There are only two good sports in the world. One is that awesome handball thing from the Olympics. The other is The Bachelor, a show that features 30 women competing to gain as many Instagram followers as they can before they’re eliminated by a slightly above-average guy who once got dumped on national television. This year is the best yet, because the Bachelor, Nick Viall, got dumped on The Bachelorette … twice! Every Tuesday we’ll be telling you who, uh, rose to the occasion on the previous night’s episode. So read on, but only if you’re reading for the right reasons.
Biggest Anticlimax: Andi
OK, the actual biggest anticlimax is Raven’s life, which she revealed to be completely orgasmless on Monday night’s episode. But ranking after that …
Last week’s episode ended with a cliffhanger, as Andi Dorfman showed up at Nick’s hotel room. If you need a refresher: Andi dumped Nick on her season of The Bachelorette, bringing Nick all the way until the final two before choosing Josh Murray over Nick. On the post-show confessional, Nick hit Andi with one of the most uncomfortable comments in the show’s history: “If you weren’t in love with me, I’m just not sure why you made love with me.”
The timing of her arrival is key. Monday night’s episode was the beginning of the fantasy suite portion of Nick’s season, when it’s expected that the contestants have sex. Considering Nick criticized Andi for having sex with him without getting engaged to him, wouldn’t Nick then only have sex with a contestant if he was in love with her?
But Andi and Nick combine to walk his old statement back. She advises him to be physically intimate with people he truly considers potential winners, the same way she was with him.
The show finally gave Andi the opportunity to say that it was wrong that she got shamed for doing something every Bachelor does with no criticism. Except, that was done in service of clearing the way for the person who unfairly shamed her in the first place. It feels like the show only organized this “impromptu” get-together to prevent anybody from calling Nick out for his hypocritical penis.
Biggest Loser: Raven’s Ex-Boyfriend
Lots of contestants on this show tell us about their past relationships — sometimes sad, sometimes sordid, sometimes providing a better understanding of what potential weak points they might have moving forward. But I can’t remember anybody doing what Raven’s doing: systematically dragging her ex at every possible opportunity. Here’s what we know about this dude:
• He cheated on her.
• He never said “I love you” while sober.
• He never made her orgasm.
I just like picturing that guy watching Raven destroy his reputation on national television. He’s gonna have to uproot his life and move across the country to ever go on a date again, because he’s not gonna be able to go anywhere in the state of Arkansas without somebody yelling “HEY LOOK, IT’S STEVE, THE TRASH-DICKED CHEATER.”
Best Finale: Corinne
Corinne is dumped; long live Corinne.
Her departure was inevitable. We knew she wasn’t going to win, and yet I wasn’t ready for her to be finished. Just when I thought I had Corinne fatigue, she’d tell us about how she forces her nanny to cook with Fabergé eggs or some other ridiculous aspect of her life and I would be all in again.
Corinne’s exit was everything it needed to be. She wept dramatically, like a braying goat with dyed hair. Nick told her she hadn’t done a single thing wrong. (Nick was lying.) But she quickly got over her tears, and delivered her revenge thesis to the camera.
So, allow this to sink in. What we just saw from Corinne was apparently her “trying to say things that men think are appropriate.” She will be more true to herself in future.
Just keep the cameras rolling on Corinne. Pay her whatever she needs to be on Bachelor in Paradise. If this season was Corinne toning it down, we need to see the real her.
And just like that, she fell asleep in the limo.
Good night, Corinne. Sleep well.
Biggest Surprise: Finland
I was confused as to why the show held its post-hometown rose ceremony in New York; often, it’s in L.A. Why did they choose to have a scene that could happen anywhere in the world on a frigid Williamsburg balcony?
But then, they announced the show was going to Finland, and it clicked. There’s not a lot of flights from LAX to Helsinki. This had to be such a bummer for the girls, who just went to the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. Now, they’re heading NORTH OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. IN DECEMBER. WHEN THERE ARE ONLY FOUR HOURS OF SUNLIGHT PER DAY. TOPS. Hope you didn’t bring a bikini! Nick sure didn’t.
That’s not a turtleneck; that’s a damn shell.
Anyway, this is the point in this recap when I vent about geography. After some sweet product placement for Finnair, the show displayed this map of Finland.
This is where the show is actually filming:
Nick’s hometown of Milwaukee is closer to Raven’s hometown of Hoxie, Arkansas, than the dot on ABC’s map is to the place the show actually filmed.
Anyway, this is good. So far as I can tell, the list of potential activities in Lapland are limited to flying over reindeer, drinking, and thinking about sex. That should work well for the remainder of the fantasy suites.