I accepted/demanded the challenge
of guest blogging for Gossip Squirrel because we couldn't be more night and day
about this season of The Bachelorette. He doesn't know this, but this season
almost destroyed our friendship. Gossip Squirrel is #TeamKaitlyn, and I am a ride-or-die
member of #TeamBritt.
In addition to our relative amounts
of taste (by which I mean that he and the rest of Team Kaitlyn should probably
acquire some), my approach to watching the Bachelor/ette is a little more hands
on than Gossip Squirrel’s. While I applaud his commitment to this blog, his
total commitment to the lifestyle is more than a little lacking. Unlike Gossip
Squirrel, I follow all past and present contestants on social media. I also
follow the contestants in real life. I will maintain that "stalker"
is too strong a word for what I am, but I have found everyone I've looked for.
(Except for Nick Viall. That gorgeous man still eludes me...for now.) So I am
joining this blog not only because I jumped at the chance to tell everyone how
wrong Gossip Squirrel is about everything, but also because no one
should have to miss out on good Bachelor Nation gossip just because he's a
little too sane (and/or sober) to sink to my level.
Before we get into this week's
episode, I want to make sure that everyone is at least minimally aware that
last week, Chris Soules and Whitney Bischoff finally admitted to everyone that
they're broken up. Was it because Chris slept with his DWTS Partner as everyone
suspects? I wish he were that interesting. Let's just agree to never think of
him again and move on.
"We are totally comfortable talking about this relationship."
I actually didn't hate everything Gossip
Squirrel said this week, although he did quite conveniently forget to mention
that his girl Kaitlyn, who we learned has a deathly fear of birds, who, nay,
fell veritably to pieces at the very suggestion of flapping wings on this
week's episode...has a bird tattooed on the back of each arm. You're really
backing a smart horse there, Team Kaitlyn. But before I jump to conclusions
about anyone's intelligence, let's tune in to our Bachelorette's Twitter for
what I'm sure is a reasonable explanation for this. In her own defense, Kaitlyn
tweets, and I quote, "I can't see the ones on the back of my arms!"
Thank god she cleared that up for
us.
In all seriousness though, my real
issue with Kaitlyn is her lack of issues. Kaitlyn's Cool. Kaitlyn's Fun.
Kaitlyn's a Drama-Free Chick who can get away with wearing leather pants to a
date. These are all nice enough qualities if you're looking for the kind of
low-maintenance girlfriend who can hang with your boys, but in case anyone
forgot, that is not what The Bachelor/ette is for. Precisely NO ONE watches
this show to watch nice people be chill about dating.
NO ONE
Most of us are ashamed to watch
this show, but at some point, it sold us on a fantasy, in which men in suits
and women in heavily bedazzled ball gowns fall in love and fall to pieces in
sweepingly exotic locales. The relationships are more intense, more improbable,
and more insane than anything we're like to encounter in real life, and whether
you love that or just love to laugh at it, you can't deny that there is just
altogether, MORE there. Kaitlyn is too real to sell such an inflated fantasy.
Britt, on the other hand, easily
inhabits such extremes. The very argument that most Team Kaitlyn members throw
out as criticism is exactly where Britt's rarity and value lies: She can't possibly
be for real. No one is that magnetically beautiful in real life. No one else
falls so believably in love on a first date. No one else, as Brady Toops put it
so sickeningly in one of his daily Instagram monuments to their love: "has
hair like a lion's mane, cascading down the slopes of Hollywood..."
Surprisingly accurate.
But I have to give Kaitlyn credit
where credit is due. Kaitlyn may never be believable as the princess who gets
swept off her feet at the end of this whole thing, but she does make one hell
of a Knight in Shining Armor (or leather pants). While she can't sell the
emotional intensity necessary for anyone on this show to actually fall in love
or have their heart broken, she is fast selling us (or at least people like me
who hate everyone) a very different kind of fantasy: a world in which the
very worst kinds of people are exposed, shamed, and sent packing on national
television.
Bachelor villains are nothing new,
but somehow, they usually manage to stick around long enough to have their fun.
Love her or hate her, we were all a little secretly thrilled that Chris Soules
harbored the nefariously fabulous Kelsey Poe in his mansion for at least a
month too long. But whereas Chris bumbled around the mansion missing all of the
red flags and his upper lip, Kaitlyn, is a bullshit-spotting machine with
absolutely no fucks to give.
Consider what Chris Harrison has
gleefully been referring to as "The Great Kupah Meltdown." When Kupah
finally revealed that he's kind of an asshole (Which is what we really should
have all expected from a man who owns an "Entertainment Conglomerate"
entitled "Klass Entertainment") Kaitlyn sent him home immediately,
denying him even the dignity of an unremarkable rose ceremony exit. When he
proceeded to throw a tantrum at the camera crew, Kaitlyn shut it down, and she
hasn't stopped shutting him down since. This past week, she called him out on
his last-ditch misogynistic attempt to stick around in her people.com blog,
writing, "Let me start off with a tip, if I may, for any guys out there
reading my blog: When a woman says the connection is gone, don't tell her how
hot she is. A connection is more than someone's appearance." Slayed and
well played, Kaitlyn.
Who could have foreseen this guy turning out to be a douche?
Unfortunately, it took less than
half of a date for the next variety of villain to sprout his un-showered head.
As Gossip Squirrel pointed out in his weekly recap, the irony of Tony "The
Healer" becoming violently aggressive in an attempt to show how deeply his
peaceful nature opposes violent aggression only reveals the kind of logic that
should be wearing a Fedora and screeching about how nice of a guy he is. While
Kaitlyn may have been too accommodating of this attitude on air, her Twitter
bristled with sarcastic derision this week:
"My apologies go out to tony
for making him be away from his bonsai tree. I feel awful." "Peace,
love, and anger." "The zoo! Damn it!! Why didn't I think of
that" "#Tonyforbachelor"
Because he actually felt entitled
to an apology from Kaitlyn, Tony didn't catch on to the fact that Kaitlyn was
kidding. He has now begun actively campaigning to become the next Bachelor, and
making much of having Kaitlyn's "endorsement." I would laugh off the
idea of Tony becoming the next Bachelor if he hadn't just been removed from the
Bachelor in Paradise roster, which begins filming this week. If they pulled
Tony from BIP, they might actually be considering him. I'd still say it's
unlikely, but if he's not at least running some kind of cult within six months,
I think we'll all be surprised. While we wait to find out, we can all enjoy
watching him trying to make the hashtag "#loverevolution" happen as
hard as Clint tried to make "Villains gonna Vil" happen this week.
(Okay, okay...if we're being honest, this is now a part of my regular
vocabulary.)
Kaitlyn disagrees.
Speaking of Clint. When after his one-on-one, words like
"boring," "safe," and "kill me now" sprung to
mind, I never imagined that Clint might be capable of killing someone with
methods aside from boredom. Maybe it really is the quiet ones you have to look
out for. Maybe Clint is a sociopath, or maybe he was just exhausted from the
Sisyphean task of having to behave like a gentleman for an ENTIRE date. Either
way, literally sitting back and waiting to claim his prize obviously backfired.
Needing to salvage his spot on the
show for the free booze and bromance, Clint fed Kaitlyn a few strategic lines,
including, "I felt like [our relationship] was 100% real, and that's what
scared me, because I felt like I put myself out there." Read: I behaved
badly because I like you. I can promise you that every girl out there right now
has heard a variant of this line, because for some reason, it almost always
works. It worked on our Bachelorette, who confessed to the cameras, "It
seemed genuine!" before rewarding Clint with an "I forgive you"
make-out session. As Kaitlyn enjoyed this romantic step forward in their
relationship, the rest of us heard Clint chime in with a sinister voiceover,
saying, "I felt like I had the power, and I just had to abuse it."
I think we can all agree that
people like Clint are the worst, and in real life, too many of them get away
with it. If this hadn't been the Bachelorette and Kaitlyn hadn't the decided
advantage of having thirteen other sexy suitors along on this date to pull her
aside and tell her in a sweet southern drawl that she's been played, Clint
would have gotten a rose this week. Thankfully, this reality show has nothing
but fantasies to offer. I don't see Kaitlyn being led down the aisle anytime
soon, but I'm more than happy to watch her lead a confused Clint towards the
glowing fireplace, saying in a voice laced with anger and ice, "Clint is
one of the biggest douches in Bachelor history....he has no idea what's in
store for him. He is going to go down in flames."
With love from the internet,
RES
No comments:
Post a Comment