Matt is a strange and confusing guy. He wears pants that are consistently 3 inches two short at the bottom; he has these creepy physical tics, such as licking his lips when talking to the girls 1-on-1 and rubbing his hands together like he’s about to sell a rug at a 23x markup to a tourist in a Marrakech street market. Whatever his strange defects, I don’t think he’s a complete idiot and thus understands the parameters of the situation he is in. One thing he said in this last episode really struck me. When talking about Heather’s sudden entry into the fray, he said “up until the point when I am engaged, I don’t want to leave this with any doubts.” This quote right here sums up the fundamental inconsistency with any kind of rationality or real-lifeness when it comes to The Bachelor proposal process. He’s basically saying that he wants to keep his options as wide open right up until the point that he gets down on one knee? While you have to respect the toxicity, it’s no wonder that these Bachelor relationships pan out about as often as a Sunday night win-it-all-back parlay! Anyways, let’s jump into Monday night’s episode…
Heather’s introduction to the house was every bit as tumultuous as could have been expected. I haven’t seen that kind of volatility since a couple of weeks ago when I lost my life savings holding GME stock because Reddit user HuckFedgeFundzzz69 told me to (only joking). Heather was welcomed into the house about as warmly as a cockroach, and while her stay wasn’t really long-lasting enough to warrant a full-scale female insurrection, Jessenia and Chelsy in particular were sprinting for the glue traps and the Raid spray to try and stop Heather in her tracks. Heather’s intro line of: “I’m not here to just come in here and ruin everyone’s day” is about as sincere as a hurricane apologizing to a Floridian peninsula after ravaging the coastline and leveling every building for miles around. What did Heather think was going to happen? The girls, many of whom have already been blindsided once before, see this angelic figure strolling in with a white dress and Matt rolls out the red carpet for her? I’d go full Hulk mode as well!
One thing that has to be said of Matt, is that when push comes to shove and there is girl drama taking place in the resort, he generally is able to cut through the bullshit, identify the source, and get her the hell out of there. Heather came bearing a very suspect story about Hannah B and fate and basically begged Matt to take her… he did not, and promptly walked her back to her car with the cursory exit hug and wrap-around waist grab. Is there anything more humiliating than flying across the country, the only car they have available at the Enterprise Rental is a white minivan so you take it, you bear it all in front of this random guy on national television who you’ve never met but your friend thinks you’d be cute together, he rejects you, and then you have to drive yourself away in the same 2001 white Chrysler Town and Country that boasts 9 highway MPG and a maximum capacity of 14 screeching girls sporting Sweetspot cleats in the back? I’ll take Heather’s answer as a yes given that she looked like she had just won the lottery when saying goodbye to Matt!
There isn’t much to say about the rose ceremony that followed Heather’s departure other than it was a welcome fat-cutter. Neither Serena P nor Chelsy had a realistic chance of winning given the other girls in the field, so it was about damn time the producers got rid of the drama queens and let the heat seeking heart missiles continue their search for Matt’s matrimonial embrace!
Serena P had the first 1-on-1 date, an interesting development given that there are two girls (Abigail and Jessenia) who had yet to go on a 1-on-1 with Matt. The two went for a tantric yoga session, and to say that Serena P had a terrible time fails to really grasp just how much she hated it… Tantrum yoga would have been a better name if her post-session testimony is anything to go by, but for someone who had a) never done it before and b) supposedly hated it, she was damn near the best tantric yogi I have ever seen. It was like a goddamn Cirque du Soleil meets Titanic crossover in the studio, with Serena displaying incredible core strength and flexibility throughout.
Now I’m not going to profess to be some kind of dating expert here, but Matt, if you’ve been hanging out with someone earlier in the day, they completely hated the activity that you planned so much so that you toast to “never doing tantric yoga ever again,” maybe I wouldn’t dive right into the dinner time conversation by talking exclusively about that activity? Long story short, Matt gave her a rose and the two went for a romantic ice skating adventure that was only minorly impacted by the fakest fake snow I have ever seen in my life.
The group date was one of the most contentious yet, despite the ladies not actually having an event planned. The premise of the date was to allow all of the girls to air their true feelings about Matt and the process and Bri was the first up, describing how she had just quit her dream job to stay on the show… She opened their conversation by saying that “with great love, comes great sacrifice” and I can’t help but think that a more appropriate line would have been “with mediocre feelings in a field of 9 other candidates comes great sacrifice.” What are you doing girl? You’re giving up your dream job (communications manager… ooh dreamy) to stick around for a guy you’ve been on one date with? This whole job debacle got me thinking, how many managers and bosses have granted medical leave to an employee for six weeks only for them to appear 5 months later on The Bachelor? A lot? Matt is all about the vulnerability, and so the prospect of marrying an unemployed girl during the worst global pandemic in 102 years was probably pretty attractive to him.
Abigail was next into the ring and all she was looking for was a little insight into how she managed to snag the first impression rose, but then had seemingly nothing but slide down the power rankings. Matt replied: “you were vulnerable with me, you’re beautiful, and so it was a no brainer that I gave you the first impression rose” and then the big “but” in the room (other than his after those Alex Toussaint Peloton workouts) “I was so comfortable with our relationship that I started exploring other relationships and realized that my heart is going in a different direction.” This is brutal, especially after Abigail so vehemently declared her love for him. Every time Matt sends a girl home, he immediately shapeshifts into Dr fucking Octopus… His hands are literally everywhere. The hand in the lap closely followed by the thing grab is his go to, but the lower back caress as she’s leaving is another underappreciated weapon in his arsenal. (Just wait until we get the over the shoulder clamp when Kit leaves later on!!!)
Rachael ultimately got the rose (a pretty startling thing to witness in the context of recent revelations that she used to bully girls in high school and college for liking black guys) and was treated to an intimate Aloe Blacc concert as her reward. Interestingly for the Cumming Georgia native who has a proclivity for attending Old South parties, they didn’t opt for a country artist despite every other date in the past four seasons involving one… Lady Antebellum immediately springs to mind? Anyways, it’s probably just as well that Aloe Blacc didn’t try his luck trying to get a dollar out or Rachael… not sure that would have ended well!
Kit has been slowly devising an exit strategy for a couple of episodes now. She tried to force the issue earlier in the episode by disclosing to Matt that she was waaaaaay too young for him, but eventually took matters into her own hands and showed up for a midnight chat. Matt is the king of appeasement (step aside Neville Chamberlain) and so obviously tried to talk Kit off the ledge, but she replied “you saying that stuff makes this even harder for me, but I’m unwavering in this, because I know what you deserve…” Come on Kit, you are the ultimate self-interested candidate in this process so don’t pretend like you ever had any intention of going the distance with Matt. I’ve never seen an episode, only the incredibly uncomfortable commercials, but I’m thinking more and more that Kit and The Good Doctor could be a great match?
Jessenia’s date was unspectacular. The two went drift car driving and Jessenia tried her best Megan Fox lying on the front of the car in Transformers impression. Jessenia is really short, even in heels Matt has a good 18 inches on her… She is listed online at 5’4”… If she’s 5’4” then I’m fucking Ryan Gosling… As you can see from the image below, when she’s standing with Matt she literally looks like a child mascot who comes out with the players before a soccer game. Matt was waving around the rose at dinner like he was dueling some death eaters but ultimately didn’t give it to Jessenia.
Bri, Michelle, Rachael and Serena P are the final four ladies heading to hometowns next week. Buckle up!
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