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Tag: Zach

Bachelor finale recap: Another woman sacrificed to drama

March 28, 2023 /
Zach Shallcross waits on a beach in Thailand to do what everyone knew he was going to do all along. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

So ABC, can we finally cut the crap?

The (un)reality series “The Bachelor” had a “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” moment on Monday’s season finale, very nearly openly revealing just how much of a sham it is.

That it did so at the expense of a brokenhearted woman is to its producers’ shame, as well as ours for going along with the nonsense season after season after season.

To no one’s surprise, even those of us who don’t read the spoilers, Zach Shallcross proposed to Canadian nurse Kaity Biggar in the episode, sending Vermont account executive Gabi Elnicki home — but not before Gabi called him out for stringing her along.

Gabi reacts to being told she’s not the one for Zach.

As she stood on the proposal platform in Krabi, Thailand, getting the “I’ve been falling in love with you, but . . . ” speech from Zach, Gabi made him stop: “I’ve known it was coming,” she said of the breakup. “What I don’t know is why you didn’t tell me when you knew.”

Zach claimed that he didn’t “fully” make his decision until the night before in bed, but Gabi interrupted: “You’ve known, you’ve known.”

And there’s the crux. Sure, Bachelors can compartmentalize, they can have feelings for multiple women, but don’t tell me that with a potentially life-changing decision like a proposal on the line they wait until the last possible moment to make up their minds.

The “I can’t decide between two women” conceit is a fiction that Zach agreed to uphold as part of making a TV show. Gabi laid bare the toll it takes on the woman who, in her words, is “strung along” for the sake of sticking to the formula.

“I never thought someone who said they were falling in love with me would make me go through that,” Gabi told host Jesse Palmer after she watched the debacle in front of a studio audience.

“That last day, when you prepare a speech and you have hours and hours and hours of interviews, and you get ready and you spend all morning waiting and waiting and waiting, and I remember having the thought in the back of my head, ‘Zach would never make you go through this.’

“Even though I had that gut feeling of (not being the one) I didn’t think somebody who cared about me would make me go up there, and go through all of that stress and anxiety, and just the entire day just to — I mean I felt humiliated.”

But Zach made her go through it; Zach played the game.

And that wasn’t even the worst of the betrayal.

Gabi told Jesse that until she watched the fantasy suites episode she didn’t know Zach had told “everyone” about them having sex, a decision they had agreed was going to be just “between us.”

“So for me to see that, it was beyond a TV show for me,” Gabi said crying. “I feel ashamed from a moment that felt like love to me.”

She added, “I thought it was love, I thought it was more than a TV show. I get it, sex sells, but now I’ve become a narrative and it’s really painful . . . it’s a part of me that I’ll never get back that I shared with him and it’s extremely violating that the entire nation knows everything.”

Gabi lays out her pain for Zach on the “Bachelor” finale.

And what did Zach have to say for himself? Not much.

Time was short because the finale was on a schedule but, hey, we really, really needed to have Sean and Catherine Lowe in the hot seat so Sean could pretend that, yes, Zach had a tough choice to make, even though Sean and everybody else knew he’d made it weeks ago. Also, so “The Bachelor” could once again trot out its only real success story in 27 seasons. It’s funny, though, that Sean gives God more credit for his life with Catherine than “this sometimes silly reality TV show.”

But back to Zach. He told Gabi there was no excuse for the way he handled things, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, he was sorry from the bottom of his heart, etc.

It was a variation of what he said to Ariel Frenkel when she took him to task earlier for not telling her he’d had sex with Gabi — she didn’t find out until she watched the episode — and for arbitrarily making sex a no-go when he and Ariel had their fantasy suite date.

Ariel was her usual poised, mature self talking to Zach.

“I want to know why the other women were given grace and honesty and I wasn’t given that respect,” Ariel said to applause and cheers.

Also, “by putting sex off the table you made the entire week about sex” — which, no doubt, was the producers’ intention.

“I want you to understand you also took away my agency . . . You took away my ability to even have a conversation. If you had waited you would have found out I was on the same page as you” about not having sex that week, Ariel told Zach.

I have nothing but good things to say about Ariel and Gabi, who were both done dirty by a franchise that has proven over and over again that it will sacrifice anybody’s well-being, particularly women’s, if it means creating a juicy plot line.

But they weren’t the only women disrespected on Monday.

Sure, Kaity got the “prize,” engagement to Zach, but ABC also did her a dirty by upending the usual order of things, by interspersing the “After the Final Rose” interviews with footage of the events in Thailand instead of leaving “ATFR” to the final hour like they did in the old days.

Zach pops the question to Kaity in Thailand.

How were viewers supposed to enjoy the emotional and, for Zach and Kaity, joyous proposal just minutes after we watched Gabi pour out her anguish onstage?

Once the seemingly genuinely happy couple were together in the hot seat, Zach told Jesse, “When I saw her at the last chance date, I saw her and I thought to myself, ‘It’s you, it’s always been you,’ and I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman.

“And obviously, the show, had to wait it out a little bit, couldn’t say anything. I just knew she was my wife.”

And since Gabi’s last chance date came after Kaity’s, or at least was presented that way in the episode, it certainly puts the lie to all that “I didn’t make up my mind till the night before the proposal” nonsense, doesn’t it?

What else can I say? Kaity and Zach said they’re moving in together in Austin, Texas, in the summer and hope to get married in 2025. I wish them well. I hope they make a go of it.

The episode ended with a sneak peek of Charity Lawson’s “Bachelorette” season as we watched her brother, Nehemiah, turn up at the mansion and put on a disguise so he could become the “undercover brother” and find out more about the men.

Frankly, given the franchise’s overall level of disrespect, I think it will take more than a caring brother to protect her from the drama that will be inflicted on her in her season.

Will I continue recapping “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”? I’m not sure right now that I have the stomach for it, but I’ve been here before and got sucked back in. I will definitely be back in May to follow “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.”

You can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Bachelor recap: Greer’s over COVID, Zach’s over her

March 7, 2023 /
From left, Ariel, Kat, Charity, Kaity and Gabi with Zach Shallcross and host Jesse Palmer at the rose ceremony in Budapest, Hungary. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

This is what “The Bachelor” producers think of the women on this show. After Greer was released from her COVID quarantine, they made her fly to another country just so Zach could break up with her.

If Zoom was good enough for a rose ceremony, surely it was good enough to let Greer know she didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting a hometown date, which apparently everyone but Greer knew. Or she could have just disappeared like Logan did on Rachel and Gabby’s season.

But no, we needed to see the mascara streaking down her cheeks as she sat next to Zach in his Budapest hotel suite.

If there was a word or phrase of the week, it wasn’t “best friend,” which made a reappearance, or even “flabbergasted,” which Zach pulled out on his date with Kaity; it was “insecure,” which is how most of the women felt at some point during the episode.

Well, not Kaity. Everything seemed to be coming up roses for Kaity — pun intended — after she got the first Hungarian one-on-one, her second of the season.

Kaity Bigger looks at Zach Shallcross with adoration as he reads the love “poem” he typed.

She and Zach rode the Budapest Castle funicular — another new Bachelor word! — and wrote the world’s worst “poems” to each other on an old typewriter on the castle grounds, which had not at all been planted at a lookout point by “Bachelor” producers.

They learned important facts about each other, like her favourite colour is purple and his original family name was Shacklecross. And if old English names were derived from what people did for a living, I’m not sure I want to know what that one’s about.

By the time they had their non-dinner at Budapest’s oldest bathhouse, Zach was telling Kaity she made him feel “so special and safe and flabbergasted,” and Kaity was telling Zach he made her feel “that safety, that security, that stability” she’d been missing in her other relationships.

That emphasis on reliability made sense when Kaity explained that her father had left when she was young and the man who raised her also left when she was in Grade 8. And she started to cry and, for once, Zach didn’t start comparing her experience to something in his own life.

“Wow, I mean, that’s, I mean, not easy and I, I, I can’t fathom that, you know, it’s just,” he said.

So eloquently put. But he could have said goo goo, ga ga and Kaity would still have been beaming when he handed over the date rose, which guaranteed her a hometown date.

Next up was the group date. Ariel, Charity, Gabi and Kat were sent to the Kalman Imre Theatre, which was “dark and very scary” inside, according to Charity. She didn’t know the half of it.

Ariel, Charity, Kat and Gabi with Zach and mentalist Labib Malik on the group date.

Zach was hanging with a magician named Labib Malik, who claimed to be able to read minds.

At the very least, his tricks — including making a red heart appear to transfer from Zach’s hand to Gabi’s — enabled us to enjoy Gabi’s swear word substitutions, like “holy shiitake mushroom” and “what the front door.” Malik also asked the women to think of words and then wrote those words down on a chalk board, and he never missed.

What was less fun for the women was when Malik, warning them he’d know if they were lying to him, made comments and asked questions designed to make them feel like they were blowing it with Zach.

Shades of the psychoanalysis date on Clayton’s season.

So Gabi was told that people found her confusing; Ariel was told she was keeping people from knowing “the true you”; Charity was induced to say she had a hard time trusting herself after her previous horrible relationship; and Kat was outed for having considered quitting “The Bachelor.”

Kat, Gabi and Charity were all in tears at the after-party at various points. Ariel seemed to be the only one who wasn’t losing her shiitake mushrooms.

All we really knew at this point was that Zach had to give Ariel a hometown date so we could meet the father who told her, “Ariel, you can’t do the show. I know what they do there, orgies. You will walk into a room and they will force you to get naked.”

Oh goodie, can’t wait for Ariel to tell her folks about the visit to the nude sauna in Estonia, hopefully while Zach is sitting there.

Charity assured Zach that although she hadn’t forgiven herself for staying too long in her abusive relationship, “I have no doubt with you, none at all,” which seemed to work for Zach.

Gabi confessed her “super ADHD” to Zach and “all the weirdness that goes on in my brain,” but Zach assured her that her personality was “fun to be around.” And he reinforced that with wall smooching, which is like regular smooching, but you do it pressed up against a wall.

With Kat on the other hand, Zach was nervous that when the mentalist asked her if she wanted Zach to meet her family, she replied, “I think so.” A crying Kat dug the hole deeper by telling Zach there were days she felt like she “just couldn’t do it” and “when things get hard I want to leave and give up.”

She tried to turn it around by assuring Zach she saw a forever future with him, but the pained look on his face said forever was only going to last until the next rose ceremony.

Gabi got the rose — come on, wall kisses — which unleashed more tears from Kat.

Then it was time for Greer to get punked.

She walked to Zach’s hotel bubbling with excitement and optimism about seeing him again.

Zach and Greer Blitzer chat in his hotel suite for the first time since her COVID confinement.

After some small talk about the weather and COVID and such — and why do you have your hand on her knee if you’re about to break up with her? — Greer uttered the fateful words: “I guess I was just wondering, like, where you’re at.”

Bottom line: “To give a hometown rose I need to feel 100 per cent confident that I can see a future and I don’t feel that,” Zach said.

Well, duh. Greer never stood a chance, not without getting a one-on-one date. At this point they should just stop giving out first impression roses on “The Bachelor” because they’re nothing but stinkweeds.

Greer got the consolation prize of being told she was “an incredible woman” and a couple of hugs. Welcome to Budapest!

Speaking of one-on-ones, there are two types when it comes to second dates: the ones that shore up relations with a frontrunner, which is what Kaity got; and the ones where you take out someone on the bubble, which is what Brooklyn got.

It’s not a hot tub, but Zach and Brooklyn Willie share some water kisses.

All the bike riding, the hot air balloon riding, the smooching in the pool of yet another bathhouse as people clapped and yelled “Kiss! Kiss!” (also totally not rigged by “Bachelor” producers) was for naught.

At their non-dinner, Brooklyn got emotional talking about the family she expected him to meet, including her mom and the dirt bike-riding grandpa who raised her after her father skedaddled and who, let’s be honest, might have given Gabby’s Grandpa John a run for his money.

Zach excused himself from the table and was this one of those drama-inducing fakeouts?

It wasn’t. An emotional Zach told Brooklyn that her family “know the love that you do deserve,” but there was something blocking his connection with her and “I want you to know that you do deserve the love I can’t give you.”

They parted with tears on both sides while, back at the hotel, the other women cried and group-hugged when Brookyn’s suitcase was taken away.

Despite last week’s disagreement between Brooklyn and Kat, the women are obviously close, which explains I guess why we never got a two-on-one this season: not enough animosity in the house, fake or otherwise.

There was nothing left but the rose ceremony and don’t tell me you’re surprised that Kat got sent home, and Charity and Ariel got the last two roses.

“Why?” Kat asked Zach.

Despite their strong connection in the Bahamas — which if I’m being honest seemed mostly physical to me — “over the past couple of weeks it changed and I couldn’t see a confident future in us,” Zach said.

There was another teary handoff to the van of doom and, after Kat was driven off complaining “It’s not fair,” host Jesse Palmer came out to hug and comfort Zach. And maybe I’m a sucker, but I found that very touching.

Next week is a twofer, with hometowns (and a couple of very protective brothers, oh boy) on Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and “Women Tell All” Tuesday at 8 p.m. You can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Bachelor recap: Fantasy suite night at the museum

February 7, 2023 /
Bachelor Zach Shallcross and his dates before the wheels fell off the pool party.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

There were two questions to be answered after Monday’s episode of “The Bachelor”: Is Christina Mandrell a mean girl or a misunderstood girl? And did Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar jump each other’s bones during their night at the Natural History Museum?

Well, OK, maybe three questions: If the episode’s musical performer is a cousin of the host does that make them a nepo baby? A nepo cuz, at least?

The episode was bookended by some (manufactured) drama and also saw a couple of women crash and burn — luckily not on the skydiving date — but only one of them decided to burn someone else on her way out. More on that later.

First things first: the “Bachelor” producers apparently have so little faith in their ability to keep viewers interested this season that they opened the episode with both gratuitous shower footage of Zach and a FaceTime call with Sean Lowe, although it’s beyond me why you’d want to keep reminding everyone that your show is 1 for 26 (maybe soon 27) when it comes to your stars actually using the platform to find their spouses. (OK, maybe 24 and a half if you count Jason Mesnick and Arie Luyendyk Jr.)

Next it was time for host Jesse Palmer to stoke the hopes of the 17 women who were still around and immediately crush 16 of them by handing out the first one-on-one date card.

ER nurse Kaity was the recipient and got decked out in a slinky green dress so she could . . . walk around a museum looking at dinosaur skeletons and animal dioramas?

The other women, as much as they were all “so happy for you, Kaity,” couldn’t help but notice Zach’s hand resting on her knee when he came to the mansion to pick her up. Little did they know worse was yet to come.

Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar commune in the shadow of a dino.

Kaity herself described the museum date as the only romantic thing she had ever done in her life. And I know she’s only 27, but what?

When she told Zach that after seven years of a toxic, on-and-off relationship she just wanted to feel safe and to find “a good man to treat me right,” you kind of wanted to hug her.

This show makes a fetish out of vulnerability, but some of these women truly are vulnerable as hell.

The mood lifted when Zach — who kept whispering as if he was afraid of waking up the fossils — gave Kaity the date rose, then invited her to spend the night with him in a tent next to the elephant display. There were his and hers animal pyjamas and two camp cots, which they pushed together before zipping up the tent.

I guess what happened in the museum stays in the museum, for now anyway, but the other women were rattled when Kaity came home the next morning, still in her PJs, and talked about how romantic the date was.

“Did you get any sleep?” asked Gabi.

“Nope,” Kaity said.

That was the point, of course, to stress out the other contestants thinking Zach got intimate with Kaity. Why else would you put an overnight date in the third episode?

It was back to business as usual, however, with a football group date, the fifth instalment of the so-called “Bachelor Bowl.” It was the Shall-Crushers against the Ball-Zachs and, honestly, the latter should have won for the name alone.

Ariel, Christina, Kylee and Kat of the Ball-Zachs prepare to kick off Bachelor Bowl V.

Despite an ambulance being called when Anastasia took a dive, there were no injuries unless you count Gabi’s pride when she peed her pants a little on national TV.

The Ball-Zachs did indeed win and got to enjoy an after-party with Zach while the Shall-Crushers slinked back to the mansion. Only two things of note happened.

Bailey, one of the women who first met Zach on “After the Final Rose,” decided she needed “validation” from him, but as soon as she told him things were feeling “weird” to her and “regressing a little bit,” he rapidly agreed.

“I’m just not confident there is a future between us,” Zach told her.

“I do feel, like, if we had more time together, like, we could get there,” Bailey responded.

Like, you’re on “The Bachelor,” sweetie. Even the women he really, really likes don’t get enough time.

Bailey’s departure upset the other women and was the beginning of the end for Christina.

Bailey says goodbye to the other women while Christina makes a sad(?) face in the background.

She had already been annoying her teammates by bringing up her one-on-one date. Sin No. 2 was to describe Bailey’s departure as “sad” but “inevitable.” Strike 3 came after Charity got the group date rose. As the other women told Charity how well-deserved it was, Christina blurted out that she was confused as well as mad that it didn’t go to her, punctuated with a “duh,” all of which appeared to make Charity cry.

Christina defended her faux pas as her “trying to be 100,” but Brooklyn and Kat countered that Christina was making things all about her.

Finally Brooklyn shut down the argument with a line that will live in “Bachelor” infamy — or at least in the highlights reel at “Women Tell All” — “Have you ever considered just literally shutting the fuck up?”

So was Christina deliberately trying to intimidate, and being manipulative and calculating, as Brooklyn said?

I don’t think so. She clearly sucked at reading a room, particularly one of exhausted and emotional fellow contestants, and it seems she never heard the expression “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Christina’s final reckoning was still to come. First there was a second one-on-one date to dispense with. If you were surprised it went to health-care strategist Aly, well, join the club.

She put on the wedding jumpsuit that the producers sent over and met Zach, dressed in a groom-like charcoal suit and white, open-necked shirt, next to a wedding bower — and I’m sorry, but these faux wedding dates are as boring as the football ones.

Zach to Aly Jacobs: “Will you jump out of this really scary plane with me?”

At least it wasn’t one of those stupid fake wedding shoots; Aly and Zach got dressed up to parachute out of a plane, because that worked so well for Rachel Kirkconnell on Matt’s season.

But you know, Zach is looking for his best friend — which is becoming the overused, meaningless phrase of the season — and, uh, best friends jump out of planes together?

Zach and Aly emerged unscathed to have dinner at the cool-looking Bradbury Building in downtown L.A. True confessions were on the menu.

Aly told Zach that she liked to be in control of everything to avoid the hurt of her past relationships and that she never put herself first in a relationship before, but she wanted to find “a safe space where I could put myself first but still be fully invested in you.”

Zach seemed down with that or at least down with getting to know the real Aly — it is only Week 3, people — and handed over the date rose.

Griffen Palmer gets to enjoy performing on “The Bachelor,” i.e. having the Bach and his date ignore you.

Then he had a surprise: Griffen Palmer was playing a song called “Second Chances.” Who dat? Why Jesse Palmer’s country singer cousin from Pickering. Look out folks, the Canadians are taking over.

Speaking of Jesse, he showed up at the mansion the next day to announce there would be no rose ceremony cocktail party . . . but there would be a pool party so run and put on those skimpy bikinis girls!

It was all fun and games and clandestine smooches until Brianna, a.k.a. America’s first impression rose winner, decided to tell Zach she was leaving.

No surprise here. It seemed obvious to me from Night 1 there was nothing cooking between Zach and Brianna, which I guess is what happens when you let “America” hand out the roses instead of the Bachelor. Yeah, great idea, Mike Fleiss.

But Brianna had a parting gift for Christina. She told Zach that their “connection didn’t get off the ground because of hard things I’ve been going through in the house” and that she felt intimidated by Christina, who made her cry several times.

Brianna Thorbourne has her exit interview with Zach.

So where is the footage of this intimidation? The only thing we saw, in Week 2, were receipts of Christina giving Brianna a back-handed compliment on the first night, which Brianna interpreted as hurtful.

Look, it’s always tricky when a white woman is accused of making a Black woman feel unsafe, but this reeked of production stoking Brianna’s insecurities and then manipulating her to throw Christina under the bus.

Whatever the case, Zach really wasn’t kidding when he told Brianna he didn’t like drama.

Christina defended herself as best she could, telling Zach her “outgoing and happy and loud” personality was rubbing people the wrong way, but she thought her conflicts with a couple of the other women had been settled and it would be a mistake to believe Brianna’s accusations.

And then she went and cried on the stairs.

Quite honestly, I figured Zach would go through the motions of debating whether to keep Christina and she’d get the final rose, and then we’d have a few more weeks of her pissing off Brooklyn and Kat and Kylee.

But nope, Christina was banished as Zach gave roses to Jess, Gabi, Ariel, Genevie — who showed up at the rose ceremony with a cast on her arm? what?!? — Greer, Kat, Kylee, Davia, Anastasia, Brooklyn and Mercedes.

So who’s gonna be the centre of the drama now? Don’t worry, looks like somebody is getting outed as a social media clout chaser next week.

Sorry, Zach, if you didn’t like drama you should have stayed home.

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

Edited because a reader — yay, I have readers! — emailed to point out that Jason Mesnick wasn’t the only one who married his runner-up.

The Bachelor recap: Night 1 tally, 4 nurses, 1 gravely wounded ego

January 24, 2023 /
Zach Shallcross greets the women on Night 1 of Season 27 of “The Bachelor.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

The good news is that when the inevitable injury comes during a rough group date this “Bachelor” season there very well might be a nurse around to help with the first aid.

It seems to me we have never seen so many nurses in one cast before. Zach Shallcross kept all four of them around — neonatal nurse Genevie, ER nurse Kaity, registered nurse Katherine and postpartum nurse Kylee — when he handed out his 19 roses on Night 1 of Season 27 (holy hell, we’ve been watching this damn show for 27 seasons?).

Luckily, there were no injuries among the 30 hopefuls during that first all-night cocktail party — unless you count Madison’s wounded pride.

Good lord, but the “business owner” from Fargo, North Dakota, could not stop throwing herself at Zach or taking polite indifference for an answer.

First she dove onto Zach’s lap when she and some of the other women invited themselves onto Christina’s party bus (more on her later). Then Madison spent her one-on-one time wrapping an uncomfortable looking Zach in a scarf, toque and blanket because it’s cold in North Dakota (but not so much in Agoura Hills, Calif., in the fall when the show was filmed).

Since she didn’t get the kiss she was so longing for, Madison interrupted another woman’s time to double dip, making Zach do the Griddy with her — which looked as horrific as it sounds — and finally just grabbing his cheek and forcing a kiss, which went about as well as you would expect.

“The kiss felt wrong,” said Zach. No shit.

The underwhelming “peck” sent Madison into a crying jag. And there was more crying when she didn’t get the first impression rose — it went to Greer, a medical sales rep from Houston who lives in New York.

But Madison was not done humiliating herself. When host Jesse Palmer announced that the cocktail party was over, Madison interrupted his pre-rose ceremony chat with Zach to gauge Zach’s intentions AS IF THEY WEREN’T ALREADY STARING HER IN THE FACE.

Madison after stealing Zach away from Jesse Palmer, but nope, not forcing things.

” I don’t want to force things and I want things to come natural,” she told Zach, which was the opposite of what she’d been doing all night.

Zach let her down as gently as he could. “I’m sorry, I don’t see a future with us, but I still think you’re awesome,” he said as Madison’s smile froze on her face. After a hug, she went sobbing into the sunrise.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the debacle was the subtle shade Zach tossed at Rachel Recchia when, in his voice-over, he said he didn’t get the “honesty and clarity” he was extending to Madison in his “Bachelorette” experience.

So who did Zach vibe with?

Well, Greer, obviously.

Leaving aside the fact she talked about herself in the third person in her intro package — “Greer is bold, Greer doesn’t take shit, Greer is kind” — she bonded with Zach over their parents’ long marriages and their shared love of Houston, where Greer said she wants to end up.

She seems nice enough, although I do not for one second believe she brought Zach a cup of coffee, still hot, all the way from New York.

Greer Blitzer hands Zach a coffee she allegedly brought from New York, a six-hour-plus flight away.

The coffee might not have been hot, but Greer’s kisses obviously were. Zach went in for two extended smooching sessions with her, to the discomfort of the other women, who insisted on watching.

He also puckered up for Bailey, a Nashville executive recruiter whose name he forgot when he met her on “After the Final Rose,” kissing her right out of the limo.

Speaking of limo entrances, none of them were exactly boffo, unless you count pig farmer Mercedes (ABC says she’s actually a non-profit case manager) showing up with an adorable porker named Henry, or content creator Christina, who is definitely trouble, being ferried in on a party bus.

Brianna, the Jersey City entrepreneur who won “America’s first impression rose” in a silly “ATFR” stunt, played the part by showing up in a red dress with roses on it, although she insisted to Zach she was there for his heart, not for the rose. I didn’t exactly feel sparks flying, so we’ll see.

There were definitely sparks with Kaity who, like Zach, lives in Austin. Sure she made an “everything’s bigger in Texas” dick joke, but then she told Zach she felt like “the luckiest girl in the world” sitting next to him, so of course he leaned in for a kiss.

Christina Mandrell accepts a rose from Zach.

At least single mom Christina, whose claim to fame besides her Instagram and TikTok videos is being the niece of country singer Barbara Mandrell, took Zach away from prying eyes for their smooch on the party bus. Unfortunately, that kiss was the only thing they agreed on in a flash-card compatibility questionnaire but, in Zach’s defence, dinosaurs vs. dragons, that’s a really hard call!

We already know Christina will raise some hackles later this season and has copped to being the woman in the promo clip sobbing facedown on some stairs.

Zach also laid some smooches on my favourite contestant so far, Charity, a child and family therapist from Columbus, Georgia, who seems to have a great attitude. There’s already a campaign to make her Bachelorette if she doesn’t get with Zach and I’m there for it.

I would not have picked out e-commerce co-ordinator Jess from Florida as an early kiss recipient. She was really, really nervous and a little awkward although, come to think of it, I guess that was kind of endearing to Zach.

Zach with neonatal nurse Genevie Mayo: not even engaged yet and already playing daddy.

Zach didn’t kiss nurse Genevie, but at least he seemed to get a laugh out of the fake baby she brought for him to diaper.

But was he really having “a blast” with New York dancer Cat, who engaged him in a contest to see who could stuff the most meatballs into their mouth? (Where is Meatball when you need him?) Well, Zach did say that he himself is “fucking weird” and would welcome weirdness in a woman, and with Cat he seems to have got his wish.

And that’s kind of it really. It was a pretty low-key first night. The women seemed mostly supportive of each other. Even Madison’s shenanigans didn’t elicit more than a “what the fuck?” comment from Brooklyn, the rodeo racer from Oklahoma.

But you know, the season is young and there are lots of tears to come, both his and hers.

I was one of the people who was unenthused about Zach as Bachelor, but I’m reserving judgment for now. We’ll see how the season goes.

At least Zach went off script a little. When Jesse asked him if he thought he might have met his wife, Zach hesitated and replied, “My gut instinct is actually telling me that I might have,” so not a yes then.

Let’s be real, he’s likely met his fiancee, best case scenario. Although if Zach really has met his wife, maybe Sean Lowe can take a break from being trotted out as the only successful Bachelor star to date and will never again have to teach another man how to rub his own bare pecs.

The next episode airs Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

More pain in the fantasy suites as Bachelorette doom awaits

September 7, 2022 /
“Bachelorette” stars Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. The smiles might be deceiving.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gizelle Hernandez/ABC

Is this chaos what happens when you give people — well, OK, men — choices?

The men of “The Bachelorette” were given a choice of two women and now some of them are choosing to blow up the order of things.

Oh, trust me, I know how ridiculous it is to expect people to get engaged after mere weeks of acquaintance under the most unnatural of circumstances, but this is what we expect from “The Bachelorette.”

I’m not even going to broach the conditioning involved in being this invested in the heteronormative, gender role-reinforcing spectacle of a man getting down on one knee, but this is what we demand as Bachelorette fans: the catharsis of crying happy tears as people who didn’t even know each other eight weeks before pledge their undying love with a hunk of crystallized carbon. Sure, they’ll probably break up soon, but we’ll always have Mexico or wherever the hell they are.

Except host Jesse Palmer has raised the spectre of Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia being denied their hard-fought happily-ever-afters. So shocking is what we’re supposedly going to see next week that he had to take a few minutes to gird us at the end of the episode while standing in an empty studio.

“You will all bear witness to the crazy controversy that’s about to ensue,” he said. “So take some time, get yourselves ready and prepare yourselves for the most shocking finale of all time.”

Good lord, what is going on?!?

Well, let’s take stock. Monday night, we watched Gabby cut Johnny loose since he wasn’t ready to get engaged and Jason bailed on her Tuesday night. Not only did he not want to propose; he didn’t want Gabby in any capacity. But Erich was still there and, after he and Gabby professed their love for each other, it seemed like one happy ending had come early. But wait, was that Erich in the promo saying he didn’t want to get engaged either?

And what of Rachel’s men? As she went into the rose ceremony Tuesday it seemed that Zach was about to get the heave ho after a troubling fantasy suite date. But Tino was the clear front-runner anyway, except the promo showed Tino saying he wanted out, Rachel arguing with Aven and an unseen somebody being accused of going back on their word.

Maybe it won’t be so shocking after all, especially since it seemed clear from Night 1 that this season was never truly about giving Rachel and Gabby romantic redemption.

Buckle up, I guess.

Tuesday’s episode began with Gabby’s date with Jason. Despite all the fun and games of tennis and splashing around the pool together, we knew that Jason had a bomb to drop at dinner and drop it he did.

Not only was he not ready to get engaged, he wasn’t even sure he could see a future with Gabby outside the “bubble” of the show. But still, Jason dangled the possibility of a “serious relationship” once the cameras were banished from their lives. So Gabby threw caution to the wind and took him to the fantasy suite.

The unslept-in bed told the story. There was no fantasy in the suite, just conversation that went nowhere and Jason deciding there was no chance for him and Gabby. She at least nominally got to send him home and to tell him, “I truly just want you to realize I’ve been led on.”

And she was. It seems mighty suspect, given Jason’s discomfort with the process from the get-go and his ambivalence about getting serious with Gabby during his hometown, that he’d wait until almost the very end to share these doubts. But wait he did.

Jason claimed he finally got “clarity”; Gabby got her heart broken.

“What is it about me that’s so hard to love?” she sobbed.

Speaking of clarity, maybe we’ll get some next week about what went on between Rachel and Zach.

They went from a lovey-dovey day in some Mexican town — hats! mariachi! Day of the Dead figurines! cricket snacks! — to Zach showing up teary-eyed at Jesse’s door the morning after.

According to Zach, he and Rachel were like two strangers once the cameras were off and Rachel seemed to put on a front, stridently suggesting that Zach’s age — he was 25 to her 26, although he seems older to me — meant he wasn’t ready to commit.

It’s tempting to think Rachel was looking for an excuse to push Zach away without actually dumping him. She did tell Gabby, after all, that she wasn’t “there” with Zach despite claiming in her date voice-over that she was falling in love with him.

But we didn’t get Rachel’s side of the story so we don’t really know. Zach had just pulled her away from the rose ceremony to talk when Jesse cut in with his warning about Bachelorette Armageddon.

Meanwhile, Gabby had cancelled her own rose ceremony and gone to Erich’s suite, where he was wondering if he’d blown his chance with her after his freakout about her maybe sleeping with other men.

Naw.

“You have taught me it’s OK to feel safe and wanted and loved in maybe a way that I haven’t and you’re the only one left,” Gabby told Erich. “I do know that I love you.”

Awwwww. The warm, sappy feelings engendered were almost as good as a proposal. Gabby declared Erich “the love of my life,” a love that will apparently be put to the test next week.

You won’t be able to watch it Tuesday on Citytv, but you can tune into ABC at 8 p.m. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

The Bachelorette hometown dates go from good to sad to bad

August 23, 2022 /
Tino Franco’s mother, waiting to shoot down everything Rachel Recchia says on “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs

What is real on a reality dating show like “The Bachelorette”?

Was Erich Schwer bringing Gabby Windey home to meet his dying father real?

Was Rachel Recchia crying her eyes out because she sent Tyler Norris home without meeting his family real?

Was Rachel’s discomfort as she got grilled with hostile questions by Tino Franco’s parents real?

All of those moments felt pretty real but, according to Tino’s mom, Sandi, what happens on “The Bachelorette” isn’t real.

Look, I get it: having your son go on a TV show only to come home after six weeks to tell you he’s met the woman he’s going to propose to, it must feel weird and scary.

But asking rude questions, stating your opinions as facts when you don’t really know what the f**k you’re talking about, and being so aggressive you almost make that woman cry . . . well, welcome to the Hometown Hell Hall of Fame, Tino’s parents.

In what’s been a rough season, Monday’s hometowns episode was rough and I don’t just mean around the edges.

It started out encouragingly with lovely dates with Jason (Gabby) and Zach (Rachel), started to slide a little with Johnny (Gabby), who seemed not at all ready to commit, and then just got sad with Tyler and Erich. Then we had the shit show that was Tino’s hometown. We didn’t even get to Aven’s. His gets sandwiched in with “Men Tell All” next week.

But we’re in the home stretch. Just a few more weeks and we’ll know whether the experiment of having two Bachelorettes was a complete failure or whether we’ll even have two Bachelorettes by the end of the season, given the promo. But let’s rewind.

Gabby meets Jason Alabaster’s father on their hometown date.

After a completely unnecessary bit of B-roll of Rachel and Gabby packing on the Good Ship Bachelorette and then telling host Jesse Palmer about their expectations — we’ve got seven dates to get through people, we don’t need this crap! — Gabby got the ball rolling with Jason in New Orleans.

We’ll skip the street musicians on Bourbon Street and throwing beads off a balcony — this isn’t a travelogue — and go straight to Gabby and Jason meeting his dad Michael in a park. He seemed like a warm, decent human being who tearfully described Jason as “a good kid, a good man” and welcomed Gabby with open arms, flowers and beignets. By the time Michael told Jason, “If it’s the real deal I want to be the best man at your wedding,” those beignets were getting a little soggy.

The love-a-palooza and tears-a-palooza continued at Jason’s mom’s house (she and his dad are separated) where sister Kelsey and Gabby got on like a house on fire, and mom Karen said Gabby and Jason were “really, really cute” together.

But Jason confessed to Karen that he wasn’t ready to get engaged and she tearfully warned him not to lose a good thing because “you’re so distracted by everything around you,” i.e. the cameras, the other men, etc.

After the date, Gabby said she was falling in love with Jason.

How long did Rachel and Zach Smallcross have to kiss until that plane crossed the sky?

Next stop: Anaheim, California, where Zach had a surprise for Rachel: a couch set up on a rooftop where they could watch planes take off and land from the airport — a callback to their first date when they talked about going plane-spotting with their dads as kids. It was perfect.

Zach also gets points for being the only hometown with a famous family member, his uncle, actor Patrick Warburton of “Seinfeld,” “NewsRadio,” “The Tick,” “Rules of Engagement,” “Family Guy” and lots more.

We’ll forgive Zach’s dad, Chapman, for saying that “You go to the most romantic places on Earth and you’ll fall in love with a monkey.” By the end of the visit, he and Zach’s mom, Megan, were ready to welcome Rachel into the family.

Zach told Rachel he was in love with her and she said, in voice-over, that she was falling in love with Zach. Forget Tino, honey: snap up Zach!

Johnny DePhillipo with Gabby. Did we mention he’s “super hot”?

Gabby’s next hometown was Palm Beach, Florida, with Johnny, who she said was “super hot” and . . . um . . . well, a good kisser, I guess.

His dad John and mom Elizabeth were all in on Gabby being with Johnny, if that’s what Johnny wanted — but about that. Johnny told his mom he could see himself falling for Gabby, but he wasn’t ready to get engaged, which might come as news to Gabby. As she and Johnny went for a cruise and a smooch, we heard Gabby saying, “It feels so good and so easy being with someone who I know is ready for the next step.” Uh oh.

Rachel shares some hard truths with Tyler on the Jersey Shore.

When you put the Jersey Shore on reality TV, can you expect anything less than turmoil?

Rachel’s date with Tyler in Wildwood, New Jersey, started out with fun carnival games and rides and fried food and smooches on the boardwalk. But by the time Tyler started introducing Rachel to all his friends inside the Hot Spot Restaurant, the wheels were coming off. Next thing you know she was having a breakdown in the time-honoured refuge of the women’s washroom.

Then came the painful breakup. Rachel couldn’t get a word in edgewise because Tyler kept babbling about how great everything was. She started telling Tyler he was “the most incredible person” — and everyone who’s ever watched the show knows the next words will be a variation on “but you’re not my person.” However, Tyler, oblivious, told Rachel he was in love with her and she was “the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” interjected Rachel.

Shaking and crying, Rachel finally managed to tell Tyler that she couldn’t meet his family because she didn’t know if she could “get there” with him.

Tyler, bless him, comforted Rachel, telling her that he still believed that “love that’s forever is real” and she was going to get it.

Then Tyler had to break the news to his excited family that Rachel wasn’t coming. Harsh.

Look, I know this heartbreak is going to put Tyler in the running for next Bachelor. I’d still like to see it go to Ethan, but maybe Tyler can find a nice girl in Paradise.

Erich and Gabby with his father, Allan.

Let’s be honest: taking a woman home to your family who you’ve known for mere weeks and been sharing with other men does seem absurd. But the fact that Erich took Gabby to meet his sick father, Allan, who died of cancer in July, belies Tino’s mom’s insistence that “The Bachelorette” isn’t real. Why would Erich put his dad and Gabby through that if he didn’t have real feelings for her?

It was a sombre visit to Bedminster, N.J. Allan was very frail and had obviously been through hell with the disease. Mom Donna was as welcome as you can be when your husband of 35 years is dying in front of you.

“We marry for life,” she told Erich. And to Gabby: “We don’t give up on each other, ever.”

Erich vaulted to the front of Gabby’s pack after the emotional day, with them telling each other later that they were falling in love with each other. But a clip of Erich telling Gabby he can’t handle the woman he’s in love with having sex with other guys suggests a rocky road ahead.

Don’t let the smiles on Sandi, Joe and Mateo fool you; Rachel got a rough ride from the Franco family.

Finally, it was time for the main event in Santa Clarita, Calif., as “The Bachelorette” saved the worst for last.

Even before Rachel and Tino walked into the house, his parents were dismissive of the possibility of them having a real relationship.

When Tino said he was going to propose in two weeks, his dad Joe scoffed, “What are you talking about after two months? We’re gonna have to have a talk.”

Rachel told his mom how much she admired Tino’s positive, giving outlook on life, to which Sandi replied, “If you met him outside of this, this isn’t real.”

“Well, it is,” replied Rachel, but Sandi wasn’t having it, calling the experience an “insulated bubble.”

And sure, it is that, but Sandi wasn’t there for any of it, so what the hell would she know? Unless there’s criminality or abuse involved, you should butt the hell out of your adult children’s love lives.

It went downhill from there. Joe, insultingly, referred to Rachel’s “second go-round” — as if the fact she got dumped by Clayton Echard should preclude her from trying to find love with someone else — and suggested she was out to get engaged at all costs.

“I wouldn’t put him in this position just so I could get married, I’m not that type of person,” Rachel said, but she might as well have been talking to the wall.

“I feel like they hated me,” Rachel fretted to a producer after the talk. Nonetheless, Rachel graciously rose above the rudeness of Tino’s parents and thanked them for asking her hard-hitting questions.

Outside the house, Tino told her his family adored her. And when Rachel told him she did not feel adored, he changed the subject and told her he was falling in love with her.

Giant red flag. Run, Rachel, run! Instead, alas, she told Tino she was falling in love with him too.

So here’s where things stand, with one hometown date still to come. Rachel’s falling for Zach and Tino, both of whom appear ready to get engaged although, as Rachel pointed out, “When you marry someone you marry their family.” I would not want to marry Tino’s family.

Gabby’s falling for Jason and Erich, and can see herself falling in love with Johnny, although only Erich seems proposal-ready and fantasy suites might screw that up.

The promo showed both Gabby and Rachel in tears — what else is new? — and Jesse telling Rachel, “Gabby will not be joining you. You’re gonna be the only Bachelorette here.” We’ll have to wait two weeks to find out what that’s about.

In the meantime, you can watch “Men Tell All” Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.

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