Elyse Watches The Bachelor–S26 E11: Everyone Hates Clayton

It’s time for the shitshow that is Clayton’s season of The Bachelor.

But first, of course, Pudding update!

Pudding has taken her catnip White Claw and is hiding under the sofa.

We open in a studio in LA with Jesse. He tells us it’s going to be a two-night live finale.

JESUS CHRIST.

We open with Clayton sitting alone in a church while a choir sings.

He says, “I’m so messed up at this point, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I want to believe love is here but I don’t know. I need someone to help me because I’m so broken.”

For the record, the man is weeping in a church because he had sex with two women back-to-back and a third woman wasn’t cool with it (and he was absolutely trying to hit it with woman 3).

“To feel like everything we had meant nothing,” he says to Jesse (of Susie). “She told me to explore the other relationships fully.”

“And to you that meant?” Jesse asks.

“Fully,” he says.

So on the one hand, I get that Susie should have known that’s how this show works, but on the other hand I get her saying hey, if you really are in love with me–the most in love with me–maybe you wouldn’t want to sleep with two other people, like, in the past 72 hours.

So then we get what Jesse tells us is “the Rose Ceremony from Hell.”

So Rachel and Gabby show and start whispering about where Susie might be.

Also why TF is there an ice sculpture in there?

Clayton opens with telling them that he’s “shattered” and “questioning everything” right now.

He tells them that Susie told him if he had told either of them he was in love or had been intimate with them, that she couldn’t continue the journey. “I don’t want that to be a dealbreaker with us. This is the hard part to say, but I was in love with her, and I was in love with each of you too. I am in love with both of you. And I also was intimate with both of you.”

[Ed. note: I only edit these, and I am cringing so much right now, good grief.]

Gabby starts to cry. Rachel looks like she’s debating hacking off part of the ice sculpture to create a shiv. Both women walk away from him. Rachel lays down on the stairs and cries and it’s weird and awkward, especially because they chose the most echo-y place to film this in.

Rachel says, “He’s in love with all three of us? All three of us! And he’s heartbroken Susie left!”

Yeah that about sums it up.

[Ed. note: criiiiiiiiiinge.]

Gabby approaches Clayton first. She asks what happened with Susie so she can better understand. He says he told Susie he loved her, and she couldn’t accept that he also was in love with Gabby and Rachel, and she left.

He again says that Susie didn’t tell him he couldn’t explore the other relationships with his penis.

Gabby asks how he could tell three women he loved them when he knew he was sending one of them home.

“Whoever I pick, I love the most,” he says. “All the other love was real, but it ends there. Ultimately, I walk out of here with one love.”

“Yeah, which is great if I’m at the end. But what if I’m not. How would you feel in my position? This is bullshit,” she says and walks away. “For him to say the woman I walk out of here with is the one I love the most? Wrong fucking answer.”

Status update: Rachel is still crying on the stairs. “I’m supposed to have my heart broken over the chance he might love me a little bit more than the others?”

She talks to Clayton while sobbing into a brown paper napkin. No one here has Kleenex, I guess.  She says she’s so in love with him and her heart is breaking. She says she doesn’t get how he can be in love with three people.

None of these people have read a menage romance, I guess?

He tells her he loves her and it’s worth “fighting” for. WTF does that even mean? Fight for what? A 50% chance of being rejected or breaking up after the show because he realizes he liked one of the other women better?

Pudding says she’s made things in the litterbox that are better than Clayton.

So then they all go to the two consolation roses left. Rachel accepts the rose. Gabby refuses the rose and asks to be walked out.

Rachel is shocked. I think she realizes she has to marry this douche bag now.

Gabby says, “I came here tonight thinking it could be you and I in the end […]. I’m not in the business of competing with anyone for love.”

THAT IS THE ACTUAL POINT OF THIS SHOW.

He begs her to stay. He goes back to saying he fell in love in different ways.

She says she doesn’t feel like he loves her for who she is, but is measuring her against the other women.

Meanwhile Rachel is crying again. She says, “He’s in love with two women and they’ve left. I’m the last one here, but not because he chose me.”

So then Gabby decides to stay, and the pure relief on Rachel’s face is hilarious. Rachel asks her if she’s okay and they hug. I say they both tell Clayton to fuck off and enjoy the rest of their trip together.

Then we cut back to the studio and Jesse has Nick Viall, Michelle Young, and Clare Crawley there to discuss what’s going on. Nick says that Clayton never told the two women that he loved Susie the most. He says he’s “looking for love for himself, not with another person.”

How the fuck is Nick Viall the voice of reason?

So then Clayton’s family is there to meet the remaining two contestants.

Clayton asks them how they like Iceland. His brother says, “I’ve heard of Iceland before.”

Good update, bro.

He tells them he’s in a really bad spot. He tells them he’s in love with three women, and that Susie went home because he told the other two he was in love with them and slept with them.

“Makes sense,” says his dad.

The look on his mom’s face is priceless.

“I don’t know how you can be in love with three people,” his mom says.

“I love you no matter what happens, but you screwed the pooch,” his dad says.

“It’s going to be hard for me to talk to Gabby because I feel like she’s the consolation prize, and I don’t know if she’s going to be the love of your life,” his mom adds.

His mom asks Gabby why she decided to stay. Gabby says she listened to her intuition, and that she knows he’d be a good partner.

HE IS IN LOVE WITH TWO OTHER WOMEN RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT.

His dad tells Gabby he respects her for walking away from Clayton. Like the disappointment Clayton’s parents feel in him is palpable.

The next day it’s Rachel’s turn. She tells Clayton’s dad she’s never been in love with anyone the way she is with Clayton.

“Do you trust him?” his dad asks.

“I do trust him,” she says.

“I would have smacked him,” his dad says.

Later Clayton tells his family he can’t make up his mind between Gabby and Rachel, and that when Susie left his “life flipped upside down.” He says he’s still thinking about Susie.

He says what he had with Susie was more special.

“It wasn’t for her,” his dad says.

Both of his brothers and his parents tell him that once a woman walks away she’s done because they understand boundaries.

He says again what he had with Susie was special and his mom says, “But then you went and were intimate with two other women?”

He  triples down on the specialness.

“Then why did you screw it up?” his mom asks.

I LOVE his family.

Then Jesse shows up to tell Clayton Susie is still in Iceland.

Well, I for one am…shocked.

And that’s it. Onward to Part Two.

Are you watching?