It’s taken a few weeks to get a statistically valid sample size, but I’m now convinced that Matt was created in an advanced former Soviet Bloc robotics laboratory and was released to the West following the fall of the Iron Curtain. First of all, I’ve done CrossFit 4 times and maintain that it is impossible to generate his kind of abdominal muscle toning without some kind of metallic robot undercarriage; He chops wood with all the fluidity and humanity of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz; He does this weird awkward lean in whenever the ladies are talking to him that puts his body at an impossibly uncomfortable and unnatural angle for a human; he maintains this sappy, faux-radiant smile that makes him look like the robot from Futurama; and he uses the exact same playbook for each contestant, first saying something toxic like “vulnerability has always been hard for me,” moving on to robot fuckboy phrase #2 “I’m struggling to express to you how I feel,” and then as sure as the sun rising in the east, hitting them with some smarmy words of affirmation about how their relationship is developing when it clearly isn’t. At this point in the show, Matt should be narrowing down which ladies are actually in the running and which are categorically not; he hasn’t been able to do either, telling every single girl that he could imagine their life together and then extolling their virtues in his side shots by saying, “I could be speaking to my future wife.” It’s frustrating. Anyway, let’s talk about Monday’s episode…
If Dr. Frankenstein, or whoever it was that had the wherewithal to manufacture a perfectly mundane and by-the-book Bachelor robot, it was their evil assistant who programmed Victoria in an express effort to unhinge, malfunction at every turn and watch the world burn. Yet again, aside from Chelsey completely showing up Matt with the quality of her fade, it was Victoria’s toxic energy that dominated proceedings in the evening cocktail party. After calling everyone quite unpleasant names and getting called out by Katie for it, she honked “I can express myself through name-calling if I choose to.” I can express myself through naked fire eating on top of the Empire State Building… Just because you can, it most definitely doesn’t mean that you should… She followed it up by saying “If you want to express yourself with your dildo then you’re not ready for an engagement.” I would argue the exact opposite and the fact that your principal method of self-expression is through your vibrator is a stone wall sign that an engagement is EXACTLY what you are ready for!
The start of the date was unspectacular on the whole. I genuinely thought Matt said “I like being around kids” instead of “I like being around Kit,” which was a pretty startling reminder of the incongruity of her youth. Victoria was yet again right in the middle of the fire, an unfortunate place to be if you’re dressed like a marshmallow! Unsurprisingly, she ended the evening smoldering and burnt, however this time her demise and ridicule was not entirely by her own doing. Chris Harrison interrupting Victoria and snagging Matt like there was something seriously wrong was like one of those viral videos where the scrawny white kid who walks on to the Iowa State basketball team gets his scholarship from a cop walking into the film room and asking to speak to him about a minor transgression on campus. The kid looks terrified, then elated when he figures out what is going on, and then everyone in the vicinity goes crazy around him. This is exactly what happened, as Matt looked like he’d been caught on camera pissing on the statue in the middle of campus, was then fired up when new girls showed up and started making out with him, and then every other inhabitant of the Nemacolin resort went absolutely ape shit.
Adding new contestants into the mix makes sense if the original Bachelor or Bachelorette gets so enamored by a Party City model that they have to cancel the show and start fresh with a new person; but adding them on a whim because it would be exciting to drive a stake between the already fractious existing ladies and these new ones? Attila the Hun was less barbaric! I wonder if Matt told the producers he was done with Victoria’s shit and they needed to get some new ladies in the house otherwise he was going back to oiling his abdominal muscles with Tyler C on the beach? In characteristic form, Victoria reacted to the new ladies arriving by whining “who the fuck are these random ass hoes coming into the house?” and then proceeded to cement her status as a bastard Trump child by being staggeringly rude to the former Miss Puerto Rico, Catalina. She stole her crown, and I was half expecting her to start throwing paper towels in her direction such was her disdain for her new antagonist (God that video gets me every time.)
I was disappointed that Kim, the girl who had an enormous hole in the front of her dress, got sent home, I was very much looking forward to seeing her assless chaps at the next rose ceremony! Catalina obviously made it through; Matt probably thought there was a Wine Mixer on the line.
The fall in love fest might as well have been named the basic bitch fest. A crisp fall day with changing leaves abound, leggings and Ugg Boots, and an obstacle course, it doesn’t get much more Autumnal than that! When I saw the pumpkin kayaking event I was half expecting the next task to be competitive posing for pics at the apple orchard, but alas, the girls had to dress up as squirrels and navigate a pretty simple looking obstacle course instead. Mari was the ultimate winner, although there was literally zero incentive for trying as all of the girls were invited to the same cocktail party in the evening.
During every season, there is always one “watch out for this person” moment, where one contestant gets a tip from their ex-girlfriends’ grandmothers’ bridge partner who didn’t quite have her hearing aids turned up when she heard a snippet of some tea about another contestant. We saw it in the most recent Bachelorette season with Yosef’s West Virginia DM sliding; the Hannah B Caelynn drama from Colton’s season was a similar knew-you-from-prior-to-the-show-drama situation, and this time around, it was Anna accusing Brittany of being an escort with about as much evidentiary basis as a Fox News primetime host trying to overturn an election. It’s a pretty horrific thing to say about someone that “she entertains men for money,” especially when there is legitimately zero indication that it is the case but it’s a dog eat dog world out there and Victoria and Anna think they’re fucking Clifford.
Matt’s next one-on-one date was with Michelle, one of the new girls drafted in to try and draw blood out of the proverbial stone and get Matt to display an ounce of personality. She had a great degree more success than any of her predecessors, and dare I say it, Matt actually came across as someone that wouldn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out hanging with. They zip-lined, both said that they wanted three kids in a totally unscripted moment and then went for a romantic hot-air balloon ride that must have been in contravention of social distancing rules for the poor guy who was steering the thing. It was the first time that Matt had actually seemed to enjoy himself, but was back to his robotic best at dinner, responding to what his favorite part of the date was, with: “when you walked up.” Matt, you went on a hot air balloon with a super attractive female, the question wasn’t “what was your favorite part of the stair-climbing competition?!” Michelle also got called out for quoting Maya Angelou and trying to pawn it off as something that she said (major Jack Black in the cafeteria in School of Rock vibes quoting Whitney Houston when asked his views on school testing). Matt was in full android mode by the end of the date when he told Michelle that she “embodies all the qualities I’m looking for…” Haven’t heard that one before!
Getting a date card that has the words “are you ready to fight for Matt?” on it can literally only mean one thing, and the ladies knew it. There’s no such thing as metaphysical “fighting” in Bachelor-world, when Chris wants fighting, he wants down and dirty, grievance airing, bone-splintering hand-to-hand combat, and this is what we were treated to. As is tradition, they gave Matt a few minutes to show off his blistering sled-pulling technique and let him squat a few logs before Mia St John (I can’t be the only one to have never heard of her?) was trotted out to inform the ladies that boxing would be their skirmishing technique for the date. Katie beat the fuck out of Jessenia, Serena beat the fuck out of Kit, Serena P got absolutely rocked in the nose and that was about it.
The rest of the episode was dominated by some good old-fashioned back and forth between Victoria and anyone that would listen to her. To quote one of my favorite sea shanties, the Wellerman came, brought sugar, tea and rum and the ladies completely ignored the sugar and tea and massively over imbibed on the rum. Katie once again took the moral high ground and told Matt about the bullying within the house and it appears as though this is where we will pick up next week! Until then…
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