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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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?
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.
Recent Comments