The Bachelorette S14 E09: Ancient Curses, Sexy Yurts, and the Ghosts of Arie Past
When I was six my grandma’s lovely friend asked me how I thought I’d meet my future husband, and I told her “while banging three dudes that are all roommates and are all vying for my love.”
Okay so that’s not true. I was eight, not six.
But the fact remains that Becca and I had the same childhood fantasy, because tonight’s episode is the Fantasy Suite Extravaganza in Thailand, and we could all tell just how excited she was to dive on in.
At least at first.
Oh yes, Bachelor Nation, this episode things didn’t turn out quite like our Bachelorette and gaggle of Lotharios expected. Oh, and if you were playing the “Drink Every Time Arie is Mentioned” game tonight, my condolences to your loved ones, because you died before the second hour even started.
For those of you that somehow survived, let’s get down to it.
Legends of the Hidden Temple
First up is Blake, who’s lookin’ like a real snack this episode. I can’t tell if he’s really growing on me, or if the Stockholm Syndrome is finally kicking in, but I’ll take it regardless.
He comes upon our Bachelorette lurking in the woods and they spend a few minutes sucking face before Becca delightedly tells him they’re going to a sacred temple—and because the grounds are also sacred, they can’t touch once they cross the threshold. The degree to which Becca loves torturing Blake is honestly the best part of this season.
Regardless, they hold hands on and off during the trek, so here’s hoping they’re hit with some kind of ancient curse. Although it feels like the audience is the one hit with some kind of ancient curse, as we’re then subjected to Blake and Becca being super fucking awkward Americans around the Thai monks. We just…shouldn’t travel outside of the country on these shows, I swear. Just stick to like, St. Louis, IDK.
Americans being awkward in Thai temples: tonight at 8pm (ABC)
The two continue to canoodle as Becca laments the failures of her last relationship.
REALITY CHECK: Becca, the debacle that was your time with Arie was. not. a. relationship. You dated him alongside 27 of your closest friends, he proposed after waffling between you and another woman, you didn’t see him for weeks, and then you reunited briefly in time for him to dump you with absolutely no emotion on national TV. If that’s a relationship, then I’ve been in 700.
Moving on.
Blake’s anxiety comes back full force as he questions how someone can love more than one person at the same time. Honestly, Blake is the insecure 13-year-old girl inside of all of us, and despite the (fucking constant) waterworks with him, I get it. If I was cut off from society and forced to fight for the affection of one person—alongside an increasingly competitive group of testosterone-filled meatbags—I, too would probably get overly emotional and invested.
“You’ve been the most solid and the most consistent,” Becca tells him, to which all of Bachelor Nation holds their breath. It’s basically a death toll because Becca—like myself—just wants to find a good guy and settle down, and yet cannot get out of her own way with liking all of the terrible men throwing themselves at her with red flags streaming behind them. But Blake seems like such a solid option, with actual staying power. He’s the first one Becca admitted to being in love with, she seems to light up when she’s around him, and he just seems so genuinely good.
So of course the rest of their Fantasy Suite exchange is boring as fucking hell. Honestly, y’all are about to go get freaky, why are you acting like you’re instead going off to some work-sponsored luncheon with coworkers you can’t stand but have to pretend to like?
As far as Colton knows, this is exactly how you do The Sex (ABC)
The next morning they snuggle, Blake with with his moping whateverness and Becca with a face full of perfectly applied makeup. I really want to know what the actual post-coital morning ritual is like for the team, but alas, we may never know.
What we do know is that Blake is fit to burst, Becca seems entirely unenthused, and we’ve already experienced the only date I was looking forward to this episode—and we still have significantly more than an hour left. Kill me.
Runaway Bride
Next up is Jason, he of the “Becca couldn’t remember my name that one time” fame. I know, I know, Bachelor Nation loves Jason and I’m too hard on him (and honestly he’s not that bad), but I just cannot muster up even an iota of enthusiasm for him.
Neither, it turns out, can Becca.
So they start by meeting up outside the market, and then go inside to blandly eat crickets and stare at each other. If that isn’t the epitome of their relationship, I just don’t know what is. After that incredible scene of passion and connection, they wander outside where they make small talk about buying a house together or whatever. It’s innocuous enough, but you can see the shift immediately in Becca as soon as the words are out of her mouth—it’s a pure “oh, shit” moment.
"You really bug me! Ha, no, but seriously." (ABC | Anna Marie's BachelorTV)
Becca is clearly panicking about Jason and their rapidly dying relationship—to the point that she has to take a few minutes to go freak out with a producer—which is made all the more deliciously awkward by cuts to Jason absolutely gushing about their connection.
“Becca is just the best,” he says dreamily, as the camera pans to Becca basically clawing at her own throat because she can’t breathe with the panic of being around him for a moment longer.
But she doesn’t send him packing just yet (which is nice, given that they’re in fucking Thailand). They sit down for dinner afterwards, and Becca rocks the hell out of a gorgeous black dress that, blessedly, isn’t completely bedazzled for once.
“I feel good,” Jason says obtusely off camera, “I had a great day with Becca.” Not sure if he was on the same date we were, or…
He goes on to ramble about how great of a wife and mother she’s going to be, and that’s where I just lost it.
LOOK. I GET IT. She discusses them being husbands and fathers, and they’re on a show where the whole end game is for them to propose and get engaged, but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I want ONE suitor to gush about how great of a partner and equal Becca is going to be, rather than what a good submissive woman and baby factory she’s going to be. Becca drives me insane sometimes, but she’s still a bold, strong, adventurous badass who (despite her terrible taste in men) is going to be a damn good equal to any man she eventually settles down with.
For once, Bachelor Nation, let’s focus on feminist strengths and—oh god, what am I saying. This is the fucking Bachelorverse. God help us all.
ANYWAY.
They sit down and Jason babbles to her face now, gushing about how great she is and how much he loves her and how good they’re going to be together, to which she succinctly says:
Truly the face of excitement and love (ABC)
And then she promptly gets up and hightails it for the second time in one date. I almost choked on the horrible seltzer-and-strawberry-vodka concoction I was drinking in my glee.
Jason finally seems to get that something may not be right, and finally quiets down and starts fretting until Becca reluctantly comes back. She definitely feels bad about hurting him, but it’s so clear she’s done. She tries to comfort him and tell him it’s not him, it’s her (and it is her) but really doesn’t do a great job of it.’
“I never saw you with your walls up,” she says in an effort to comfort him, which isn’t comforting in the slightest, and also, she lamented the exact opposite both on-camera and to his face numerous times throughout the season.
It really is a mess. She’s reaching Blake levels of tears both to Jason’s face and to the producers in the aftermath, and I do genuinely feel bad for both of them. She does cares about him and doesn’t want to hurt him, but knows she’s just not feeling it. It’s also extra painful hearing her talk about how upset she is to send him home because he’s such a good guy and she normally dates assholes…knowing that Garrett’s still kicking and is definitely gonna get some Fantasy Suite time in.
Finally, the inevitable happens, and she sends Jason packing pre-Suite time. She then hyperventilates afterward, walking around pulling at her own hair, lamenting how she just did to Jason what Arie did to her.
OKAY, TWO THINGS:
You did not even REMOTELY do what Arie did to you. STOP TRYING TO MAKE YOURSELF INTO AN ARIE-LEVEL VILLAIN, GIRL. Arie is trash, don’t put that nonsense onto your own shoulders. Kindly sending a man home when you don’t feel it isn’t the same as happily dumping someone on national TV knowing it’s going to utterly humiliate them.
WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THIS TO US, BACHELOR PRODUCERS?? You hyped this scene up LITERALLY ALL. SEASON. LONG. We were all SO excited to watch this train wreck, and then it turns out to be nothing! NOTHING! Have we not been good? Have we not been loyal? Are you not entertained??
At any rate, RIP Jason. Someone please squeeze the grease out of his hair and put it in a tin can before burying him.
What Lies Beneath
Ugh. Garrett. This racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, bigoted asshat is still flouncing about in Thailand, and the fact that he gets to progress to the final round while Jason goes home is just a travesty. As uninterested in Jason as I was, would 10/10 support him sailing into the finals instead of Garrett.
But we’re just not that lucky. Onto the disaster.
Once again our Bachelorette finds herself in the jungle, this time for a rafting expedition down the river with a predator. Wait, I mean potential husband.
They’re having a grand old time enjoying the lovely weather and the soft silence, until—SURPRISE!—it’s a national holiday and everyone in the country, apparently, has come rushing to the riverfront. Becca laments the audacity of the native population enjoying their own goddamn holiday, and I can’t tell if the Bachelor Interns really dropped the ball when doing research here, or if they’re gleefully, purposefully trying to derail the date. If so, it doesn’t work as well as they’d hoped, as Garrett somehow manages not to say anything overtly racist or misogynistic about anyone around him. Good boy, Garrett.
After they’re thoroughly splashed by the partygoers, our Bachelorette and her nightmare sit by the water, admire baby elephants, and kiss and canoodle for what feels like fucking hours. Yet despite her earlier enthusiasm, even this now feels forced and bland. You’re kissing in front of baby elephants and about to get laid, FFS, show some excitement!
"I can't wait to disappoint you." "Aw, I can't wait to be disappointed!" (ABC)
At dinner, the two make googly eyes at each other and literally give the most boring exact blow-by-blow of the date ever. It was legit like:
Becca: It was so cool how we got on rafts.
Garrett: And then floated down the river.
Becca: And then the people were at the river.
Garett: And then they splashed us with water.
Becca: And then there was a baby elephant.
Garrett: Yeah.
Becca: Yeah.
Thrilling.
Garrett talks about being afraid after his marriage ended (you know, by the woman he made out to be a monster, when in reality we all know who was at fault there).
“Was it a fear of putting yourself out there again,” Becca asks?
“Mostly a fear of people unearthing the HORRIFYING things I was liking on social media, honestly,” he doesn’t admit, but should have.
Becca still seems to have turned into a loaf of (barely) sentient tofu and sort of nods along to everything going down. She seems so terribly bored, and I can’t blame her. It’s made worse with the juxtaposition of his terribleness, too. “I could roll with Garrett, no matter what,” she says blandly, mere days before discovering that he’s a fucking monster. Yay.
Garrett does, of course, get the Fantasy Suite invite, and is it just me, or does Chris Harrison either have the handwriting of an 8th-grade girl, or have the Interns given up entirely on their desire to pretend this is all real?
Granted, this is from Nick's season, but the charade CONTINUES (ABC)
The two head over to some sort of glam yurt/tent hybrid, and honestly, I just would not feel comfortable banging in that thing in the middle of the Thai jungle, but to each their own!
They seem to happily survive the encounter, if Garrett’s nonsensical babbling and smirking the next morning are any indicator. By this point I was rolling my eyes so hard I think I strained them. Please, make it stop.
But Wait, There’s More!
Not more Garrett, thank god, but more Jason! Who’s inexplicably still in Thailand, lurking about the hotel, and knocking on Becca’s door the minute she gets back from getting that booty.
I was afraid—and excited—that this wasn’t going to end well, but Jason really did show that he’s a hell of a catch. They talk a little for closure, he seems to genuinely say he hopes she finds happiness and someone who loves her and treats her the way she deserves, and it’s all very sweet and very sad.
Luckily this moment of pure emotion is interrupted by his gift of a scrapbook that the Interns are attempting to pass off as something he’d actually make. I’ll say it now—if Jason actually sat down and made that scrapbook using god knows what, I’ll eat the entire fucking scrapbook.
Finally, Jason is sent home for good, and it’s time for…wtf is it time for? We’ve already eliminated someone, what on earth are we going to do for the rest of the episode?
THE ROSE CEREMONY
God I am SO FUCKING BORED. The Jason drama was nothing, the “I pulled an Arie!” drama was nothing, we already have an elimination, and one of the remaining suitors is a useless barnacle on society. We know she’s not gonna boot another suitor right now, so what’s the angle?
Oh, it’s “giving 50/50 and having a two-way street,” apparently. Which is rich, given that, again, one of the remaining suitors is Garrett, but whatever.
So the boys fret for a bit as they stand awkwardly in the ruins of a temple or some other likely holy site that ABC has destroyed with its presence, especially once they see Becca in the distance and realize Jason isn’t coming.
The moment is dragged out uselessly as Becca and Chris Harrison discuss Jason going home, both pretending like Chris has zero idea what went down a few nights before. Yawn.
THE ROSE WINNERS
Finally Becca joins the bros and yammers on about them making sure they want to be here, and whatever. Garrett is just there for faux fame (so naturally gets the first rose), Blake is genuinely all in (so naturally gets the second rose), they both accept said roses, and we’re all stupider for the experience.
THE ROSE LOSERS
Everyone watching this goddamn show.
At least next week we get the Men's Tell All! We can put off the inevitable crash-and-burn that is the season final for another week, and instead watch Chris lose his fucking mind again, watch Chicken David and Captain Underpants duke it out again, and hopefully, blessedly, see Grocery Joe again.
Until next week!
