I have plenty of observations to recap this episode with but first, allow me to editorialize. The Evil Genius Producers (EGPs) are manipulating or and editing this season to both make the girls look psychologically unfit and the guys as insensitive simpletons. There are dangerous stereotypes being played with here and they are neither fun nor funny. And the commitment to this appears to be continued with a conversation between Logan and Rachel hanging us on the cliff until next week. Both girls are being subjected to this, but Rachel is getting the worst of it by far.
The EGPs have decided to spend much of this part of the season making two strong and beautiful women[1] seem overwrought and overly weepy. And the “payoff” for that is that we know so little about so many of the men. It’s bad enough that all the white guys look alike but some brother named Michael got a rose tonight and I have no idea where he came from. I hope the production changes soon. This episode was the low point for me so far.
Enough venting for now. Let’s recap and I have a lot.
We begin with Hayden going off on how he was mad at Gabby for being mad at him for describing her the way she described herself (“rough around the edges”). Apparently, Hayden is not aware of how self-aware self-deprecation works. When I tell you that sometimes I can be an arrogant douchebag, I’m gonna go medieval when YOU tell me that sometimes I can be an arrogant douchebag.
Of course, we know by now that this scene was foreshadowing things to come.
With that, the guys find out that they and the girls are heading off to Paris! I have questions. Did the girls fly First Class? I certainly hope so. And the guys? There are still a lot of them. A commercial flight? Do all of those big dudes have to sit in Coach for a Transatlantic flight? Do they have to sit together and, if so, how do they decide who has to sit in the dreaded middle seats? What happens if their itinerary is interrupted and they have to be re-booked and their preferred seats change? Do some guys have enough points to get First Class upgrades? Can you tell I travel a lot?
Tino and Jason are ahead of the game as they were pre-assigned 1-on-1’s in romantic Paris with Rachel and Gabby, respectively. Gabby’s date set off a pet peeve of mine, which is how introverts always get a bad rap on The Bachelor franchise. Specifically, Gabby wants Jason to “come out of his shell.” Ugh. That shell is his personality [insert bad words invoking a deity here]! “I want to love you so will you please change your entire personality to make it easy for me?” 50% of the world is made up of introverts, so it’s not like some rare disorder. That said, the date went well enough that Gabby told Rachel that she’s in love. [cue Donna Summer I Feel Love][2]
As for Tino and Rachel, they have the kind of normal first-date conversation that goes straight to “do you want to have a family?” (I love this show.) Tino assures her he’s ready to have a family because he saw his Dad make sandwiches. Seriously? C’mon, bruh. As My Daughter Diandra (MDD) replied to my text on that, “The bar is so low.”
Tino’s clearance of the low bar was enough for Rachel and she’s locked in on him. So, both girls have a guy and it’s only the fourth episode. What could go wrong?
Gabby complained about European showers being so cold, like 38 degrees Celsius. Uh, that’s 100 degrees Fahrenheit, girlfriend. I know this because I communicate regularly with friends in the UK[3] and after several trips over there, I determined in the last year that I want to be fluent in Celsius. One of my weather apps is set to Celsius. The quick and dirty math is multiply by two and add thirty.
We saw the rest of the guys arrive at their (commercial considerations paid by) Virgin ocean liner and that seems like a LOT of vacancies on such a huge ship.
Gabby’s Group Date was contests in some form of French boxing where the combatants don’t seem to hit each other very much. That seemed very French. I’m glad we didn’t have the usual trope of one guy coming hard for some dude he doesn’t like. But it also was rather boring except the EGPs used that as an opportunity for Rachel to feel ignored by her guys who were more into the spectacle of Gabby’s guys boxing than into Rachel. She did a great job of reading them the riot act, though – focused on their behavior, candid about the impact on her, and clear about her expectations going forward. Give this girl an A+ in giving feedback.
Rachel’s Group Date was something about The Art of Romance with each guy doing something to seduce Rachel. This date should have come with a warning: “The following scenes contain material that is offensively stupid even by Bachelor standards. Some viewers may find this level of idiocy traumatizing.” Somebody, please make some sense out of how her sniffing some dude’s armpit was seductive or even flirtatious.
That whole Group Date was weird, but Tyler saved the day and won Rachel’s heart with a pre-written love poem he just happened to be carrying around. (I love this show.)
Finally, we come back to Hayden’s foreshadowed comeuppance which began with him sharing pictures and the sad tale of his dog Rambo who has a brain tumor and has two months left to live but Hayden is in Paris looking for love and left his dying dog behind and even brought his dog’s favorite comfort toys with him. (I love this show.)
But Meatball to the rescue! He rats out Hayden to Rachel about his comments about both she and Gabby. Rachel confronts him, he lies to her face, and she walks him off the ship (“walks the plank” per someone in MDD’s Bachelor group) with him saying, “I respect you as a woman.” (But don’t be so sensitive about me calling you the B-word and telling the guys you couldn’t hold a candle to my ex.)
Rachel is so upset about yet another attack on her worthiness to be The Bachelorette, that yet another Cocktail Party gets canceled – the EGPs got you covered KMD[4] – and it’s off to The Rose Ceremony.
And to drama. Jason is on Rachel’s team but wants to be cut so that he can try to make a free agent deal to sign with Gabby’s team. But when Rachel offers him the Final Rose of The Evening, he is ordered by the EGPs to accept it he decides to accept it so that we can get Rachel to have another meltdown next week.
See you then.
P.S. If I had planned better given Paris as this week’s venue, I would have focused solely on a Bordeaux out of my collection, but I had a really nice Gabrielle Ashley California Cabernet (on sale at Costco) that needed to be finished. But once finished, I did get into some of that Bordeaux to start writing the blog with.
[1] Adjectives supplied by My Daughter Diandra (MDD).
[2] Which Beyonce´ sampled in Summer Renaissance on her new event (she stopped doing mere albums ages ago) Renaissance
[3] Mostly about my obsession with Eurovision.
[4] Long-Time Friend and Loyal Follower of These Musings
Ray's Musings 
Leave a Reply