Bad B**ch on Life Support: Bachelor Week 2
“The Bachelor” is officially on life support, or at least according to Vanity Fair. After last week’s blasé episode, Executive Producer Mike Fleiss teased a “major announcement,” only to leave us hanging, presumably trolling for views. “The Bachelor” is not what it used to be, with 2.96 million views this premiere compared to last season’s 3.54, according to Media Traffic. Not great for the longest-running reality tv dating show.
I went into this week surprisingly excited. The lack of drama from Night 1 left a layer of mystery on the season. No villain. No clear front-runner. No real tension. In fact, for the most part, we have no idea who these women are. And yet I don’t think this episode really showed us more—with a few bold exceptions.
The first date of the week is a “Bad Bitch Competition” with “Bad Energy” singer, Lotto. I’m pretty sure Zach said he liked confident women and producers ran with a “trendy” date idea, but I’m not mad about it. Zach comes off as pretty bland, but maybe he’s just looking to balance out his energy.
Bachelor alumnae Tahzjuan, Victoria F., and Courtney show up to show the women how the drama is done. Everyone struts their stuff on the runway, and it’s honestly kind of a mess. CAT crawls around like a cat. GENEVIE accidentally chokes Zach while ribbon-twirling. BAILEY wears a random hot pink wig. BRIANNA gives Zach a lap dance, but he looks super uncomfortable, cringing at her kiss at one point. For redemption, she shares her conquests as founder of a beauty company, but it’s KYLEE that steals the show for me. As an NBA dancer, she puts on a good show for Zach and shares about sticking up for her natural hair in dance competitions. Although KATHERINE gets the rose during the afterparty, KYLEE is who we really learn the most about.
At the afterparty, KATHERINE says she’s looking for something serious and that wins him over. How that’s different from what every other woman on the show has been saying? I don’t know.
There are five minutes of interest when Tahzjuan comes in, wanting a spot on the season, but Zach is not convinced. This isn’t like Kaitlyn Bristow’s season where Nick Viall knew her before, or like Katie Thurston’s season where Blake Moynes and her had been DMing. Tahzjuan does not know Zach. He doesn’t want to risk his relationship with his existing contestants for the possibility of Tahzjuan. It’s valid. And based on her conversation with the other women, it doesn’t look like her surprise addition would have gone over well.
Back at the house, CHRISTINA gets the first 1-on-1 of the season, and well-deserved based on her impression to Zach Night 1. Based on the previews do I also think this was an intentional decision by the producers to stir up drama? Probably. The first date never goes over well with the group as it signifies a level of intimacy between them and the lead that’s rare early on in the process. Jealousy breeds like rabbits.
Similar to Madi Prewit’s 1-on-1 on Peter Webber’s season, CHRISTINA meets Zach’s whole family off the bat (except for Kronk). They ride in a helicopter and have some nice banter. He seems to really like her. Though the internet wasn’t super impressed by CHRISTINA last episode, she did show some green flags when it came to staying chill and avoiding potential drama. She looks at scrapbooks with his mom and plays ping pong with his family. They seem to get along well, but nothing goes more than surface level until the night portion.
In a barn of string lights and blue gingham, CHRISTINA decides to tell Zach about the existence of her daughter. “I’m proud of my circumstances, but I understand that it’s a lot,” she says, fearing that Zach may not be at a stage in his life where he feels prepared to step into step-parenthood for a tween girl. Although overwhelmed, Zach is very understanding. We can see him truly thinking about his answer of “readiness.” I like how he talks about Christina’s daughter as a family to “build on” instead of “start,” acknowledging their existing partnership and life and mother-daughter duo. He’s really thinking about it. “It’s really quick” he admits, as if she didn’t just introduce her to his entire extended family on their first date.
When CHRISTINA says “I want you to feel all the ins and outs because I’m chasing real,” I believe her. This show has truly tested CHRISTINA’s character so far, no-so-secretly throwing obstacles at her to stir up potential “villain” energy, but she seems to rise above (so far).
The second group date turns out to be just a cocktail party. After starts out by Ariel “opening up” about wanting to kiss him and the night proceeds into one big make-out session. GABI expresses her fear of connection loss because she hasn’t even spoken outside of her limo entrance, and while I understand not having enough time to talk to him on Night 1, why didn’t she butt in sooner in the date? We see is her complaining to the women while other women make out with him. It felt as though she was procrastinating their connection out of nerves. The date ends with GABI kissing Zach and making uncomfortable nicknames. JESS gets the rose. There’s no real reason. I feel like I’m missing something from this date. It’s possible the date portion was even more boring than the night, Bachelor editors deciding to spare ourselves. If that is the case, we’re in for a long season.
At the Cocktail party, we find out CHRISTINA didn’t tell the girls about her meeting ZACH’s family, probably not wanting to make the other girls uncomfortable. Smart move considering the side-eye from BRIANNA. GABI redeems herself with peanut butter cups that he’s oddly turned on by.
The main (and possibly only) drama of the night: BRIANNA confronts CHRISTINA about teasing “I hate you” at the bar while joking with a group of the women. No one even knows one another well enough to say it seriously yet. BRIANNA says she no longer feels safe in the house. In her ITMs, BRIANNA admits she is insecure that although she has a connection with Zach, he wasn’t actually the one to give her a rose, America was. Zach’s family was a sore spot she made known. While CHRISTINA apologizes profusely and repeatedly to BRIANNA about the sticking comment, saying doesn’t even remember saying anything becasue they were all goofing around together, not seriously. She reiterates that she has no problems with BRIANNA. But that wasn’t enough. In my opinion, she just needed the conversation as an excuse to spill the tea to Zach, insisting even after he said she didn’t want to know names. He said he didn’t like drama and didn’t want to hear more if it was already handled (which it was) but she continued.
While I’m not mad at BRIANNA and understand her projected insecurity, I feel bad. I don’t want her one-sided tiff to turn into the only thing her and Zach talk about. As we’ve seen in past seasons, the first to tattle never gets far. He warns her that feels that she has walls up and doesn’t want to share about herself and I can’t say I disagree. The whole CHRISTINA thing feels like a GABI-esque procrastination out of fear and insecurity. But he can’t get rid of America’s pick in the second episode, especially when she’s practically begging for more drama. We’ll have to see how it progresses next week.
ROSES: Katherine, Christina, Jess, Brooklyn, Genevie, Greer, Aly, Charity, Kaity, Gabi, Ariel, Anastasia, Kylee, Davia, Mercedes, Bailey, and Brianna.
I was surprised by the rose ceremony this week. We saw a lot of familiar faces go home while strangers were called up to remain. I wonder if this is a purposeful choice on Zach’s part, wanting to let go of the women he knows are not “the one” while keeping the relationships he hasn’t yet explored. Similarly to how we entered this episode, I am still lost but excited. We know nothing and that keeps the mystery alive.
