It took Jesse less than 30 seconds to promise us that this would be an “explosive and emotional” Women Tell All. And less than 20 seconds later, he introduced the Golden Bachelorettes in the audience and their new podcast. So, if you had “dramatic, hyperbolic announcement” and “mention of Golden Bachelorettes” in your Bachelor Drinking Game, (like literally everyone), you were hitting the sauce very early.
He may as well have welcomed us to The Bachelor: Promotional Considerations to Pay for Michael Bolton’s Two Appearances. If you took a few sips of your adult beverage during commercial breaks that seemed to come every five minutes, you were lit by the time you found out later in the show that Kelsey’s ominous “We need to talk” note was much ado about nothing, as I suspected it to be. I also suspect that her note may have been prompted a little by the Evil Genius Producers (EGPs) to get Joey into his feelings.
The Yell All portion of the episode was fast-moving and entertaining in the way that stuff you want to be annoying turns out to be satisfyingly annoying. Sydney and Lea were annoying. Jess was annoying. Their level of annoyingness was annoying to Maria, who is easily annoyed. Medina, who often unwittingly became the object of annoyance, got annoyed and annoyed others. And girls that we never saw annoyed in the mansion were annoyed mostly with how annoying Sydney, Lea, Jess, and Medina were.
Did I miss anybody? Please don’t be annoyed with me if I did.
Ultimately, everybody decided that being annoyed with each other was no longer worth being annoyed about. There was much repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, and Maria played the most significant role in making that happen. [cue War Why Can’t We Be Friends[1]]
Does this make her less annoying to you, Dear Friend and Loyal Follower of These Musings KMD?
Speaking of Maria, she moved past Daisy into the lead for Instagram followers after the Yell All. At over 500k, both have achieved levels of popularity not seen on The Bachelor franchise in nine years. To be fair, some of their stardom is reflected shine from Joey, whose popularity has boosted the ratings after years of decline. But there is no denying who the starlets of this season have been.
After an hour of yelling, the EGPs moved us on to the fake drama over Kelsey’s note.
Next up was The Big Rose Ceremony – big only in the sense that we were going to get to the last two standing. Not so big in the sense that it was obvious Rachel was the one going home ringless. [cue Goodbye to Love The Carpenters]
But first, we get more of Daisy talking about feelings of getting hurt. Sure, all the girls talk about this at some point in the journey (take a sip!), especially toward the end. But the EGPs are intentional with their editing, and it means something to me that they keep showing her talking about this.
Joey does the Bachelor walk.
Daisy gets the first rose as the EGPs try to convince us that the fake drama over Kelsey’s note wasn’t fake because maybe Joey came into the Rose Ceremony feeling a certain way about her. I can tell you how he’s feeling – cue Orleans Still the One.
That meant Rachel would get the standard third-place time on the couch, where we learned about how evil humans can be on social media. Such people are despicable. I’m too angry and hurt to say any more than that.
Then bloopers! I usually don’t like bloopers, but many of them were funny. I particularly enjoyed Maria complaining about “the battery’s in my ass.” But I was pretty annoyed at Joey’s inability to pronounce “Minneapolis.” I know I speak for Prince fans everywhere that this was deeply offensive.
And we end with the usual Bachelor Bingo hyperbole about next week’s “shocking and emotional” conclusion. As always, the hyperbole was accompanied by the EGPs carefully curated clips designed to pre-shock us. But by then, my Bachelor Bingo card was full, and my wine glass was empty[2], so I didn’t feel much of anything. That said, I believe there is more drama ahead of us, likely in the form of a brutal breakup I’ve been predicting all season.
See you then.
[1] I detest this song.
[2] San Gregorio El Vergal Tempranillo – an insane Quality-to-Price ratio wine
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