Going Home with a Monster

With hometown visits at stake and all kinds of feelings on the line, Hannah B. faced her toughest choices yet. And if you didn’t know in advance what those choices were going to be or if you missed the foreshadowing of said choices, then you haven’t been watching the show long enough. And if you have been watching the show long enough, then you knew how frustrated you were going to be. You just didn’t know how many minutes into the show your frustration would appear.

Let’s go straight down the line.

Jed – [cue Gavin DeGraw I’m In Love With A Girl]. He drops the L word. She is very pleased. Frustration Meter: 0. Nothing else to see here.

Except this 🙂

Tyler [cue Rolling Stones Wild Horses[1]] The horses they rode on their date weren’t quite wild but they did seem to have a mind of their own (Hannah B. metaphor?) much to Tyler’s displeasure. Hannah was feeling this urge to go deeper into feelings and she basically subjects Tyler to an inquisition. Under her relentless and annoying questioning, he eventually bares enough of his soul to get a rose for “opening up”. My Daughter Cassandra correctly pondered why waiting this long to “open up” is worth a rose. Shouldn’t that happen earlier in the season? Frustration Meter: 3

Connor – [cue Little Anthony & The Imperials Going Out of My Head] Poor Connor. First, he is this season’s “I’m so in my head” trope[2]. He was speechifying early about his need to get a Date Card and he got increasingly pouty when Jed got a Date Card, and then Tyler got Date Card, and then Mike got a Date Card. Typical of the I’m-so-in-my-head types, when he could stand it no longer, he sought to release the pressure by seeking out Hannah B. to talk about his feelings.

As we know if we’ve been watching Bachelor/Bachelorette long enough, these urgent talks don’t go well and typically precede a demise.

Alas, poor Connor has another issue. If you have been watching the show long enough and pay attention to personality types, you’ll have noticed that the structure of the show works against introverted types. Poor Connor is one of those types. Hannah B. responded to him during their talk with things like, “[I sometimes wonder] Where’s Connor?” and, “You kind of fade on group dates.” For his part, he talked about being out of his comfort zone quite a bit. It was pretty easy to see Hannah B. sending him home on the spot. [cue The Carpenters Goodbye to Love] Frustration Meter: 0

Mike [cue The Bee Gees How Can You Mend a Broken Heart] Mike fits a familiar trope, too. Each season there’s the person who’s feeling it WAY deeper than the lead and Mike is this season’s feeling-it-WAY-deeper unrequited lover. You had to see this coming weeks ago, amirite? There was no way he was lasting the night. The sad part about him and all the others who fit his trope is that he (and they) are always so nice. He even handled the breakup with grace. [cue The Manhattan’s Kiss and Say Goodbye: “Please, darling, don’t you cry. Let’s just kiss and say goodbye.”]

And when you compare him to The Lukeness Monster, it’s particularly galling. Frustration Meter: 6 and ready to rise

The Group Date: Garrett + (Take Me to the Pilot) Peter + The Lukeness Monster [cue Pat Benatar Love Is a Battlefield] And now it’s the return of The Lukeness Show. As always in his narcissistic world, HE’S the one being attacked and so he defends his character – he likes using the word “character” a lot – by assaulting everybody else, by name, no less. Frustration Meter: 7

You could see the confrontation between him and Garrett coming to a head and both of them comported themselves like immature children. All of the In-the-Moments[3] with Garrett portended his demise. But not before he dropped the L word to Hannah B. which wasn’t received with great enthusiasm – more foreshadowing.

(Take Me to the Pilot) Peter managed enough self-control to fly above all the storm clouds (see how I did that?) and got the Group Date Rose. Which left us with the inevitable choice of Hannah B. over Garrett and a visit to the Monster’s lair home. Frustration Meter: 10 (even though I knew it was coming)

So where are we now? And when does Hannah B.’s madness end? The producers are surely happy with the drama that keeps providing strong ratings. And they’re likely very happy with the level of uncertainty caused by the chaos. Sure, it was pretty easy to figure out who was going to be in the final four. But who gets locked out of the Fantasy Suite? Who is she most attached to beyond her irrational attachment to Lukeness? And what of the upcoming drama between the two of them in the previews? Will that be the dealbreaker?

More importantly, who shows up in Paradise? 🙂

I’m so distracted by Luke that I don’t care anymore who “wins”. Hannah B. needs to fix whatever it is that has her attracted to The Monster. Frustration Meter: holding steady at 10

Roll Tide.

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[1] Alternative choice Ginuwine’s Pony although maybe that should be saved for the Fantasy Suite.

[2] The trope appears in both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

[3] Aka ITM’s. These are the solo, on-camera moments.