Tag: Michael Allio

Forget the shenanigans of “The Men Tell All” — Cody who? Karl blah blah blah — the only thing of note that happened on Monday’s “Bachelorette” was that Michael Allio took himself out of the running and broke many, many hearts.

I should have seen it coming when the episode began with a time-wasting chat about hometowns between Katie and co-host Tayshia Adams, and Katie said she was excited about potentially choosing Michael and becoming an “instant mom” to his son. It’s called foreshadowing, folks. It’s like when the dudes who freak out that they’re not getting picked at the rose ceremony get their names called and the ones who yammer on about how confident they are that they’re staying get sent home.

Michael himself was pumped about Katie meeting his parents, but then he made his daily video call to his little boy, James, and James said, “Maybe Daddy left because he don’t want to see me.” And Michael was crying and a producer was hugging him.

If Michael had stayed after that, then he wouldn’t be the man we’ve all grown to admire so much. He made the trek to Katie’s suite — thanks to those of you who pointed out she was wearing a special shade of breakup blue — and told her, “I’m not leaving because of you, I’m leaving because my son needs his dad.”

Katie, with tears rolling down her cheeks, said, “I want to beg you to stay. I just know that’s not an option.”

And they exchanged a couple of long hugs and a kiss and Michael was gone.

Who knows if Katie would have ended up with Michael had he stayed? She did say she saw them going to the end. But at “Men Tell All,” she made it clear there’d be no second chances.

Michael had told Tayshia and co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe that he’d “100 per cent” be willing to take another shot with Katie because he still felt the same way about her. But Katie had moved on: “I have nothing but love and respect for Michael, but ultimately I could not dwell on the past,” she said. “My ending is ultimately how everything was supposed to happen.”

So Michael for Bachelor then? It could happen, but only if he was allowed to bring his son along. To me, it seemed like Andrew Spencer got more of a Bachelor edit on “Men Tell All.”

After revisiting his exit from the show — with nothing but good things to say about Katie — Andrew told Tayshia and Kaitlyn, “I’m still waiting for someone to just, you know, pick me for me, pick me for 100 per cent me.”

Tayshia brought up the conversation that Andrew and Katie had on their one-on-one date about interracial relationships, saying “You were so courageous for talking about that.”

“Me being a Black man, I’m not afraid of shouldering or having to bear that,” Andrew replied.

Was Tayshia laying the groundwork for a Bachelor season in which Andrew would be dating white women again? Perhaps. She also told him, “You said you want to be chosen and you will.”

I honestly half expected her to introduce him as the next Bachelor at that point.

The one fly in the ointment are problematic tweets of Andrew’s that have surfaced. One post I saw described them as “misogynistic, fatphobic or racially insensitive.” So nothing’s in the bag just yet.

As for the rest of “The Men Tell All,” holy filler Batman!

I love Kaitlyn and Jason Tartick as a couple, but why were we watching a video of then getting engaged, which had nothing to do with Katie’s season? That segment about the men trash-talking each other on the stupid bash ball date? Waste of time. And revisiting the ridiculous WOWO challenge? Really?

I’m not going to talk about Aaron’s feud with Cody. I couldn’t even remember who Cody was until I was reminded in the highlight reel and I couldn’t give a crap why he was on the show.

As for Karl? Same old, same old. He now claims that when he told Katie that multiple men weren’t there for the right reasons he was really talking about Thomas but didn’t want to rat him out by naming him. Whatever dude.

The one notable thing about Karl’s time in the spotlight is that it gave Brendan more screen time than he had the entire season. Karl said Brendan, who’s Canadian, “only showed up for a free ticket to the United States so he could have free beer for the whole trip.” Brendan called Karl a snake and a scumbag. Karl told Brendan to shut the fuck up. Brendan accused Karl of spreading “fake news.” At one point they stood toe to toe as if things were going to get physical. They did not, we moved on.

There was some chat about Thomas and whether he was actually a “bad guy,” and then the talk moved to Hunter, who admitted that yes, he told a fib when he said he didn’t have a top four list, but he wasn’t lying about falling in love with Katie and . . . does anyone else find this tedious?

Speaking of villain Thomas, he wasn’t there in person but appeared on a video call and seemed like he was still campaigning to be the Bachelor. He apologized for taking attention away from Katie and the “amazing guys in the room,” and he said his life had been “transformed” by his time with Katie, without explaining what that meant. Yawn.

And finally, let’s talk about Connor, a.k.a. the Cat. Did some random woman really pop up in the audience to tell Connor he couldn’t possibly be a “bad kisser”?

Even if she wasn’t a production plant, somebody must have known what she was going to do before she did it. It’s reality TV in name only, people.

The woman, who was named Tara, was invited onstage to kiss Connor and she told Tayshia and Kaitlyn it was an 11. And then they smooched again, as Andrew yelled “You’re a tiger! You’re a tiger!” at Connor, and Connor plucked a rose from the bouquet on the table and gave it to her.

Honestly, that’s the most interesting thing that happened on “Men Tell All” aside from the fact that there was a live audience in attendance, a lot smaller one than in the before times but still.

Let’s finish with Connor’s latest song, which ended with the catchy lyrics, “Katie, we’re lucky you gave all of us half a chance / But the guys on this season have got me believing in bromance.”

Next week, it’s back to the drama when I presume we’ll finally see the hometown dates, and Greg seems to be freaking out and Katie asks someone to book her a flight home.

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