- Hillary Duff gets cheap party planning
- Susie snags the 1-on-1 date
- Never have Elizabeth and Shanae EVER gotten along
David vs. Goliath has always been one of my favorite Bible stories. For the non-denominational amongst you, the story chronicles a young boy with a slingshot and a stone, who knocks out an absolute man-mountain overcoming overwhelming odds in the process. The Bible story bears a startling resemblance to the pitched battles taking place across the living rooms, parlors and bedrooms of the United States on Monday night. On the one hand, the Davids – remotes clutched in sweaty hands, fresh off 3-days of relentless dish-washing and laundry folding trying to gin up some good will going into battle for the night’s entertainment. On the other hand, the Goliaths – hair curlers in, red wine stains already adorning their most comfortable pajamas, blissfully unaware that there is ever anything else on television on Monday nights. Where this analogy differs entirely from the scriptural staple is that in this instance, the Goliath’s resoundingly covered their spreads, and the tuning of the television was angled unambiguously away from the College Football Championship game and firmly set on Clayton’s cootie fest.
Now I’m no Los Angeles housing expert (that’s a total lie, just ask my poor girlfriend who has been subjected to more hours of Selling Sunset in the past 2 weeks than is safely recommended by the CDC for an entire year) but did no one check on the Bachelor mansion during the pandemic? The place looks in horrific shape. I know it’s always been a little overgrown, but the side of the mansion looked like Stanley Yelnats (without a doubt Shia LaBeouf’s best role) was about to come dig a fucking hole on it. Had Stanley brought any of his friends to the dig, the irony of finding Zero good candidates when their shovels broke through the cracked walls would certainly not have been lost on me! Anyway, enough about the shoddy state of the house and onto Monday night’s episode.
The episode started at Hillary Duff’s house. If there are still people out there looking to find Hillary’s emails who haven’t died of COVID yet, she probably hid them in her namesake’s fuckin mansion in Beverly Hills. Her house, if it was indeed her house, is an absolute unit.
The worst thing about having literally the biggest star of everyone’s childhoods come on the show is that all of the ladies cease to give a flying fuck about the Bachelor and just melt into a puddle of Lizzie Mcguire induced blubber. I’m gonna Come Clean here, Hillary is one of the most fabulous, well-spoken women I have ever seen, but if I was her kid and these random girls just showed up to my birthday party and started shoddily building dollhouses, chilling on the bounce house, spreading their germs all over my cake and running a Squid Game re-enactment of red-light, green-light, then Child Protective Services would be hearing about it. The girls were entrusted with making Hillary’s child’s day special, all except Cassidy, who whisked her man off for a poolside powwow. Making out with Clayton is SO Yesterday, but I guess she didn’t get the memo and parked her lips firmly on his to the intense displeasure of the remaining ladies.
A little aside, Hillary Duff is only appearing on the Bachelor to market her new show. This would usually stir up some cynicism, but the show genuinely looks amazing. It’s refreshing to finally be treated to some quality commercials in between segments; having watched years of The Good Doctor commercials, I’d honestly take Joe Namath slinging Medicare instead of that!
The cocktail party was largely uneventful, and Cassidy was ultimately rewarded for her group date confidence and received the rose. I feel as though Clayton’s kisses are more frequent, but also way longer than anyone else’s kisses I’ve seen in my short career of watching this show. The guy literally sucks face like he’s just tracked down Sirius Black and returned him safely to Azkaban. The guy makes Genghis Kahn look prudish. He also leads in with some of the worst delivered lines I’ve ever heard. Poor Serene, an elementary school teacher who probably went on the show to get away from young boys drooling all over her, was told “I love the effort I’m seeing out of you” before falling into Clayton’s tongue trap. You’re the Bachelor, not a peewee soccer coach trying to find a silver lining in his kid’s poor play.
Susie got the one-on-one date. She is a very cute combination of Valentine’s Day Taylor Swift, Colton’s season Hannah B and then this guy from my high school’s ex-girlfriend. Right? The two drove Clayton’s G-Wagon to a helicopter ride over the Bachelor mansion. They had a nice conversation about cooking and dancing while awaiting takeoff. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really take them seriously wearing the headsets – I’ve been called a motherfucker and then brutally murdered in Call of Duty by enough Russian 8-year olds to be incredibly wary of the headgear. The two weren’t dropped at Tilted Towers as I was expecting, but landed on the back of a yacht. This was “the coolest thing I’ve done in my life” according to Susie, and also took this date’s dollar value above the combined value of every single COVID-season dates. No more woodland hot tubs and horse-back rides, the producers are back in LA and give less fucks than Kodak Black at a hockey game.
The two enjoyed dinner after disembarking from their steamy sunset cruise. Usually it takes a couple of weeks to ascertain the verbal ticks of the Bachelor… Matt James had his “thank you for telling me that,” and Clayton’s is undoubtedly “I love that.” Everything Susie said he LOVED, and he no doubt loved their private concert from Amanda Jordan. When they cut to the pianist at the beginning of the song, I thought for a second the concert wasn’t going to be a D-list country singer… and I was right, she is about a V-lister. Amanda is an attractive young girl about to experience an explosion in her popularity due to a national TV appearance… she’s lucky she kept her lips glued to the mic or Clayton might have tried to make a move!
We’re at the stage of the season where some very unfortunate girls don’t get on either the group dates or the 1-on-1 date. Jill was one such girl, and she responded with one of the most genuine portrayals of just how difficult it is to go on this show. She described how she left her cat behind and proceeded to burst into tears. It’s probably for the best that she missed out on the Ziwe (has anyone ever heard of this Ziwe character?) monologue in which she mentioned “kitten-fishing”??? That probably would have brought on a new wave of tears.
The ladies played a hasty game of never have I ever, before embarking upon the relationship red flag obstacle course. I don’t know if Shanae is gluten intolerant, but there was a breadcrumb portion that brought out her IBS in an explosive way. Irritable Bitch Syndrome is no joke, especially when it comes to demeaning other contestants’ mental health conditions. The push heard round the world, during which Shanae pushed Elizabeth into a quagmire of sticky liquid (giggity), incited the first major inter-personal duel of the season; and boy, is it personal!
Shanae is a recruiter – and if that means recruiting the most contrived and fabricated drama imaginable then she’s in line for a promotion. When she eventually got to speak to Clayton, instead of attempting to get to know him, or revert back to the mean and rip off a casual 13-minute kiss, she decided to throw Elizabeth under the bus because she has ADHD and appeared two-faced because she didn’t give her undying attention to her during one conversation. Elizabeth actually handled the situation with a startling amount of grace given how clearly unhinged Shanae is. Shanae even went as far as screeching that she had ADHD, a clear mistruth given how focused she was on ruining Elizabeth’s experience in the house.
The episode ended with a good old-fashioned cat amongst the pigeons situation. One of the girls approached Clayton about Cassidy’s f-buddy back home who she was FaceTiming in advance of the show. This all squares away nicely with the recently leaked social media clip in which Cassidy says, “she’s going to be a great influencer” when the show is said and done. Maybe she doesn’t realize that a predicate to being able to influence is actually developing a rapport with the audience… currently, every time I see her face I want to toss something at the television. Anger management pills are pretty much the only thing I’d be inclined to buy from her currently!
Maybe I misheard, but I thought that the latest promo said “coming up in 2 weeks?!?!” Talk about a slap in the face to MLK’s legacy…
Until next time folks!
Ollie's Bachelor Recaps 