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Tag: final four

A Bachelor is born and a final 4 picked on The Bachelorette

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

The Bachelorette brings cuddles, risqué art and a final 4 surprise

This date with Michael, Blake, Andrew and Justin (and artist Jacqueline Secor) was supposedly inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. It felt more like “Sex and the City.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC

Well, whaddaya know? “The Bachelorette” can still surprise us. Monday’s episode was about an hour and 40 minutes of “yeah, duh” followed by 20 minutes of WTF when a favourite got sent home, then appeared to come back but went home for real in the end.

First for the “yeah, duh” part. Katie Thurston had seven fellows still hanging around when the episode began, but two of these things were not like the others. Mike the Virgin and Brendan hadn’t had one-on-one dates. In fact, Brendan hadn’t even talked to her at the rose ceremony or the group date before that but, bless him, he was chatting with the other guys about hometowns as if he had a chance in hell of getting one.

His already flimsy hopes became even sketchier when Greg became the first dude to get a second one-on-one (more on that later). And when the episode’s other one-on-one went to Mike (more on that later too), Brendan asked the question that all of Bachelor Nation had been asking week after week: “Why am I still here?”

Give him points for going straight to the source by heading to Katie’s suite. I think in his mind he was going to tell Katie how much he wanted her to meet his family and drink beer with his dad and she’d be all “That sounds awesome!” In actual fact, Katie was still drying off after her date with Greg (yes, I’ll explain) and looked like even she couldn’t remember who Brendan was when he knocked on her door (after an emergency swipe of lip balm).

Since you might be wondering who Brendan is, this is him in a previous episode with Katie.

Bottom line: Katie gave Brendan the standard you’re-a-great-guy-but speech and sent him home on the spot. He departed with minimal fuss, stopping to say goodbye to fellow Canadian Blake Moynes first.

Now back to Katie and Greg.

All you really need to know is that they showed up wearing a similar shade of green shirt, just like on their first one-on-one way back at the beginning of the season when they wore matching plaid shirts over hoodies.

Other things to know: they threw large fish at each other in an approximation of what happens at the famous Pike Place Market in Seattle, Katie’s hometown. They also shucked oysters together, badly, and shared a bubble-gum kiss in honour of the famous Seattle Gum Wall, which I have to say is kind of gross (the real wall, not necessarily what Katie and Greg were doing).

Katie and Greg blow bubbles in front of an imitation of the Seattle Gum Wall.

I don’t get the people who tweet that they don’t think Greg is that into Katie because, if so, he has me fooled.

There was talk of Greg’s difficulty with the “Bachelorette” process, the fact he sometimes felt insecure and that Katie sometimes worried that he’d leave, but he told her, “I honestly feel like the luckiest guy in the world. You just amaze me in every way. If we do move forward into next week I am really excited to show my family the girl I’m falling in love with.”

“I hope you know how I feel,” answered Katie before handing over the rose and a guaranteed hometown date.

To complete the Seattle theme, Greg and Katie kissed — and kissed and kissed — and got soaking wet under torrents of fake rain. “I think that I’ve found the love of my life,” Greg said in his voice-over.

“Flowery with a twist”

For the final group date of the season, Katie took Michael, Justin, Andrew and Blake to an “art exhibit,” but all the canvases were of flowers that looked like lady parts, or “flowers that aren’t just flowers,” in Justin’s words. “Flowery with a twist,” was how Blake put it.

Although it wasn’t stated in the episode, the paintings were supposedly an homage to Georgia O’Keeffe, the famous artist who made her home in New Mexico, where the season is being filmed. Truth be told, they reminded me of that “Sex and the City” episode in which Charlotte is invited to sit for an artist who paints vaginas. But I digress.

Michael and Andrew ponder art and life on the group date.

The guys had to make their own art: Michael sculpted a replica of Katie’s butt; Justin painted a rose and what looked like little ghost people; Andrew painted, um, sushi, except one of the pieces had teeth and a tongue; and Blake painted something that apparently was so dirty it had to be blacked out.

With that bit of silliness over, it was on to the after-party and, with only four guys on the date, everybody got conversation and kisses.

Blake told Katie that he wasn’t in love with her, “but the way that we’re going it’s fucking inevitable.”

Michael worried throughout the episode whether Katie would fit in with his son, James, and his former in-laws, whom he “takes care of,” but she reassured him, “If it’s us in the end, that’s all that matters and we’ll figure it out as we go,” and also that every rose she gave Michael was also a rose for James. “I can assure you that no one can love you like I can,” Michael told her.

Justin gave Katie a painting of butterflies and a blue rose, and she said she felt “110 per cent myself” with him.

Andrew recreated his and Katie’s one-on-one date with strings of lights and a suspended pink envelope. The note inside said, “I’m falling for you.” And Andrew added, “I really am.” Based on the way Katie kissed him after he said it you might have thought she was falling for him too. But it was Michael who got the date rose and the second guaranteed hometown.

“At some point every boy has to move on”

You might wonder what the point was of Mike getting a one-on-one date when it was certain that he didn’t stand a chance of getting a hometown rose. All became clear when a woman known as “Cuddle Queen Jean” greeted Katie and Mike in the woods and guided them into various poses that involved bodily contact. Would producers pass up the chance to make the season’s token virgin do something that might make him uncomfortable? Yeah, duh.

Sorry, ABC had no photos of Mike and Katie on the cuddle date. You’ll have to settle for this one.

Indeed, both Mike and Katie seemed rather uncomfortable given all the nervous laughter when they first began hugging and spooning, but then Mike relaxed because Katie is “a nurturer and man, do I love nurturers! She reminds me of my mom.”

Yes, that’s correct, Mike putting his body next to Katie’s put him in mind of his mom’s cuddles.

“Katie’s a better cuddler, there’s no question about it,” said Mike. “My mom’s gonna hate me for saying that, but at some point every boy has to move on.”

Mike even whispered “You remind me of my mom” to Katie while he was lying behind her with his arms around her. To Katie’s credit, she didn’t run off screaming right away, but she did let Mike go before they made it as far as dinner.

I have to say Mike was very gracious in his exit. “I’m bummed I don’t get to experience life with you. It doesn’t mean I’m not gonna be rooting for you,” he said.

“She knows what husband she’s looking for . . . it’s not me”

With Mike and Brendan gone, and Greg and Michael already in possession of roses, it seemed obvious that Blake and Andrew would make up the rest of the final four. Sure, Katie liked Justin, but his one-on-one had come late in the game, and she and Andrew seemed to have bonded over their difficult childhoods.

Greg, Michael, Justin, Andrew and Blake at the rose ceremony.

I actually expected Andrew to get the first rose at the ceremony, but it went to Blake and then Katie gave the final rose to . . . Justin?

With tears rolling down both their cheeks, Katie told Andrew she was building stronger connections with the other men “and you deserve more than what I can give you.”

“It’s bittersweet, but just know that I will forever hold you dear to my heart,” Andrew told her.

It kind of makes it worse when the men are so damn nice despite getting their hearts stomped on.

In the SUV of Shame, Andrew said, “She knows what husband she’s looking for and who that’s gonna be, it’s not me so . . .” wiping away tears.

Katie was a crying mess and, since there were still about 15 minutes left in the episode and she was telling some faceless producer that she wasn’t fully confident about the decision she’d made, it seemed obvious Andrew was going to return.

And return he did, knocking on Katie’s door the next day and telling her he came back so they could part with smiles instead of tears. As they hugged goodbye yet again, Andrew gave her an envelope and told her to open it when he was gone. Inside was a note that read: “If you change your mind . . . I’ll be waiting.”

Cue Katie running down the hall, following Andrew down the stairs and leaping into his arms when she caught up to him, as dramatic music swelled. And she asked him if he wanted to stay a little longer and he said . . . no.

“I want my future wife to choose me and I wasn’t chosen so I had to say no,” he explained.

In other words, no matter what the card said he wasn’t actually waiting for her, so the whole thing was a production trick. At least he and Katie got in one last smooch before he was driven away for good.

Katie, still wiping away a few tears, concluded, “This journey just wasn’t for us at the end of it.”

But given the fact the Twitter campaign has already begun to make Andrew the next Bachelor, his journey might just be beginning.

Next week, we get hometowns and Men Tell All in one episode.

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

CORRECTION: Man, this is embarrassing. I totally did not realize until I read someone else’s recap that Blake’s painting had been blacked out by ABC and he didn’t just paint a black square and say it was about sex. What can I say, I’m out of practice with my black bars, especially when they cover a whole freakin’ canvas.

Bachelor Matt James’ final four include controversial contestant

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 Bachelorette picks her final 4 and the Men Tell All, all in 1 night

Host Chris Harrison and Bachelorette Tayshia Adams on “The Men Tell All” part of “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Fasten your seatbelts, Bachelor Nation. With apologies for borrowing from Bette Davis, it looks like it’s going to be a bumpy ride, not to mention a really speedy one.

“The Bachelorette” crammed what would normally be two episodes worth of material into one on Monday night, including a “Men Tell All.” Hometown dates follow Tuesday. Next week is the two-part season finale, which presumably means fantasy suite dates on Dec. 21 and the proposal on Dec. 22.

It’s not quite Clare getting engaged to Dale fast, but it’s brisk.

Likewise, Tayshia Adams moved from dithering last week, so conflicted she couldn’t even hand out a group date rose, to extra decisive this week.

She let two men go ahead of the rose ceremony and then cancelled the cocktail party, so confident was she in her decisions. The final four are, in fact, no surprise. But let’s back up and recount how we got here.

First, there was Tayshia’s one-on-one date with Canadian wildlife manager Blake Moynes. Bachelor 101 says if you’re just getting your first real date the week before hometowns you’re probably a goner.

Tayshia and Blake meet with “Reiki and crystal master” Geeta.

Indeed, after an awkward and kind of pointless session with a “Reiki and crystal master” — which included the inevitable “tantric breathing exercise,” i.e. crotch meld, not to mention Blake getting visibly, er, “charged” — Tayshia felt that Blake wasn’t her “guy.” He didn’t even get a chance to pretend to eat dinner with her before she told him they should go their separate ways, with Tayshia crying buckets as she handed him into the SUV of Shame despite her certainty she was doing the right thing.

That certainty gave Tayshia “clarity” about someone else, so she headed to the suite where the men were hanging out and asked Riley to step outside.

Tayshia explained that she didn’t want to lead Riley on by meeting his family “if my heart is not 100 per cent matching yours.”

Riley, like the lawyer he is, put up a bit of an argument, asking “Why keep me around so long?”

The real answer is that it’s always about the numbers in “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette.” Guys get strung along week after week because the number of men need to match the number of roses.

Tayshia said that her breakthrough conversations with Riley, the ones in which he showed her who he really was, “started coming a little bit later.” And then Riley stopped resisting.

“I can argue all day, but in the end it doesn’t matter because the end result is the same. So the longer I sit here, the longer I look at you, the longer I hear you talk, see you smile, the more pain I feel.”

He left with grace and class and generosity, and Tayshia cried a lot.

I couldn’t help contrasting her emotional reaction to letting Riley go to her sangfroid when she jettisoned Bennett, and thinking how ridiculous it was that Bennett — after coming back to surprise Tayshia the week before — had been allowed to stay until the rose ceremony.

Tayshia gives Bennett the heave-ho the week before. I don’t see any tears, do you?

It was absolutely preposterous to think that Bennett, despite already being sent home once, would vault past men like Brendan and Zac and Ivan in Tayshia’s affections to claim a rose. Clearly his being allowed to return was nothing more than a stupid producer trick, a way to stir up a little crap among the men.

And indeed, the other men were visibly displeased when Bennett came strolling back in before the rose ceremony, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. “You guys looks like you’ve seen a ghost,” Bennett cheerfully told Ben, Zac, Brendan, Ivan and Noah, before adding that he’d returned so he wouldn’t be written off as a “Harvard D-bag.”

Then, after all the nonsense about Tayshia feeling conflicted because Bennett told her he loved her, he didn’t even get to converse with her again before she gave roses to Zac, Ivan and Brendan (Ben already had one), dispatching Noah and Bennett.

I did feel bad for Riley, who seems like a good guy, but it had to be those four for hometowns given that they’re the men Tayshia had gotten closest to. If it wasn’t, it would have been quite the shocker.

Next it was time for a truncated “Men Tell All.”

The bad blood between Noah and Bennett was rehashed. Nothing new there. Noah accused Bennett of being condescending and conniving; Bennett accused Noah of creating all the drama. Riley sided with Noah, Kenny with Bennett. There was some shouting between Noah and Kenny, and Kenny had to be bleeped, and host Chris Harrison had to whistle to get them to simmer down. Bennett eventually apologized, but Noah told him he was “an ostentatious Harvard D-bag” and they’d never be friends.

That was small potatoes compared to the real D-bag in the room. Yosef Aborady returned to rehash his exit and his berating of first Bachelorette Clare Crawley over what he called the “classless” strip dodgeball date, which saw the losers of the game strip down to their man goodies (thanks Demar).

Yosef claimed he was “sticking up for these guys,” but Blake and Kenny, who’d both been starkers, said no thanks to that. Jason called Yosef out for being disrespectful to Clare and told him to “shut the fuck up” when Yosef tried to talk over Jason the same way he talked over Clare.

Asked by Harrison if he had any regrets, Yosef was adamant he did not.

“Just so we’re clear, when you watch that, you’re like that’s cool, I would never mind anyone talking to my daughter like that,” Harrison said.

“If my daughter did something like that I would hope somebody would call her out,” Yosef replied, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know right there.

I hope we never see that misogynistic creep on any Bachelor show ever again.

What a contrast between Yosef’s bullshit and Riley, who got emotional after watching tape of his breakup with Tayshia, telling her that despite the heartache, “I appreciate everything you did for me. I would not change this experience for anything in the world.”

Tayshia reassured Riley that he hadn’t scared her off by telling her about his past, which he said was “a weight off my chest.”

Tayshia also made Blake feel a little better, telling him she’d subconsciously put up walls to protect herself against him, knowing he’d had feelings for Clare.

“I’m glad now I can look at you with a smile and remember you like this and not like that,” Blake said, referring to their breakup. “That was brutal for the longest time.”

I know Harrison talks about the bloopers being the funniest part of “Men Tell All,” but what really made me laugh was he and Ed reliving their bromance, spawned when Ed went to the wrong suite while looking for Tayshia’s room at the resort.

“We had a good time, man,” Harrison said. “Just a couple of guys hanging out, having a nice bottle of wine.”

“It was pretty epic,” said Ed. “I’m somehow glad I wasn’t at Tayshia’s that night actually.”

Enjoy the laughs while you can. There were an awful lots of tears in the promo for the final three nights of the season.

The next episode airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv.

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