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Bloated ‘Bachelorette’ finale ends with just one engagement

September 21, 2022 /
Gabby Windey, Erich Schwer, Tino Franco and Rachel Recchia on the “Bachelorette” finale.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC via Getty Images

Tuesday’s “Bachelorette” finale was supposed to be the most dramatic ever, but it reminded me of a sitcom.

It’s not that I think there was anything funny about Rachel’s breakup with Tino, or the way he kept trying to make his cheating her fault, but tell me you didn’t watch his tortured attempts to explain away his transgression and think of the “We were on a break” plot line from “Friends.” (If you never watched the show, one character slept with someone else and tried to justify it to his girlfriend by saying repeatedly, “We were on a break.”)

As for Jesse Palmer’s claim that this would be the most shocking finale ever? Give me a break. The dirt on Tino kissing another woman and splitting with Rachel was on social media days ago, as was the intel about Erich’s texts to a woman he’d dated just before he came on “The Bachelorette.”

But, at this point, I don’t feel like I can take anything about this franchise seriously.

We endured more than five hours of a finale — two and a bit last week, three on Tuesday — that could easily have wrapped in the usual two hours, plus a one-hour “After the Final Rose,” all so ABC could sell as many ads as possible. And we were sold a bill of goods about how unprecedented it was going to be to make the boring filler easier to swallow. But I’m still choking on it, personally.

“Bachelorette” and “Bachelor” alum Kaitlyn Bristowe, Catherine Giudici, Sean Lowe, Becca Kufrin
and Michelle Young were in the audience to help pad out the live “Bachelorette” finale.

What did we get for our extra time on Tuesday? Endless, obvious questions from Jesse to Gabby and, especially, Rachel; commentary and advice from the three past Bachelorettes and one Bachelor (and wife) in the audience; the introduction of the next Bachelor (ho hum, it’s Zach Shallcross), followed by Zach “starting his journey” live onstage with awkward introductions to five (mostly blond) contestants; a ridiculous interactive stunt in which viewers voted on Twitter to award one of the women a rose; an extended “Bachelor in Paradise” promo.

I suppose we can take a couple of wins from the night: Gabby’s and Rachel’s friendship is as tight as ever, and Gabby got engaged to Erich and was still with him as of Tuesday night.

As for all that nonsense about how we’d never seen anything on a finale before like Tino’s and Rachel’s breakup? Well, we have, even though the circumstances were different, if you count Arie Luyendyk Jr. dumping Becca on camera post-proposal. And that was worse because Becca was blindsided for the purpose of making “good” TV.

On Tuesday, we were more than nine minutes into the “live” finale before we got a glimpse of the actual finale — you know, the stuff that happened in Mexico — picking up from last week with Gabby upset that Erich didn’t seem ready to propose. But then she went back to his suite, and they kissed and made up, and agreed that they wanted to work things out.

Next up was Rachel’s last evening in Mexico with Tino, when she spilled the beans that Tino had won, essentially — to which he had a curious non-reaction — but who even cares? Even if you hadn’t read last week’s tabloid gossip you could tell from the expressions on Rachel’s and Big Tony’s faces in the insets at the bottom of the screen that it wasn’t going to end well.

After yet more time-wasting filler we got to Proposal Day.

Tino proposed to Rachel, blah blah blah, although I guess you can find some grim humour in Rachel telling Tino how “selfless and gentle and supportive” he was. Vowing to love Rachel forever, Tino put a Neil Lane ring on it and they trotted off on a horse as the studio audience applauded.

Rachel and Tino in Mexico before it all went to hell.

So what happened then?

Rachel told Jesse that she and Tino had been having “difficulties” in their post-show relationship and then Tino “cheated” on her, by kissing another woman at a bar.

Look, stuff happens. Kissing someone else isn’t necessarily a hill to die on. What did seem shady was that Tino tried to keep Rachel from finding out and then, when he got caught, tried to justify it during their on-camera meet-up by reading a bunch of supposedly incriminating quotes from Rachel he kept in his journal.

Rachel said the quotes were all taken out of context, and they flat out disagreed about whether or not Rachel had said she wanted to give her engagement ring back. Tino claimed he thought they were “pretty much done.”

“Never once did we ever say we are broken up, we are not engaged,” Rachel protested.

The most telling moments came when Tino ducked into the backyard — he did that twice — and complained to a producer that Rachel was throwing him under the bus and making him look bad. These do not seem like the words of a man who’s going to love a woman until the end of time.

Still, Tino claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his life making it up to Rachel, but she took off the ring and that was that.

When Tino finally made it into the hot seat on the live part of the finale, he started out by saying how sorry he was and how he wanted to own his actions, but then he ruined it by alluding to something he and Rachel had discussed in private that she said was “deeply personal.” What it was, we don’t know, but apparently something you don’t want discussed in front of a live studio audience.

Maybe Tino genuinely loved Rachel or at least thought he did, but his way of trying to communicate that was abysmal. In fact, as a couple, their communication skills were dysfunctional AF based on what we saw on Tuesday night.

But the fact that Tino came off as more concerned about how he looked than Rachel’s feelings doesn’t justify the stunt the producers pulled on him.

Aven Jones swoops in after Rachel’s final confrontation with Tino.

After Rachel and Tino wrapped up their confrontation, Jesse announced that someone was demanding to talk to Rachel. Her runner-up, Aven, strolled onstage and invited Rachel to leave with him to “catch up.” “I would love nothing more” Rachel exclaimed before she and Aven walked backstage to chat, leaving Tino to just stand there confused as Jesse broke for commercial, making glib comments about how “awkward” and “weird” the situation was.

Yes, it was awkward as hell and obviously the only ones demanding that Aven speak to Rachel at that very moment were the producers, just so they could have a “gotcha” moment.

Finally it was time for Gabby’s ending. And despite all the drama about whether or not Erich was going to propose he did indeed get down on one knee, telling Gabby, “It’s you and me until the wheels fall off.”

So did they fall off? That was the question.

Gabby and fiancé Erich seemed to be in a good place on the finale.

As Gabby and Erich cuddled on the hot seat, Jesse brought up text messages that Erich sent to a woman he was dating before filming started, saying basically that he didn’t think the show was real, but he was going on it to figure out what else to do with his life.

Erich did a better job than Tino of expressing his regret, saying he hadn’t seen a long-term future with the other woman, had led her on and had taken the cowardly way out by using the show as an excuse to end the relationship.

Gabby said he’d told her about the text messages long before they came out on social media, that they had “hard” conversations about them, but it helped improve their communication. And even though “you were kind of an asshole to her,” Gabby was standing by her man.

And that’s good enough for me. They seemed genuinely happy on Tuesday night; I liked the playful, humorous way they related to each other; and Grandpa John is “tickled pink” about the match. So let’s just leave them the hell alone and let them get on with their lives.

And that’s it. I don’t have anything that I feel like writing about Zach, beyond that he was the boring, predictable choice for the next Bachelor. I was Team Ethan or Team Aven — well, I was before I knew Aven was going to try to rekindle things with Rachel. Although he might not really be trying to rekindle things with Rachel. That might just be producer nonsense. And we do know that she’s on “Bachelor in Paradise” because we saw her in the promo, so maybe she hooked up with someone there?

Speaking of “Bachelor in Paradise,” although I am eager to watch along with you all, I won’t be doing any recaps until mid-October. I am going on my first real vacation since 2019 and will be in a different time zone as of the middle of next week, so I won’t even be tweeting with y’all on show nights.

But if you’re planning to watch,  Citytv will have the first episode next Tuesday at 8 p.m. And as always, you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

More pain in the fantasy suites as Bachelorette doom awaits

September 7, 2022 /
“Bachelorette” stars Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. The smiles might be deceiving.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gizelle Hernandez/ABC

Is this chaos what happens when you give people — well, OK, men — choices?

The men of “The Bachelorette” were given a choice of two women and now some of them are choosing to blow up the order of things.

Oh, trust me, I know how ridiculous it is to expect people to get engaged after mere weeks of acquaintance under the most unnatural of circumstances, but this is what we expect from “The Bachelorette.”

I’m not even going to broach the conditioning involved in being this invested in the heteronormative, gender role-reinforcing spectacle of a man getting down on one knee, but this is what we demand as Bachelorette fans: the catharsis of crying happy tears as people who didn’t even know each other eight weeks before pledge their undying love with a hunk of crystallized carbon. Sure, they’ll probably break up soon, but we’ll always have Mexico or wherever the hell they are.

Except host Jesse Palmer has raised the spectre of Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia being denied their hard-fought happily-ever-afters. So shocking is what we’re supposedly going to see next week that he had to take a few minutes to gird us at the end of the episode while standing in an empty studio.

“You will all bear witness to the crazy controversy that’s about to ensue,” he said. “So take some time, get yourselves ready and prepare yourselves for the most shocking finale of all time.”

Good lord, what is going on?!?

Well, let’s take stock. Monday night, we watched Gabby cut Johnny loose since he wasn’t ready to get engaged and Jason bailed on her Tuesday night. Not only did he not want to propose; he didn’t want Gabby in any capacity. But Erich was still there and, after he and Gabby professed their love for each other, it seemed like one happy ending had come early. But wait, was that Erich in the promo saying he didn’t want to get engaged either?

And what of Rachel’s men? As she went into the rose ceremony Tuesday it seemed that Zach was about to get the heave ho after a troubling fantasy suite date. But Tino was the clear front-runner anyway, except the promo showed Tino saying he wanted out, Rachel arguing with Aven and an unseen somebody being accused of going back on their word.

Maybe it won’t be so shocking after all, especially since it seemed clear from Night 1 that this season was never truly about giving Rachel and Gabby romantic redemption.

Buckle up, I guess.

Tuesday’s episode began with Gabby’s date with Jason. Despite all the fun and games of tennis and splashing around the pool together, we knew that Jason had a bomb to drop at dinner and drop it he did.

Not only was he not ready to get engaged, he wasn’t even sure he could see a future with Gabby outside the “bubble” of the show. But still, Jason dangled the possibility of a “serious relationship” once the cameras were banished from their lives. So Gabby threw caution to the wind and took him to the fantasy suite.

The unslept-in bed told the story. There was no fantasy in the suite, just conversation that went nowhere and Jason deciding there was no chance for him and Gabby. She at least nominally got to send him home and to tell him, “I truly just want you to realize I’ve been led on.”

And she was. It seems mighty suspect, given Jason’s discomfort with the process from the get-go and his ambivalence about getting serious with Gabby during his hometown, that he’d wait until almost the very end to share these doubts. But wait he did.

Jason claimed he finally got “clarity”; Gabby got her heart broken.

“What is it about me that’s so hard to love?” she sobbed.

Speaking of clarity, maybe we’ll get some next week about what went on between Rachel and Zach.

They went from a lovey-dovey day in some Mexican town — hats! mariachi! Day of the Dead figurines! cricket snacks! — to Zach showing up teary-eyed at Jesse’s door the morning after.

According to Zach, he and Rachel were like two strangers once the cameras were off and Rachel seemed to put on a front, stridently suggesting that Zach’s age — he was 25 to her 26, although he seems older to me — meant he wasn’t ready to commit.

It’s tempting to think Rachel was looking for an excuse to push Zach away without actually dumping him. She did tell Gabby, after all, that she wasn’t “there” with Zach despite claiming in her date voice-over that she was falling in love with him.

But we didn’t get Rachel’s side of the story so we don’t really know. Zach had just pulled her away from the rose ceremony to talk when Jesse cut in with his warning about Bachelorette Armageddon.

Meanwhile, Gabby had cancelled her own rose ceremony and gone to Erich’s suite, where he was wondering if he’d blown his chance with her after his freakout about her maybe sleeping with other men.

Naw.

“You have taught me it’s OK to feel safe and wanted and loved in maybe a way that I haven’t and you’re the only one left,” Gabby told Erich. “I do know that I love you.”

Awwwww. The warm, sappy feelings engendered were almost as good as a proposal. Gabby declared Erich “the love of my life,” a love that will apparently be put to the test next week.

You won’t be able to watch it Tuesday on Citytv, but you can tune into ABC at 8 p.m. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

The fantasy becomes a nightmare for Gabby on The Bachelorette

September 6, 2022 /
Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey toast to the fantasy suite dates to come.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs

After watching Monday’s fantasy suites episode of “The Bachelorette” — excuse me, the first of two fantasy suites episodes — it’s hard to see how we’ll end up with a “shocking ending nobody is gonna see coming,” as per host Jesse Palmer.

Let’s start with Rachel.

She told Gabby within the first minutes of the episode that she wasn’t “there” with Zach and presumably will share that information with him on tomorrow night’s date. She told Aven she was falling in love with him but was already exchanging “I love you’s” with Tino — his parents’ hostility notwithstanding — so it would take one hell of a twist for her not to end up engaged to Tino.

(Mind you, the conspiracy theorist in me can imagine the producers flying Papa Joe to Mexico to slow Tino’s roll.)

As for Gabby, well, Johnny was clearly there for a good time, not a long time, and left sans fantasy suite. And Jason, who hadn’t had his date yet, told Jesse what he already told his mother during hometowns, that he wasn’t ready to get engaged. That would seem to leave Erich as the last man standing — assuming he gets over his jealousy about Gabby’s other overnight dates. And if Jason tells Gabby sooner rather than later that he’s “not quite” falling for her, there won’t be any other overnights for Erich to obsess over.

But I know, I know: this is “The Bachelorette” we’re talking about, and the editing can make black look white and up seem down, so I suppose anything’s possible.

In the meantime, as we slog our way to the finish, let’s recap.

First off, Gabby and Rachel reunited in the Riviera Maya for some Champagne and girl talk. The main point of this, besides reminding everyone which men were still hanging around, was to allow them to bring up the week on Clayton Echard’s season when “everything went haywire,” in Rachel’s words.

“I never want to make anyone else feel the way that we did,” Gabby said.

“We get to rewrite what this week means and make it into something positive,” Rachel said.

But does anyone ever get to rewrite fantasy suite week? I don’t see how, unless they refuse to play the stupid “I’m falling for three men/women at the same time” game.

Gabby had the first date, with Erich.

Erich Schwer helps Gabby psych up to jump off a “lovers’ leap.” The sign says: “Love gives you wings.”

I can only assume Erich really is (or was) into Gabby since he left his dying father behind to be with her in Mexico.

They certainly seemed very close as they cavorted and smooched at a “lovers’ leap,” so much so that Gabby told Erich, “I wish I could crawl inside you” and what the hell does that even mean?

He told her later over an uneaten charcuterie board that he loved her and she repeated what she said at hometowns, that she was falling in love with him. Then they headed off to the fantasy suite — and can we please stop pretending the fantasy suite cards are a surprise? — to “really feel each other’s love,” in Gabby’s words.

The next morning came one of the longest goodbyes in fantasy suite memory as Erich lingered, conflicted about the idea of Gabby spending the night with other men. Gabby seemed conflicted too, about whether she wanted to be engaged to Erich, although she did say in her voice-over she thought she was in love with him.

Next up was Rachel’s date with Aven and it was a perfectly generic overnight date.

Aven Jones and Rachel chill on a yacht.

There was a yacht with a hot tub; there was Champagne and smooching; there was talk about how much Rachel and Aven had grown on their journey. And I’m sorry, I like Aven, but it all felt kind of rote to me.

Rachel and Gabby had made much ado about how they didn’t want to carelessly throw around the word “love” like Clayton had. But Rachel told Aven that, knowing how much the word meant to him, she was comfortable telling him she was falling in love with him too.

It was the only overnight on Monday’s episode in which we actually saw the couple in bed together the next morning; clothed, but still.

“It’s definitely really important to explore your physical connection and Aven is the full package — the full package,” Rachel said with a twinkle in her eye, laughing.

Can’t wait for Tino’s parents to watch that.

And speaking of Tino, his date was next up. We already knew how hard he was jonesing to see Rachel since we’d been subjected to footage of sad Tino saying how gut-wrenching it was to have to wait around, knowing his girl might be sleeping with other men.

He even got a special visit from Jesse so he could moan about it some more and also so Jesse could bring up the hometown from hell with Tino’s parents. Since there was so little suspense in Monday’s episode, we had to be led to believe that Tino’s hometown was so scarring for Rachel that she might not be able to get past it.

Rachel on her date with her potential Mr. Forever, Tino Franco.

And listen, it’s not that I’m saying that hometown wasn’t awful. Tino’s folks totally disrespected Rachel, especially his father. But I also expected exactly what happened to happen: which was that after Tino told her that he loved her (once again circumventing conversation about his parents’ rudeness) and she said it back — so much for not throwing the word around — Rachel bought into his assurance that his family would come to love her too.

I’m not personally convinced they will, but perhaps that’s a topic for “After the Final Rose.”

In the meantime, we didn’t even get to see Rachel’s and Tino’s morning after because we had to rush onto a boat ride with Johnny and Gabby.

Gabby clearly thought Johnny was hot, fine, but I was somewhat mystified by her assertion she could see a life with Johnny after the show. I don’t think anyone else could, including Johnny.

Whereas other men were talking about being or falling in love, Johnny said, “Gabby is the dopest girl I think I’ve ever hung with.” That says it all right there.

Johnny DePhillipo gives it to Gabby straight: no engagement for him, not on this show anyway.

When Gabby told Johnny straight up she was ready to get engaged, Johnny replied that was “a hard thing to think about,” even though he claimed he could see himself falling in love with her. But with proposal day just a week or two off, Johnny sensibly told the truth about not being ready and Gabby just as sensibly walked away without taking him to the fantasy suite.

(There are spoilers out there, not that I was looking for them, about Johnny coupling up with someone else on “Bachelor in Paradise.” Apparently ABC even ran a “Paradise” promo with Johnny in it before we’d watched him break up with Gabby. Nice timing that.)

Gabby consoled herself with the thought that Erich and Jason were both ready for an engagement and . . . uh oh.

There was Jesse, like a harbinger of doom, paying a call on Jason.

“Do you feel like you’re falling in love with Gabby?” Jesse asked.

“I would say I’m not quite there just yet. I would say I have strong feelings toward Gabby,” Jason replied.

Sorry, son, but you don’t pass go on this show with mere strong feelings.

Jason Alabaster gives Jesse Palmer the goods about his inability to commit to Gabby.

It probably goes without saying but no, Jason could not see himself at the point of engagement in just two weeks.

But hey, Gabby still had Erich and . . . uh oh.

As Gabby was back in her suite, still brooding about Johnny, there was a knock and a note at her door: “I need to see you, I’ll be waiting on the bridge,” with no signature.

But what was initially an affectionate reunion with Erich ended with Gabby in tears, feeling ambushed.

Referring to the night they had just spent together, Erich said, “I’m now sitting here picturing the girl that I’m in love with doing that with somebody else. That kind of crushes me . . . I’m having a really hard time.”

“We talked about this off camera,” Gabby said tearfully. “Like, I feel like we were able to have an honest conversation about it in fantasy suites. So you brought me here to tell me it again.”

Erich insisted he hadn’t, but it went downhill from there. The episode ended with Gabby walking away from Erich, questioning whether Erich was her guy after all, and the “To be continued” chyron on the screen.

So where will it all end up? Who knows? Since we’ve seen promo footage of both Rachel and Gabby on proposal day, somebody must stick around to put a ring on it . . . or not.

It appears that Rachel will “blindside” Zach on tomorrow’s episode with her lack of fully developed feelings for him; ditto Jason with Gabby and that Gabby might skip the rose ceremony. Beyond that, I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t read spoilers.

You can watch Fantasy Suites Part 2 Tuesday at 8 p.m. on ABC. I don’t know when Citytv will air it. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Nate gets dumped, Tino’s a big cheese on ‘The Bachelorette’

August 16, 2022 /
Ethan and Tyler balance wheels of cheese during a group date with Rachel in Amsterdam.
PHOTO CREDIT All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

That stink you’re detecting isn’t the smell of cheese from Rachel’s group date; it’s the stench of this season of “The Bachelorette” being treated like a zero sum game whereby Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey aren’t allowed to be happy at the same time.

Last week, we got sad Rachel after Logan jumped ship to Gabby’s team. This week, we got sad Gabby after a) she sent Nate home because she wasn’t ready to be a stepmom and b) she had to cancel her group date after-party because Logan . . . wait for it . . . got COVID-19.

Yep, that “there has been a situation with Logan” promo from last week? Manipulative nonsense. And I have so many questions. How did Logan get COVID? How come no one else got it considering we saw him unmasked and less than six feet away from the rest of Gabby’s men in last week’s episode and laying smooches on Gabby? And why did he look so healthy during the day portion of the group date, which involved absolutely ridiculous S&M-tinged shenanigans?

And you’re seriously telling me that after Logan was essentially made the star of last week’s episode he’s just gone with not even so much as an exit interview? Weird.

I missed about the first 10 minutes of this episode due to some technical difficulties with the TV in my B&B (I’m writing this from Stratford, Ontario), but I was able to catch Gabby’s heartrending breakup with Nate.

Obviously this isn’t Nate and Gabby in Amsterdam, but ABC didn’t
provide any photos of them this week and I couldn’t do screen grabs.

And yes, I said heartrending. I read the stuff all over Twitter last week about Nate supposedly dating two women at once and keeping his daughter a secret from one of them, but even if it’s true it doesn’t negate the sadness of his breakup with Gabby.

It seemed obvious from the moment Gabby said she hadn’t figured out yet if she wanted to be a mother that Nate was on the way out. We didn’t need a totally staged conversation between Logan and Johnny back on the Good Ship Bachelorette to hammer the point home.

It’s not exactly rocket science that someone who’s still trying to get over her dysfunctional relationship with her own mother wouldn’t be jonesing to be a parent.

“It’s so cliche, but I’m, like, terrified of not just being a mom but being, like, bad at it,” Gabby told Nate through tears as they sat on a bench in the heart of Amsterdam.

There were tears on both sides and long hugs and kisses goodbye and Nate, despite his frontrunner status, was gone.

Gabby seemed so very sad to lose Nate and Rachel, conversely, seemed so very happy.

She and Zach had a one-on-one, a bucket list date apparently that began with them taking crappy Polaroid photos of each other in a massive field of tulips (sorry, no photos; ABC saw fit to provide photos of Gabby’s S&M date but not Rachel’s picturesque tulip date).

Then she and Zach went bike riding and among the things you can find in the Dutch countryside are cheese, wooden shoes, lemonade and, um, hot tubs.

Also windmills but, unlike Pilot Pete and Hannah Brown, Zach and Rachel didn’t get busy inside one, they just did some smooching in front of it.

There was a lot of smooching on this date.

Zach had some revelations to make at dinner in a gorgeous museum full of old Dutch masters (might have been the Rijksmuseum, but I’m not 100 per cent sure). First, he said he used to be 85 pounds overweight and didn’t love himself so he went to therapy. And Rachel was as thrilled about that as Gabby was upon hearing about Jason’s therapy.

Second, now that Zach felt like a man who deserved love, he knew he was falling in love with Rachel.

Zach’s hometown date rose was never in any doubt, but that revelation sealed the deal.

Cut back to the cruise ship: Gabby was still sad. She tearfully told her remaining men — Johnny, Jason, Erich, Logan and Spencer — about sending Nate home and they all gave her hugs, which was nice of them.

Gabby was still sad about Nate the next morning, but she said her other connections were deepening and she had “a so amazing and so fun” group date planned.

But she didn’t plan it obviously. Nobody but a “Bachelorette” producer would think it would be entertaining — for either the participants or the viewers — to have a leather-clad dominatrix ask the men intrusive sex questions and threaten to whip them if they didn’t answer.

I am not a prude, but it’s nobody’s business but the individual men’s and Gabby’s whether they like giving oral sex (I’m assuming that was the bleeped out bit), how often they masturbate (again, bleeped out, but my assumption) and how many people they’ve had sex with.

Gabby uses a whip on her remaining five men on another stupid group date.

The guys were also forced to strip off their shirts (Johnny at one point stripped to his underwear) so they could be tickled with feathers, whipped, and have whipped cream and even flames applied to their chests.

As Logan said, “I was hoping today would be the deep dive into who we are and what we represent. I’m blindfolded, laying on a shag carpet, waiting for her to rub whipped cream on my nipples.”

And how would any of that help Gabby decide whose hometowns she wanted to visit? It wouldn’t obviously. (Not unless she wanted to analyze why Johnny’s safe word was “pumpkin” and Logan’s was “asbestos.”)

And the fact that Gabby was able to choose three men for hometowns (instead of the usual four) despite not getting to talk to any of them at the cancelled after-party shows the group date was kind of superfluous anyway.

The same applied to Rachel’s group date. Did anybody really think that Ethan was going to get a hometown and that either Tino, Tyler or Aven would not? Of course not, but they went through the motions nonetheless with a trip to a town called “the cheese capital of the world” (no, I did not catch the name).

Eventually, the four guys had to take off their shirts — are you noticing a theme here? — and hold yokes across their shoulders laden with wheels of cheese. They eventually got up to four wheels on each side, which looked really heavy.

Rachel smooches Tino in the “cheese capital of the world.”

Tino won, barely beating out Ethan. Poor Ethan, who had been nibbling cheese despite being lactose intolerant, collapsed on the grass from exhaustion. Tyler had cuts on his hands and wrists, but what hurt the most was having to watch Rachel kiss the victorious Tino.

And let’s be honest, Tino acted like kind of an entitled dick at the after-party. He figured the date rose had his name on it, but Rachel gave it to Tyler, who told her he was falling very, very hard for her.

Tino walked off to complain to a producer that it was “a fucking joke” and was making him second guess everything, which prompted one of the other dudes to call him a “real baby back bitch.”

But at least Tino apologized to Ethan the next day.

Of course, all this talk of Tino feeling blindsided and not knowing if Rachel felt the same as him was bullshit to try to build up suspense for an utterly unsuspenseful rose ceremony. Which is also why Tino’s name was the last to be called for a rose, after Aven’s. But sorry producers, no one seriously thought Rachel was going to dump Tino for Ethan. No offence Ethan.

Likewise, it was obvious that Gabby was giving roses to Erich, Jason and Johnny, and sending Spencer home.

Does that mean Logan would have got a hometown if he had still been around? Guess we’ll never know.

So next week, hometowns and if you believe the promos it looks like rough waters ahead for Rachel and Tino, but you can’t believe everything you see.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.

Life on ‘The Bachelorette’ is the (arm)pits for Rachel

August 2, 2022 /
Rachel Recchia with her men, blissfully unaware that Logan Palmer, right, is about to attempt to defect. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

I have somewhat misjudged the “Bachelorette” producers. I said at the start of the season that they were going to shovel shit at both Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey, our dual Bachelorettes, to make them feel rejected. Turns out the storyline is really about making Rachel seem like the odd woman out.

That was certainly the plot in Week 4. After last week‘s embarrassment of having three men reject her roses, things seemed to be off to a good start for Rachel. She had a great one-on-one date with Tino in Paris. But then, when she and her nine dudes crashed Gabby’s group date, Rachel’s men were more interested in watching the boxing than in her, which sent her into yet another tailspin.

By the end of the episode, Rachel had to dump a guy who preferred the company of his dog to her. And the roller-coaster is about to take another plunge with Logan jonesing to switch back to Team Gabby.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the plan all along was to get Rachel to quit.

OK, maybe we can’t blame all of this on the producers. But I have no doubt that the cocktail party getting cancelled — again — was a device to prevent Logan from fessing up to Rachel about his feelings for Gabby so the drama could be dragged out for another week.

Here’s all you really need to know: Gabby’s group date involved her men literally fighting to spend time with her; Rachel got to smell her dates’ armpits. Nuff said.

So let’s back it up to the beginning of the episode.

Before Team Rachel and Team Gabby flew from L.A. to France, “leisure executive” Hayden had a revealing conversation with Meatball and some of the other men. He was complaining about being called out by Rachel and Gabby for telling Gabby she was “rough around the edges.”

Hayden’s excuse was that Gabby had used those words about herself and then she and Rachel threw it back in his face. “Well bitch, maybe you shouldn’t use that fucking word to describe yourself then,” he sniped.

Hayden also appeared to use the word bitch — it was bleeped out — about Rachel or Gabby or both, who he said didn’t “hold a candle” to his ex. “I don’t see how any guy in here could be ‘I’m gonna fucking marry these girls.'”

Hold that thought and let’s switch to some positive stuff.

Rachel and Gabby were in Paris, where they met up with Tino and Jason and went off on separate dates. They did some Paris 101 kinds of things: ate crepes (and pretended to make crepes while kissing, in Rachel’s and Tino’s case); tried on berets (Jason and Gabby, who said she looked like “a bald baby” in hers); tasted Champagne; kissed in the rain.

Yes, Rachel and Tino Franco are having dinner in an actual church.

But, whatever, they had fun and then they all met up at a cafe, and Gabby and Rachel pretended to go the washroom so they could compare notes about their dates, which was cute.

Rachel and Tino had dinner in the Cathedrale Americaine de Paris, which is Anglican, so maybe they’re less uptight about people eating and smooching in their churches than Catholics? I don’t know.

The theme of the dinner chat was whether Tino would object to Rachel’s job as a pilot and flight instructor and . . . we’re seriously still having these sorts of conversations?

And the answer was, as long as Rachel was willing to have kids at some point (she was), Tino was totally cool with their spawn having two working parents. He explained that his folks both worked full-time and “there’s always a way to make it work.”

Test passed, rose given, smooches bestowed.

Jason Alabaster and Gabby compare therapy notes.

Gabby’s test for Jason was whether he could open up to her and it didn’t take long, once they settled in for their non-meal, for him to spill about how he was a sensitive dude who took everything personally, but therapy had helped him “have my power again.”

(Although obviously the power needs recharging since when he got to the Bachelor mansion he couldn’t eat or sleep for three days and had a “breakdown.”)

Jason seems a tad, well — there’s no polite way to put this — boring.

But Gabby, who knows from therapy thanks to her estranged mother, was thrilled about his confession. They talked about “inner child work” for crying out loud!

So yes, Jason got a rose and smooches with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

Host Jesse Palmer shows the men their new temporary home in Le Havre, France.

Next up, Gabby’s group date and I should pause to mention that while Jason and Tino wandered around Paris the other men checked into a freakin’ cruise ship in Le Havre, two hours away. Yes, apparently ABC paid for the Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady, which holds 2,770 people, to ferry two women and a dwindling number of men around Europe. One hopes there were other passengers on the 11 decks that Team Gabby and Team Rachel weren’t using.

So the group date was a French boxing competition, which is a type of kickboxing, although the guys just whaled on each other like in a regular boxing match from what I could see.

But the main event for plot purposes was on the sidelines, where Rachel was sitting with Gabby. Her men were on the opposite side of the ring watching the bouts and Rachel was upset that none of them would make eye contact with her, let alone walk over and talk to her.

Kirk lands a punch on Spencer, whom Gabby declared the champion.

A few thoughts: a hectic, noisy environment like the, ahem, “Bachelorette Battle for Love” isn’t an ideal place for a tete-a-tete. How much of Rachel could the men actually see from where they were standing (Logan had to lean over to gawk at Gabby)? And were they told to stand there by producers, the better to stoke Rachel’s insecurities? (I wouldn’t put anything past them.)

Whatever the circumstances, Rachel was in full-on, tearful “I don’t feel like I deserve to be the Bachelorette” mode afterwards, to the point she claimed she felt more wanted by Clayton Echard than any of her current suitors.

She marched into the men’s suite to tell them how hurt and upset she was and not one guy followed her out to try to make amends so, yeah, slow learners.

Contrast that to frontrunner Nate telling Gabby at the match how he missed all the little things about her, like her “cute little head shake” when she starts to talk. Rachel noticed the difference in devotion and viewers were meant to as well.

Nate didn’t get the date rose. That went to Spencer, declared the winner of the battle and gifted a “special dinner” with Gabby. As far as I can tell, their only connection is that Spencer was in the military and Gabby comes from a military family, but good enough.

Poor Rachel. Still smarting from her “rejection” of the night before, she took her dudes to learn about the “art of romance” and it was one of the cringiest dates in franchise history.

First off, their guides, Flora and Boris, “experts in all things romance,” sat on a settee sucking face for a full 33 seconds while the men looked uncomfortably on. In my experience, over the top PDAs are not uncommon for the French, in Paris at least, but yes, awkward.

Yes, Rachel is sniffing Zach’s armpit.

I can’t imagine, however, what having the guys take off their shirts so Rachel could smell their armpits, blindfolded, had to do with romance.

Between Zach flirting with Rachel by putting her in a choke hold from behind, Meatball crawling across the floor to her like “Little Miss Sunshine” and Hayden French-kissing his own hand, the less said about this date the better. Just try to wipe it from your mind.

Luckily, Tyler wrote Rachel a poem to make amends for the night before so she picked him for alone time.

Tyler told Rachel how, even though his last serious girlfriend dumped him after he’d bought them a house, he was ready to find “unconditional love” again. “That feeling is 10 times better than the pain.”

Tyler Norris won Rachel over with his talk of suffering for love.

And since Rachel seemed like someone who loves “really, really hard,” Tyler was there for her.

Sounds a little masochistic to me, but fine. He got the date rose and Rachel’s fear was behind her. Or was it?

Of course it wasn’t. As Rachel and Gabby happily prepared to enter the cocktail party hand in hand as usual, we heard Logan plotting to express his feelings for Gabby because “the heart wants what it wants” and his didn’t want Rachel.

But before that bomb could go off, we had Hayden to deal with.

His plan to snare an extra week on the cruise ship was to tell Rachel all about his dying dog, Rambo, who had a brain tumour, sharing a book of photos of the poor animal.

Not only did Hayden put the dog through radiation just so he could get an extra six months with his pet, he left the pooch behind to come on “The Bachelorette” and he brought Rambo’s “cancer duck” stuffie with him to show Rachel. Who the hell does that?

Hayden Markowitz plays show and tell with Rambo’s “cancer duck.”

Then, when Rachel let Tino interrupt Hayden’s tale of woe, Hayden started complaining about her behind her back.

In the meantime, Meatball had dropped a dime on Hayden and, even though Hayden denied everything that Meatball said he said, Rachel was done with him.

I would have liked to see Hayden get lowered into a teeny lifeboat and made to row to shore, but the ship was docked so he got to walk a gangplank instead of the plank.

Hayden made it clear that he wanted Rambo more than Rachel. “I know right now for a fact no one has the amount of love that I have for Rambo and that Rambo has for me,” he said. Here’s a tip: next time stay home and take care of your sick dog.

Cue Rachel’s next meltdown: “This isn’t working for me. I’m a failure.”

Nonetheless, there was a rose ceremony. Gabby gave roses to Nate, Erich, Johnny, Michael and Mario.

Rachel gave roses to Aven, Meatball, Zach, Ethan and, yes, Logan, who accepted just so he’d get another chance to talk to Gabby.

Buckle your seatbelts for the Brouhaha in Bruges next week.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.

Rachel and Gabby both taste rejection on ‘The Bachelorette’

July 26, 2022 /
Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia on the monster group date with Hayden, Johnny, Jordan and Mario. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

The purpose of this two-“Bachelorette” season has been made abundantly clear, if it wasn’t already. It’s not about Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia finding love — although that could still happen — it’s about making them relive the kind of rejection they felt on Clayton Echard’s “Bachelor” season.

Thus, on a Frankenstein’s monster of an episode, we had Gabby being told point blank by several of the men that they preferred Rachel and Rachel having her roses rejected by several more at the rose ceremony.

And if that wasn’t humiliating enough, host Jesse Palmer then took those roses away so that Rachel couldn’t give them to anyone else. Funny how that suddenly became a rule on a season that supposedly had no rules.

When Monday’s episode ended, Gabby had nine suitors left and Rachel eight, along with two bruised egos — although it looks like James, a.k.a. Meatball, will get a second chance with Rachel and even out the numbers again.

The two stars aren’t the only ones enduring a so-called roller-coaster ride. I mean what the hell was that Monday?

The episode started with Rachel having a perfectly sweet one-on-one with tech exec Zach, then veered into train wreck territory with Gabby paying a surprise visit to the mansion and having the men ignore her to play football.

Gabby’s Grandpa John perked up the mood by accompanying her on her one-on-one with Erich — which was odd, but OK, fine — then Gabby had a meltdown during dinner but seemed to recover her equilibrium at the group date, only to crash again when three men told her she wasn’t their type.

Rachel and Gabby wanted to control their journey, as if producers would let that happen.

So Gabby and Rachel tried to take back control of their “journey” by dividing up the men at the rose ceremony and we know how well that turned out for Rachel.

Earlier in the episode, Rachel seemed like the belle of the ball.

She and Zach got to play dress-up with Karamo Brown from “Queer Eye” on an “old Hollywood” date that he allegedly planned.

Zach Shallcross and Rachel Recchia, ready for their close-ups.

Karamo sent them off to an “exclusive movie premiere” at the gorgeous El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard where they walked a teeny red carpet with faux paparazzi, only to discover that the movie, “Me & You,” was actually a collection of photos and videos from their childhoods and inspirational messages from their moms, all tastefully scored by piano player Matt White.

The walk down memory lane produced the requisite amount of tears on both Rachel’s and Zach’s parts, and they bonded over the fact they both spent time with their dads in airport parking lots watching planes take off and land.

So it only took two one-on-ones for Rachel to achieve liftoff — no hard feelings Jordan V. And Tino, watch your back: there’s a new frontrunner in town.

While Rachel was playing starlet, Gabby went to the mansion, in theory to see which men would make the effort to get to know her better. None, nada, zilch, that’s how many made the effort.

The dudes were more interested in tossing a football and complimenting each other’s shirts than chatting up Gabby. That went over about as well as you think it would for someone with abandonment issues because her mother withheld love when she was growing up.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” Gabby said as the ball was tossed back and forth, and she could have been talking about the show as well as the game.

But chin up, the next day she had a date with real estate analyst Erich and Grandpa John came along, supposedly so Gabby could see how Erich interacted with her family, but it’s way too early for that. This was just a sop to Bachelor Nation since Grandpa John is so beloved.

First stop was one of those woo woo activities the franchise likes to use from time to time: a sound ceremony to release negative energies. And it might have had meaning for Gabby, but I don’t blame Grandpa John for falling asleep.

Grandpa John, Julie, Gabby and Erich enjoy a beer ceremony.

Everybody stayed awake for the next activity — bowling — at which Gabby recruited a plant, er, lady named Julie to be a date for Grandpa.

So far so good: Erich was chill about having Grandpa along, Erich and Gabby got in a little smooching time and they got to be alone on the evening portion of the date.

But the wheels came off after Erich talked about his “soul-mate” parents, which prompted Gabby to talk about her estranged mother.

“I’ll maybe never know what it’s like to have a mother’s love,” Gabby said tearfully and Erich . . . just looked at her, not even a pat on the shoulder, for crying out loud. Maybe that’s just the way it was edited, but with that reaction it’s no wonder Gabby left him alone at the table to go cry on producers’ shoulders.

“Am I too broken for anyone to love?” she lamented.

No sweetie, you’re not, but this nasty franchise is going to make sure you keep feeling that way.

For a moment, it looked like Erich might go the way of Jordan V — just imagine how freaked out the other men would have been to see another dude not survive a one-on-one — but Gabby returned to the table, apologetic for not being a “polished” Bachelorette.

Erich made the right noises about Gabby’s experiences making her a “really unique person” and being “open and honest,” and really liking Gabby and wanting to “see where this goes.”

Where it went for the moment was a rose for Erich and lots of smooching.

“I’m the imperfect Bachelorette. I think in some people’s eyes it will mean perfect,” Gabby said.

A useful thought to take into the next day’s mob scene, the largest group date in Bachelorette history at 19 men. I didn’t count them, but one of the guys said there were 19 of them, so I’m going with it and don’t expect me to name names.

Gabby, Rachel and Franco Lacosta with a big-ass group of men.

And guess who was there? Alleged “Bachelor legend” Franco Lacosta to do a photo shoot.

Given that Gabby and Rachel made their entrances in wedding gowns, you might have thought it was going to be one of those faux wedding shoots with the men in tuxes and suits. But no, they were mostly given ridiculous costumes to wear: plaid shirts and Daisy Dukes for a car wash tableau; a diaper for Meatball, who was, ahem, birthed by Aven; a fig leaf/black box for Jacob for an Adam and Eve shoot with Gabby.

“I’ve seen Jacob’s situation multiple times today and excuse me, because I just can’t help looking,” Rachel said.

It was all ridiculous, the only interaction of note coming when Nate, in a suit thankfully, faux proposed to Gabby.

Nate poses with Gabby, Quincey and Kirk but got a more interesting solo shoot with Gabby.

“Your smile melts my heart, it really does. Whenever you enter a room the world melts away,” he said. “The second I laid eyes on you I felt like I was meeting my best friend and forever could never be long enough to realize how beautiful you are inside and out.”

Followed by a smooch chaser, it sounded like a rehearsal for the real thing, which would have been a good thought for Gabby to hold onto as the after-party commenced at SoFi Stadium.

Now, obviously, this was heavily edited. We saw Rachel kissing Aven, Jordan H and Tino, followed by Tyler, Hayden and Jacob telling Gabby they weren’t interested in her. Hayden damned Gabby with faint praise for her “bubbly” and “goofy aspect,” adding that she was rough around the edges.

And then Jacob cheerfully told Gabby she was “smokin’,” but “if you were the only person here I don’t think I could have the heart to continue.”

Ouch!

Show me a woman who wouldn’t have her insecurities stirred up after hearing something like that.

Rachel cheerfully gave her group date rose to Aven; Gabby didn’t give hers to anyone, saying, “Tonight has kind of been hard for me in a way.”

I find it really difficult to believe Gabby didn’t have positive interactions with somebody at that after-party with 19 men swirling around and, even if she didn’t, surely she could have given the rose to Nate for his lovely words from the photo shoot. But OK, let’s pretend this was all her idea.

After Gabby commiserated with Rachel about her lousy experience, the two of them decided that something had to change.

Cue the cancellation of the cocktail party! Jesse told the fellows they’d be moving directly to the rose ceremony and would have to choose which Bachelorette they wanted to date. No more sitting on the fence, Meatball!

“This will be the craziest night in Bachelor Nation history,” Quincey said.

Now, let’s be honest, if the franchise really had Gabby’s and Rachel’s best interests at heart they could have separated the rose ceremonies, with the women going one after the other. That might have eased the humiliation of rejection somewhat.

Gabby and Rachel face the men for the separate but together rose ceremony.

Instead, there were two tables with eight roses apiece, and Rachel and Gabby took turns handing them out.

The pre-ceremony narrative was that Gabby might face rejection because of what happened at the group date after-party. But Nate, Johnny, Spencer, Jason, Mario, Kirk, Quincey and Michael all took her roses.

Rachel gave hers to Tino and Logan and then Termayne balked, saying he had a deeper connection with Gabby and um, really? Can’t even remember seeing them together.

That’s when Jesse walked in to “clarify,” saying Termayne could get back in line but Rachel had forfeited that rose. Yep, the women are taking control of their journey all right.

Alec also said no thanks to Rachel. Thankfully, Tyler, Ethan and Jordan H said yes, but Meatball declined, saying, “I’m here for Gabby.”

Rachel and Gabby took a (producer-mandated) break to kvetch before giving out their final roses. “This was supposed to be us taking the power back. We literally handed it right back to all of them by doing this,” Rachel whispered.

Dealer, i.e. the franchise, always wins, ladies, dealer always wins.

Hayden said yes to Rachel’s final rose then the women repaired to separate rooms for champagne toasts with their groups of guys.

The footage over the credits showed Meatball, who had been booted along with Jacob and Rachel’s other no-men, Alec and Termayne, asking Rachel for another chance because, gee, he did want to get to know her after all. Rachel might not want him back, but the producers surely will to even up the numbers.

Next week the gang goes to Paris as “two separate groups on two separate journeys.” Logan is having second thoughts about throwing in his lot with Rachel — no surprise there — and Rachel gets information about “disturbing” things being said.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.

A villain gets the boot, not once but twice, on ‘The Bachelorette’

July 19, 2022 /
Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia prepare to judge a man bits pageant on “The Bachelorette.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

You win some, you lose some and some you have to get rid of twice.

So went the first “date” episode of Gabby Windey’s and Rachel Recchia’s joint “Bachelorette” season.

The episode was a reminder that with two very different women there will be very different outcomes, a reality driven home by the results of their first dates. But on one point they were agreed: any dude who’s already trying to control the outcome of the fantasy suites before he has even had a real conversation with either Bachelorette has got to go.

Chris Austin during eviction No. 1 with Gabby and Rachel.

And thus “mentality coach” Chris Austin was asked to leave not once, but twice: first, for running his mouth about fantasy suites and then for walking right back into the mansion to confront the men who ratted him out to Rachel and Gabby.

I mean come on! Even if production put him up to it, how arrogant do you have to be to be told to vamoose and then waltz back in like you own the joint?

Gabby and Rachel were having none of it and good for them, but Chris’s wasn’t the only non-rose ceremony exit in the episode.

For the first time ever, as far as I can recall, a Bachelorette denied a rose to her first date pick.

The unlucky fellow was Jordan V, the drag racer with whom Rachel was vibing on Night 1 and I am torn. On the one hand, Jordan seemed pleasant and like he was really into Rachel. On the other, we’ve all been there, right? You go out with someone who seems really promising and partway through the conversation you realize there’s no there there.

Rachel and Jordan V in the proverbial “happier times” on their one-on-one.

So good on Rachel for going with her gut even if it was really awkward that Jordan was left on his own at a table in the Los Angeles Theatre and that they had been smooching on a zero gravity plane just hours before, and then Rachel had to listen morosely all by herself to a private concert by Ashley Cooke and Brett Young.

Gabby, on the other hand, picked a winner for her first date. You could practically feel the air vibrating as all of Bachelor Nation swooned over Nate Mitchell.

Even before he got his date card, though, Nate had already ascended to hero status for calling Chris out on his toxic masculinity.

Here’s how it went down. Chris was sitting around with some of the other guys, pontificating about what would happen when — not if — he made it to the final four and what his deal breakers would be.

“We go into fantasy suite and we have this sexual experience, and then the person who I’m most interested in decides she’s gonna have sex with multiple people and feel it out, that would be the situation where I’d go, ‘OK, I’m out,'” Chris said.

When questioned by the other guys about whether he’d drop this bombshell before, during or after fantasy suites, Chris said it would depend on the situation.

Also, he kept calling Rachel and Gabby “females” like they were research subjects in an experiment he was conducting and not living, breathing women whom he allegedly might be interested in.

So many observations! First off, the final four don’t go to fantasy suites, just the final three. Duh. Second, that kind of ultimatum worked so well for Luke Parker. Third, who the hell are you and what gives you the right?

Several of the men were aghast. Words like “presumptuous,” “disrespectful” and “jerky” were used, but nobody called it better than Nate.

“Any time you have a premeditated thought of you won’t do this unless that, that is a form of control and that is manipulative . . . You cannot have preconditions for love. It’s just a form of control that a lot of men don’t realize that they do that damages good women.”

Yes, just yes.

Then Nate and Gabby went on a helicopter/hot tub date with lots of kissing and laughing. And did we mention Nate is 33, has a real job (electrical engineer) and a six-year-old daughter? And if you compare his bio to Chris’s on the ABC website, you’ll see Nate’s talks about doing thoughtful things for the woman he loves, whereas Chris’s says he wants a woman who will love him for being a hard worker and not complain as they “work together toward greatness.”

Sometimes the villains are hiding in plain sight.

Nate Mitchell with Gabby Windey before the rose ceremony.

Anyway, back to Nate. He told Gabby about his daughter at dinner at L.A.’s Union Station and Gabby teared up listening to him talk: “She is my world,” Nate said. “Like, a pocket of my heart just burst open the first time she said ‘Dad,’ the first time she told me she loved me, the first time I felt her hug me.”

And damn, who wouldn’t tear up listening to that? It’s moments like these that keep us watching this godforsaken franchise.

Gabby, reflecting on her close relationship with her own father, told Nate he was the best thing that was ever going to happen to his daughter.

Could Nate be the best thing to happen to Gabby? Well, it’s only Week 2, but there is definitely serious potential there. Nate got the date rose, so all the nervous nellies back at the mansion, freaked out by Jordan V’s disappearance, could relax.

Speaking of the mansion, pretty sure we’ve never had 29 men staying there at once, which is how many men were left after last week’s cancelled rose ceremony. But could the producers not have rolled in some cots? Guys sleeping on outdoor couches, really?

Host Jesse Palmer gives the men the laydown before they stripped down to their Speedos.

In lieu of a supersized group date there was a “pageant” inside the mansion in which the men had to don Speedos (and one banana hammock), and strut and flex for Gabby and Rachel, with the aim of winning time at a private after-party at their place.

Seriously, is anybody more obsessed with the male anatomy than “Bachelorette” producers? The show went through a season’s worth of black bars covering up bulges.

There was also a “talent” segment, although only two efforts are worth mentioning. The good: mortgage broker Jacob, a.k.a. wannabe Fabio, sat backwards on a chair, put on glasses and gave Rachel and Gabby a mortgage pitch, which was very entertaining.

“Jacob is Tarzan dressed like George of the Jungle slash my mortgage broker, ” said Rachel.

The bad and the ugly: James, a.k.a. Meatball, pouring a jar of pasta sauce down his chest. To quote Jesse: “Nooo! Oh!”

Neither man made it into the group of six winners, which included Aven, Logan, Brandan, Jason, Johnny and Colin.

And yeah, I had to look up all their names because I don’t really remember who anybody is at this point. But you only have to focus on two names for the moment: Logan and Johnny.

Logan Palmer with Rachel ahead of the rose ceremony.

I don’t trust videographer Logan as far as I can throw him and I’m still holding a grudge over him trapping two live baby chicks in his sweaty palms on Night 1. But mostly I don’t trust him because he’s clearly playing both Gabby and Rachel.

After getting blown off by Jason, who was there for Gabby, and finding Brandan and Colin not to her taste, Rachel connected with Logan, who blew smoke up her ass about how “incredibly brave” she was to “jump back into this process,” without mentioning Clayton by name. And they smooched.

Next thing you know, Logan was also kissing Gabby after spewing more flattery about how she was “someone who makes people smile and laugh.”

The dude is too smooth by half, but Rachel had to give a rose to somebody. And despite also being interested in Logan, Gabby generously deferred to her friend and gave her rose to Johnny, whom she also kissed.

The double dipping didn’t end there.

Pretty sure this is Mario talking to Rachel, even though the ABC caption didn’t identify him.

Ahead of the rose ceremony, personal trainer Mario — Gabby’s first impression rose winner — chatted up Rachel and then lifted her up and did squats with her, making Rachel squeal, all within earshot and view of Gabby.

But the real drama centred on Chris, because of course it did.

Quincey, Hayden and Jordan H, no doubt encouraged by producers, told Rachel about Chris’s fantasy suite “deal breaker” and she told Gabby, and the two of them confronted Chris.

Chris didn’t deny what he’d said — although he tried the “I wasn’t the only one talking about it” manoeuvre — and he didn’t apologize either.

“If you’ve seen our journey you would know it would be important to us, and would respect our place as women and our position to make our own decisions, which it seems like if we went against something you believed in you would take that time to leave,” Gabby said.

Chris tried to turn it around and make it about them not wanting to have a conversation with him, at which point Rachel told him he was being condescending and they walked his ass out of there.

But that wasn’t the end of it, since Chris walked right back in, gathered Jordan H, Hayden, Quincey, Nate and Tyler (I think), and started grilling them about what they said to Rachel and Gabby.

Rachel and Gabby pushed their way through the knot of producers and camera people filming the scene and gave Chris the boot again, for good this time.

And then, finally, we got a rose ceremony, but only six guys got the heave-ho, leaving a still unwieldy group of 21 whose names we’ll never remember, but for the record: Erich, Zach, Jordan H, Quincey, Michael, Tiny, Jacob, Tyler, Hayden, James, Kirk, Spencer, Alec, Ethan and Mario got roses, in addition to the ones that Nate, Johnny and Logan already had.

Rachel and Gabby alternated the rose-giving and made it clear the roses were from both of them, but looks like that will change next week, with at least one rose rejection and Rachel having a rose ceremony meltdown.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.

Edited because I accidentally called Jordan V, Jordan Z in one reference.

2 Bachelorettes, 32 men, 3 kisses, 1 horse: let the games begin

July 12, 2022 /
Double Bachelorettes Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. PHOTO CREDIT: Gizelle Hernandez/ABC

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!

“I don’t trust men,” Gabby said. Me, I don’t trust “Bachelorette” producers.

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.

Clayton’s Bachelor season ends with shock and righteous rage

March 16, 2022 /
“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

Rachel and Gabby let Clayton off the hook and they’ll regret it

March 15, 2022 /
Host Jesse Palmer with “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” alumni Michelle Young, Nick Viall and Clare Crawley on Part 1 of the live “Bachelor” finale. PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Sjodin/ABC

Clayton Echard might not get engaged — to be honest, I hope he doesn’t — Susie, Rachel and Gabby might all feel like chumps but hey, “The Bachelor” was the No. 1 trending topic worldwide Monday night, so at least ABC and Warner Bros. are getting their happy ending.

It’s pretty gross when you think about it. People were dying in Ukraine at the same time that millions of us were tuned into the equivalent of emotional torture porn on a reality show.

I’m not being holier than thou. I was watching and tweeting right along with everyone else, and now I’m writing about it.

This whole hideous season is coming down to a hideous two-part finale —the second half of “the most shocking finale in ‘Bachelor’ history” goes down tonight — and my guess would be that, if anything, it’s just emboldened the people who put the show together.

We hated that they chose Clayton as Bachelor; we hated “the Shanae Show”; we hated the way Clayton talked to Susie last week, but all of that just fuelled the show’s clout, so is it any surprise that Jesse sounded positively gleeful when he teased “the rose ceremony from hell” as the episode started?

And it was hellish.

Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia before Clayton dropped his bomb.

For some unfathomable reason, Clayton decided that after his relationship with Susie blew up — since she couldn’t accept the fact he had sex with both Rachel and Gabby, and had also told both that he loved them — he might as well be “1,000 per cent transparent” with the two who were still standing.

When Rachel and Gabby showed up for the rose ceremony, in the dramatic Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, Clayton said the words that have been teased all season long: “I am in love with both of you and I also was intimate with both of you.”

Stunned, Rachel and Gabby walked off in different directions. Rachel sat on some steps and sobbed, her anguish echoing through the hall, wiping her eyes so much she wiped the makeup right off her face. “I’ve never felt pain like this before,” she said.

Gabby had a cry too, and came back with questions for Clayton and also some observations, and they were really good ones.

Like, for instance, exploring relationships fully “is not definitively loving.”

Also, after Clayton told her he meant everything he said to her, “but how do you, like, back that up?”

“Because ultimately, like, whoever I pick I love the most,” Clayton said.

It’s a good thing Gabby hadn’t heard Clayton tell Susie that he loved her the most or her head would have exploded.

“I don’t think you just tell multiple women you love them thinking there would be no consequences,” Gabby said in her voice-over. Exactly! “For him saying the woman I walk out with is the woman I love the most, like wrong fucking answer.

“I don’t want to be loved the most, I just want to be loved for who I am.”

Speaking of love, I don’t think I have loved Gabby more than I did at that moment.

Rachel was also struggling to understand how Clayton could love three people at once but, given how head over heels she was for him, it wasn’t a surprise when, as the rose ceremony got back on track, she accepted the first flower from him without recrimination.

Rachel expresses her shock as Clayton walks Gabby out behind her.

But Gabby said no and I was so pleased for her. It’s too bad she didn’t just hightail it out of there. But she let Clayton talk to her and he somehow talked her into staying.

I have to pause here to defer to former Bachelor Nick Viall (yeah, I know), who was hauled onstage along with former Bachelorettes Michelle Young and Clare Crawley to comment on the spectacle unfolding. Nick said Clayton was “a guy focused on finding love for himself and not focused on finding love with someone else.” Also, “he never took the time to consider the position of power he’s in as the Bachelor.” Spot on Nick, spot on.

Back at the Harpa, Rachel was still trying to digest that fact that she would end up with Clayton by default rather than by design when Clayton and Gabby came back.

Gabby and Rachel share a moment of support.

And this is the moment that I will cling to as I watch the rest of this train wreck: Gabby walked up to Rachel, told her “I’m sorry to make you wait,” and they hugged, and Rachel asked Gabby if she was OK and rubbed her shoulder.

Clayton does not deserve either of these women, which made it hard to watch as each of them met his family. Clayton’s family seems perfectly nice, but it was tough to see Gabby and Rachel get strung along a little bit farther.

Furthermore, his dad Brian and mom Kelly were as unimpressed with him telling three women he loved them as everyone else.

“I don’t know how you could be in love with three people,” said Kelly.

“You have to understand, they don’t want to be second or third, they want to be first. They have a right to be upset with you,” said Brian.

“You have screwed the pooch, in my opinion.”

Kelly added that Gabby, who they were about to meet, seemed like a consolation prize. “I don’t know if the love of your life has gone.”

Hold that thought.

These are the faces of parents whose son has just told them he loves three women.

Things went as well as can be expected when the man who’s just ripped your heart out and stomped on it a little takes you to meet his family.

Alas, Gabby told Kelly she still trusted in her relationship with Clayton. “I’ve never met anyone as genuine and open-hearted as him.”

I guess we can agree on the open-hearted part, all things considered; too open-hearted.

Rachel, meanwhile, told Kelly straight up that Clayton was perfect for her. And she told Brian she’d never been in love “the way I am with him.”

So Mama and Papa Echard were all in on whichever one Clayton chose as their new daughter-in-law. And then came the twist that practically had Jesse peeing his pants as he introduced the next segment.

CLAYTON COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT SUSIE!

“I’ve just realized my heart, where it’s at,” Clayton told his folks. “Not to disregard what I have with Rachel and what I have with Gabby. It’s so special what I have with those women. It just was a little bit more special with Susie.”

THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU KEEP YOUR LIPS ZIPPED WITH GABBY AND RACHEL AND KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS?

Brian and Kelly did their best to convince Clayton the Susie ship had sailed, but along came Jesse to helpfully tell Clayton that Susie was still in Iceland. Because of course she was.

Host Jesse Palmer drops in on Clayton, his folks and his brothers.

And to add insult to injury, back in the studio, Jesse brought Rodney Mathews onstage, alongside Kaitlyn Bristowe and Cassie Randolph, the man who should have been Bachelor. Rodney is very much Team Clayton, but he did say that Clayton was “living in the moment a little too much.” Ya think?

I don’t believe “Bachelor” producers have yet figured out a way to infiltrate cast members’ brains and control their feelings, although it would not at all surprise me to hear they’d been using subliminal messaging to imprint the idea of falling in love with three women on Clayton.

Whether they knew or merely hoped he was going to want to reconcile with Susie, keeping her in Iceland instead of letting her go home was all part of the nefarious plan.

Since Jesse keeps saying he doesn’t know what happens, it seems likely Clayton and Susie aren’t going to kiss, make up and get engaged — maybe they agree to keep dating a la Cassie and Colton Underwood (and we all know how that turned out). It does seem clear that Rachel and Gabby are going to be discarded, which puts the lie to Clayton’s protestations of love for them.

Part 2 of this mess airs 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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