Bachelor Recap Vol. 2: The Lesbians Tell All
A catch up on the Bachelor before the new episode in ten minutes :)
Happy Monday! Another Bachelor Episode premiere, another “Lesbians Tell All” on the previous week to catch you up as we cook dinner and fill out our Bachelor bracket like the good neurotypical christian Gals we are. Three hours until premiere time! Let’s begin, shall we?
M: Last week was the first breakout episode where we see one on one’s/group dates and the girls really do not back down. There’s paintball fights, random drama, and a lot of emotional immaturity better settled in a therapist office and not on screen nationwide for four million viewers.
A: So embarrassing. Thank God we’re not like that. How’s the video of the mutual mental breakdown you and I had doing on our couples’ Tik Tok by the way?
M: Which one? Be more specific. But I must say, I applaud the producers for their picks this season. They really know what they’re doing.
A: Where the hell did they find Queen Victoria? You know that psychological study they did where they locked people in a room with irregular meals and full lighting to test if they could reset a person’s personality? I think QV came out of that, the producers found her, and said “Why the hell not” and told her she was the Queen.
M: Anyways, last week’s episode picks up after the first ever Rose ceremony, where we see a lot of people we didn’t have the time to form an opinion on going home. Who cares.
A: I literally don’t remember who left.
M: Oh wait, Alicia! The dancer! Right?
A: Oh yeah! God that sucks. Entire articles came out about how she was the most accomplished contestant ever and then QV is picked over Alicia. This is rich irony.
M: And, once again, Ana won last week’s bracket because Ana meticulously cheats. On last week’s Bachelor Bracket, she picked Bri for a one on one date because, lo and behold, the Bachelor posted a video of her on an ATV with Matt James.
A: Alright babe, you have Instagram too.Use your sources.
M: So, Matt and Bri saddle up on these ATV’s parked outside the resort where all the women are staying and they take off into the night like they’re Frankie Munez and Hillary Duff in Agent Cody Banks, the sexiest analogy I could possibly come up with.
A: That was hot. Like my grandma used to say, “call me wet but that was hot”. Is Meggie going to keep this in here?
M: Yes. So Matt and Bri are all up in the mountain’s guts cruising around laughing and at one point, Bri hops on to Matt’s ATV? Or maybe Matt hopped on to her’s? And they COMPLETELY flip over in a way that looks really horrifying based on how it was edited. I know Ana is desperate to get to our favorite case study, so-
A: Back at the house, QV is genuinely disappointed to be around so many women. In fact, it may or may not have been leaked that her submission video was three seconds long and it was of her saying “pickmepickmepickme”
M: For context, Queen V is upset that everyone is happy for Bri because she’s genuinely not. Okay, Victoria, I don’t think they’re necessarily “happy” Bri is on a one on one with Matt and they’re not. They’re literally just being supportive by saying that because they’re not going to change the outcome so why worry about the game?
A: It’s something about the blank look in Victoria’s eyes.
M: Meanwhile, Bri and Matt have moved their rendezvous to a secluded wood hot tub that Matt has to chop up wood for and he makes a deadpan, narrow-eyed promise to the camera that he will Protect Mrs. Bri’s Little Precious Daughter at All Costs because he tipped her over in the ATV
A: They make-out, they bond over mutual trauma A La’ single moms. It’s a beautiful cis-het moment. Bri is given a rose.
M: So, at the end of Bri and Matt’s one on one, the house sees fireworks from afar and she’s like “see, I told you I’m right.” She made a whole fucking fuss all day for no reason and isolated herself from the other women because she quote “didn’t want to act like she was in a sorority,” and then sleeps on the couch ALONE because she makes up random drama with her roommate Marylynn?
A: She really pouts around the house like “does no one else hate women :(“. But yeah! She said “You really attacked me recently” to Marylynn, to which Marylynn responded “I said I wanted to get to know you better and understand you”. And QV goes, “Exactly!”. I’m not going to lie to y’all though, I did notice that QV went for a WOC pretty quickly.
M: Marylynn says to Victoria “I want to pick your brain to better understand you.” Because, yeah! They’re roommates! Makes sense they’re kind of stuck together! But Victoria, oh boy. She doesn’t like that.
A: I’m glad that half the contestants are also Black & POC so no one is ganging up on Marylynn. QV, save your energy for the Capital riots you probably joined.
M: At least the producers know now it’s not funny anymore to make the POC the crazy one! ABC really does the bare minimum on being progressive.
A: Jokes aside, a WOC/Black woman would never be able to pull the shit QV’s pulling since we are usually expected to be model representatives of our race. You can see it on the faces of the other contestants that they know they can’t pull something like that. They’d get removed pretty quickly.
M: I think now is the best time to transition into the group date where Queen V REALLY gets to shine. We are not very well versed on Bachelor history, so maybe it’s not the most insane thing to happen on that show, but Matt has a group date with eighteen women on one day and ya’ll, I really just need to paint the picture for you on how fucking wild this group date is.
A: This is when the Bachelor reminded me that straight people Do Be Like That. Their challenge for this week was to line up and all take wedding photos with their future husband, Nice Guy Matt.
M: His defining characteristic trait is being Nice.
A: If I had to take wedding photos with a straight guy I would whisper in his ear “what if we both crop dusted the priest.”
M: Okay.
A: I’m really hungry while writing this so I feel aggressive.
M: Babe the Ham Sandwiches will be done in forty minutes.
A: ….. :’)
M: Not all of the eighteen to four hundred women on this date dressed up in Wedding Dresses get to take photos with Matt which is kind of a bummer. I get it, though.
A: Also there was no priest, just a photographer who found out about the “Blur Background” feature on Instagram.
Urban Dictionaries' New Definition of Professional Photographer
M: The eighteen? Twenty four?
A: I genuinely don’t know.
M: Women are split up into two groups to play this game.
A: Essentially capture the flag with heart pillows.
M: Where they throw paint balls at each other and if you get paint balled you’re out except you’re not actually out you keep running.
A: You’re doing great babe keep going
M: I’m not wrong! And Queen Victoria’s team wins because MJ, The Girl Who Should Be A Lesbian
A: Isn’t that the sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? ™
M: - retrieves the other teams plush heart pillow and runs it back through her team, the Red team’s, flag pole post? Mari also gets to go on the group date later that night because she got fucking slaughtered on the other team trying to capture the Red Team’s heart.
A: Also important to note that everyone on Queen Victoria’s team are the “queens” and everyone on the opposing team are how she says “the gestures.” She meant to say jesters. Sigh.
M: For more on Queen Victoria, visit www.help.com or feast your eyes upon these scrumptious delights we dredged up from the depths of hell (Her Instagram).
No
Notice: Trump Flag In Background :’)
A: Well, Lauren gets the rose for being Christian I guess, and then Matt goes on a date with Sarah because he knows she will be his mommy one day.
M: They go up and fly in a plane over the pretty Pennsylvania castle they have compared to Clare and Teyshia’s poor little frumpy moat last season.
A: I actually really like Sarah, who admits to him it’s kind of hard to open up about real serious issues in her family and Matt says that it’s kind of worrying that she doesn’t dump her trauma on him on the first date.
M: But she gets there eventually! And this is where we learn we REALLY are hoping Sarah wins over Matt in the end, quite honestly. She’s taken off work to take care of her dad who has ALS, the same disease as Stephen Hawking, where his brain is still functional but he is slowly losing the ability to do things such as talk, walk, eat, etc. It’s actually very sad and I forgive her now for being in the same field as me despite the fact I still Do Not Have a Job.
A: Meanwhile, Victoria is mad she is around women, again.
M: It is the night of the Rose Ceremony and boy, is Queen V stirring the pot.
A: I can’t believe she’s still on the show. You can see the light leave Matt’s eyes whenever they talk. He said “sure” to her asking if she could get a kiss.
M: She stomps up to Matt and says Marylynn is bullying her because she’s trying to get to know Victoria and heaven forbid, someone is nice to her.
A: Literally no one is agreeing with her.
M: Matt has to take time out of his night to then talk to Marylynn and get the low down on the he said/she said. Marylynn is unfortunately getting the short end of the stick so hard and it’s so difficult to understand the nuance of a situation if you’re in it but I kind of think she doesn’t explain everything to Matt that well and I’m low-key nervous he doesn’t believe her.
A: Really? I thought there was no way he was going to believe Victoria. God, let’s see.
M: I don’t think he likes Victoria, but I really also don’t think Marylynn explained herself too well and it breaks my heart to see someone be so fucking mean to her for no reason.
A: Then, the Rose Ceremony happens, and Victoria gets a fucking rose, and unrelated, Sarah faints while waiting for the others to get called for a rose. Pre-Covid, I’d think “well that’s a lot” but at this point anything could make me faint, so go off Sarah. And then the episode ends with Matt running to comfort her..
M: I don’t mean to end this on a sad note because yes, the people on this show are wild and batshit crazy and it is really funny to watch them lose their shit. Just watching UNREAL, a show a former Bachelor Producer made to satirize her experience working with ABC, you realize how much manipulation goes into making these women look batshit insane. Yes, I think Queen Victoria needs a sedative, eight beta blockers and, judging from her Instagram, a lesson in not being a Trump supporter and I truly, do, hate her. But this insight on the behind the scenes process of the Bachelor is incredibly interesting and something I think should be taken into account. Here’s a quote from Sarah Gertrude Shapiro on her time working for them.
“For three years, Sarah Gertrude Shapiro worked as a producer on the reality show “The Bachelor.” Her task, as she recalls it, was to get the contestants to “open up, and to give them terrible advice, and to deprive them of sleep.” She sees it now as “complicated manipulation through friendship.” To ensure that intense emotions were captured on camera, she sometimes misled contestants who were about to be rejected. “The night they were going to get dumped, I would go to the hotel room where they were staying and say, ‘I’m going to lose my job for telling you this, but he’s going to pick you—he’s going to propose,’ ” Shapiro said. After the contestant left the set, disconsolate, Shapiro joined her in a limousine while the stereo played a song that the contestant had been primed to see as “ ‘their song’ for their love story with the Bachelor.” Shapiro kept jalapeños or lemons hidden in her jacket pocket—dabbing something acidic in her eye allowed her to cry on cue, which helped elicit tears from the contestant. “I’d have arranged with the driver to have the song play just until I got a shot of her crying—then cut the music so I could start the interview,” Shapiro explained. “They’d often tell us to drive up and down the 405 until the girls cried—and not to come home if we didn’t get tears, because we’d be fired.” In hindsight, Shapiro said, being fired “would have been a great solution to my problems.”