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The Bachelor - Women Tell All Recap

Welcome to your recap of the Women Tell All which is always a tricky thing to recap as there is so, so much back and forth between embittered women on uncomfortable stools. I shall endeavor to convey the high emotional stakes to you, my dear readers. And without further ado, let’s jump in!

Oh no, just kidding, there will be MUCH further ado about nothing as we get to watch Chrises Harrison and Soules crash Bachelor viewing parties across LA. There are many, many screaming women, a drunken mom who kisses Chris on the mouth, one very douchey LA guy who says he loves the show, more screaming women, and all of this set to what I swear to God on High is the score from Beetlejuice.

And for more ado, we also have a highlight reel of the major dramatic points that will be addressed over the course of tonight. The two biggest issues at hand are Kelsey the condescending widow, and the beef between Britt and Carly. The video package ends on the rather chillier things Carly said about Britt as they were both eliminated, and we pull out of video to see Britt tearing up in her chair.

My patience level with Britt’s dramatics is starting off at about a 2, so she doesn’t have much to go on here. Starting out the gate crying is NOT going to help.

“Why did you pretend to be my friend the whole time?” Britt asks Carly. And then Britt launches into a literal Sob Story about how she sat on Carly’s bed and put cucumber slices from her salad onto her eyes because she’d been crying so much about not knowing where her and Chris’ connection had gone.

WOW. So much to unpack there. Firstly, Britt needs to pare down her words and get tougher skin. Secondly, that is such a stupid and specific thing she remembers of “putting cucumber slices from [her] salad onto [her] eyes.” I mean what the hell? Did they have dressing on them? Did you actually think that was going to help you depuff IN MEDIAS CRIES?

Things escalate to where many women are talking over each other either in defense of Carly or Britt. What Carly and co. want to say is that she was “friendly to” Britt because she didn’t want to create drama or be outwardly mean to someone. But they are all having a hard time putting that sentiment together.

Quick update on Carly’s eyebrows: it looks like her makeup was professionally done. She looks great, BUT those eyebrows are still mostly the same shape but have been filled in a lot. There is hope for her eyebrows yet.

Anyhow, Chrarrison tries to smooth things out by bringing Britt up into the hot seat right then and there. We hear more about how Britt believes that her relationship with Chris didn’t begin to crumble until Carly said something. Carly pipes up that Chris in his blog acknowledges that Carly was the third person to bring up Britt’s lack of authenticity to Chris. Ashley I. did and so did Jade.

Then Jillian rips into Carly saying how she badmouthed her (Jillian) to Chris in front of her and the other women. And then defends Britt as being one of the sweetest, purest of heart people she’s ever met. Um, ok. Thanks for that shining character reference coming from the woman who asked the most appalling “would you rather…” on her date.

Britt is now putting on the biggest show that she is crying.

“Your insecurity and your jealousy shined through,” Jillian screams at Carly. At this point Jillian is continuing to scream so much that Chrarrison has to whistle to get her to calm down.

“You’re a little jacked up!” Chris says. And she calms down enough to hear more from Britt.

Basically, Britt is overwhelmed by the powers of editing and that the producers have an end game that isn’t necessarily “the truth.” Just in how she was as she was leaving the show, she has no idea how this game works. It’s a game, Britt. So yes, they are going to cut a scene of you telling Chris how you can’t wait to have kids with a scene of the women talking about how you said you didn’t want kids. They do that so that we watch the show and decide that you’re an evil, manipulative cow. Which, you’re not. I just think you’re naïve and on top of that a person I would never get along with in any capacity. But she takes everything so goddamn personally that she can’t see the forest through the trees.

As they cut to commercial, she cries even more. But she’s not crying. She’s just closing her eyes really tight, quivering her lips, and shaking her shoulders. For someone who’s trying to wipe away a reputation as fake, she would be wise to produce more actual tears.

The audience’s reaction to Carly is mixed. There’s both cheering and booing after what she says to Britt. This Women Tell All has become the Carly and Britt Show, and I don’t care for it. I don’t care that Carly said some mean things (at the prodding of the producers) about Britt. I don’t care that Britt might have been fake. They both got eliminated! Work it out off camera, ladies!

“Do you honestly think that had Carly not been in the picture, you’d still be with Chris?” Chrarrison asks.

And Britt silently nods her head as many women pipe up with “no’s”. That’s that. That’s not…no. That’s just not even close to the truth, Britt. She finally actually cries some tears to Chrarrison in what she thinks is an off camera moment. Well, Britt, goodbye.

Now we move right along from that pile up, to Kelsey our “Black Widow.” I have never in my life heard or used the word widow so much as on this season on the Bachelor.

So as we pull away from the shots of all the women celebrating on Kelsey’s elimination, we see Kelsey tearing up. She actually tears up though and cries as she describes how this whole thing has put her back in the grieving stage. She was starting to feel whole again, but now, after this experience, she’s back in terrible place.

Oh please, because you insulted everyone around you and acted like a prized idiot you’re grieving? That’s what she says as she cries so hard she asks for a tissue. I feel like ordinarily they have tissues at the ready but this time no, just Chrarrison, ever the gentleman, offering her his hanky.

“Are you sure?” she asks, “It’s silk.” He nods, so she uses it. And then there is a sound of audible disgust from the audience. Hankies are a gross concept to be sure, but Kelsey did nothing but use it for its designated purpose. Come on, audience; lighten up on her a little.

“Do you know why the women disliked you so much?” Chrarrs asks after our snot blowing break.

She hems a little before saying, “I’ve been told that I seem condescending and I use big words.”

YEAH KELSEY, YOU’RE BEING CONDESCENDING BY SAYING THAT YOU WERE TOLD YOU “SEEM” THAT WAY AND BY SAYING “BIG WODS” INSTEAD OF SAYING “LARGE VOCABULARY” AS IF THAT WOULD FURTHER CONFUSE THESE DUM-DUMS WHO DON’T KNOW BIG WORDS.

After she continues her speech about how she felt so attacked and the women are rearing to tear her up, she ends by apologizing to Ashely for the disrespectful things she said about her as they both left.

Then it’s time to really lay into Kelsey. Juelia, the other widow, is upset at how Kelsey used her tragedy as a tool and says she is the fakest person she’s ever met. Megan, whose father died suddenly in a similar way to Kelsey’s husband, can’t understand why she said the things she said about her story. Megan also hands what may be the only olive branch Kelsey gets by saying that she thinks Kelsey was still grieving, but then why did she come on the show?

Why indeed, Kelsey? And for having such a big vocabulary, she does a very poor job explaining why she said the things she said in the way she said them. We move away from Kelsey feeling like nothing is really sorted and life is meaningless and the universe just keeps quietly expanding yet remaining infinite. INFINITY CAN’T GROW, BUT IT CAN BECAUSE UNIVERSE.

Speaking of space, this is a genuinely natural transition and I’m super thrilled about it, we have Ashley S.! She is here to atone for her erratic and alien-like behavior on the show that even managed to flap the unflappable Chris Harrison.

Ashley is majestic. I will say, however, that even though I cracked wise and made jokes about her being on opiates, she might actually be. She is erratic and strange, and I worry that she might actually have some kind of issue. She speaks strangely and reacts in a way that does not say she is all there. I mean, she might be. This bizarre alien being might be who she really is, but something tells me she’s not all right. So we shouldn’t poke too much fun.

What I can point out though is that Ashley S, being inspired by her time on the show, has started growing onions. She brought Chrarrison an onion as hosting gift, and let me tell you he is downright tickled by it.

Something else I’ll add to the Ashley S. discussion is that she is very confident in all her replies. Ashley S. is Ashley S. and while everyone in the audience is tittering about what she’s saying, I think she may, possibly, be in on the joke. She acknowledges how much the cameras make her just act silly because it’s all absurd.

Chrarrison then breaks character for once in his life to ask, nay beg, Ashley to join Bachelor in Paradise. The crowd chants “Do it!” and she responds, “It’s so weird…just that we’re on TV.” Ashley S. might be smarter than all of us because she just deflected that like a pro.

Next on the hot seat is Jade in a banging red body-con dress. Body be banging. Body. Be. Banging. But also her brain and personality be banging. She’s so calm and sweet. She was upset that Chris rejected her after they had such a strong connection and had seemingly moved on after she revealed that she modeled for Playboy. She is very upset that he seemed to act one way with her even as they broke up and then called it “disturbing” in his blog that the girl he saw was different than the girl her family described.

Jade is too good to deal with a simple, idiot farmer from Iowa calling her actions “disturbing” in any way. She’s the only one other than maybe Kaitlyn who has legitimate beef with Chris for his actions and words. He’s a real piece of work, but in quiet ways, which is why I don’t know if this will be the blood bath I want it to be.

And OH MY GOD, we still aren’t getting to tromp Chris out there. Kaitlyn, the most recent reject, has a turn up on the hot seat. She is still reeling from getting eliminated in Bali and wants answers. She felt the most confident she’d ever felt at the rose ceremony during which she was eliminated.

“Honest to God, I think about this every day. Every single day since this happen I wonder why couldn’t he have given me one tiny little sign that maybe I wasn’t the one?” Kaitlyn reveals. She got a really big serving of a broken heart from Chris and just wants to understand more of what happened.

So finally, after nearly two hours of highly emotional women and back and forth that got us nowhere, Chris Soules comes marching out to the hot seat. WOW. SHOCKER OF THE CENTURY: BRITT FEELS SHE NEEDS STILL MORE ATTENTION AND BEGINS “CRYING” IMMEDIATELY UPON SEEING CHRIS.

Chrarrison hands the floor over to her right away and she comes up on stage and hugs Chris for an uncomfortable period of time. Britt starts right away by telling Chris, in the most put-on humble way, that she doesn’t blame Chris for believing Carly because Britt believed her lies too. Oh! Britt! Get thee to Days of Our Lives!

“Thank you for all that, but I want you to know that the reason things didn’t work out wasn’t because I believed or didn’t believe Carly. I mean, my decision was based on our journey together and our relationship, and there’s some things that I saw and felt that it wasn’t right,” Chris explains. Because yeah, Carly isn’t some conniving villain set out to destroy love with her litany of lies. Jesus, Britt, get a hold of yourself.

“Thank you,” she says as she wipes away yet more tears THAT AREN’T THERE, “That makes me feel better.” Oh, ok. Sure. Now you feel better that he dumped you because you were a selfish brat who threw a hissy fit about not getting your way?

Chris is really over all her theatrics and is just humoring her at this point. I think we might be done with Britt now once and for all.

Now that Britt got her martyr’s speech out of the way, we move onto Kaitlyn who has an actual reason to talk to Chris. Girlfriend needs and wants closure because she got hit by a truck when she was eliminated and given no real reason why.

She keeps coming back to the fact that he wanted her to put her guard down and be vulnerable, and as soon as she did that and opened herself up, he kicked her to the curb. Now, to be fair to Chris (though he doesn’t fully deserve it) part of what being vulnerable means is that you can get hurt and you understand that the relationship is worth the risk of getting hurt.

Chris still doesn’t have an explanation for her as to what happened and that he feels it was “like throwing darts in the dark.” OH SURE, MAKE HER FEEL BETTER BY SAYING IT WAS RANDOM.

Kaitlyn is having none of that and pipes up that Chris should have given her the same chance to talk as he did to Becca, and he should have given her the same courtesy Andi gave him by not putting her through the agony of a rose ceremony at that point in their relationship.

“What in your mind was making you think ‘You know, I’m gonna make her stand through that Rose Ceremony’?” Kaitlyn asks.

Chris apologizes for putting her through that and basically says he was doing the best he could because it was his first time being the Bachelor. HAHAHAH OH HOW RIBALD. WE HAVE FUN HERE CHRIS, YOU GIANT ASS.

To continue the skewering of Chris’s ass-hattery, Jade comes up to talk to Chris about how he sent her home and what he said to her. She calls him out for calling what he saw in her “disturbing” which he stumbles around an explanation that that was just a poor choice of words.

Jade is very well spoken and composed during all of this. She is having none of this. Chris’s reaction to her photos and basically lying to her face and saying it was all ok and then calling the whole experience awkward and uncomfortable gets put on the table. He just again, chalks it up to a poor choice of words and says that they both felt a little awkward. So that’s that. No justice for the wronged, Jade.

And then it is time for Chris Harrison’s favorite moment of any season, THE BLOOPER REEL! NOBODY LOVES ANNOUNCING A BLOOPER REEL LIKE CHRARRISON.

And that brings us the end of the Women Tell All. I will see all of your shining, beautiful faces next WEDNESDAY (ON TIME FOR ONCE THIS SEASON, I PROMISE). We have the big finale to look forward to, and although I have a very clear pick for the winner, I feel that my hopes will be thwarted. But we shall see to what extent Chris Soules shows his ass! Until they my sweets!

Female Empowerment Friday - 

Is this going to become a regular thing? I dont know! You tell me! But for right now just listen to this kick ass song sung by two kick ass women and feel empowered and feel open to all the love you deserve because you probably don't give yourself enough credit and DAMMIT you should!

Listen to it once for the sheer amazingness of the vocals, then listen to it again for comprehension. Take it all in and go out into the world like you f***ing own because you do, you woman of strength, power, and beauty.

I keep refreshing your page hoping that your Bachelor recap will pop up! When can we expect it?

First thing tomorrow morning! My life has imploded a little this week, nothing major, but Bachelor had to take a back burner. Working on the the recap right now for all you wonderful humans who give me the strength to continue on this journey!

^^^ me this week

Distraction 2012 -

The political climate outside today, right now, like this very second, is...heated, shall we say. Today is the most important day of the year, and it happens to only come around once every four years (like leap year or the olympics, only filled with painful anxiety). It's election day.

And while it is CRAZY IMPORTANT THAT YOU GO OUT AND VOTE, it's also important to keep yourself sane. If you're anything like me, starting right now, you're compulsively refreshing CNN and the New York Times every 10-15 seconds to keep up to the moment.

But this, my friends, is maddening. So I'll be periodically posting videos and pictures and fun things from the internet to keep your mind distracted from the pit of diarrhea-inducing anxiety in your stomach about the results of today's presidential election.

Here is a video of Hank Green (of Vlog Brothers fame. DFTBA, yo) bringing you fascinating information from this past week in Science. SciShow in general is a great rabbit hole of distraction, so feel free to keep clicking around that channel.

PS - I literally shed a few tears when he showed me pictures of the underside of the vampire squid. I cried. I'm definitely distracted knowing that thing is out there...WAITING.

your bachelor recaps make my life. muchas graciassss!!!!

De nada mi amor!!! The fact that people read and enjoy them makes MY life, so we're even. We're just all in this big beautiful psychologically damaging journey to find love together.

Oh Sandra...Sandra, Sandra, Sandra Lee. This might be the single worst item of food ever prepared on the Food Network.

Initially I thought my only commentary for this was a hearty "What the F$%&?", but after several viewings, I actually have a lot of words and thoughts in my confused brain about this abomination.

Here are some highlights:

1) What we're making for desert is a Baked Potato Sundae. Again, in case you missed it: a baked potato sundae (no potato involved).

2) For being "super simple" there is a lot of molding and cling wrap wrangling involved.

3) Not once have I ever sat thinking to myself "Huh, that pesky lid to my butter dish is always around with no purpose. Whither shall I make best use of it?" BECAUSE ITS USE IS PRETTY EXPLICIT. IT'S THE LID-TO YOUR BUTTER-DISH- SANDRA.

4) Plain powdered coco has a horrible texture, does not taste great, and coats the inside of your mouth which totally makes it a great candidate for a key desert component, no?

5) "Fancy spray stuff" the fancy stuff...from a can...that sprays...

6) When it's complete, the flavors going into that sundae are as follows: vanilla, raw coco powder, lemon, pistachio.

7) Why? Just...WHY???

Henley Monday - 

This is Jessie Pavelka. I found him one day just bopping around the internet, as one does. I'm not sure of his exact level of fame, but according to his Wikipedia page he "is an American fitness expert and television host, specializing in extreme weight loss". Apparently he's hosted a few shows in England focusing on said extreme weight loss and is also cousin to well-known and reviled former Bachelor Jake Pavelka. Hopefully they are estranged. 

All this is to say MAMA MIA LOOKY AT THAT MAN WEARING THAT HENLEY LOOKING INTO CAMERA WITH THAT FACE. It's enough to stop your heart which I imagine could be quite a hazard in his line of work.

Still, unf. Major unf.

Not even joking tho Aaron Tveit can take off a hat he's been wearing while dancing and stuff and his hair just pops back into perfect shape like what the hell

These are facts. His hair is always like...

...I woke up like this. Flawless.

The Bachelor - Episode 7 Recap

“I’m gonna frickin’puke…or cry,” – Carly, Cruise Ship Singer

I will not be recapping the Chris Tells All special becausewhat is there to tell, really? There is not much. There is not much to Chris and not much inside Chris’s burnt umber colored head, so there is not much to tell from inside it. We also get to hear Kelsey’s side of the story to which I say a hearty, “NO THANK YOU.” And Andi will be here to rip open the fresh wound from her split with Josh. It’s an hour of my life I wish I had back, frankly, so I won’t put you through it as well.

I will however be putting you through the remaining four hours of The Bachelor I watched this week. I will be recapping the full episodes, which starts back in Deadwood, South Dakota with the rose ceremony. I’m two glasses of wine deep already. We’ll see how this goes.

At the rose ceremony, Chris does have a little cocktail party to give all the women one last chance to speak their minds with him. And in his time with Megan, she asks him bluntly how he feels about her and if their relationship is at the same level with the others. Chris shoots her straight and basically tells her no. And she goes home right there and then. No rose ceremony for her. Megan is beautiful and sweet, and gives one of the most graceful exit interviews yet. Take luck, Megan, you sweet, simple baby!

Despite Megan going home already, there’s still a rose ceremony to go through. Chrarrison breaks the news that yet one more woman will be leaving the pack tonight. Chris and Chrarrs step aside to have an intimate discussion, but before they even sit down, Chris stops Chrarrs to say he doesn’t think he can do this.

“I have such a strong connection with each of the women in there,” Chris says.

The women are all freaking out that one more person will still be leaving. Carly is especially nervous, and when Kaitlyn asks how she’s doing Carly replies, “Like I’m gonna frickin’ puke…or cry.” WHAT A GEM! Haven’t we all felt just that way so many times? Like we’re gonna frickin’ puke or cry? I know that I’ve done both at the same time before! So this is a fair assessment of one’s emotions, Carly.

Just then, Chris comes back in the room to announce that there will in fact not be a rose ceremony tonight. The women heave a collective sigh of relief. Chris then tells all the women that they will be traveling to Iowa for the next week. The way they react is as if Tyra just told all the remaining models that they’re going to Sydney or Beijing. But it’s not Sydney or Beijing, it’s IOWA. Not that Iowa is the scourge of the Earth exactly, but I’m not stoked out of my mind to go there.

The girls are staying in Des Moines and are surprised that Iowa actually has trees and is pretty. The girls are staying in a VERY Modest Ass Suite, and are all freaking out about two things. The first is that next week is hometowns which means the pressure is mounting to really forge your connection with Chris aka tell him you're falling in love with him. The second is that this is Chris’s hometown date, essentially, and the pressure is on to find enjoyment here and really picture yourself spending your life here. If you told me I had to spend the rest of my life in Des Moines, I could probably muster through and find a way to thrive. But Arlington? ARLINGTON? IT IS A NOTHING PLACE WITH ZERO TOPOGRAPHY BECAUSE IT WAS FLATTENED BY A GLACIER DURING THE PREVIOUS ICE AGE. I MEAN I ASSUME IT WAS MUCH LIKE THE REST OF MY GLACIAL FLATLAND HOME STATE OF ILLINOIS. I WOULD DIE. I WOULD JUST WITHER AWAY LIKE A RAISIN IN THE SUN. DOES THAT WORK IN THIS SCENARIO? I DON’T CARE BECAUSE IT FEELS RIGHT. SORRY LANGSTON, IF I’M TAKING THAT TOO FAR OUT OF CONTEXT AND USING ONE OF YOUR MOST FAMOUS LINES IN A RECAP OF THE BACHELOR, BUT IT’S MY TRUTH.

Brit finds the very first date card, and it goes to Jade. It reads simply, “Join me in my hometown.” All the women are impressed with how much this means. There is a beauty in the farm stretching for miles and miles down the road, and yet, and yet…it’s all corn. Jade is overwhelmed by how much corn she’s seeing despite being from Nebraska. She acknowledges that being from a small town doesn’t put her “too much in the clouds” about the romanticism of small town life.

Chris shows Jade all around his house. “Chris’s house definitely has a bachelor feel…It’s not too bad, just needs a little tweaking,” she giggles.  Like, maybe, perhaps, and I’m just spit-balling here, a single thing to hang on the walls. And maybe, again, just a suggestion, ANY color other than grey, white, or shades of beige. Chris’s house is fifty shades of beige. 

I am never going to apologize for that joke.

Back at the Very Modest Ass Suite, Whitney gets the second one-on-one which will go down in Des Moines. The other women are very jealous, especially Brit. Brit was jealous of Jade because she gets to go really see Arlington, and she’s still very jealous of Whitney for getting a chance to spend so much time with him. She’s overcome with jealousy.

Chris, on the other hand, is giving Jade the most depressing tour in the history of the world. He’s showing her around the dilapidated remains of downtown Arlington and talking about how machines replaced people in the work force and how every shop in town is closed. There’s even a little “shop” that opens in the morning where his dad gets coffee and it’s just a guy who brews coffee and has people over to drink coffee. It’s like looking at those Dorthea Lange photos of the Dust Bowl, but on ABC during prime time.

Jade is horrified, but is trying to make Chris feel better about the place he comes from.

“Arlington just feels like this little ghost town,” she says. And as she’s waxing poetic about how deserted the whole town feels, they motorcycle over to the local high school to watch the football game. Everyone is there. It’s…grim. I want to tell you it feels just like Dillon, Texas and Friday Night Lights, but it. Does. Not.

Then Jade gets to meet Chris’s parents standing in the bleachers. WHAT ON EARTH? I remember really loving Chris’s mom, but I still feel so weird about this date. The sad poetry of the band playing the national anthem very poorly, as directed by a man with a ponytail, and filled out by members of the football team still in gear and playing trumpets…it’s…I mean…wow.

As if the football game wasn't enough, they then take a tour of the high school. Jade reveals that she was a bit of a rebel in high school and had a tough time. Chris is surprised by this and really wants to see that wild side she’s referring to. Jade almost tells Chris about something secret from her past but doesn’t quite. Then they make out in front of the lockers by his old English classroom.

“What we were doing had nothing to do with English,” Chris says, “It felt a lot more like French.” I wish this show wouldn’t try to forge moments of comedy. They’re already there.

It’s a beautiful, sunny morning in Des Moines, and Chris and Whitney are excited to spend the day together. He takes Whitney to an art gallery because apparently Des Moines is into Art, and Chris wants to get into art too. They go through a gallery of photographs about love to get them inspired to “make their own art” around the city documenting their love. Barf no thank youuu. Whitney loves it though and sees it as a great opportunity to kiss.

In the Very Modest Ass Suite, a storm’s a brewing as per usual. Jade tells the other women about her date and when she gets to the part where they kissed in the football field to a chanting crowD, Britt puts on a big show about that making her cry. Carly is not amused. Carly says, “Britt thinks she’s the Bachelorette and she needs to be number one.” I don’t know if that’s true, but Britt certainly likes attention. Then Carly convinces all the other girls to go on a road trip to Arlington to see the reality of life there and what that might mean. It’s a full three hours away from Des Moines too which is a solid road trip distance.

As the car ride drags on, the girls’ enthusiasm dwindles. They arrive in deserted Arlington and are stunned to find that “that’s it.” They drove through in just a few seconds. There’s nothing more to the town than what they see, and they are distraught. There is nothing open in town whatsoever. They even resort to asking some locals where to eat. A nice, older man in a Call of Duty shirt (who ends up being the town pastor) tells them there’s nowhere in Arlington to eat. Britt is overwhelmed by just how small the town is.

Back in Des Moines, Chris and Whitney get dinner in a hip restaurant. Whitney even gets to meet three of Chris’s best friends. She feels so lucky to get to meet his friends and see Chris how he would be if they spend their lives together. Whitney answers all their questions with flying colors.

The women return to Des Moines to tell Jade that she was right. Arlington is small and depressing. Britt, despite her earlier protestations, has decided that she could in fact see herself there because the sunset was so beautiful. Carly doesn’t buy that one little bit; no she does not. Carly is flabbergasted at how “fake” Britt is being because earlier in the day, Britt had told Kaitlyn and Carly how there is no way she could survive in Arlington. Now she’s singing a very different tune, and Carly is miffed.

I think what we have here with Carly is a multi-faceted situation. I think, firstly, Carly is entertaining. She gives a great sound byte and is funny and entertaining without trying too hard. I also think that Carly is suffering from good old fashioned jealousy here. Knowing Carly’s insecurities, and relating to them personally myself, I can see how a lot of this anti-Britt sentiment might actually just be resentment and jealousy of the connection Britt obviously shares with Chris. We also have the unseen producers playing a hand in all this drama. I’m unsure how much of it is real, and how much is being amplified by the urging of and editing by the producers.

Britt, Carly, and Kaitlyn are going on a group date together. “I see our future together,” reads the date card. Carly’s anti-Britt sentiments really take a turn for the insane when she draws a little face on her hand and makes it talk like Britt. “After tomorrow, the only thing you’re going to be left with is your rose colored lipstick,” Carly threatens to her own hand. It’s a bonkers move, to be sure, but I again have to question whether this was Carly’s brainchild or at the behest of the producers.

Whitney and Chris’s date is still happening for anyone who cares. She was great. Chris loved it. She loved it. Who cares? Those two will take care of themselves. One important thing to note is that Whitney tells Chris that she doesn’t have a relationship with her father at all, and that her mother died tragically. She tells the story without begging for sympathy or being maudlin. It’s impressive. I really like Whitney. Chris does too. He’s so impressed by her at every turn.

The final surprise of the date is that Chris (the producers) chose his favorite picture of their day to get slapped on the wall outside of the restaurant as a mural. It looks better than just a photo pasted on a wall, there are some blocks of color and they are outline in black and white. Whitney is blown away, and Chris is quite proud of himself (the producers).

“This is the most amazing moment of my entire life,” Whitney gushes. She and Chris kiss a bunch. And in this moment, Whitney believes she’s officially in love with Chris.

Jade is starting to be really weighed down by a secret she has, so she sets out to get the weight off her shoulders. She decides to confide in our trusty friend Carly and ask for advice on how to talk to Chris about it.

“A couple years ago, I did some nude modeling for Playboy,” Jade reveals.

A big fat, “Really?” is all we get out of Carly. The conversation actually goes as well as one could hope. Jade’s main concern is that Chris finds out from her so she can explain everything, rather than him finding out through some other means. She’s also very concerned about his family’s reaction and that they don’t judge her too harshly for the decisions she made in the past.

Now it’s time for the very last group date of the season. Carly, Kaitlyn, and Britt are surprised by Chris standing at center ice of an ice rink in a huge stadium. The group date rose is what everyone is most concerned with, but I’m concerned with the fact that Britt seems to have lost the bottom half of all her shirts. Does she own any shirts that aren’t crop tops? Isn't her midriff always cold? 

They all skate around very poorly and try to play hockey. Chris is very, very bad at skating. It’s delightful to watch that giant man fall over and over again. But after the fun, we get to see Britt’s one-on-one time with Chris.

They stand on an intricate pedestrian bridge over the river as Britt reveals that they snuck away to Arlington the day before. Carly and Kaitlyn are griping back on the ice about how they know she’s probably lying her face off right now to Chris about liking the broke-ass small town he’s from.

We see Britt telling Chris how the sunset over the cornfields made her fall in love with the idea of living there. And we see Carly hamming it up pretending to be Britt saying she “really loved it!” The parallel structure of Carly mocking Britt and then Britt doing exactly those things is pretty fun. We can’t blame Carly for bringing some much needed entertainment factor here.

“He’s just getting lies fed to him like frickin’ candy,” Carly says.

I don’t think Britt realizes she’s lying. Her story has stayed the same from yesterday to today of saying that at first she was really not ok with how small a town it was, and then the beauty of nature changed her mind. I think she thinks that’s true. But she is over-romanticizing it. The reality is that Arlington IS that small, and there is NOTHING to do there. She will very quickly get slapped back into that reality no matter how many beautiful sunsets you can see from the farm.

But Carly is convinced that Brit is just playing Chris. She thinks Britt is straight up lying to him and being “fake.” She’s so convinced of this, in fact, that she decides to confront Chris about it. To which I say NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO PLEASE! WE SAW JUST LAST WEEK HOW IT NEVER PAYS TO BE THE WHISTLE BLOWER ON SOMEONE ELSE. Carly just worry about Carly! Don’t get so caught up in what Britt’s doing!

But she does. As soon as Carly and Chris sit down, she tells him everything about how Britt said she could never picture herself living there and then changed her tune so drastically. She then gets choked up saying, “I’m just really freaked out for you because I know you like her a lot, so just be careful.”

Chris thanks her for this and confides to camera that he takes seriously what Carly said.

“It was a real bomb what Carly just dropped,” he says. Chris determines to ask Britt about Arlington one more time to really see whether or not she’s lying.

Cut to the cocktail party held at a very cool antique salvage store/coffee shop into which the set dressers planted their myriad Pier 1 lanterns. Would you venture to believe that Britt is wearing a crop top? She is! Believe it!

Chris and Britt steal away first, with Chris set on confronting her about the Arlington Issue. Britt describes what a hometown date with her family might look like with everyone eating off paper plates in the living room. See? Britt’s family is just like as cool and chill and so offbeat as Britt. They like, aren’t like other families.

This time, when determining the validity of another woman’s statements, Chris does not throw Carly under the bus. He does some surprisingly good sleuthing by asking Britt again what her very first impression of his town was. She gives some cutesy answer like “is this the town before the town?!” He prods a little farther asking if at any point she was like, “Holy s**t, no way.”

To which Britt responds, “No. I was never like that but there was a shock factor.” So right there she reveals to Chris that she is lying. Because he trusts Carly, as do I, that Britt said something along the lines of “there’s no way I could live here” to both Kaitlyn and Carly.

So Chris knows she’s lying, BUT WHAT WILL HE DO WITH THAT INFORMATION. Nothing it turns out because Britt then says, “No matter where I am I wanna be a mom.” So Chris kisses her and they do a lot of gross, smacky kissing.

Kaitlyn proves to be very astute in saying that she doesn’t think Britt is lying to Chris so much as lying to herself about what she wants. Glad to know you agree with me Kaitlyn. We’re on the same page. Kaitlyn gets pulled away next and is determined to not be distracted by Britt. She reveals that she’s having a hard time because she knows they have a connection, but wants to make sure they are in a good place going forward. I like this honest, emotionally vulnerable look on her.

Chris does too, and so he goes to grab the date rose. Chris wants Kaitlyn to feel secure in the connection they have going into Hometowns. That is the most cliché Bachelor sentence in the world, and yet, it happened. This show is a parody of itself.

But, uh oh, don’t get too happy just yet. The dramatic music in a minor key starts up as we pan over the look of fury plastered upon Britt’s face. Britt pissed, y’all.

Britt pissed.

Britt so pissed she flipping her hair and cracking her knuckles and interrupting her fellow contestants as well as Chris. There is a siren blaring in the background to perfectly accent the temper tantrum she’s throwing.

And then Britt starts in on a rant about how she felt the day went really well for her and she opened herself up so much and she is really in a vulnerable place and how could Chris NOT give her the rose after saying how much she wanted him to meet her family? DOES BRITT NOT KNOW HOW THE SHOW WORKS?

She continues though! She then goes on about how she doesn’t want to feel like she’s second, third, or fourth place to anyone. She wants to feel that her husband puts her at number one. She wants to make sure that her husband really, really wants her above anyone else.

AGAIN, DOES BRITT NOT KNOW HOW THE SHOW WORKS?

THAT’S THE SHOW BRITT. IT ISN’T JUST YOU. THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE THERE DATING THE EXACT SAME GUY, SO SOME DAYS, YOUR “FUTURE HUSBAND” WANTS ANOTHER WOMAN MORE THAN YOU BECAUSE THIS SHOW IS A FABRICATION AND BASTARDIZATION OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

Chris fumbles through a defense of his actions, but is ultimately confused by what Britt’s saying to him.

“Like, if you feel like you don’t want to be here anymore? I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m picking up right now,” he says.

“What would you say to that? I mean just speaking to me,” Britt replies. Carly is sitting directly next to Britt on the couch and keeps having to avert her eyes from the beyond uncomfortable situation playing out before her.

I’ve never seen something quite like this happen on the show before.

Chris continues to stumble through that he’s just confused by the position Britt is trying to put him in by saying these things. But then he really finds his ground.

“I don’t know what else there is to say. And out of respect to Carly and Kaitlyn, I don’t think there’s really anything else I can say to you right now. This is just one more chapter in this whole entire journey, and there’s tomorrow. And so I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Goodnight.”

Chris basically drops the mic and walks out.

This once again leaves the three women alone to process through exactly what just happened. What DID just happen? Kaitlyn stands up for herself saying that what Britt just did made her feel really bad. Britt apologizes saying that wasn’t her intention and then just whines more about how she feels like she never gets the focus time and again.

Carly has had a few glasses of wine at this point and is exclaiming all her statements like, “You have so much focus on you! It was just you last week! You had all the focus!” and “If anyone should be worried here, it’s Carly Waddell.” Guys, I still love Carly. I want her to know she deserves better than the likes of Chris Soules.

As Carly and Kaitlyn catch the other girls up on the drama, Britt weeps to camera about how badly she feels for putting the other girls in the middle of that. She is still so unsure whether or not she wants to bring Chris home to meet her father.

I believe that Britt is feeling conflicted and feels bad about hurting the other girls. I think her personality is really affected and put-on, but I don’t think she’s a bad, manipulative person. I think Carly is being a bit of a Mean Girl in regards to the whole situation and she may have to atone for these actions at the Women Tell All.

And with that, I bid you a quick adieu because the next episode is about to start! WHAT?! IT’S TOO SOON. OH GOD.

In the immortal words of Samuel L. Jackson...

AFOOD: Origins

-Cassie