Hello hello!
I am back from vacation and back in your inboxes. This week we had a half hour of a real episode and then the Men Tell All, so we don’t have any updates in scores, although we have updates on our emotional state – Michael A. leaves and I almost needed to extend my vacation by an extra day to emotionally recover.
The episode starts with Tayshia and Katie talking about how important Hometowns is in determining who she ends up with. Katie was cut real early on Matt’s season so she doesn’t have context for what to expect, so Tayshia talks a bit about her season. She shares that Zac wasn’t a frontrunner early on in her season, but Hometowns helped solidify his F1 status. Tayshia lets Katie know to expect the unexpected this upcoming week in terms of who she ends up seeing as The One.
Speaking instead of something that should be expected? Michael FaceTimes his son and I’m emotionally wounded. Michael’s son James tells him that he thinks Michael left because he doesn’t want to see him anymore. And then he hangs up! Because nothing screams ‘I’m a four-year-old’ more than emotionally devastating you and then perkily shouting byyeeeeeeee.
Michael talks to production a bit about how sad he is and how much he misses his son and then goes to talk to Katie. The second I saw that she was in Breakup Blue, I knew we were done. If there is one thing this show has taught me, it’s that if a producer tells you to wear light blue prior to having a one on one, you’re about to get ruined. And Katie is no different! Michael is super respectful and it’s such a wholesome breakup, but essentially his son needs him and as a result he needs to go. Katie cries but says she understands, and who I expect our future Bachelor leaves New Mexico.
Rather than giving us time to grieve, we jump immediately into the Men Tell All, aka a bunch of the rejected men together fighting fights I’m already over. And includes all of our favorites, minus half of the ones you actually wanted to see (Mike, Christian, John).
But don’t worry, we get fan favorites like this rando:
Our top three, Justin, Blake and Greg, were not present, which is a true travesty considering I know nothing about Justin so don’t care enough to see him at ATFR but would have loved his judgmental faces this week.
We kick off the night with Karl and Brendan fighting, mostly because Brendan was annoyed he had only four minutes of screentime this season despite being top six and wanted to double it in this episode. Shocking no one, Karl continues to say a bunch of nothing but still manages to annoy everyone.
We then dissolve into the core of The Men Tell All every season: a bunch of dudes arguing about how each other was more toxic without actually having intelligent points. It’s just chest-puffing and finger-pointing, the core of Internet arguments across America.
And keeping on theme, Hunter and Aaron go at it because Thomas was too smart to show up for more than three minutes on Zoom. Everyone gives Hunter shit for telling Katie he was falling in love but earlier saying he wasn’t in love and all the dudes don’t buy those are different things EVEN THOUGH THAT’S THE BEDROCK OF THIS SHOW!
Here is the progression of love on Bachelor:
1. I’m so excited to get to know you
2. I love getting to know you
3. I’m so excited at the idea of falling for you
4. I can see myself falling for you
5. I’ve started falling for you
6. I’m falling for you
7. I’m falling in love with you
8. I think I love you
9. I love you
10. Propose.
Hunter can’t pull out step seven when he wasn’t even at Hometowns! He was safely in step four where he belonged and it was clear to me that again, Hunter might have been the only person to actually watch this show before going on it.
Connor defends him to James The Box Man too which was cute, and as annoying as I find Connor sometimes (kill me before a guy sings me a song on a guitar/ukulele while I pretend to know where to look or what to do with my hands) I like him backing Hunter up.
But speaking of Connor he gets brought down to the hot seat! Tayshia and Kailtyn show him his breakup reel which is always a good time, then they make fun of him for being bad at kissing. Apparently Connor went home and hit up some past ‘exes’ to get their honest POV about his skills and they lied assured him it must have been a chemistry thing.
But we can’t just trust some random women who aren’t willing to vouch for him on television! We need a totally random woman from the audience who just happens to be mic’ed up and just so happens to be from LA and who just so happens to have an album that came out last week RANDOMLY stand up in the crowd and ask to make out with him to see how good he is.
At least it looked much better than any and all of his attempts with Katie? We love a good arc as cringe-inducing as it is.
We move onto Andrew in the hot seat! Nothing really interesting happened here since we juuuust eliminated him last week, but he had his Bachelor audition by talking about how he just wants to be chosen. And like all the other men, he looks even better than he did during the show if such things were possible.
^As an aside, if anyone EVER wants to discuss Ted Lasso with me, I am available at any and all hours.
Moving on to Michael in the hot seat! We get to watch his breakup again which is great for me since I was running (more literally a pathetic attempt at jogging) home from the airport/T and missed the first chunk of the episode so I got to see the heartbreak highlights, but for everyone else must have been emotionally ruining.
Nothing much happens here either BECAUSE AGAIN WE LITERALLY STARTED THE EPISODE WITH THIS except Michael continues to be wonderful and even more wonderful is the beard he grew between filming and Men Tell All. Should he be the next Bachelor I demand we keep the beard. Connor the Cat also grew one as part of his glow up and I might have to revise my stance on beards for these men alone.
With Michael we also get a blooper reel, which is the best part of this episode. Truthfully maybe even the season. Why they save all the fun parts for this two-minute clip when they could instead include fun parts in every episode and make the entire show more enjoyable is beyond me, but alas, no one asked me my opinion.
Mid-show there is an interruption: we get a clip from Kaitlyn and Jason’s engagement. There is absolutely no reason this exists except as filler, although I will say I love Kaitlyn and Jason together. The podcast episode where he proposed is also SUPER cute and I highly recommend a listen.
We then have Katie come out and talk to all the guys and she looks miserable to be there. I won’t lie at first I judged her for that but then I thought about how awkward I am when I see any ex in public, let alone sitting in the hot seat getting grilled by like ten of them and quickly switched to compassion.
Nothing Katie says really means anything because she can’t give away her season’s end even though it sounds like she implies she ends up happy(?) They bring out Zoom for Thomas and they have a reconciliation, she and Karl have a reconciliation, and in a moment of greatness she calls Aaron “Thomas” despite him being his greatest enemy.
And that’s really our episode! At the end we got a few more behind the scenes clips, most notably all the guys on a date talking in fake British accents giggling over how ridiculous they are. It’s cute. It’s wholesome. And it shows us what this show could be.
But if there is one thing I know for sure, nothing keeps people more invested like untapped potential. Who knows, MAYBE WE CAN CHANGE THEM GUYS!
Until then, fill out your brackets for Hometowns and ~even more drama~
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