Happy Monday! It’s the night when I watch The Bachelorette so you don’t have to. I could be watching shark week and learning cool facts (sharks have two penises; they’re called claspers), but I’m not.
I’m here. Watching Fantasy Suites night.
After much rum, repeated tests of my fortitude and several “WTF” gifs, we are finally on the homestretch here. We’re down to three dudes and tonight is the night where (I’m not making this up) Chris Harrison carefully pens each contestant a letter inviting them to “forgo their individual rooms” and spend the night in a Fantasy Suite (or, as Rich calls them, the Bang Bang Rooms) with Becca.
For the record, they don’t actually have to have sex. Whatever happens in the fantasy suite isn’t filmed and according to some sources, The Bachelor/Bachelorette uses this time to really talk to the contestants. Remember that the “winner” spends about 3 total days (when you add up the whole season) with the Bachelor/Bachelorette before becoming engaged.
So we’re down to three dudes, Blake, Garrett and Jason, and they’ve all traveled to Thailand.
The first date goes to Blake. Becca has told the camera that she’s in love with Blake and that she “can’t imagine life without him,” but she hasn’t told Blake that yet. They go for a hike and stop at a temple where they are greeted by a Buddhist monk.
“There’s something so old and cultural about interacting with a monk,” Becca says. “It’s honestly like something I’ve never seen before.”
The monks give them some advice on having a happy relationship. Afterwards Blake and Becca say things like:
“So wise!”
“That was like a real monk!”
During a thunderstorm, Becca and Blake sit down to a dinner that they aren’t allowed to eat. Blake worries that Becca is behaving with the other two guys exactly like she is with him. Blake tells her that over the past two weeks he’s been thinking about how she might have the same strong feelings for another guy that she does for him.
Becca says that she understands because she felt the same way when she was at this stage with Arie. She was especially doubtful because Arie had told her he loved her before Fantasy Suites and she wondered if he’d told one of the other women that, too. Maybe that’s why Becca hasn’t told Blake she loves him yet?
You can tell the storm is making things crazy humid. Sweat rolls down Blake’s face.
So then they open the card that Chris Harrison carefully penned with blood fresh from the Rose God’s supply. Blake and Becca walk hand-in-hand to the Fantasy Suite which legit has a towel swan in it.
Then we get a shot of Blake and Becca cuddling in bed the next morning. The camera pans to Becca’s dress on the floor.
Way to stay classy, ABC.
Blake says he’s scared he’ll never wake up next to Becca again.
“God, it’s just so good between us. Like there’s no way she has this with any other guy. There’s no way,” he says.
We don’t even a commercial break to refill our glasses. We go immediately to the date with Jason. Becca and Jason go to the Sunday market in Chiang Mai where they eat some crickets. For the record the cricket-eating sounds are 900% less gross than the make out sounds I’ve had to endure this season.
So then they’re walking out of another temple when Becca says makes a comment about decorating Jason’s condo similarly (which again):
Becca tells the camera, “We’re walking out of the temple and I thought about the future, and I said something about it, and I immediately wish I hadn’t because at that moment, I feel like I couldn’t see him in that picture. I don’t know what my problem is right now. I just feel weird.”
Becca walks away from Jason and tells a PA she “feels weird” about ten times while tearing up. Jason sits on some steps and looks uncomfortable.
So then we get to dinner (that they aren’t allowed to eat. Hope the crickets are going to tide them over). Jason tells her that his family gave her the “full stamp of approval.”
Becca says she thinks it’s harder on The Bachelor facing families because he’s dating multiple women. So…what the fuck does that mean?
“For sure,” says Jason.
Becca tells Jason that when she mentioned the future on their date, she felt like something was off. Then she gets teary eyed and says, “Can you hold for a second?”
“For sure,” Jason says.
Becca goes and stands in a dark corner and cries. “Yes, I could see a future with Jason, but I can see it more with Garrett and Blake,” she says. “I feel terrible, but I know what’s right for me.”
Jason is clearly worried that this is more than an Arie-getting-up-to-fart situation. She comes back to the table and tells him that she just doesn’t see a future with him. She says she doesn’t want to put either of them through an overnight if it’s not “100% there.”
Jason asks her if she’s confident in that, and she says, “No, I’m not confident. I just see it more with the other guys.”
DUDE, SHE SAID NO FANTASY SUITE.
“If you still see a potential future with us, and you see it more with the other guys, what would stop you from seeing what else is there? Because I would tell you, there’s a reason I’m still here. There’s something behind what we have,” Jason says.
SHE SAID NO FANTASY SUITE ASSHOLE. STOP TRYING TO CHANGE HER MIND.
“I just don’t think we can get there at the end,” she tells him.
“I appreciate your honesty. I just want to understand where you’re coming from,” he says.
SHE JUST TOLD YOU WHERE SHE’S COMING FROM.
Becca stands her ground and walks him to the Limo of Tears. Then she breaks down crying because she feels bad. Jason isn’t crying so there’s that.
“Jason’s one of the best men I know, honestly,” Becca said. “I’m wondering what’s wrong with me.”
Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you. You don’t have to be in a relationship with someone just because they’re a good person. Also trusting your gut when something feels “weird” is completely legit.
“I just did what Arie did to me,” she continues.
Except not at all. Arie got engaged to Becca, then broke up with her on TV because he changed his mind and wanted to be with the runner up, Lauren. Becca maybe needs a good therapist and not a reality TV show fiancé because she’s owning a lot of shit that doesn’t belong to her.
So then we get the next morning where Becca is all but fetal on the couch in a hotel bathrobe. She worries her feelings will taint her date with Garrett which is up next.
For their date, Garrett and Becca go rafting on bamboo rafts then it’s on to the dinner they can’t eat.
Becca reflects that she wishes Garrett had told her he loves her.
Instead Garrett tells her he’s afraid of being in another marriage that doesn’t work out.
“I can tell it’s not easy for you at times,” Becca says. Then she tells him she never got concrete answers from Arie on what a future together would look like. She asks Garrett how he sees their future and he tells her he could relocate so she could follow her dreams.
Then Garrett says that “I’ve never been this happy in my entire life,” and tells her that he loves her.
Becca tells the camera that she loves him too, but doesn’t tell Garrett.
Then they open Chris Harrison’s note inviting them to bone, and his handwriting looks alarmingly like Comic Sans.
We get another morning-after cuddle session with lots of noisy making out.
Next we get Becca reflecting (alone) in her hotel room that she’s in love with both Blake and Garrett, and hoping she has a moment of clarity to help her decide between them.
But wait! Proving he’s truly a toxic asshole, Jason shows back up!
“I love her, and I’m not ready to let it end,” he says.
Thanks for romanticizing this type of completely alarming, inappropriate behavior ABC, you fuckers! She sent him home. He’s done. Continuing to pursue her isn’t romantic, it’s disturbing.
Jason says he’s looking for “justification” as to why he was let go. First of all, you aren’t entitled to justification or a reason or anything else. She broke up with you it. It sucks, but it’s over.
So then Becca tells him how terrible she felt for letting him go and blindsiding him.
JUST PUSH HIM OUT THE DOOR, BECCA. FEED HIM TO THE ROSE GOD.
Instead they have this really tepid conversation about what a good guy Jason is and how he doesn’t regret this “journey” (take a shot), which tells me ABC is setting him up to be the next Bachelor and that was the whole point of this bullshit.
“The world needs more Jasons,” Becca says.
No, we don’t, actually.
“I really hope he finds somebody,” she continues.
He will. This winter, Mondays at 8 EST. I’ll be watching it. Fuck my life.
We get a commercial and then it’s time for The Dreaded Rose Ceremony. Chris Harrison emerges from the coffin laden with McMansion soil that he has to travel in. He asks Blake how he’s feeling and Blake says, “Good.”
Neat.
Chris checks in with Garrett too. “I’ve never felt this strong about somebody before,” Garrett says.
“And you’ve been married before,” Chris replies, because he has to be an asshole and work a dig about Garrett’s ex in.
So Garrett and Blake stand awkwardly in a courtyard and wait for Becca.
Becca walks over to Chris, hugs him, and says, “I’ve missed you.”
Gleefully Chris asks, “Can you believe we’re down to two men?” I have to believe ABC cut out the next part which was, AND MY ELDRITCH GOD WILL FEAST! FEAST!
“No! This is the final rose ceremony,” Becca adds, cluing in anyone who fell asleep for the past two hours (yes, two fucking hours).
“These guys are both head over heels in love with you,” Chris says. He doesn’t add, WHICH WILL MAKE THEIR BLOOD ALL THE SWEETER.
Chris now talks in ALL CAPS like Death in the Discworld series. I don’t know when that happened, but it did.
“I’m in love with them too, but I haven’t told them. I want to save that. I to save those three words for just one guy because I know what it felt like to have those words said to me and someone else, and I don’t want to put anyone else through that,” she replies.
Becca goes into the courtyard and tells Blake and Garrett she sent Jason home, which I think they figured out. She tells them that she wants them to meet her family and gives them each a rose.
And that’s it. One more episode to go. Are you still watching? What do you think of the final two?
Jason looks like he goes to the same blind barber as the Trump boys, so the “big reveal” that he’s gross was foreshadowed in the first chapter.
The Fantasy Suites (and indeed, the whole franchise) have no credibility for me now that I’ve read Amy Kaufman’s BACHELOR NATION, which delineates the show contracts quite a bit. (Before I continue, I should point out that Kaufman remains a huge fan of the show, and admits several times in the book that even though they’ve blackballed her from any access to the show following her articles and book, she would appear as a contestant if she could.) Anyway (I’m paraphrasing here), the producers basically have carte blanche to alter your voice recordings or arrange shots to make things look any way they like, and you have no control over it. A contestant may not be doing anything sexual (or indeed, not even be having the person in the suite), but the show can make it look that way by, say, showing a shot of the two together before panning to a shot of the lights going out in a room (or, theoretically, the dress on the floor). Not that what did or didn’t go on means anything to me, just that it’s all potentially fake anyway.
As for icky Jason and his probable turn as the next Bachelor (Twitter last night was aglow with him as Romantic Hero, eep), I’m just glad if Colton gets spared. Knowing how gross the show and the country can be, his virginity would be the only plotline EVERY WEEK, inspiring some ghastly new culture war between fundamentalists and leering pervs. Plus, since the contracts ALSO state that any recorded dialogue could theoretically be edited or altered in any way the producers want (again, not saying they do, just that they say that they CAN without any right of contestants’ complaint), poor Colton would no control over any of it. He’d be better off in a dark “auctioning off my virginity” romance…
Now that I think about it, I wonder if Becca’s beating herself up isn’t some weird form of BACHELOR-induced Stockholm Syndrome. The former contestii interviewed in the book talk about how unnatural the environment is, with no Internet or cellphone access, very limited access to family and friends, and your whereabouts controlled by the show. They all said it messed with their minds. Now, keep in mind that Becca ALREADY experienced this less than six months ago, and is doing back-to-back stints. Yikes.
(That’s another reason I hope Colton’s off the hook next season–the show keeps you under contract for two years whether you’re chosen or not, so I’m hoping Jason knocks a few months off Colton’s term of indentured servitude.)
The DH and I have discussed since day one that Jason looks like an extra from the Sopranos. DH calls him ‘low level mob thug’ and I call him “Jersey greaser” and while neither of those is particularly clever, it helps when we can’t remember his name since his only discernible personality trait is being pushy. Ew.
I was kinda hoping for Colten as the bachelor. We could just call him Sean Lowe Lite.
Anybody with an interest in behind-the-scenes manipulations that take place on The Bachelor should watch UnREAL, all of which is now on Hulu. One of the co-creators was a producer on The Bachelor, and the show is all about the dirty work that goes into making a dating reality show. The viewpoint character is Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby), a producer with a gift for manipulating contestants on a Bachelor-style show into having dramatic on-camera fights and meltdowns. Rachel swings between immense guilt for all the lives she’s wrecked and glee over how skillfully she can cause chaos.
Also, Constance Zimmer turns out a virtuoso performance as cut-throat executive producer Quinn King, queen of the one-liner.
The Bachelor/Bachelorette shows have always struck me as being gross to the max, if for no other reason than that they feed the national obsession with Being Famous for Doing Nothing Worthwhile and feed this endless supply of nitwitted Ken dolls with boundary blindness into the rest of the entertainment matrix.
Given how judgemental so many Americans are about women vis-a-vis men (i.e. virgin/whore and how dare you say no) … sometimes I can’t even believe these shows got off the ground. It’s like “here America! Let us just underline and bold and all-cap the fact that you think it’s perfectly okay for these people to act this way, because TeeVee!, but if it was your ex-girlfriend you’d shoot up the McMansion.”
On the web elsewhere, it’s speculated that Jason coming back was a producer ploy to make him look romantic. Not a good move, TPTB.
I might be alone in this but I found Blake’s focus on what Becca was doing/saying/thinking with the other guys to be a little creepy and maybe signaling of some underlying toxic masculinity on his part. Although Becca in general seems like toxic masculinity isn’t necessarily a deterrent for her so….whatever. It just seemed like he was focused on the wrong thing–“does she act like this with the other guys” rather than “does she have a strong relationship with the other guys” and I feel like there is a difference there. It puts the responsibility on her to behave in a certain way and if she doesn’t, he will be disappointed and/or angry. I didn’t love it. And having seen him on camera now without a shirt, I just want to say that I would ordinarily be fully on board with Blake. Because damn. But drool-worthy upper body or not, I feel like that dude might be bad news. So Becca’s narrowed her field down to a guy who likes Instagram pics of Tomi Lahren (barf) and a guy who seems to have a thing about dictating her behavior. I don’t like her odds at this point.
@KB Blake is too obsessive. He gives me stalker vibes. Just as Chris looked mean. I have no proof, just a feeling.
I am just too, too, too, icked out by all the whining and agonizing these people do over their situations. Seriously, have they not watched the stupid show before they agreed to participate? (To say nothing of Becca who knew EXACTLY what she was getting into.) Such nonsense! If Elyse, and Rich, and cat (forgot it’s name) were not so super amusing I’d skip the whole thing. Oh, and I hope they don’t pick Jordan for next year! He’s so not batchelor material.
@MrsObedMarsh: as I recall from the book, unREAL was inspired by Sarah Gertrude Shapiro’s soul-crushing experiences as an assistant on the show. She mentioned several requests that she didn’t want to carry out, and quit because she could no longer betray her feminist ideals (and she worried that she was helping to ruin some contestants’ lives, in however small a way). She and former contestant Rozlyn Papa came off as the two most admirable interviewees…
Seriously, have they not watched the stupid show before they agreed to participate?
Well, it’s like Survivor isn’t it. Every year they have to find 20 people who have never seen the show in their lives and are therefore stunned at the midway point when the two teams are merged into one, former enemies are now potential allies, and one and all behave as if they had no idea such a thing might happen.
Or is there some kind of selective-memory-serum hush-hush experimentation going on that I really, really don’t want to know about?
So, I gotta stand up for Jason. Both Garrett and Blake talk about how they love Becca for how she makes them feel, and Jason is the only one (shown) talking about what he actually likes about Becca, other than her looks. As for the “creepy” behavior of turning up at her room, I think we all know by now that that was just as likely producer pressure as it was his own idea, and, in real life, when you break up with people, sometimes you need to talk it through one more time. He wasn’t asking her to change her mind, he didn’t bad mouth her or the other guys. Also, you could tell by her top that it was actually the morning after their date, not days later, and he’s stuck in a foreign country for weeks doing nothing so that the show won’t be spoiled by fans seeing him come back early on a plane.
I mean I don’t like his hair either, and his adorable gay brother should give him a talking-to about that, but comparing him to a Trump scion is a little much. He’s not the one liking biggoted memes.
@Louise, Survivor has now evolved into a whole new competition because most of the contestants have not only seen the show, but have studied all the past seasons from every angle, to the point where they actually reference past contestants’ strategies and the editing the producers will likely give them. It’s all very meta and weird!
Hellllpp I am going crazy trying to avoid spoilers, I need the review of the last episode ASAP! I keep refreshing this site! I don’t want to hear about this garbage from anyone but Elyse!
Hey Elyse – if this show has made you give up on mankind read woman world for a change. It’s hilarious and asks deep questions like why do men have nipples?
https://www.amazon.com/Woman-World-Aminder-Dhaliwal/dp/1770463356/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533132735&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=womans+world+comic&dpPl=1&dpID=51NHPL41QjL&ref=plSrch
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I’m with Anony – eagerly awaiting the latest installment. Can someone at least assure us that this week’s episode didn’t push Elyse over the edge into alcohol poisoning? 🙁