Realityeo.com

Because I love television. How about you?

Tag: Susie

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

Clayton bonks his way to a breakup on ‘The Bachelor’

March 9, 2022 /
Final three Susie Evans, Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey ponder their fates on “The Bachelor.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs

Monday’s fantasy suites episode of “The Bachelor” was like waiting for the train wreck that you knew was coming and, when it happened, it was worse than you thought it was going to be.

Not only did Clayton Echard tell his final three he was in love or falling in love with each of them, he also tried to have sex with all three of them. And when Susie foiled his plan by refusing to take Rachel’s and Gabby’s sloppy seconds (and thirds) Clayton turned into an entitled jerk right before our eyes.

As the episode ended, Susie was gone and distress was in store for Rachel and Gabby. We’ve known since before the season even started that Clayton was going to confess to having sex with both of them and, judging from the promos, their reactions to that are exactly what you’d imagine them to be.

Of course, we can’t pretend all the blame for Monday’s mess lies with Clayton.

It’s just too much of a coincidence that the one woman for whom Clayton having sex with someone else would be a deal breaker ended up getting the last of the three fantasy suite dates. I mean, I doubt producers stood over the beds urging Clayton and Rachel and Gabby to fornicate, but it was clearly what they hoped would happen.

Having the women stay together in the same suite, watching each other come back from spending the night with the same guy — particularly after Gabby said she was sorry “in advance” — was another nice bit of psychological manipulation.

And was it all Clayton’s idea to spread the L-word around so indiscriminately? Who knows?

The episode started with Clayton flying to Iceland, saying in his voice-over that he was falling in love with all of the women and might already be in love with Susie.

Obviously, a Bachelor claiming to be falling for multiple women is nothing new. It’s part of the Faustian bargain the leads make: they pretend to be racked with indecision about who to choose until the morning of the proposal.

But telling more than one woman you love them? Ask Ben Higgins and Arie Luyendyk Jr. how well that turned out.

I’ve always figured it was just play-acting, that the Bachelors knew weeks in advance whom they wanted to end up with. And if that was the case you would assume they wouldn’t go sampling the wares, so to speak, of the other two finalists.

So did Clayton really not know? Or is he just a horny guy who figured he’d never again get a free pass to sleep with multiple women?

Rachel and Clayton 400 feet beneath the surface of an inactive volcano.

His first date — a descent into an inactive volcano — was with Rachel. To be honest, I would have figured that for lust rather than love, given how incapable they’ve been of keeping their hands and lips off each other. But Clayton told Rachel he was falling in love with her at dinner. Then, after their night in the boom boom room, er, fantasy suite, he yelled “I love you too, Rachel!” as she bid him farewell from the balcony.

One down.

Gabby and Clayton spent the night in a yurt.

Next up was Gabby and they took a dune-buggy ride on a beach. Before checking into a yurt with floor-to-ceiling windows — let’s hope there were curtains to pull before they got busy — Clayton told Gabby he was falling in love with her and repeated it the next morning.

Two down.

Susie had been freaking out pretty much the whole episode, obsessing about what Clayton might be doing while alone with Rachel and Gabby. The producers even juxtaposed audio of her saying she was “spiralling emotionally” with video of her walking down a spiral staircase, because they just couldn’t help themselves.

“If I find out he’s falling in love with other women or he had become physically intimate with another woman, that would be devastating,” she said.

Clayton and Susie at the spa before the wheels came off.

So we had a pretty good idea of what was coming, even though the early part of the date, at the Sky Lagoon spa, went really well.

Clayton said his love for Susie was “on another level” and, at dinner, he told her how he felt.

Susie said she adored him in return, but she had “expectations I’m not willing to let go of.”

“Do you feel that same way with somebody else or have you, like, slept with another woman?” If so, “I think it would be impossible to move forward toward an engagement.”

The answer to both her questions was yes, but Clayton told Susie he was “the most in love” with her, which didn’t help.

He wanted them to go to the fantasy suite to talk things through. Susie said she was confused and walked away from the table.

By the time she came back to talk some more, Clayton Jekyll had turned into Mr. Hyde.

Susie said she felt awful and like she’d fucked everything up. Clayton just shook his head and told her she had “invalidated everything that we had.” If she really cared about him, she would try to work through it. And if sex with other women was a deal breaker, she should have told him that before fantasy suites, he said.

“I don’t even know who I’m looking at anymore,” Clayton told her coldly. “You just dropped a bombshell on me. I don’t agree with it at all how you went about this. I think it’s BS. And we’re done.”

Clayton shows Susie the door, literally.

Susie kept trying to apologize as he walked her to the waiting SUV. In fact, he walked ahead of her, held the door as if she couldn’t get in the car fast enough, and told her he was going to find somebody who “will fight for me as much as I fight for them. You’re not that person.”

Like wow. There’s a lot to unpack there, as the saying goes.

I understand that sex is implied in the idea of fantasy suites (although plenty of Bachelors and Bachelorettes claim they just talked in theirs) and, with that in mind, ideally Susie would have shared her feelings about Clayton having multiple partners earlier.

But it wasn’t out of line for her to believe that if Clayton really wanted to be with her he wouldn’t mess around with someone else. She was well within her rights to set boundaries for herself that she would not cross. And Clayton acted like an asshole when he shifted all the blame for the relationship imploding onto her.

I suspect he’s going to find out next week that Rachel and Gabby don’t want to fight for him either.

In which case, what the hell have we wasted nine weeks of our lives for?

You can watch next week’s two-part finale Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Clayton’s hometowns are a walk in the park on The Bachelor

March 1, 2022 /
From left, GabbyWindey, Serene Russell, Rachel Recchia and Susie Evans await the verdict
on the hometowns episode of “The Bachelor,” PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Sjodin/ABC

Clayton Echard was threatened with the prospect of several fearsome creatures on the hometowns episode of “The Bachelor,” including alligators and bears, but only one turned up — Rachel’s dad — and he wasn’t that scary.

Well, him and the giant, hairy spider that crashed Rachel’s date. I might have nightmares about that thing.

The scariest part of Monday’s episode was that Clayton now has a final three and is about to tell all of them that he loves them.

I suppose this is the stage of the season where we’re supposed to get warm fuzzies as we see Clayton drawing closer to the woman he’s going to end up with. But how are we supposed to figure that out given that he spent the season kissing everybody and his date dialogue sounded like it came out of a “Bachelor” manual?

I couldn’t even tell who was going home Monday.

My best guess going into the episode was Gabby. Susie and Serene had both had double one-on-one dates and Clayton was too hot for Rachel to give her up, but nope, it was Serene who got the brush-off.

If I was emotionally invested in the season, I might be upset about that. But it was like, meh, good for you for not getting chosen. If you don’t get picked for “Bachelorette,” see you on “Bachelor in Paradise.”

Not even Serene cried about Serene getting sent home.

But let’s focus on the positives.

In general, the four hometown women had pretty awesome families. And they kicked Clayton’s butt on their dates. No “let’s tour my high school” or “let’s walk around the twee downtown” dates. Things got physical. Serene’s date actually scared the hell out of him, which is fair play considering what was to come.

Susie gets ready to kick Clayton’s butt at jujitsu, but first he has to learn how to tie his “gi.”

Susie was up first in Poquoson, Virginia, and she took Clayton for jujitsu lessons. Heck, she even got to choke him with her legs.

One of the moves he learned was called “shrimping.” “We just can’t get away from shrimp,” said Clayton, harking back to Shanae and Shrimpgate. “Yeah, I’ve had shrimp follow me this entire journey.”

And whose fault is that?

But I digress, back to Susie’s date. It was especially important to her that Clayton meet her dad Tom. She told Clayton on their first one-on-one about her father being seriously ill the year before and now she told him how much it had scared her that her dad might not be around to walk her down the aisle.

But Tom assured Susie he was getting better every day and they had an emotional father-daughter talk. She told him he was the “golden standard of what I expect in a partner.”

To Clayton, Tom was gracious, telling him how special Susie was and “If Susie loves you we’ll love you.” It’s nice to know she’s in good hands if Clayton dumps her, especially since Clayton told her mom Jean he didn’t yet love Susie, although “I will get there.”

Next up was Gabby in Denver, Colorado.

She and Clayton went hiking and he had fun showing her how he’d scare off a bear if they encountered one, although I wouldn’t recommend picking the bear up and kissing it.

Conveniently, they hiked to a spot with a sign that said “Proposal Rock” and I don’t for one minute believe that’s a real thing. It was as much of a prop as the hot tub that Gabby and Clayton climbed into for bubbly and smooching.

When it came time for the main event, Gabby was fretting about her father not being there. Since his girlfriend had been diagnosed with cancer and we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, her dad couldn’t come. But Grandpa John was there and he belongs in the Hometown Hall of Fame.

Grandpa John, possibly the sweetest family member ever, with granddaughter Gabby.

Let me list the reasons why Bachelor Nation has fallen in love with him. He laughed his ass off when Clayton told the fam about Gabby’s Night 1 joke about wanting to sit on Clayton’s face, on a pillow. He called Gabby Gabriela and said she was a “lovable dingbat.” He told Clayton, “So far, I like what I see. Of course it’s early, so I may change my mind about you.” He told Gabby that marriage is for life and if hers and Clayton’s wasn’t, “I’ll be really pissed. I’ll come back and haunt you.” He still wears his wedding ring even though his wife died. “I’m proud of having been married to the same woman that long, so that’s why I’m wearing it,” he said.

Look, I really like Serene, but being able to see Grandpa John again might tip the balance for Gabby in the next Bachelorette sweepstakes.

The pandemic enables “The Bachelor” to have its “Love Actually” moment.

Just when you thought Gabby’s family couldn’t be more adorable, her dad drove up and, “Love Actually”-style, held up signs telling Gabby she was “the most beautiful, intelligent, loving and caring daughter,” and if you weren’t crying before you sure as hell were now.

Seeing her dad emboldened Gabby to tell Clayton she was falling in love with him. “I’m so happy now,” Clayton said.

Next stop was Serene in Oklahoma City and she wasn’t messing. She made Clayton climb 80 feet up the Riversport Adventures Sky Trail structure and cross rope bridges before plunging to the ground, all harnessed of course.

Clayton hangs on for dear life as he crosses one of the Riversport Adventures rope bridges.

Clayton was terrified, particularly of one of the rope bridges that had octagonal discs spaced about a foot apart. It was entertaining when, after he barely made it across, groaning with fear, Serene basically skipped across it, laughing most of the way.

Serene hadn’t taken anyone home to meet her family for about 10 years, mostly because her parents divorced when she was 2 and she didn’t know what a marriage looked like, she told Clayton.

Once they got to her mom’s place, her big brother Roland was looking out for her and, let me tell you, Roland has good instincts. He was also good-looking as hell, which kicked off a Twitter campaign to make him the next Bachelor.

Serene’s brother Roland had Bachelor Nation feeling wistful.

The most attractive thing about Roland was his common sense. He asked Clayton if he loved Serene and got the same answer about Clayton not being there yet. Then Roland, tears in his eyes, told Serene how scared he was seeing her so into Clayton. “I’m not saying I don’t trust your judgement, I do, but be careful. Make sure you’re thinking everything through.”

The problem with these hometown scenarios, just like every season, is there’s no way for these women to protect themselves.

The stupid formula dictates that the Bachelor meet four families and dangle the possibility of marrying their daughters. It’s like a lottery, albeit with better odds, since three of the four are guaranteed to get hurt. And it’s a shame to see all these nice, open-hearted families taken along for the ride.

Serene was so stoked after the family visit, her brother’s warning notwithstanding, that she told Clayton she was in love with him.

Oh well, I hope she broke that stupid jar full of “firefly” lights after he dumped her.

Last, but clearly not least, was Rachel’s hometown visit in Clermont, Florida. She took Clayton kayaking in a clear-bottom boat in a spot called King’s Landing, which made me think of “Game of Thrones.”

There were no dragons, though, nor were there any alligators despite the producers’ attempts to make us think Rachel and Clayton were in danger by splicing in footage of a ‘gator that was obviously nowhere near their kayak.

They passed a hideous-looking spider that Clayton said “could have taken out Godzilla,” but the biggest danger they were in was from chapped lips since, as usual, they couldn’t stop smooching.

Clayton and Rachel after seeing a particularly menacing spider.

Conveniently, they passed a “Kissing Tree” — more props to the producers for their sign-making skills — and took full advantage. I’m pretty sure if there were any alligators around they wouldn’t have been lying in the water snogging.

Rachel was stressed about taking Clayton to meet her dad Tony, whose facial expressions when they walked in the house alternated between a scowl and a scowl.

Tony, upholding his tough guy reputation, said he had offered to beat up Rachel’s last boyfriend. But when it came right down to it, he was just a dad trying to do right by his daughter.

Tony wanted to know what Clayton would do if Rachel’s dream of being a pilot took her to Europe. Clayton said he’d happily move there.

Clayton was candid about the fact somebody was going to get hurt — three somebodies in fact — but said he had no intention of hurting Rachel.

“I know I see a future with her. I’ve dreamt of getting down on one knee proposing to her,” Clayton said.

The tough guy veneer evaporated when Tony was with Rachel. “If he’s what you want I’m all for it,” he told Rachel, tearing up and telling her he loved her and was proud of her.

When Clayton and Rachel left, Tony shook his hand and tapped him on the arm, the prearranged signal that Clayton had his blessing.

Rachel told Clayton she was falling even harder for him, but the dastardly producers tried to make us think he was going to get rid of her by overlaying the footage of them saying goodbye with Clayton droning on about how he had to “break three hearts to make one happy.”

We already know whose heart took the hit and, yes, I am a little perplexed. I did think Clayton was into Serene.

Serene must have been perplexed too. When she sat down with Clayton for her exit interview, as it were, he couldn’t give her a reason.

He had told host Jesse Palmer he was falling in love with all four women “in a different capacity,” but there was none of that said to Serene. Clayton was so unemotional about the whole thing it was hard to believe he had felt much of anything for her.

He said simply that he “had to look back and reflect, and say where do I stand with my heart. And I just have stronger connections.”

Next week is a twofer: first up, the fantasy suites episode, in which Clayton tells Rachel, Susie and Gabby he’s in love with them, and then “Women Tell All,” which naturally will be dominated by Shanae, just like the first half of the season.

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

Clayton psychoanalyzes his way to a final four on ‘The Bachelor’

February 22, 2022 /
Teddi, Susie, Gabby, Rachel, Serene and Sarah celebrate “The Bachelor” moving the circus to Vienna. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs, with apologies for the quality

I’ll be darned, the “Bachelor” producers flipped a switch on the Claytonbot 3000 and Clayton Echard actually made some sensible decisions on Monday’s episode.

First up was sending Mara home. It turns out she probably had a point about Sarah, but the way she went on and on about it ad nauseam was totally annoying and she had to go.

As for Sarah, it seems Shanae wasn’t the only one who was good at fake crying. Clayton decided Sarah wasn’t there for the right reasons, not because she was 23 but because he thought she was making shit up. So buh bye Sarah.

This doesn’t mean the episode was void of annoyances but, when all was said and done, Clayton had a final four. Bring on the hometowns and let’s get this ridiculous season over with.

But first, shall we recap?

Mara’s contempt for Sarah was written all over her face.

We had unfinished business from last week. You’ll recall that Mara, being super jealous that Sarah got a second one-on-one date — and truthfully, the only reason she got it was to piss Mara off — implied to Clayton that Sarah wasn’t ready to get engaged. And Clayton confronted Sarah, who cried copious tears — although I’m now wondering just how real they were — and they kissed and made up and she got a rose and marched back to the hotel to confront whoever had thrown her under the bus.

It didn’t take long for Mara to fess up that she was the one who talked to Clayton, although she framed it more as her looking out for him than her being green with envy that she, Mara, 32-year-old self-proclaimed bedroom and kitchen goddess, was being left on the shelf for a youngster.

Was Sarah overconfident? Sure, especially in light of what happened later in the episode. Was all this sniping just another useless detour into Dramaland? Of course.

But Sarah was also correct when she identified Mara’s manoeuvring as “a last ditch effort by someone who feels like they’re going home.” Because guess what? Mara went home at the rose ceremony, along with Eliza.

For the seven who were left — Susie, Serene, Gabby, Genevieve, Rachel, Teddi and Sarah — it was goodbye Hvar, Croatia; hello Vienna, Austria.

Once there, it was time for the ever popular princess date. And I have to say it is nice to see people go places and do things in picturesque locations, and not have fake ass dates that all happen inside a resort.

First Susie got to go shopping at some fancy store called Fisher’s, and production bought her bandage dresses and Louboutins and who knows what else since she walked out of there with at least 10 bags.

Susie got the season’s princess date, complete with designer gown.

Next stop was the atelier of designer Eva Poleschinski, where Susie got to pick out a ballgown to wear to dinner with Clayton at Schonbrunn Palace. And one wonders how much pressure was brought to bear to get her to pick the red dress since dinner was followed by Chris de Burgh (go ahead and google him young’uns) performing his 1986 hit “The Lady in Red.”

Hey, at least it wasn’t country music.

It certainly does feel like Susie is pulling ahead of the pack. And no, I haven’t read the spoilers nor do I care to. Nor have I done a scientific survey of how many women who get the princess or “Cinderella” date also end up with the final rose, but I know eventual winner Rachel Kirkconnell got it on Matt James’ season.

Susie reiterated that she was falling in love with Clayton and I did worry a little when he talked about seeing “so many sides of Susie” and the only ones he mentioned were the funny one, the serious one and the romantic one.

I will, however, grudgingly admit it was kind of sweet when Clayton said that if you took all the fancy princess-in-the-castle trappings away Susie “would still make me smile just as big.”

Doesn’t matter what we think anyway; Susie’s smitten, she got the rose, Clayton’s meeting her folks.

So what’s the opposite of a Cinderella date? How about taking five women to be psychoanalyzed on TV by a total stranger?

Sarah, Teddi, Genevieve, Rachel and Gabby had to endure couples therapy with Clayton, which is pretty rich since none of them are yet part of a couple. It was just another means to get the women to unearth private trauma for our public entertainment.

Genevieve has an uncomfortable — and pointless — therapy session with Clayton.

The most traumatized of all was Genevieve, although it was the therapy session that was causing her pain.

“I don’t like talking about my feelings and I don’t like being emotional in front of people, especially crying,” said Genevieve.

“Try to express what you feel,” said the psychoanalyst, clearly well coached by the producers.

“I want to understand who you are,” added Clayton, promoting the fiction that if Genevieve just fessed up there could be a hometown date in her future.

What utter nonsense. It wouldn’t have mattered if Genevieve spilled every deep feeling she’d ever had, she was never going to get a hometown rose.

Mercifully, Clayton ended the charade and sent Genevieve home, bizarrely thanking her for “making this journey fun,” a real non sequitur under the circumstances.

And then there was Sarah, who said she loved therapy. She happily cried in front of the psychoanalyst while recounting how the other women tried to tear her down. Clayton babbled that his and Sarah’s trust was now “on a whole other level,” so Sarah’s confidence shot to a whole other level, too. Hell yeah, she was getting a hometown date, she figured.

But then the psychoanalyst told Clayton and his dates that someone hadn’t been honest about their feelings: “performative” was what she said.

Dun dun dun dunnnnn.

At the after party, Clayton invited the women to essentially snitch on the dishonest person.

It turns out there was a thorn in Sarah’s rose after all.

Rachel recounted Sarah coming to her and Teddi after her first one-on-one date to say she and Clayton “were crying together,” which Clayton said wasn’t true. Apparently, Sarah had blabbed so many details about her close connection to Clayton that Teddi and Rachel considered sending themselves home.

When Clayton accused Sarah of being manipulative, she denied everything while doing her best imitation of a crying face.

“I’m just gonna be real with you. I really felt like you were trying to fake cry to me,” Clayton told Sarah, which was spot on.

I guess the difference between Sarah and Shanae was that Shanae had mastered the ability to squeeze actual tears out of her eyes whereas Sarah’s cheeks stayed dry.

Tellingly, her eyes continued to stay dry in the van that whisked her away when Clayton sent her home.

He declined to hand out a group date rose.

The next day, Serene — on her second one-on-one — kicked things off by making sure Clayton was OK after the, um, trauma of sending Sarah home.

What Clayton and Serene lacked in rhythm they made up for in enthusiasm.

Somehow he managed to soldier on as he and Serene toured Vienna’s city centre in a horse-drawn carriage, ate hot chestnuts and danced to accordion music with the obligatory senior citizen couple who gave them a glimpse of their own potential future — yes, that’s right, you too can spend your golden years trying to teach people from some random reality show how to polka.

At dinner later, at the Belvedere Palace, Serene confessed she hadn’t brought anyone home to meet her parents since her high school boyfriend. And she and Clayton compared notes about growing apart from people that you started dating when you were really young and how it can seem like you wasted part of your 20s, but “then I think, no, you learn from every moment that you go through,” Clayton said.

And I’m sorry, but that sounded like an actual line of conversation rather than just a talking point.

Serene told Clayton she was falling in love with him, which made Clayton grin from ear to ear. And he gave her the rose and then they stood in front of the famous Klimt painting “The Kiss” and, duh, kissed.

And then — I can hardly believe I’m writing this — the episode ended with a rose ceremony.

Rachel, Teddi and Gabby await their fate alongside Susie and Serene.

Since Susie and Serene already had roses, and Rachel was a lock for another one, it came down to Teddi and Gabby.

As the first impression rose winner, Teddi might have seemed like a shoo-in but, to be honest, the fact she had her one-on-one so late in the season did not bode well. And indeed, she was the one sent home.

Clayton didn’t seem all that broken up about it, telling her, “It was so nice to get to know you and you’ll forever have a special place in my heart” as he handed her into the van. Not one for long goodbyes is Clayton.

But let’s be honest, he did Teddi — and us — a favour. How nasty would it have been if Teddi lost her virginity to Clayton and then had to suffer through the “I’ve been intimate with both of you” speech that we all know is coming? Consider it a bullet dodged.

Next week it’s hometowns and, if we don’t get tripped up with any special two-part episodes, we just have another four to go and we can all get our Monday nights back.

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

© 2024 Realityeo.com

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑