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Tag: Women Tell All

The Shanae Show gets a sequel on ‘Bachelor: The Women Tell All’

A rare moment on “The Bachelor: The Women Tell All” when the women weren’t yelling at each other. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

Did you think you were going to get some catharsis on the “Women Tell All” episode of “The Bachelor”? Not a chance.

A shit show of a season produced a a shit show of a “Tell All” that was at times a free-for-all of women yelling at each other. And by the end of it I was more annoyed with this ridiculous franchise, not less.

A large chunk of the first 45 minutes (minus commercials) was occupied by talk from or about uber-villain Shanae or, as Sierra called her, “a narcissistic, gaslighting beotch.”

Shanae in her “red flag” dress in the hot seat.

Make that a beotch who got to defend herself in the hot seat, complete with softball questions from host Jesse Palmer, clearly out of his depth.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. But it’s a travesty that the nastiest thing that Shanae did — suggesting Elizabeth was faking her ADHD and mocking her for the condition — was left out of Shanae’s clips reel. Nor was Elizabeth given equal time to defend herself.

I guess it doesn’t matter in the end because Shanae stuck to the same playbook she employed the rest of the season: attack, lie and make herself out to be the victim.

She even added a new lie, accusing Genevieve of having sex with “Bachelorette” and “Paradise” alumni Aaron Clancy after she got eliminated. (Genevieve says she didn’t and, even if she had, who cares?)

A real host would have called Shanae on her nonsense. Jesse? Hell, he actually thanked her, along with Genevieve, who joined her in the hot seat, for being “open and honest” with him.

My guess is Mike Fleiss and his minions are already preparing Shanae’s “Bachelor in Paradise” contract. You think they give a crap that people are tweeting and begging them not to bring her to Paradise? That’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

And speaking of red flags, that word came out of Shanae’s mouth in relation to other contestants; also her favourite, “fake”; pretty much everything but “sorry,” as in sorry for lying and generally acting like, well, what everybody kept calling her: a bitch.

But Shanae got as good as she gave, though.

Genevieve bringing some unintentional levity to the Shanae fray.

Besides repeatedly being called a bitch, she was called “one of the most disgusting human beings I’ve ever met in my life” by Hunter. When she stood up to walk onstage, the women snarked that her ass looked terrible. “Are you wearing a diaper?” called out Genevieve.

“From the bottom of my heart, fuck you, Shanae,” Lyndsey told her. “You can go rot in Ohio for all I care.”

I know all of us watching were supposed to find this thrilling. I mean, how exciting, a bunch of women yelling nasty things at each other and Jesse sitting there like a deer caught in headlights, barely able to rein them in. Ha, ha, what fun!

But it’s just more sleight of hand by the producers to distract us from the real issue: that this franchise is in thrall to drama, that its masterminds would rather give us episode after episode of women behaving badly than focus on what the show’s supposed to be about.

And even the supposedly nice women get brainwashed into upholding the franchise’s sexist standards.

The other contestant who got yelled at on “Women Tell All” was Cassidy, for having a boy toy back home and not forswearing him to devote herself heart and soul to Clayton. Cassidy said the sex was good and “I wasn’t gonna cut it off unless I was engaged.” And why should she?

And if Genevieve had decided to sleep with Aaron after running into him at a bar, why not if they were both into it?

Teddi would make a fine pick for Bachelorette.

The closest the episode got to a healthy conversation about sex and commitment was when Teddi was in the hot seat. Obviously her virginity was up for discussion, because that’s another thing this franchise has a puerile fascination with.

If she had made it to fantasy suites, Clayton might have been her first, she said.

“Society puts a lot of pressure on women that it changes who they are if they lose their virginity. I don’t feel that,” Teddi said.

“I think it’s OK if someone wants to wait until marriage. I think it’s OK if someone wants to have sex every weekend.”

Teddi and Serene were both breaths of fresh air in the hot seat: utterly uninterested in throwing anyone under the bus. Either one would make a great pick for the next Bachelorette.

Bachelor Clayton and host Jesse bracing for the next onslaught from the women.

And then there was Clayton Echard himself who, confusingly, said he wished he had done things differently but also that he had no regrets because “I had all the best intentions with all my actions I took.”

Sierra called him on that right away.

“I don’t know, Clayton,” she said.

“Why neglect all of the words you’re hearing from all of these wonderful women? We’re all telling you that Shanae is toxic and she’s hurting the entire house. Then she does this one fake apology.

“You chose to believe her over all of us. Like why? It doesn’t make sense?”

Neither did Clayton’s answer.

He claimed he hadn’t yet “built trust” with the women who complained about Shanae. When that didn’t fly, he admitted to having a connection with Shanae. And then he called her stunt of throwing away a group date trophy “indefensible” except, as Jill pointed out, he still kept Shanae around after that.

It all makes perfect sense, of course, if he was following producers’ instructions and keeping her long enough for the two-on-one date in Toronto, but it’s not like he would ever confess to that.

I could go on and talk about Sarah (Clayton said he absolutely did not cry on any of his dates with her, contradicting what she told Jesse earlier), or the fact that he apologized to Serene for holding back his emotions with her (it was the absolute least he could do), or that Dr. Kira hit on him, saying she’d been more and more attracted to Clayton with every episode she watched (were we watching the same show?), but I can’t be bothered. If you’re interested you can find the episode on demand and see all that for yourself.

The hollow feeling I’ve had all season was still there Monday night by the time they cued up the promo, the one that’s supposed to get us pumped for tonight’s fantasy suites episode and next week’s finale.

“The most dramatic finale in Bachelor history,” Jesse said. “How does it end? I was there and I still have no idea.”

The armadillo had the good sense to run away.

Maybe it will be the most dramatic ever, but it’s hard to care at this point. Let’s just get it over with and then we can all scuttle away like the armadillo we saw in the end credits.

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

A ‘toxic’ Bachelor season? Not according to ‘Women Tell All’

From left, Serena P, Anna, MJ, Mari, Pieper, Chelsea, Victoria and Serena C on the somewhat misleadingly named “Women Tell All” episode of “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Oh the irony. There was erstwhile “Bachelor” host Chris Harrison Monday night talking about how there’s been more “explosive drama than any of us were prepared for” this season. Little did he know when that “Women Tell All” episode was taped, just five days before that fateful “Extra” interview with Rachel Lindsay (a fact noted with a disclaimer at the start of the program), that he’d be at the centre of the most explosive drama the franchise has ever seen.

As I write this, there’s still no word on how long Harrison’s hiatus from “The Bachelor” will last or whether it will be permanent (if you’re not sure what’s going on, go google Harrison and Extra and/or Rachel Lindsay and/or Rachael Kirkconnell). We now know that author and TV host Emmanuel Acho will replace Harrison on “After the Final Rose.”

Here’s another thing I know: it was maddening to watch Harrison soft-pedal the drama that did occur this season — the name-calling, the bullying, the gaslighting, the overall meanness — by not calling out the women behind the worst of it and basically just sitting and nodding along while some of them talked more crap.

I mean, come on, we’ve all seen Harrison ask tough questions in these types of situations before, but they were MIA here.

Victoria was still milking the “Queen” nonsense on “Women Tell All.”

So we had Victoria, the Queen of Mean, suggesting that the fact that contestant Ryan was upset about being called a “ho” and an idiot and a “shady bitch” on TV was down to Ryan being overly emotional.

“It’s hard to hear yourself being called a ho on national television,” Ryan said.

“Do you think you’re a super sensitive person?” asked Victoria. And then, noting that she herself had been subject to social media backlash, Victoria added, “I’m a little bit puzzled as to why you’re holding on to this emotional anger right now.”

At least Kit and Chelsea defended Ryan’s right to be angry over being called “horrible things” on TV.

From left, Katie, Jessenia, Ryan and Brittany on “The Women Tell All.”

And Victoria did apologize to Katie for calling her disgusting. But then several contestants piled on Katie for having the nerve to bring up the unpleasantness in the house to Bachelor Matt James.

Chelsea actually said, and I quote, “The house wasn’t toxic until you made it toxic by bringing it up to Matt and then causing the domino effect that led to every single drama in the house that you were involved in.” Hello, shoot the messenger much? It’s complete bullshit. Personally, I was writing about how nasty women like Victoria and Serena C and Anna were being several weeks before we saw Katie talk to Matt about it. She didn’t cause the drama; she just brought it to Matt’s attention.

After Serena C recycled her BS about how Katie “wanted to do it to light a flame and start a fire,” I was the one feeling “emotional anger.”

Katie did a great job of keeping her cool and later got to sit in the “hot seat” with Harrison, saying all the right things for a prospective future Bachelorette, for instance that she’s “embraced exactly who I am” in the past year, that she’s hopeful her “person’s still out there,” that she’s “the most confident I’ve ever been.”

But, as much as I like Katie, the women who brought the most grace and class to an otherwise disappointing episode were Brittany and Abigail.

Brittany was invited up to talk about the rumour that Anna spread about her (and that “Bachelor” producers chose to broadcast) that Brittany was a high-end escort.

“When you google my name now, the first 20 results say ‘Bachelor contestant Brittany Galvin accused of being an escort,'” Brittany told Harrison, adding that there’s nothing wrong with escort work, “but that’s not me.”

“I didn’t sign up to get bullied, I didn’t sign up to get slandered.”

Brittany added that Anna had not reached out to apologize to her despite having had weeks to do so. But gee, Anna was “so, so sorry” at “Women Tell All.” Yet, despite how “awful” Anna said she felt about letting her anger and insecurity get the better of her, she kind of doubled down by telling Brittany she’d heard the rumours about her from people who knew her ex-boyfriend and went to school with her, noting that “Chicago is a small town.”

Brittany very graciously accepted Anna’s apology, saying, “I don’t want people to destroy your life as well.” And if we’re talking about potential Bachelorettes, we could do way worse than someone with that kind of maturity and generosity of spirit.

Abigail was looking every inch a potential Bachelorette on “Women Tell All.”

And then there was Abigail. If anyone had a right to be bitter about how the season turned out it was her. Since when does a first impression rose winner not get a one-on-one date? Has that ever happened before? I’d have to do a little research to find out, but it certainly seems odd. Frankly, it seems like Matt led her on. Abigail said merely that she had “a big what if,” as in could she have been a frontrunner if she’d had a whole day with Matt.

She also focused on the positive feedback she’d had from the deaf community about the fact that a deaf person was shown in a romantic light, since “disability isn’t always romanticized.”

And she mentioned that she was now “a much better version of myself, to share with whoever wants to share that with me.”

Pieper, another hot seat occupant, had a similar sentiment about her time on the show, saying she’d grown as a person. Serena P was invited onstage as well, where she confirmed that, no, she wasn’t having second thoughts about dumping Matt, even though “I care about him still so much.”

(As an aside, I don’t think Serena P is in the running for Bachelorette, but perhaps she’ll pop up on the newly announced “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” coming to Citytv. You never know.)

No offence to Matt, but I am not a fan of the beard.

Finally, I hate to end on a negative note, but Matt’s time in the hot seat was aggravating for me.

Given the chance to comment on the toxicity among the women, all Matt could say was that he was “a little surprised.”

“I just tried to be empathetic to the women and what they were going through because I hadn’t gone through it, so I couldn’t say I (would) have acted differently in their position. There’s a million different factors you have to take into account, so I try not to hold them to an unrealistic standard.”

So not calling other women sluts and ho’s is an unrealistic standard? Good to know.

Matt basically apologized to MJ for sending her home on the two-on-one and then Serena C piped up, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, about how she hoped Matt wouldn’t think the women were bad people or mean ones.

“I’ll be the first one to say I am not a perfect person so I’m no one to sit up here and judge how any of you all decided to handle yourselves and deal with that emotion in real time.”

I guess you could say Matt was being a good Christian, but just know, Serena C, that I am judging you and, yeah, definitely mean.

The distasteful icing on the cake was that Victoria, who up until then had maintained her sangfroid, got all weepy about her dramatic exit — you know, the one in which she loudly called Ryan “the shadiest bitch” and said she, Victoria, was the only one with “a brain” in the room — and blamed it on her “fear of rejection.”

And Matt actually apologized to Victoria if she felt offended. And he also said he “dropped the ball” on their relationship. Their relationship? They had a relationship?

I’m just going to leave it there.

Next week, it’s fantasy suite dates and, yes, more drama, but we’re in the home stretch, just two more episodes to go.

You can watch Monday 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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