be first with me,” Joe told her.
“Joe really sees me and understands me,” Michelle said.
The tough cookie at the family meet-and-greet was meant to be Joe’s sister-in-law, Hanna, but once again the family was putty in Michelle’s hands.
She told Hanna Joe was her “little slice of home away from home” and Hanna decided that Michelle had the kind of strength and energy that Joe needed in his life. Although she also said, “I hope this works out because we will see her in the grocery store.”
The last supposed obstacle was that Joe hadn’t told Michelle how he felt about her yet, but he rectified that: “I am falling in love with you and I feel like you’re that special person for me.”
Finally, it was the turn of Nayte, a Winnipeg native who now calls Austin, Texas home.
Nayte Olukoya put on the orange swim trunks that Michelle said she liked for their date.
The paddleboarding was an entertaining enough diversion for Michelle, but the main event was meeting Nayte’s mom Leanna and stepdad Charles, who were divorced but had come together just to support Nayte — or Nathaniel, as they called him.
Nayte had warned Michelle that his family wasn’t into talking about emotions — “no heart to hearts, no I love you’s” — so it was pretty remarkable to watch Nayte and Charles do both those things, apparently for the first time ever.
Charles, who had come into Nayte’s life when he was in Grade 9, told Nayte what an amazing journey it had been to watch him “grow up to be you.”
“Never doubt that I’m proud of you . . . never, ever, ever doubt that I love you and never doubt that I’m here for you,” Charles said.
Nayte thanked him for everything.
“I’m gonna have a family one day and I want to be who you were to me for them,” said Nayte, with tears in his eyes.
“You’ll be even better than me,” Charles replied.
If nothing else ever comes of Nayte meeting Michelle, that’s a moment to treasure right there.
But for purposes of plot development, the important conversation was between Michelle and Charles when she asked if Nayte was ready for an engagement and Charles replied, “I don’t know if he’s gonna get to that point.”
Then again, who knows if that answer actually had anything to do with Michelle’s question, given the magic of editing, although Nayte himself told his mom he wasn’t quite there yet.
The day of the rose ceremony, Michelle had an extraneous visit from her former “Bachelor” mates Bri Springs and Serena Pitt, which boiled down to Michelle telling them it was going to be tough to send one of her final four home since they were “the best guys I’ve met in my entire life.” And maybe she’d get her heart broken at the end. Well, duh.
When the time came, Michelle handed roses to Brandon, Nayte and Joe and you know the rest.
Next week it’s back to a Monday night schedule with “Men Tell All.” ABC also promoted Clayton’s “Bachelor” season for the first time, which starts Jan. 3. My assessment, based on the clips, is that they’ve brought on some mean girls to compensate for what would otherwise be the deadly dullness of the season.
You can tune in next Monday at 9 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
Michelle Young gets milking lessons with Nayte, Rodney, Martin, Olu and Joe on “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
Michelle Young, who’s just the fourth Black lead in 43 combined “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” seasons, picked her final four in Tuesday’s episode and they’re all men of colour for the first time in franchise history.
It’s just too bad that milestone is being overshadowed by the choice of yet another dull white guy as the next Bachelor.
The good news is that on Tuesday Bachelor Nation finally got its first clue as to why Clayton Echard got the call (still to be officially confirmed by ABC). The bad news is that either ABC is letting fifth graders make its casting decisions or it’s manipulating children.
The kids — four students who’d been taught by Michelle — had the task of choosing one of the remaining eight men for a one-on-one date and they picked Clayton.
No sense getting down on the kids. Clayton did build them a fort out of sheets, pillows and overturned furniture. And as student Luke said, “Clayton has really big muscles. He’d be really good at carrying the groceries in” — definitely a useful skill in a husband.
The kids were also perceptive about who didn’t deserve Miss Young’s time.
“I don’t really like Martin,” said Kelsey. “I don’t know how to explain it. He’s trying to show off. I don’t know if he’s the right one for Michelle and he wears too much cologne.”
Well, that’s bang on.
The kids, if it was indeed the kids, also planned one of the best dates we’ve seen all season, sending Michelle and Clayton to the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota for a real-life Night at the Museum — minus the exhibits that come to life.
Unfortunately for Clayton, fort-building skills and making up his own animal mating call weren’t enough to snag him a rose and a hometown date.
Clayton Echard and Michelle spent the evening in a natural history museum.
Let’s be honest though, that was a given. Sure, he earned the group date rose on last week’s episode, but with guys like Nayte, Joe, Brandon, Rick and Rodney in the running for hometowns Clayton had an insurmountable amount of catching up to do.
Michelle said he checked all the boxes as far as desirable qualities, but “giving out this rose means I’m ready to meet your family and I don’t feel that I’m able to get there with you in time.”
So what made the producers fall in love with him? His muscles? His earnest confession about being ready to settle down and have a family after five years of focusing on his job to the exclusion of all else?
They key moment in the campaign to win fans over to Clayton came after he’d been eliminated and he got letters from two of the kids urging him not to be sad that Miss Young didn’t choose him, which made him cry and vow he’d do whatever it takes to have a family of his own.
Thoughts: why only two letters, was the vote for Clayton not unanimous? (Ahmed, for instance, seemed partial to Rodney and his shaved nipples.)
These letters seemed about as genuine as the wishes that Michelle and Rick pulled out of a wish box on their date but, even if they were real, Luke and Kelsey wouldn’t have written them without guidance from production.
Jayleen and Kelsey, two members of the Bachelor selection committee.
“You will probably meet someone else and fall in love and have lots of kids and be a great dad,” wrote Kelsey, stopping just short of “And you’ll be the next Bachelor.” Just to hammer the point home, the end credits showed Jayleen, impressed that Clayton let her paint his fingernails red, telling a producer, “He’ll be the next Bachelor.”
Yeah, OK, we get it.
Time to move on to what the point of the season is supposed to be: Michelle finding a husband.
To that end, she took Rick, Rodney, Nayte, Joe, Martin and Olu on a farm date, ostensibly also picked by the kids, on which they milked cows, bottle fed calves, churned butter and shovelled shit.
But the real poop got flung around at the after-party. Martin — still pontificating about his “miscommunication” with Michelle over his sexist comment that Miami women were high maintenance — told Rick and Olu that Michelle had not been paying attention, which was “why she perceived everything a little bit incorrectly.”
“There’s a lot of things that have made me question what she really stands for, I guess,” Martin said. And then he mentioned Michelle’s group date poem, the one in which she shared her hurt at being the “token Black girl” at school, and said it showed there was “something deep inside her that maybe she hasn’t worked past and I think that’s immature.”
Michelle in one of her final conversations with Martin Gelbspan.
Martin, of course, despite his boast that he was brutally honest, didn’t share any of that BS with Michelle but just blah blahed about how she was an amazing woman and he wanted to introduce her to his family and friends.
But Olu spilled the tea — “I just want that right man for you,” he said and I believed him — and Michelle confronted Martin.
Martin at first denied the “immature” comment and then tried to spin it as being about the “difference between being insecure and having insecurities,” which doesn’t even make sense. And he kept talking over Michelle, then apologized for “maybe speaking over you” when she called him on it.
I doubt Martin would have got a hometown rose even if Olu hadn’t spoken up, but it was nice to see Michelle put him in his place before showing him the door.
The real Martin came out in the SUV of Shame. Michelle was making a mistake, he said, but “at this point I wouldn’t even care to give her a shot . . . like a woman like that does not deserve my time.”
Can’t wait to see you get your misogynistic ass handed to you at Men Tell All, dude.
Both butter and Michelle were putty in Nayte Olukoya’s hands.
In any event, the only man who was getting the rose on the group date was Nayte, and it wasn’t for his butter churning or the fact he put his back out on manure duty. He told Michelle he was “definitely, seriously, strongly falling for you” and she replied that she was “really tumbling down a hill so fast falling for you as well.”
So if he wasn’t before, Nayte is now the man to beat.
Next up was a one-on-one with Brandon, the main event of which was Michelle taking him to her childhood home while her parents were out.
Brandon Jones and Michelle before her parents “caught” them.
We’re supposed to believe that Michelle’s idea to hang out in her parents’ Jacuzzi, with Brandon in a borrowed pair of her dad’s trunks no less, was spontaneous and that it was a complete coincidence that her folks surprised them there mid-smooch. As if.
To be honest, I’ve always found Brandon’s intensity when it comes to wooing Michelle a little unsettling and, on Tuesday, he dialled it up to 11 by asking for her folks’ permission to marry her — like, bro, you didn’t even know yet if you were getting a hometown date!
The sentimentality continued at dinner, where Brandon talked about how much he wished Michelle could have met his late grandfather, who was his best friend, and gifted her a bracelet that his mom made for him to give Michelle “if I truly think that you’re the one.”
“Michelle Ann Young, I’m falling in love with you,” he declared.
Michelle handed over the rose, obviously, telling Brandon “I can see you being my best friend.”
She also said, “It’s very possible that I could fall in love with Brandon,” but she won’t and man, is he going to be crushed when he gets sent home.
All that was left to do was hand out the other two roses, which Michelle did after cancelling the cocktail party, a move that’s always supposed to come as a shock but never does.
Obviously her fellow Minnesotan Joe Coleman — of whom she said after the farm date, “Clearly Joe knows how to handle tests” — was a lock for a hometown. I figured it was between Rick and Rodney for the final rose and it was Rodney’s.
Despite how much Bachelor Nation loves Olu — and they’ve been lobbying for weeks for him as Bachelor instead of Clayton — he never had a one-on-one with Michelle, a clear indication he wasn’t her guy.
When Michelle said letting Rick and Olu go was her “most difficult goodbye yet,” you believed her.
On to hometowns — and will Michelle actually go to their hometowns? — and an assortment of skeptical family members.
You can tune in next Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
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