Well hello Mr. Grippo and Mr. Hyde.
Up until the one-hour, 17-minute and 48-second mark on Monday’s “Bachelorette” episode I would have confidently said I knew how the season was going to end: Katie Thurston would send Justin Glaze home and take Blake Moynes and Greg Grippo to fantasy suites, and then she’d send Blake home and she and Greg would get engaged.
After watching her lacklustre “hometown” dates with Justin and Blake on Monday, then seeing how enthralled she and Greg were to be in each other’s company it just seemed so obvious they’d end up together . . . well, obvious to everyone but Greg.
The frontrunner, not to put too fine a point on it, lost his shit after Katie didn’t give him what he considered a “real” response to his declaration of love for her. He not only took his marbles and went home, he smashed the marbles to bits before he left.
Katie was left sobbing in the arms of co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe and asking for a ticket to fly home.
These are the questions running through my head: Is Katie really done? If so, how the hell do we fill three hours of finale next Monday night? If Katie stayed and ended up with Blake or Justin, would anyone seriously think she wasn’t just settling? Will Greg come back? And if he does, should Katie take him back?
The behaviour we witnessed from Greg during that final 40 minutes or so of episode didn’t seem like the behaviour of an emotionally well-adjusted person. How can you be raving that you’re happier than you’ve ever been, you’re in love and you’re ready to get engaged; and then suddenly you’re not happy and you’re done with the person you claimed was everything you ever wanted? Because if all it took to shake Greg’s confidence in his relationship with Katie was one admittedly awkward response from her, he sure as hell doesn’t seem like marriage material.
I eagerly await next week’s finale to see how this mess gets resolved, but since this is technically a recap we’ll take a look at how we got to this point.
First off, I’m kind of happy the border between Canada and America is finally reopening because I look forward to the day I don’t have to see a Canadian “hometown” date in some resort like the Hyatt Regency Tamaya in New Mexico. I’m sorry, but decorating walls with hockey skates, and deer and bear heads (like, yuck), and a flag and red and white balloons has dick all to do with Canada.
I don’t know any Canadians who put maple syrup on everything, as Blake claimed, or who play darts every weekend, and lots of us have never touched a hockey stick. There are no moose anywhere near where I live and I’ve never seen a mechanical one before either.
But let’s cut to the chase, which was the meet-the-parents portion of the date, which in Blake’s case meant his mom Emily and his sister Taylor.
Taylor was rightly skeptical of Blake being on his third Bachelorette, reminding him he’d claimed to feel love for both Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams, but Blake insisted that no one had “aligned” with him like Katie had.
In that case, both Taylor and Emily told him, it was time to “man the fuck up and tell her you love her.”
Blake did not follow their advice, but does it really matter? Katie seems to really like kissing Blake, but I wasn’t feeling any love vibes from her on their date.
Then again, it could be worse. He could be Justin, who has seemed like odd man out to me ever since his surprise pick for hometowns.
Poor Justin learned ahead of his “hometown” that his parents wouldn’t be there and they made it clear in a phone call that we listened in on that they didn’t see how Justin could possibly propose to someone he’d known for such a short time. So clearly Ma and Pa Glaze aren’t “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette” fans.
After a pretty dreary tour of, uh, Baltimore, which ended with Katie cracking open and getting grossed out by a crab, she met Justin’s best friends, Herb and Tommy.
When Katie told them, “Every time we’re together our relationship just gets stronger and stronger,” sorry, I wasn’t buying it. Oh and did she mention that Justin was the first one who kissed her? And they both like blue cheese. Order the invitations already.
Unlike Blake, Justin did take his friend Herb’s advice and told Katie he was falling in love with her, for whatever that’s worth.
But it honestly felt like Blake’s and Justin’s dates were just the appetizers for the Greg main course.
Greg was giving Katie a taste of his home state of New Jersey and they were riding a tandem bike and eating food that actually looked palatable and they played basketball because Greg’s late father, Frank, was his basketball coach and Greg hadn’t really played since his dad died, so the date already felt way more meaningful than the other two.
And then Greg recreated the kissing in the rain scenario from their second one-on-one date and Katie said in her voice-over, “Greg is someone I know I am falling in love with. He is truly everything.”
The evening portion of the date seemed at first like it couldn’t go any better. Greg’s mom Sandy and brother Joe were both thrilled to see how happy Greg seemed. Greg told his mom he was in love with Katie and expected to propose. He told his friend, whose name I didn’t get, that he believed Katie was also falling in love with him and they’d already talked about her moving to New York. And even though Katie wasn’t able to give Greg’s family the same assurances, she dropped strong hints: “Just know he’s here to stay,” she told Sandy. “I think him and I are really just a perfect match.”
Then Greg and Katie had some alone time, during which Greg, tears running down his cheeks — which Katie tenderly brushed away — told her he was in love with her, that she made him the happiest he’d ever been and that he’d never been so vulnerable with anybody.
“I’m not gonna get down on one knee twice. It’s a one-deal thing for me,” he said.
Katie just gazed at him and then she kind of chuckled and said, “I just love looking at you” — which obviously wasn’t the response Greg was looking for because he stopped smiling and he started fidgeting and stopped looking at her.
Sensing his mood change, Katie started talking about how tough the process was but how it would be worth it in the end. “You know how I feel about you right? You feel good about it?” she asked Greg.
“I try to,” he responded.
This is the point where I have to interject and say: SHE’S TRYING TO TELL YOU SHE LOVES YOU BACK, YOU IDIOT!
During the tense conversation that followed, Greg said, “I just don’t understand how you don’t know at this point that it’s me and you. That’s what’s killing me.”
However, it seemed like a no-brainer that she did know that it was her and Greg. Yes, it’s bloody ridiculous that every season we watch a woman (or man if it’s the Bachelor) who probably made up her mind weeks ago whom she wanted to be with pretending that she’s still trying to decide who to choose right up until the day of the proposal. But that is the format and Katie was obviously trying to be a good Bachelorette and not spoil the ending by telling Greg, yes, I’m in love with you. But could Greg not have pulled his head out of his ass and read the subtext?
The short answer is no, he could not. The next day he went to Katie’s suite and I’m not going to reproduce the whole painful conversation here, but he accused Katie of dismissing him, of giving him a “surface level response” and he was offended that she accused him of giving up on them which, hello, is exactly what he was doing.
“I was never going to ask you to confess your love to me,” Greg said — well, yeah, you kind of were — “All I was asking for was Katie.”
“So this one time you think you didn’t get me you just want to be done?” replied Katie.
In a nutshell, yes. When Katie tried to tell Greg he’d always been her number one, he got pissy: “Who cares about the number one or number two? I just wanted something real.”
He whinged some more and then walked out without even a goodbye. And when Katie, who kept apologizing for some reason, followed him outside and told him that if he left, that was it for her too, he replied, “All I do know is right now that I deserve more than what I’ve been given on your side. I’m not happy here anymore. I’m done here.” He walked away again and this time she didn’t follow.
“I want to go home. I am done, I am done, I am done, I am done,” Katie said before returning to her suite and locking herself in what I presume was the bathroom, sobbing, at which point Kaitlyn came and tried to console her through the door until Katie let her in for a hug.
“Michael left, Greg left. At this point the confidence and strength I thought I had is like destroyed,” Katie said.
When Kaitlyn asked what she wanted to do, Katie replied, “I want someone to book my flight home.”
Tune in next Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv for what might actually be the most dramatic Bachelorette finale ever. We’ll see. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
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