Welcome welcome welcome to all our loyal readers, Chris Harrison, and Chris Harrison in a mustache!
If you haven’t been following along yet, we’re working to examine and call out the culture of relationships that we see under a microscope in the petri dish that is Bachelor Nation. You can follow along with our weekly Facebook Live videos and our Twitter feed! We love to hear your thoughts, so get in touch!
Just a side note…we’re using a new form of technology to write this blog and we’re about as good with technology as Madi is (raise your hand if you get this joke), so we’ll update this post early next week with links to our social media and gifs. Thank you for your patience along this journey. We promise, the process is working.
So this week was FIVE HOURS OF BACHELOR CONTENT. It could have been one. Y’all. It should have been one. But we all suffered though together, we’ve developed a bond out of this trauma, and we’re going to do some learnin’.
Kicking things off in Costa Rica:
- Alayah is sent home (this was technically in Cleveland…so sorry girl.)
- Peter is attacked by a puma…oh wait. He tripped getting out of a golf cart and cut his head on his beer glass. Is this the most fratty injury you’ve ever seen or is this the most fratty injury you’ve ever seen?
- Sydney has a one-on-one.
- Kelsey drunk cries and Tammy starts to start drama about her being “emotionally unstable”.
- There is a modeling group-date in the jungle. Yawn.
- Peter sends Victoria P home from the group date!
- Kelley has a one-on-one date and is REFRESHINGLY normal.
- Kelsey goes to see Peter to clear up the “emotionally unstable” drama. Peter gives her a rose.
- They have a rose ceremony. Lexi and Shiann are sent home.
Heading off to Chile!
- Hannah Ann has a one-on-one. Is she ready for marriage?!
- They have a telenovela-themed group date. Kelley makes a grandma-incest joke.
Insert Yikes gif here - Victoria F gets a second one-on-one.
- Tammy v. Mykenna showdown; Peter sends Tammy home.
- We have a second rose ceremony in as many episodes (PTL): Mykenna and Sydney are headed home.
We’ve got 5 hours worth of drama and 5 minutes worth of patience for this cr*p. Let’s dive in!
The first thing that really stuck out to us was just how incredibly normal Kelley was. The bar is SO LOW in Bachelor Nation that someone with realistic expectations for a relationship is so noteworthy but here we are. Kelley has a job. She is independent. Kelley doesn’t need a relationship with Peter to feel complete. She is my hero.
We can’t make gifs work from this Ipad
Kelley’s independence and self-sufficiency allows her to feel more free in her relationship and it shows. She speaks up to Peter and tells him how she feels about his role in the house drama. She calls him out and their relationship is better for it. Everyone deserves that in a relationship. If you’re too afraid to speak your mind with your partner or offer constructive criticism, that might not be a healthy relationship.
Before we leave Costa Rica, we HAVE to address the Kelsey drama. Iowa can’t have Bachelor contestants OR caucuses without drama, I guess!
Kelsey is clearly having a hard time with this process and a relationship that makes you cry all the time is clearly a problem but also, if you are a sensitive person who responds by crying…that is totally okay. The world is literally on fire, kids die of preventable diseases, puppies don’t always have loving families…it is okay to cry about it. If you can’t live your life because you are so upset or emotional all the time, please see a therapist. If you feel like you are drinking instead of addressing your feelings, please see a therapist that specializes is substance use disorder. If you feel like you just don’t like how much you’re crying, try journaling or running or any other self-care tip you like. But if you’re just a crier, cry on bebes.
And to all the other girls who felt a need to take this up with Peter and accuse Kelsey of popping pills because she takes Adderall? Please take several seats! There is too much stigma around mental health and taking care of your mental health. If you need Adderall for your ADD or ADHD, if you need Xanax for your anxiety, if you need any medicine to keep your brain healthy, that is just as fine as needing medicine for your blood pressure. Let’s normalize caring for our mental health, folks.
As we flew to Chile, we flew ever closer to the eternal Bachelor question: is the young girl ready for marriage?!
*Insert pearl-clutching here*
Hannah Ann is young. There is no question about it. Plenty of young people aren’t ready for marriage. They just haven’t learned enough about life and love. But let’s be honest…plenty of older people aren’t ready for marriage either for the Exact. Same. Reasons. Age is no guarantee that you are ready for a healthy, committed relationship. A much better guide is how well you’ve learned to know yourself, your personality, your needs, and your quirks. Do you know your insecurities and have you worked on them yourself? Do you feel fulfilled and independent without a relationship? Have you invested in your own therapy, self-care, and growth enough to know that you won’t try to control or exert power over a partner? I don’t care how old you are. I want to know how in touch you are with your own feelings, needs, strengths, and weaknesses.
Along those same lines, we saw a good example of that “being-in-touch with your own weaknesses” thing from Victoria F (shocking, I know). She was freaking out on her date with Peter (not shocking, I know) and she told her producer that she was taking her insecurities out on him and it wasn’t fair. We’re all human (except Chris Harrison. I’m not 100% sure) and we’ll all make mistakes. You can’t expect your partner to be perfect. But you CAN expect them to own up to their mistakes, take accountability for those mistakes, and change. Being self-aware enough recognize when you’re making a mistake and making it right is healthy. We love to see it.
Finally, we’ve got to address an ongoing issue this season: girl-on-girl crime. Cattiness has been a MAJOR issue this season. I’m not sure if we’re just not seeing the deep friendships develop that we’ve seen in other seasons or if they just aren’t there, but either option is bad. Either producers think it’s more exciting to show cat-fights which says some pretty awful things about our society or those friendships genuinely aren’t developing. Either way, I’d hate to think of my nieces or other young women watching this and thinking that this is how women should act or this is what female friendships look like. I’d hate for young girls to grow-up thinking that it’s okay or even expected to throw other women under the bus if you’re in competition for a man. We don’t win by tearing each other down. We win by lifting each other up and rising together. We’re tired of the Mean Girls script. We’d like to return this for a full refund, please.
Raise your hand if you‘re feeling attacked by the Patriarchy this season?
Our dead rose this week went to Mykenna for her Pinterest-inspired self-love speeches. We’re all for self-confidence and empowerment, but empowerment runs so much deeper than posting a deep quote on Instagram. Mykenna deserves more, all femmes deserve more. We want to see real feminism and this 30-seconds of flowery feminism doesn’t make up for 5 hours of girls falling under the misogynistic heel of the patriarchy.
Our face reading seeing Feminism used to uphold, not overthrow a patriarchal misogynist system.
Our rose of this week goes to Madi. It’s pretty clear Peter likes this woman. She stays above the fray and finds time to develop her relationship with a man she clearly cares for without throwing anyone else under the bus. We stan. #SoGenuineAndReal
Still our favorite Bachelorette
Let’s all commit to lifting up a woman or femme this week to make up for the Patriarchy we sat through and we’ll see you next week for a blessed 2-hours only of the Bachelor! (Who are we kidding…we loved every dramatic minute!)
