Hello Bachelor Fans!
Sorry (again) for the delay on last week’s episode recap. And what inevitably will be a delay this week – I’m sure end of year is rough for all of ya also on the ‘getting work done’ front as well as the ‘oh jeez I’ve overcommitted myself’ front. SO! Ideally I’ll get something about Fantasy Suites (premiering YESTERDAY, I also totally forgot to send this yesterday despite it being written because LIFE) in your inbox by Friday to buy me an extra day, but if not I promise you’ll *eventually* get the Bachelor News you crave.
Let move on to the Men Tell All!
Truthfully this episode is weird. I mean this season’s episode was fantastic, but it’s just a replay of all the drama that we already knew about. And there isn’t really a ‘storyline’ per se so when it sounds like I’m all over the place have no fear, the episode itself was too.
Kicking us off is Peter (obnoxious pizza man who had the fun fact of ‘I hate libraries’) and Will (the guy who got jacket thrown into the pool) recap their drama. Nothing new is said, although it appears that the drama hasn’t stopped once they left for the show. Peter’s pizzeria has been getting some tremendously awful pizza reviews on Yelp – which, let me tell you, is a feat to get removed. As someone who personally has had to work with both Google and Yelp reps to get some WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE Dunkin’ reviews AND PICTURES removed, it’s a giant headache.
Regardless, they go back and forth about whether or not Will actually did it or not, and we get a bit with some guy pretending he’s serving Will for libel. Or defamation of character. I’m not really certain and ABC isn’t too bothered about giving us details when it’s definitely fake.
Moving on to our next villain! Ryan! Remember him? ME NEITHER. Ryan is the night one guy who came with a slew of notes. The best part of Ryan at the Men Tell All is that during the video B-roll they play of his time on the show, he is the human embodiment of the cringe emoji.
He tries to explain why he had notes as though the issue was the notes and not the content of notes (which, may I remind you, included a reminder to Ryan to pretend to care about Michelle’s job). He pretends he had no knowledge of the show beforehand, but our surprise star of the night Casey pulls out some Reddit sleuthing and announces that Ryan was on the Bachelor Live on Stage tour as the Bachelor for his city. This does not get nearly the apropos it deserves, but Casey proving he is in the threads puts him up a little higher on my favorite list.
Fortunately for Ryan we have bigger villains to fry so with a half-hearted apology we then move on to Martin!
May I start by saying that my favorite of the season, mathematician Romeo who got minimal screen time, has the best line of the night. He comments that he looked up to Martin in the house so to see his “triple whammy of misogyny” was extremely upsetting. The three of course being: (1) girls from Miami are “high maintenance,” he referred to women as “females,” and (3) Michelle’s “not like other girls.” Quite honestly a guy on this show acknowledging misogyny is a thing alone puts Romeo in an elite bracket here, let alone being able to clearly identify three examples. Romeo for Bachelor based on this alone.
Martin also might have had a girlfriend while on the show? To which Martin says “I didn’t live with her” as though that’s a prerequisite for being in a couple. He also later claims that he couldn’t have had a girlfriend because he didn’t have his phone. All suuuuuper valid reasons for how he couldn’t possibly have had one. As Jed taught us during Hannah’s season, as long as you break up with them in your heart you don’t have to tell them to their face.
Somehow we move on from Martin and this girlfriend nonsense to move onto Chris! Chris tries to defend some of his openly racist remarks, including but not limited to saying “people like Olu” have low IQs and that he’s had hotter girls BLEEP his BLEEP than Michelle. So. I don’t have much emotional capacity for Chris’s nonsense so we’re moving on.
Jamie then gets brought out from backstage to be put in the hot seat. He talks in circles and makes no move to apologize. Truthfully out of everyone I don’t think he’s the worst of the bunch (see: Martin, Chris) but he had the longest-lasting impact. Because he talks around and around nothing is ever really said, so we move onto what normally would be our Bachelor auditions, but because Clayton is already picked is just some random aww moments.
Rick gets up there first and talks about how Michelle “listens to understand, she doesn’t listen to respond” and how his relationship with her affected him. It’s cute, they make him take a bite out of a lookalike cake similar to the way he came out of the limo.
Next we go to Rodney – but wait! First we need to get an update about Tayshia’s relationship. How awkward! It’s incredibly staged and basically says she’s heartbroken she and Zac didn’t work out and she’s not sure what the future holds. And while she was obviously in on it Tayshia accidentally breaks character and *actually* gets emotional so runs off stage crying as they bring Rodney in.
Tayshia’s moment is quite frankly the most interesting part of Rodney’s segment. He continues to be lovable and kind and lauds Michelle as a wonderful woman. They tease him being on the next Bachelor in Paradise and we move onto the next segment: behind the scenes shots!
This includes funny moments related to the farm date, Tayshia and Kaitlyn catching the men off guard when they inspected their rooms, and more content from the basketball group date. Leave it to ABC to have footage that is funny and enjoyable and NOT INCLUDE IT IN THE WEEKLY EPISODES. That makes sense.
We also get a random streaker in the audience for no real reason, but it is obviously also staged, a reoccurring theme during this Men Tell All.
Next up we get a teaser for Clayton’s season of the Bachelor, which spoils essentially all of it. However! Clayton is messy! He manages to tell each of his top three that he loves them and also ANNOUNCE at a rose ceremony that he slept with all of them. Have I considered not watching his season because I’m exhausted? Yes. Did this promo help sell me on mess? Also yes.
Finally, we get to Michelle. She comes out and calls out the guys that she likes (says she wishes she had more time with Olu in particular) and shuts down most discussion of drama. Essentially they kept Michelle out of the way so the men could tear each other down before she came on stage and taught them how to properly apologize. And they all do! She seems rather over it, but pretends that she appreciates each of these villains ‘seeing the light’ and realizing they were wrong once they found out how nasty a US Weekly headline could be.
But before we go we have one more thing: bloopers! Arguably the best part of this show. And maybe the season. We got demon bugs, we got people falling out of chairs, we have crazy mispronunciations. Wholesome fun, so naturally cut each week.
And that’s our episode – I will catch you later this week for Fantasy Suite updates and in the meantime, fill out your brackets!
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