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junker-town · 8 years ago

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'The Bachelor' episode 8 (hometown dates!) recap: Shopping, four-wheeling, talking about race, and a nightmare in Canada

Why is this reality show making us feel things?

Sports Bachelor Nation! Welcome! Thank you for once again visiting the little corner of the internet where I get to pick apart other people’s dating decisions without looking inward at my own. They say you shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house, but no one ever said anything about setting takes on fire when you live on the internet, so I’m going to keep typing these hot Bachelor blogs until they consume me.

Tonight’s episode should be especially en fuego. I haven’t been so excited for something on TV since Friends came back for its final season, because tonight is HOMETOWN DATES! Also known as “The One Where Shit Gets Real,” because it’s when four women get to take Nick home to meet their folks. Meeting the family is a big moment in any relationship, sure, but in Bachelor-land it’s an especially huge deal because it’s also a respite from the hostage situation the women have found themselves in all season. They can finally interact with people besides Nick, each other, and their jailers — The Bachelor production crew.

LET’S GO!

FOUR-WHEELING WITH RAVEN SOMEWHERE DEEP IN THE HEART OF ARKANSAS IN A TOWN CALLED HOXIE

When this date begins, the camera is zoomed in on a frog. I think it’s a bullfrog. This is supposed to symbolize the down-home nature of the country town where Raven is from. But I’m wondering if maybe Raven will kiss the frog and he’ll turn into a guy she can date whose personality isn’t made up of 70 percent Styrofoam.

Raven doesn’t kiss the frog, but she does roar onto the screen riding a four-wheeler. Nick looks like a real dweeb standing in a field as she pulls up to him on her jacked-up machine. She takes her helmet off and her long, dark hair cascades down her back.

I don’t know how Raven looks good doing this. If I were to take off a helmet, my hair would be all matted-down underneath it, I would be sweaty, and as I tried to look at him seductively the dude would be like, “Oooh, yeah, why don’t you just put that back on?”

"Don't kill me." - Nick#TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/Zi1MfMZrfl

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Now Nick and Raven are climbing a water tower because we need to know that RAVEN IS A COUNTRY BADASS! The cops show up. The producers totally called the cops, didn’t they?

Yes, they did, because the cop is Raven’s brother. He’s all like, “Hah! You thought you were in trouble but you’re not, I’m her brother. What’s up, Nick?” This is garbage.

WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE, NICK AND RAVEN ARE HOOKING UP IN A SWAMP!?

Mud kiss! #TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/7QA750E9VN

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Oh, my God. Is this a metaphor for Trump’s administration? Are we — draining — the swamp? Is this commentary on the need to protect our natural wetlands now that the EPA is run by someone who doesn’t believe in global warming? Help, I think I'm short-circuiting!

One thing’s for sure, however: This confirms my anti swamp-hook-up stance. You don’t want that dirty water getting in certain places. I’m also worried that these guys are going to catch swamp diseases. What’s a swamp disease you can get? Like, polio?

OK, swamp fever, sure.

MEETING RAVEN’S FAMILY

I’m crying. I’m not kidding, I’m actually crying. Raven’s parents just told her that while she’s been on the show, her father’s doctor has declared him cancer-free. I don’t like that The Bachelor is making me feel real feelings. I like when I get to just light my blogs on fire and toss them into cyberspace.

"I didn't expect to get emotional right off the bat...." It's okay, Raven. We're all emotional too. ♥#TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/V4roWPKDX8

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Two thoughts:

You’d think maybe Raven could’ve gotten that news while she was cooped up in the Bachelor mansion rather than spending more weeks than she needed to thinking that her father was still sick. But I guess you pull no punches for great TV.

Nick’s response is, “That’s awesome.”

Raven and her dad are talking now. He’s telling her how relieved he is that he’ll be the one to walk her down the aisle rather than her brother or her uncle. She goes, “There is no other man who would walk me down the aisle. I would walk alone.”

I am crying again. I am also eating my feelings in the form of so, so many Swedish Fish.

Then Raven talks to her mom and her mom is like, “Can you say ‘I love you’ to Nick?”

Raven gets a little defensive. She’s like, (and I’m paraphrasing, here) “Ehhh, I think so? Yeah, I could. No, definitely I could. I totally could. I could love him. I love him, OK?”

Which doesn’t not sound like she’s trying to talk herself into it.

We cut to Raven’s dad and Nick. Raven’s dad is saying he didn’t think he’d like him but he does, in fact, like him. He says he could “live with that” if Nick ended up with his daughter. This isn’t a rousing endorsement, but it also isn’t the worst reaction to the news that your daughter might end up married to a 36-year-old handsome software salesman-turned-professional-Bachelor-goer-on-er.

Raven doesn’t tell Nick she loves him as she walks him to the black SUV waiting to whisk him away to the home of the next woman he is dating.

“It’s hard for me to say ‘I love you,’” Raven says, “Because I don’t want to be rejected. I don’t like to show my weakness at all.” I’m here for this. Being vulnerable is terrifying enough as it is, so I can only imagine that being vulnerable on national TV is even more so.

But Raven is also sneaky brilliant, because she’s playing hard to get: I’m starting to think that maybe she’ll win this show rather than Corinne, because she’s the only one playing her cards a little close to her chest. Everyone knows most men want what they aren’t sure they can get. Withholding is, therefore, a very clever strategy.

"It's just so hard for me to say I love you because I don’t want to be rejected and I don’t like to show my weakness at all.” -Raven http://pic.twitter.com/OB7EOFnxZr

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Raven has also beaten a man over the head with a stiletto before, so I wouldn’t put anything past her.

GOING TO CHURCH WITH RACHEL IN TEXAS

We open on Rachel’s hometown date in Dallas with a shot of longhorn cows grazing under a highway underpass, because longhorns are the University of Texas mascot, and we are in Texas, remember? I bet the producers who had to go get cow footage just ended up on some random-ass road beneath a major interstate and were like, “Fuck it, these cows are fine, let’s film them so we can go to Whattaburger.”

Anyway, Nick says that his chemistry with Rachel is the most explosive chemistry he has with any of the women, but we already know Rachel is the next Bachelorette, so whatever.

"I'm so happy you're here!" - Rachel #TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/DUlbx16zk5

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

“We’re gonna do something you’ve never done before,” says Rachel, and I’m like, “What, successfully finish this show?” Zing.

Then Rachel takes Nick to her church, which is predominantly black. Nick loves it. In fact, Nick is showing a side of himself that we haven’t seen yet. He’s open, he’s joking, he’s — oh, God, he’s fun. I like this Nick. He says he feels more comfortable with himself when he’s with Rachel than with the other women.

“They made you feel welcome,” Rachel says of going to church. “You were great!”

And then Nick goes, “I’m not color blind.” And I fall off my bed.

In a world where we so regularly hear clueless white idiots go, “I don’t see color!” this is a very good thing to put on national TV. The bar shouldn’t be so low as to make me applaud when a white person says something that is baseline not-moronic about race, but it is, and here we are, so good on you, Nick, I guess.

MEETING RACHEL’S FAMILY

Nick, Rachel, and her family are joking around at dinner, talking about okra, and Nick teases Rachel that she’s a picky eater. It’s a small moment, but one that makes me realize these people kind of do get to know each other on this show in ways that we might not always see due to how it’s edited.

Rachel’s dad, who is a federal judge, is wisely not there for this. He has better things to do, like his job. Although Chris Harrison, who apparently keeps a blog (who among us?), said that Rachel’s dad did meet Nick off camera.

"They will love you!" ❤️#TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/wesnAvhUnF

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Rachel’s older sister’s husband, who’s white, says, “I can’t help but notice you are a white.” He asks Nick if he’s dated a black woman before. Nick says he’s been on dates with black women, but never seriously dated one. He also says he realizes Rachel is black, but that he likes her for who she is as Rachel.

One of Rachel’s sisters says to the camera, “At the same time, as nice as that sounds, right now with this climate that we’re in, I feel like we’ve seen more racism come out, and he needs to be aware.”

To be serious for a second: I think this is the first time I’ve seen ABC devote time to a political reality outside of the bubble of their reality shows — someone on Twitter said that this episode was filmed the week after the election. Again, it’s a low bar that an honest conversation about race on The Bachelor has me flabbergasted, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

Nick tells Rachel’s mom how much he likes Rachel, and after making sure Nick is aware that race cannot be ignored, Rachel’s mom seems to be OK with him dating her daughter.

“It’s still a short time,” she says to Rachel, “But I like what I see with Nick. So far he seems comfortable. What attracted me to your dad was that he knew who he was and where he was going. He was very self-assured. Confident. And that’s what I see in Nick.”

“That’s a huge statement,” Rachel says to the camera. She is jazzed, and her smile makes me feel like maybe there’s some good left in the world.

"I'm blown away by that comment. That's a huge statement!" - Rachel#TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/ar6li1uhWD

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Rachel's season of The Bachelorette is going to be the best thing that's ever happened to us.

CORINNE TAKES NICK SHOPPING AND DROPS A BUTTLOAD OF MONEY ON CLOTHING HIS SCULPTED ASS

Here it is. The moment we’ve all been waiting for: CORINNE TAKES NICK HOME TO MIAMI!

youtube

Obviously she takes him shopping. She’s friends with all the people in all the stores they go to, all of which are very fancy. Corinne spends the equivalent of a used car on clothes for both of them, and Nick is having a blast. He’s also very uncomfortable with the thousands of dollars she’s spending.

“I always thought I had expensive taste, and them I met Corinne,” he says.

"She wants to show me what an ordinary day looks like to Corinne, which is a very unordinary day to literally everyone else.” #TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/l0qZJOYcmx

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

Nick, once again, has a personality. He’s winning me over a little more this episode as he comes across as less white bread, more multi-grain toast.

“I love you,” Corinne says, and the way she says it reminds me of what getting my wisdom teeth out felt like.

MEETING CORINNE’S FAMLY

I really want to know what Corinne’s family does. It's Miami, so I've assumed they're jai alai tycoons, or own a factory that makes tiny drink umbrellas. I’m hoping they’ll tell us while we’re here.

Corinne opens the door and we’re greeted by her mom, Perry, her sister, Taylor, her dad, Jim, and — RAQUEL! Corinne’s nanny!*

"I don't want you to hurt her because she is like my daughter." -Raquel#TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/utoebwaNiA

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

*A few thoughts on Raquel’s role in this family. They say she’s a part of the family, but she pours them wine and does the dishes and generally seems more like a servant than anything else. I get that they’re close with her, and they call her Corinne’s “second mom,” but I can’t help feeling like the show has made her into a caricature of herself. A joke rather than a person. I don’t love that.

Corinne’s dad is a little concerned about Nick.

“What does he do?” he asks.

“He used to sell software,” Corrine tells him.

Corrine’s dad — who is wearing a gold chain underneath his very unbuttoned plaid shirt — is like, “uhhh...”

He makes a good point. What does Nick do? Is he just a professional Bachelor guy, now? Like, what’s his day-to-day going to be when this is over? Will he hit up Oracle and ask for a job? See if GoDaddy is hiring? Write a letter to Jeff Bezos and ask if Amazon needs him to sling some CD-ROMS? Or are they just grooming him to be the next Chris Harrison?

Anyway, Corinne’s dad appears to get over it, because he and Nick drink some 15-year-old single malt scotch together, Nick tells jokes, Corinne’s dad lets out a few wheezing laughs, and they just seem to be a couple of guys being guys, you know?

Corinne’s dad sings this to Nick:

youtube

Sorry. That’s a lie. He doesn’t. But that’s the sentiment he conveys when he delivers the line of the night to the camera:

“I got to know him a little better, and I said he’s a nice guy. I am so happy. I think Corinne is the lid to Nick’s pot.”

I have never heard that metaphor before but I’m obsessed with it. I’m also wondering whether I’ve historically been the pot or the lid in my relationships. I don’t know which is the better option.

Anyway, we’re about to leave Miami. Corinne says goodbye to Nick and talks about how she actually really likes him. I’m thrilled they’re letting Corinne become a little more three-dimensional; she’s showing a human side that goes beyond bouncy houses and signing her name on her American Express receipt, and I genuinely like it.

Side note: We never find out what Corinne’s family does and I am devastated.

MEETING VANESSA’S STUDENTS

We’re in Canada now. Montreal to be exact. Vanessa is introducing Nick to her special needs students, and I am very moved as they all meet him and give him hugs. They rejoice in seeing their teacher again.

One of my friends texts me that she feels like the producers are exploiting the students for this segment. I didn’t totally feel that way, but I’m willing to be wrong here, because I realize that everything on this show is, to some extent, exploitation. But I thought it was kind of sweet to involve them when Vanessa clearly means so much to them.

Vanessa loves you too! ...and so do we! ❤️#TheBachelor http://pic.twitter.com/Xex8OyRI0Z

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) February 21, 2017

NICK MEETS VANESSA’S MOM’S FAMILY AND IT’S AN ACTUAL TRAIN WRECK AND I CAN’T LOOK AWAY BUT — OH, GOD — THIS IS SO, SO BAD

Vanessa’s parents are divorced, so we meet her mom and her siblings first.

Things go poorly from the beginning. The family is asking Nick and Vanessa where they’d live after the show if Vanessa wins, and they’re both like, “We don’t know.”

It’s weird that Nick doesn't have charcoal stripes across his face because Vanessa's family is grilling him. They’re essentially like, “wow, you guys really haven’t talked about anything besides your feelings, have you?” And Vanessa is starting to get shook, because she’s like, “Uh, wow, no. We haven’t.”

Her sister and her mother are both like, “Girl, what you doing?” And then her mom says something very moving to the camera:

“I don’t want to go through [Vanessa getting her heart broken] again because it’s tough for me too.”

My mom texts me, “smart mom” as Vanessa’s mom speaks. Then she texts me, “The dog ate all the dental floss.”

Everyone is crying or very unhappy in Montreal. This is painful. But we’re off to meet Vanessa’s dad and his family, so maybe that’ll go better.

MEETING VANESSA’S DAD

It doesn’t.

“I just can’t give you my blessing just like this,” says Vanessa’s dad, when Nick is like, would it be cool if I maybe married your daughter if I don’t choose one of the other three women I’m dating? He doesn’t like that Nick also asked the families of other women if he could marry their daughters.

I’m of two minds about how badly things go in Canada. On the one hand, if your kid goes on this show, you kind of have to play along. One could make the argument that one can’t go on The Bachelor and then complain about the basic premise of The Bachelor. You could say that parents have to know what the basic premise is, too, and that if they had a problem with it, they maybe should’ve dealt with it before.

On the other hand, that’s kind of Bachelor gas-lighting, you know? It’s absurd to tell parents they should be cool with their child signing their fate over to some produced version of reality just because they “signed up for it.” To say hey, it doesn’t matter if your kid doesn’t know where she and her husband would live, or what kind of laundry detergent they both like, or what the husband will even do for a job once he’s no longer a professional reality TV star?

No. It does matter. And if Vanessa’s parents don’t want their daughter marrying Nick Viall, then they should damn well say so.

THE END OF THIS EMOTIONALLY EXHAUSTING EPISODE

The episode wraps up at a hotel in NYC. Vanessa is crying a lot about the other women. I think she was way more invested in finding love, as opposed to building her #brand, because she seems pretty bummed that Nick hasn’t just scrapped the whole thing and chosen her already. She also has said multiple times that she went on this show for him once she knew he’d be The Bachelor.

We think Vanessa is going to talk to Nick, but, PLOT TWIST: it turns out that it’s Andi, the woman Nick was in love with the first time he was on The Bachelorette.

~*~*~And then the episode ends.~*~*~

A FEW THOUGHTS

I am sick of cliff-hanger endings.

I think Andi is a pump-fake. I think she’ll be like, “Just wanted to say hi, hope you’re well!” And Nick will be like, “Cool, it’s weird that you showed up.” Then she’ll leave and we’ll all move on.

I have changed my Corinne hypothesis and now I think Raven wins. She’s playing it the coolest, Corinne is 24 years old, Rachel is the next Bachelorette, and Vanessa is freaking out.

Hometown dates are always less about the show itself and more about parents who just want their kids to be happy. I hope their kids are happy, whether that comes in the form of a Bachelor-subsidized Neil Lane engagement ring or more Instagram followers than they had when they started the show.

I have eaten so many Swedish Fish over the course of writing this longer-than-usual recap that I think I’m going to die.

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