Profanity-filled yelling matches, a fake subpoena, a tasteless streaking stunt, co-host Tayshia Adams being driven off the stage in tears: the “Men Tell All” episode of “The Bachelorette” was a lot.
Add to that a promo for a new season of “The Bachelor” that nobody wants that basically gave away the key dramatic moments and you had a tumultuous helping of TV that Twitter observers compared to “Jerry Springer.”
It made for some uncomfortable viewing in the first hour of the episode while the second hour was filled with, well, filler, including a ridiculous stunt that involved a plant in the audience yelling “We love you, Rodney,” stripping off his clothes and being chased around the studio by security in a lame call-back to Rodney’s nude dare on his one-on-one date.
Sorry, Rodney’s streak was funny, this was just silly.
And then there was the cake shaped like Rick’s head in honour of his head-on-a-platter Night 1 entrance, the defamation papers that Peter Izzo had Will Urena “served” with and, later, Peter serving everybody free pizza in a shameless plug for his business.
Maybe we should cut the guy some slack, though, since earlier in the episode Tayshia and Kaitlyn read out what were clearly fake one-star reviews of the place.
If you hadn’t watched any of Michelle Young’s season and you just tuned in on Monday night, you might have thought the whole thing had been a shit show when in fact, with a few notable exceptions, the men had mostly emulated the respectful tone that Michelle herself set.
Michelle brought that same tone to “Men Tell All,” as did two of her nicer rejects, Rodney Mathews and Rick Leach.
Tayshia and co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe poked at the tender spots of their lingering feelings for Michelle. Even fellow contestant Casey (big dude, beardy, in case you’ve forgotten) wiped tears from his eyes when an emotional Rick said, “It’s tough because there’s moments I shared with Michelle that made me feel like I had found my person.”
When Tayshia asked Rick what made Michelle the only person he’d been able to tell the whole story of his father’s death, he replied, “I’d say she listens to understand, she doesn’t listen just to respond and that’s not a skill everyone has.”
You can say that again.
There was no listening going on during the resurrection of the bad blood between “pizzapreneur” Peter and Will — you remember: Will called Peter a narcissist; Peter threw Will’s “Top Gun” jacket in the pool. There was a fair bit of shouting and swearing, though, and it wasn’t all coming from Peter and Will. Daniel and Casey both piled on Peter, with Casey snarking, “There’s 30 guys and only one person who can’t shut the fuck up.” And then Kaitlyn and Tayshia had to yell to get all of them to shut the fuck up.
But they also contributed to the beef by pulling up bad reviews of Peter’s pizzeria on a screen, which Peter blamed on Will posting the name of the biz on his social media. And I’m sorry, but “Pizza tasted like it was drenched in pool water”? That’s clearly not a real review.
Peter got the last word and he used it to have some mean-looking bald dude throw papers in Will’s lap, telling him, “You’ve been served for defamation of character.”
“Come at me bro, that’s a little taste of what’s gonna happen in real life,” said Peter.
You mean production will set up another stunt for you?
Never mind, they shook hands and hugged it out later after Peter had pizza brought in for everyone.
The greatest villain hits tour moved on to Ryan, the guy who was sent home on Night 1 with a binder full of notes on how to maximize his screen time. He’s still insisting those were just cheat sheets from friends since he had no knowledge of how things worked on “The Bachelorette,” which is at odds with the fact he’s appeared on “The Bachelor Live on Stage” (which Becca Kufrin was in the audience to shill for, by the way).
The most useful part of the exchange was that it gave fan favourite Pardeep Singh the spotlight: “You’re someone who desperately wanted to be on ‘The Bachelor’ your whole life, that’s all you do. You have zero integrity, dude,” he told Ryan.
Next up was Martin Gelbspan.
Romeo told Martin he was disappointed by his “triple whammy of misogyny,” but Martin was still talking BS, claiming he’d been misunderstood by Michelle.
I wish they’d spent a little more time on Will’s claim that Martin had a girlfriend back home during shooting. Martin did admit he’d been dating the woman who is now his “soul mate” before the show, which is highly suspicious. And Casey claimed Martin told Peter he had a girlfriend.
In any case I feel sorry for that “queen,” as Martin called her.
Chris Sutton also got some attention for his shenanigans. You know, trying to “rescue” Michelle from men who thought they had it “in the bag,” blah blah blah.
The only thing worth noting is that Olu Inajide called out Chris, who is white, on his racist nonsense of describing Olu, who is Black, as having a low IQ.
“You looking at black excellence right here. I have a whole master’s degree, boy,” Olu said, standing up and walking over to Chris to demand Chris look him in the eye, which had Rodney and Peter jumping up and getting between them. Chris said he had nothing to say to Olu, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he peed himself a little.
And then we had Jamie Skaar, who didn’t sit with the other men at first but was brought out from backstage to the hot seat.
To recap: among Jamie’s sins was telling Michelle the men were upset about a rumour that she knew Joe Coleman before filming, a rumour that he himself perpetuated but refused to own up to; and describing Michelle as being in “spring break mode” and the other men as being beneath his level.
The other men wanted Jamie to fess up and apologize. Instead he talked in circles, blabbing about how there were “three pieces to that” and “two levels of understanding,” and doing everything but admitting he acted like a dick.
It seemed like he’d been let off the hook when his time in the hot seat was interrupted to bring Rick onstage, but that was before Michelle had her way with him.
After Michelle came onstage, Jamie spouted some crap about how he and Michelle both liked to coach people and build people up, to which Michelle listened stony-faced.
“As I watch back and I see those things that you have said on camera about me going through a spring break mode, you express that you thought the men in the house were below you, for me that’s not what a coach does . . . So I don’t understand how you can be so comfortable or quick to express and preach positivity when that’s not what you’re showcasing 100 per cent of the time,” she said, as the studio audience exploded in cheers and applause.
“I’m not seeing any responsibility.”
So Jamie threw out a weasel apology: “If anybody feels hurt by the words that came out of my mouth I apologize for it.” He also said his comments were about him “venting” rather than his genuine opinions about anyone else.
Michelle was having none of it, noting that his apology put responsibility on the other men rather than on himself and that he hadn’t learned anything from his comments.
So finally, Jamie said, “I was in the wrong and I apologize for that.”
Did he mean it? Not a chance, but Michelle accepted it.
She also accepted an apology from Martin, who was still talking nonsense about “miscommunication” and “misunderstanding” — wrong “m” word, Martin, I believe “misogyny” is the one you want.
But Michelle also schooled him on what women truly deserve: “It is important to lift women up because we are not lifted up,” she said. “And you have to truly understand what that means to treat a woman like a queen. It’s listening to her when she’s vulnerable and embracing what she’s been through instead of calling her immature . . . because those words really do hit deep, not only for me but for so many other women.”
I don’t think for a minute that Martin got what she was saying, but let’s move on to the nice guys.
The sweetest interaction was with Rodney, who made it to top four. Michelle complimented him and he complimented her right back.
“The way that you truly carried yourself with so much class, so much poise, so much grace, I’m just so happy for you, I’m so proud of you,” Rodney said.
“I’m so grateful and so thankful for everything you did for me. As long as you’re happy I’m happy. I just wish you nothing but the best.”
It was a painful reminder of how great it would have been to see Rodney as the new Bachelor — a man who came into the season considering himself an underdog but who quickly soared in Michelle’s and everyone’s else regard.
But we’re stuck with faux “underdog” Clayton Echard and a promo of his season was shown with much fanfare. Don’t let the excited cheers from the studio audience fool you; when you’re at a TV show taping there are always people behind the scenes coaching you to cheer very loudly at certain moments.
Besides showing Clayton kissing a bunch of mostly white girls (and a glimpse of what looked like Toronto’s CN Tower) the promo appeared to have revealed the final two, with Clayton telling them “I was intimate with both of you.” And it seems he also told three women he was in love with them and we know how well that sort of thing worked out for Ben Higgins.
Does any of that make me excited for Clayton’s season? Not in the least, but I’ll probably end up recapping it anyway.
One final word. I know it’s the host’s job to ask probing questions on these “Tell All” episodes, but since when does that extend to your co-host?
Kaitlyn pointed out the absence of Tayshia’s engagement ring and asked, “Can you tell us what’s going on in your relationship with Zac?”
“All I have to say is that I’m heartbroken,” replied Tayshia. “We tried really hard and I still love him very much and, um, I’m not sure what the future holds. I mean you know how it is, it’s really tough.”
Kaitlyn assured her she did know and wanted Tayshia to be happy. She hugged her before segueing to Rodney’s time in the hot seat with the cringeworthy, “From one broken heart to another.” But Tayshia was so upset she left the stage, walking right between Kaitlyn and the camera.
I’m sure Kaitlyn was just doing what she’d been told, but it seems like a new low in the producers’ ever ongoing quest to create drama.
“The drama continues,” as the announcer reminded us, with a new episode next Tuesday as Michelle tries to suss out her “person” from among Nayte, Joe and Brandon.
You can tune in at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
Recent Comments