Episode 10: A Bonus Episode of The Bachelorette!

It’s The Bachelorette! On a Monday! I guess they needed an extra hour to fill to go with The Men Tell All, or maybe it was a good opportunity to FINALLY end an episode with a Rose Ceremony, as God and Mike Fleiss intended. 

We start with Chris Harrison teasing the show as a “special dramatic episode of The Bachelorette,” which is just redundant. 

Tayshia’s in her room, wearing a super cute orange jumpsuit, reading. Is it Bennett’s book on emotional intelligence? I don’t know if I hope so or not. She’s generally feeling confused and frustrated. 

Chris Harrison is at the door, just stopping by for a chat. He’s back from taking his son to college, and tells Tayshia that she’s “cleaned house” in his absence, as though she didn’t know. But then it’s his turn to play dumb, and say that Bennett’s gone, as though he doesn’t know he’s not, and his face when Tayshia says she came home to find Bennett on her doorstep is perfection. It is skeptical and concerned and not pleased at all. It is all the things I wanted Tayshia to have felt when she saw Bennett had come back without her permission. 

Chris Harrison tells Tayshia that “Hometowns” are next week – again, as though she doesn’t know – and she says she doesn’t want to invest in anyone’s family if it isn’t real.

She also says she doesn’t think she’s seen so many men in touch with their feelings and pouring their hearts out, and she does want to marry someone and have a happy life after this. Chris Harrison tells her she’s pretty much just “splitting hairs,” because they’re all “great guys,” and … Chris? I’m not sure that’s how it works? Like, they may all be great guys (DEBATABLE), but it’s not like one can just substitute for the other. Her life with Ivan would be very different from her life with Zac, and by “different” I mean “much better, more stable, and with a much lighter emotional load,” but by clarifying that I’m probably just splitting hairs. 

Anyway. Tayshia is conflicted and she needs clarity before the rose ceremony. Which she apparently expects to find on a …

One-on-One Date With Blake

Before the date, Blake seems to be practicing his “keep me!” hard pitch to the guys on the couch before their date. He thinks she’ll see he’s sincere. Tayshia arrives, comes in to the room, sits down, there’s a weird silence, the guys look REALLY unhappy, it’s awkward, she and Blake get up and hold hands as they walk away. 

The guys try to game out what will happen. One says he either gets a rose or he’s gone right now, which, yes, that is a good summary of the rules of the one-on-one date. 

As Tayshia and Blake walk to wherever on the La Quinta property their date will be, they are approached by a woman with long, white hair in two long braids, a blue caftan, and shaking some instruments that rattle. She welcomes Tayshia and Blake as “seekers.” She says her name is Gita, she is a reiki and crystal master, and also a master of cultural appropriation. (OK, that last one was my take.) She knows they both are here to seek some answers. 

For the first “exercise,” Gita hands Blake a hammer and asks him to crack a stone open. Gita tells them to each take a piece, and tells them as long as they each have a piece of the stone, they will always be connected. That … felt like a trap. 

Next, Tayshia and Blake each pull a crystal out of a basket. Tayshia’s crystal is blue, which apparently represents communication. Gita tells Tayshia to voice her “deepest desire” to Blake. They both laugh, but do not actually communicate. Deepest desires are not voiced.  

Then Gita asks them to “please disrobe.” Blake is so freaking tired of being naked. Apparently getting mostly naked was necessary for Gita to “look” at their chakras? She tells Tayshia her heart chakra is confused, which, again, Tayshia knows this. 

Next, a tantric breathing exercise. Facing each other, Tayshia sits on Blake’s lap. They are making super close eye contact as they inhale and exhale. 

Interspersed throughout the date are cuts to interviews with Blake where basically he’s just plotting how he can make it to the next step. That’s all he’s doing. Like he literally says the date brought up “up to speed” to where he “needed to be for tonight.” 

Tayshia says she cares for Blake, but when she looked in his eyes, she didn’t see the validation and confidence she’s looking for. She doesn’t think her guy, and she needs to tell him.

And tell him she does, without even getting to the evening part of the date. She doesn’t let Blake go on too long about how serious he is, how confident he is in that they’ll “get there” in their relationship, before she basically tells him she wishes they had more time, but they don’t. She tells him it’s time for them to go their separate ways. 

Tayshia walks him out, cries, apologizes. He tells her it’s ok. Tayshia cries a lot as he he is driven away, and she feels bad, but … she didn’t even let the date go into the night. She really wanted him gone. 

She goes back to the settee where she just broke up with Blake, and in an interview she says that the date with Blake gave her clarify, and there’s something else she needs to take care of. Right now.

The guys are sitting in the room, all together, trying to predict whether Blake will return, when Tayshia comes in. She’s clearly upset, and tells the guys “We need to talk.” She sits down and tells the guys she sent Blake home, it’s a tough day. She’s really trying. 

I just want to point out that during all of this, as Tayshia is emotional and crying a little bit, Noah goes and gets her some tissues. It looks like he’s the only guy who does this. He’s a nurse who has worked on the frontlines during the pandemic and he’s obviously a caregiver. I know I didn’t used to be, but now I am completely Team Noah.

Tayshia continues, saying that it’s really hard for her, and she cares about each of the guys. She appreciates them, and it’s hard because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. 

And then, she says: “Riley, can we go talk?” He has no choice. He agrees. They go outside.

It’s the end of the road for Riley. Basically, Tayshia was moved by the story he told of his family and she can tell how much family means to him, and it wouldn’t be fair for her to meet his family if her heart wasn’t in the same place. She tells him she doesn’t want to lead him on. 

She also tells him that she finds him comforting, she feels safe with him, she feels like she can talk to him, and right now it feels like she’s describing how I feel about my husband, and I want to tell Tayshia to key in to that part of her that feels that way about Riley, because those are the best guys to marry, and she really should give it some time to let those feelings grow. 

But alas. This is The Bachelorette and we do not have that kind of time. So, goodbye Riley. I kind of hope to see you on Bachelor in Paradise, but also I kind of don’t, because I like you and I think you’re smart, and you deserve someone who will see all your good qualities and hang on to you.

Tayshia walks him out, they say goodbye. She’s crying again – a lot – as he drives away. She actually says “no” as he drives away, and then is just openly sobbing and saying “I’m sorry” to basically the sky, because no one comes to comfort her. Is there no one around? No producer to talk Tayshia through this? Seems harsh. 

Cocktail Party and Rose Ceremony

The guys are ready for the Cocktail Party, generally sitting around and psyching themselves out. And then, Bennett walks in. Ugh. He tells they guys they look like they’ve seen a ghost, but honestly it looks like most of them were surprised, maybe a little disgusted, but still trying to be polite about it. At one point Bennett puts his hand on Zac’s shoulder and Zac looks at it, his face as disgusted as I would feel if Bennett touched me, or was in the same room as me, or was on my TV at any point. 

I really don’t like Bennett. 

They asked Bennett if he ever left. He said as he was walking away, he was worried that he would come of as a “Harvard d-bag, which I’m really not,” so he came back and told her he loved her. So … he came back because he was worried about his reputation? Like, is Bennett even real? Is he actually, like everything, actually made of cake? 

Anyway, after some awkward exchanges between Bennett and the rest of the guys, Chris Harrison comes in a tells them they’re skipping the party tonight, because Tayshia knows what she wants. Noah and Brendan seem concerned about this. Bennett, on the other hand, is quite confident, because Tayshia wouldn’t have asked him to stay for the Rose Ceremony if she wasn’t planning on giving him a rose. 

There are three roses left. Two guys will go home. They’re all nervous. They’re all also relatively sweaty, like, where is the AC? 

Tayshia walks in, tells the guys this week has been the most difficult one yet. She appreciates the guys who stepped up and showed them “the depths of your heart this week, it’s changed everything for me,” which I take as a hint that she’s keeping Bennett. Not a good sign!

Ben already has a rose from his one-on-one date we saw in the prior episode. The rest of the roses go to Zac, Ivan, and Brendan. 

Huzzah!

I mean, I don’t like that Noah has to leave at the same time as Bennett, because Noah is so much better than Bennett. I heard Noah on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast and honestly, he seemed kind, smart, genuine, mature, and poised. He’s sad as he drives away in the limo, and says it’s a shame he didn’t pick her. Don’t cry Noah! I think we’ll see you in Bachelor in Paradise! I respect that you pushed back against the villain edit! Thank you for the work you have done during this pandemic!

As Bennett drives away, he’s feeling hurt, sad, and more confusion than anything else. “This was not going to end this way,” he Patrick Batemans. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again.”

The remaining guys are excited! Zac says from now on it’s “all gas, no brakes,” and let’s not forget that Zac has a DUI so I do not appreciate such metaphors from him. 

Tayshia seems really happy with her choices and I guess I am too, mostly. Except Zac. But I’ll take Zac if it means no Bennett.