Every season, as I recap this show, I manage to start to think that no one watches this show sincerely, that everyone's watching ironically, taking the piss. And then we come to "The Women Tell All," featuring an audience of people who laugh and cry and nod and gasp and look utterly caught up in petty details of these people's lives. And I despair for humanity. But above all else, I blame the show, which as usual for "The Women Tell All" special, manages to mistake "any woman who has been on the show" for "the most memorable women of the season".
Chris Harrison tells us that many of the show's "fans" were "angry" about Brad being given a second chance, but he does not speculate as to the emptiness of these fans' lives that they would actually give a shit one way or the other. It would be unwise of him to do so.
And then Chris takes us to a videotaped interview with Brad, where we revisit such... well, "highlights" isn't exactly the right word... as Chantal slapping Brad after she got out of the limousine. And remember when Brad and Ashley went on that date that was creepy because it was an empty carnival in the darkness on the edge of town? Yeah, that was the very best first date Brad has ever been on he says, presumably of the ones that didn't involve roofies.
And then there's Madison and the fangs. Madison by this point is easily the least insane person who was on the show this season. Well, except for Shawntel, which this show continues to insult by presenting any clips of her working at the funeral home as though she's the goddamn Crypt keeper.
Then Harrison asks about the "most controversial" woman of the show. Harrison says if he's been asked about Michelle a million times, then Brad has been asked about her five million times, even though this interview would have been recorded long before this show even aired and therefore it was a much more beautiful world where no one had even heard of Michelle. "We had some good times, and thanks for talking to us," says Harrison, and then the women in the studio audience clap and look like they're really enjoying themselves, which is completely mystifying. Plenty of clips of audience members saying things to each other, presumably things like "I am genuinely enjoying myself" and "I like to pretend that the women on television are my friends" and "this television show is literally worse than heroin."
I rarely mention commercials in recaps any more, but every time I see this particular one, I imagine the conversation at the ad agency: "What if we imply that the M&M is going to have a large pretzel violently shoved up his ass? THAT ought to get people to buy it."
After that unsettling commercial break, we get a bunch of clips from a party of former bachelors and bachelorettes with Harrison informing everyone that due to popular demand by sadists there will be a Bachelor Pad 2 this summer, which sounds kind of like the threat a supervillain in a James Bond movie would make.
It's always fun to watch the bachelors and bachelorettes who fame forgot get together to party and hook up and trade the names of reliable venereal disease clinics. Then a guy named Craig literally puts his tongue down a woman's mouth. Elsewhere, Ashleigh looks almost exactly like Kyra Sedgwick.
Who's hooking up? Ty and Susie, Erica and Kasey, who I guess has decided to just accept that his name is spelled with a K; otherwise I don't know how he doesn't spend all his time punching himself in the face. I can't tell if these are people I've managed to forget or if I've never known who they were in the first place.
"I don't think I would ever date Kasey, but maybe I would make out with him again," says Erica. Then there's that bachelorette who was kicked off for fucking a producer. Is that the real story? Does it matter? She tells us, "We're all sexual creatures, and you need to let people see you for who you are, and if they like you, great, and if they don't, they don't," she says. That's the kind of thing said only by people who no one likes. And then there's Vienna, who still looks like someone just smacked her upside the head with a two by four.
And then... wait, this is another party? In another city? Don't these people have actual friends? Some idiot says something about Ali and Roberto being so in love that they "literally have this glow." And then someone talks about the Bachelor family, and he can't say it without sounding like they're just weeks away from a series of gruesome, ritualistic murders. "One big bizarre, dysfunctional family," says Harrison, because even he is frightened.
And now let's bring out the women, half of whom wave with both hands. Harrison asks them what their first impressions of Brad were. Ashley H., who has dyed her hair brown and uses it to cover up her vast expanse of forehead, says, "I was fully willing to give him another shot," forgetting that no one actually gave a shit if she was willing to give him another shot.
Harrison says it seems like things got ramped up with the catfighting and the bullshit really quickly, and then Marissa explains why that is, by describing how it's a bunch of people all in the same place and if you don't mesh with someone, there's no place to hide. She seems to forget that she's describing how things are on every season ever, which does nothing to answer Harrison's question as to why things escalated so quickly this season.
So: the parade of clips from the season: Madison's fangs, Michelle's black eye, fake boobs consigned to the dustbin of reality show infamy.
After watching the clips and everybody admirably keeping their dinners down, Lisa talks about how sarcastic Michelle is, and Stacey calls Michelle two-faced, and Marissa says watching the show presented a totally different person from the Michelle she thought she knew, and if that's the way she actually is, then she should just "own it." And then Jackie calls her a "spider" and now Michelle is starting to cry, and Jackie keeps on because I don't know how anyone could watch this season and feel any kind of sympathy for Michelle, and Jackie says the things Michelle said weren't humorous but "fucked up" and some of the women literally gasp at the dropping of the f-bomb, which is hilarious because they went on a show where they compete to be one of a select few women having sex with a relative stranger in the hopes of getting a proposal. "I really did go on this show for the right reasons," says Michelle, which is a sentence that has no meaning to anyone who has never watched The Bachelor and very little to anyone who has.
"I'm so sorry if I made you feel that way, Jackie, that really hurts my feelings," says Michelle, who tries the whole "I think we've all said things that we regret," and the other women are all "nuh-uh" and then Ashley H. tearfully defends Michelle, saying she got to know her and she's a "great friend" and a "great mother," and not everyone is perfect, and anytime Ashley wants to say anything that's not nonsense she should just go ahead and do it. Madison steps in with the only relevant reason, that Michelle was upfront about how she wasn't there to be anyone's friend: she was there for Brad, there to find a husband. And then Michelle says "for the right reasons" again, and Harrison tells us we've only "scratched the surface" and then he threatens to talk with Michelle more when we come back from commercial. Watching this show always makes me feel like I'm being punished for something.
But back from commercial, Harrison says it's time to settle once and for all this "infamous feud" with Raichel and Melissa. And I don't think you can describe a feud as "infamous" when most people have forgotten who was involved just a couple of weeks later. I mean, if you asked me who Raichel and Melissa were, I wouldn't have been able to identify them. Now, if you'd said, "Gwyneth Paltrow as a meth-head" I might have remembered. As for Raichel, you'd have had to describe her as "Hot brunette with massive fake breasts. No, not Chantal" and I still w
ould have had trouble. Oh right, she's the "manscaper"! Oh, and then there's the fact that Melissa cries a lot and constantly yanks her dress up over her breasts. And she had onion breath. Present-day Melissa looks a lot better. It's amazing how getting off this show can do wonders for a person.Harrison asks Melissa about how things escalated really quickly, and Melissa says she has to "own it" -- holy shit, is that phrase annoying -- but she doesn't think she instigated anyone, which has Raichel literally slapping herself in the forehead and interrupting and blaming Melissa for the fact that she went home, what with the amazing connection she had with Brad. Brad asks Raichel why things were so bad between her and Melissa, and Raichel says she's thought about it a lot, which is awfully sad. And then it's even sadder when, despite all the time she says she thought about it, all she is able to come up with is this: "There are people that you gel with, and people you don't, and I just don't like her." Yes, the unexamined life is not worth living, Raichel. Nice work.
And then Ashley S. has to step in and set gender equality back about fifty years with: "I think the moral of this story is don't act like that in front of a guy. There is nothing more unattractive than girls acting like that!" I mean, there's no point in analyzing your own behaviour and figuring out if you could have treated someone better, when what really matters is whether the way you act makes the boys like you.
"We thought we'd seen it all on this show, and then there was Michelle," says Harrison, sending a chill up my spine. Michelle comes up to sit to Harrison, and then starts talking about how she was having an "ugly cry" and then she starts hitting all the buttons: she was "there for the right reasons" and everyone in the house knew who she was (which seems to have been news to the other women a moment ago) and she's also hard-core going after the sympathy card by repeatedly mentioning how much she missed her daughter who she left to be on the show.
Michelle is fighting back the tears of hurt that come when people are mad at you after they find out that you've been saying shitty things about them behind their backs. Harrison asks her when the "misperception of the house" turned on her, because he is nothing if not an apologist for the awful behaviour of the awful people on this awful show. He winds up trying to spin Michelle's comments as her being funny, like she's some kind of secret comedian. It comes off as really weird and revisionist, and I'd like to point out to Harrison that if his show is editing Michelle to make her look like an evil, manipulative wench, it's a little disingenuous to chide the audience for getting the impression that Michelle is an evil, manipulative wench.
And then one of the women says something that makes Michelle respond with "I was there for the right reasons, you know" again and she's starting to seem like a malfunctioning robot that can only spout stock phrases. She feels the need to explain that she didn't actually want apes to attack the other women. The audience is actually snickering at her at this point. Then she starts crying some more about missing her daughter, earning ZERO sympathy from the bachelorettes, like Stacey, who starts tearing into her for whining about missing her daughter, and how there are options for putting her daughter first if that is what she really wants.
After the commercial break, Michelle mounts a half-hearted defence against Stacey, and then remembers that Jackie called her a "spider" which Jackie kind of hilariously points out isn't a comment on her as a mother. Jackie in fact figures that Michelle is probably "the best mother" which is just as amusing. And then Britt and a couple of the women stand up for Michelle by pointing out that she's "ridiculously gorgeous" and that Monday nights would not have been the same without her. I think it says something about Michelle specifically and this show in general that "You're a rotten person and a shitty mother and completely two-faced" can seemingly be countered with "You're pretty and I enjoyed watching you on television."
And now it's time for Ashley "Don't ask me, I'm just a girl!" S. to join Harrison in the so-called "hot seat," although not liking Ashley S. is a little bit like not liking a puppy. I can't make out a single word of what her squeaky voice is saying, but my dog is going absolutely insane. Harrison asks her why she thinks it is that all her relationships end up the same, i.e. being dumped on national television? And then she talks about guys always liking her at the beginning and then winding up cheating on her, and then she whines about the double-Ashley date where she was dumped in favour of her "best friend in the house," and I don't see how Harrison can keep calling this seat "the hot seat" if he's going to ask inane softball questions like "Do you deserve happiness?" Ashley says a bunch of things that prompt applause from the audience, who like their emotions expressed in trite, wall-hanging-ready chunks.
After another commercial break, Ashley H. comes up to join Harrison, and they reminisce about how things started out great but "completely came apart" in South Africa. We watch the montage that manages to somehow be even more boring than when we watched it unfold in past episodes. And then we watch this pathetic conversation where she blames herself entirely for things not working out with Brad, and she tries to pretend she subconsciously sabotaged it or whatever. I don't know. I might have dozed off. Ashley is one of those women who get dumped but then convince themselves they wanted it to happen, because it's all about "owning it" or whatever is the phrase favoured by whatever self-improvement book she's reading to get over it. Despite her attempts to remain positive, Harrison seems determined to make her cry by pointing out that no two ways about it, she was in love. And then I think Harrison is hitting on her because she changed her hair colour, which she says is her natural colour, "I feel like a changed woman. I really, really do," she says, in this weird Southern accent that made me wonder if she was suddenly possessed by some kind of demon.
And then Brad Womack comes out, to cheers from idiots in the audience -- including men who either mistakenly hope that attending "The Women Tell All" with a woman will get them laid, or don't want to sleep with women in the first place -- cheer for him, and then Brad is all "mercy!" when he's "introduced" to the new Ashley H., who is a little overly "look how happy I am! Totally fine without you!" bright and shiny, and then Ashley S. non-human-frequency voice squeaks out a request for closure on what happened.
And then Brad is defending Michelle, saying that he loves her confidence: "I'm going to tell you that until I'm blue in the face," he says, one of those times when his phoniness is exposed by virtue of the way he oversells utter banalities. And then after a painful conversation with Ashley H. about how awesome she is, and how she should never apologize for anything, Ashley reveals that all intents to be more self-confident and self-assured won't mean a thing because she has no backbone: "Do I get my hug?" she says, and Brad hugs her, and everyone cheers instead of shaking their heads and feeling sorry for her.
After the commercial break, we get the obligatory story about some charity that The Bachelor favoured, which in this case was sponsoring a solar panel for a school in South Africa that helps heat their water or whatever, as though a little bit of charity work makes up for all the damage this show has done to the souls and the psyches of anyone who has ever had the misfortune of watching. "Nothing can put a price on the smile that every single one of those kids had whenever we showed up. We gave them hot water," says Brad, who seems to mistakenly think that he had anything to do with it other than happening to be the Bachelor of the current season.
Harrison asks the obligatory question
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: is Brad in love? "Am I in love? I was in love a long time ago, buddy. I am very much in love. I fall more and more in love with this woman every day, buddy," says Brad, who winds up sounding like either a) he's in love with Chris Harrison if he's in love with anyone, or b) he's trying to convince us, or possibly himself, a little TOO much.Then there's the montage of bloopers and outtakes that always make all of the contestants -- even Michelle! -- seem far more likeable than they ever do during the season. Except for Brad, who somehow manages to seem even more stiff when he's joking around. More like someone who really wants to be thought of as funny than someone who actually is funny, you know? No, not like ME. Worth noting: elephants having sex in the water in the background while Emily and Brad try to enjoy a romantic picnic.
Anyway, it's on to the recap of the final two women: fun-loving, sparkling-eyed Chantal, who's one of the few contestants who actually says she loves the Bachelor instead of some sort of qualification like "I can see myself falling in love with the Bachelor," versus blonde, stately, reserved knockout Emily. No idea who Brad is going to choose, but his voiceover for Emily includes him saying, "I want Emily to be my wife." If nothing else, that should really make things awkward if he winds up proposing to Chantal.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He thinks "The Women Tell All" perfectly illustrates the saying "It's always darkest before the dawn." Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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