Honestly, I don’t even know why I watch this show. I think 99% of it is because I’m already super drunk after downing a full bottle of wine while watching The Bachelorette and it’s just too difficult to bother turning off the TV, and 1% is deeply morbid curiosity.

Also, SCALLOP FINGERS was on this episode, so. Let’s just jump right in.

Tonight’s illustrious mystery suitor is Steven, a bachelor from New Orleans who has no dating life and can’t get his shit together. Awesome! He wants to have a family and babies, he’s a hopeless romantic, he’s looking for his best friend, etc. etc. What this really means is that he’s totally unwilling to commit, is gonna come on here for the song and dance, and will be single and a’ mingling in the French Quarter by next month.

Now, let’s meet the lucky ladies!

THE CONTESTANTS

• Shelby: a 22yo pediatric nurse (TWENTY. FUCKING. TWO.) who delivered a baby 2 days ago. I can only assume she’s referring to herself, as she was a damn fetus 2 days ago.

• Taylor: a 33yo business owner/runner/something about the navy that loves sports and men with tattoos

• Kristen: a 26yo realtor who loves zip lining, snowboarding, and video games

• Amanda: a 25yo also-adrenaline junkie who “only skis black diamonds”

• Ali: a 31yo blogger who never travels anywhere, including here, without her service dog, Cashmere

• Britt: a 30yo brand manager who loves music and honkey tonks, and has two different color eyes

• Amanda C: a 24yo government analyst who loves football and animals and USC

• Sarah: a 32yo free-spirited bartender who loves doors (?) and hates anything too bougie (ugh)

• Sophia: a 22yo student and musician from New Orleans, who loves spinning and yoga and everything basic because she’s a fucking college student

• SCALLOP FINGERS aka Christen: a 27yo wedding photographer who was on The Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise, and made some questionable decisions around seafood

Jesse Palmer scampers on stage once more to say that later, the suitor will “make a decision based solely on his heart!” But for now, we know he’s judging these women solely on their looks, the only first impression that matters!

Also, the sound quality is REALLY bad this episode. Like, really bad. I don’t know if ABC was trying to sabotage this nightmare and have it end for all of us already, or what, but moving on.

ELIMINATION ROUND 1
Now this is an important theme throughout, so I’m just gonna go ahead and include the ages in here. Shelby the Baby Baby Nurse (22), Kristen the Realtor (26), and Britt the Brand Manager (31) all go home, leaving:

• Amanda C from USC (24)

• Scallop Fingers (27)

• Sophia the College Senior (22)

• Taylor the Business Woman (33)

• Amanda the Adrenaline Junkie (25)

• Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32)

• Ali the Dog Lady (31)

Now it’s time for the Swimsuit Round! Hooray! The ladies are paraded around in their skimpiest finery. How’d it go? I’m refusing to comment on the fucking bikinis. Here, instead, are the inane things they said while standing awkwardly onstage in said bikinis:

• Taylor the Business Woman (33) spends her spare time rescuing animals, and is now ready for the right man to *~rescue her~*
  

• Amanda the Adrenaline Junkie (25) parades around and says she’s never brought anyone home to meet her parents, which makes sense, because she IS TWENTY-FUCKING-FIVE YEARS OLD
  

• Ali the Dog Lady (31) deleted all of her dating apps but is ready to “upload her soulmate” (not sure that’s how that works, but)
  

• Amanda C from USC (24) makes a terrible joke about world peace, which highlights yet again that even the goddamn Miss America Pageant has nixed the swimsuit round, and yet here we are, and also she looks JUST LIKE Tiffany from the Bride of Chucky, my god
  

• Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32) yammers on about how she’s had lots of heartbreak and put up lots of walls and is ready to face her fears and whatever
  

• Sophia the College Senior (22) SINGS A FUCKING SONG and makes a one night and joke, because FML
  

• Scallop Fingers (27) has a beautiful intro saying she “loves scallops and is ready to dive into the sea of love”

Steven, our very mature and grounded suitor, eyeballs all the bods and makes his purely aesthetic decisions.

ELIMINATION ROUND 2
Taylor the Business Woman (33), Ali the Dog Lady (31), and Amanda the Sentient Tiffany Doll/from USC (24) are all sent packing, leaving: 

• Scallop Fingers (27)

• Sophia the College Senior (22)

• Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32)

• Amanda the Adrenaline Junkie (25)

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the fact that the mystery suitor called out the Bachelor alum, a 25yo, and a 22yo after parading women around on a stage, and THIS IS WHY DATING IS SUCH A MONSTROSITY.

Which is fitting, because now it’s onto the next Dealbreaker Question Round. Oh, the humanity! Jesse Palmer crawls up from his lair under the stage to get out his iconic “these questions can be about politics, or religion, or family, OR SEXXXXXX!” line, and on we go.

• Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32) is up first with: “I know you were talking about walls and past relationships and heartbreak; where are you on a 1-10 scale of being ready for marriage and kids?” She screams out “TEEEEEENNNNNN!!!!!” because she’s 32, single, and on a goddamn dating show where she’s hoping to be proposed to by a stranger on national TV.
  

• Sophia the College Senior (22), another New Orleans local, is lobbed: “What’s a typical night out in New Orleans for you, who are you hanging out with?” Oh, the usual, my besties, my nanny, you know the drill.
  

• Amanda the Adrenaline Junkie (25) gets: “are you a goofball?” or something, I switched to hard liquor and was getting distracted. All I heard was her yammering on about having fun with her BFF who was there, and loving goofy guys.
  

• Scallop Fingers (27) rounds it out with: Steven promptly forgetting her name (Krista? Christina? Whatever!) and that’s pretty much it IDK.

Amazing, incredulous, awe-inspiring per usual. Now let’s brutally cut one of them!

ELIMINATION ROUND 3
Amanda the Adrenaline Junkie (25) shockingly gets the boot over the 32yo, but hey, gotta throw a bone here or there at some point.

That means these lovely mostly fetuses are safe:

• Sophia the College Senior (22) who, of course, gets the first callout

• Scallop Fingers (27)

• Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32)

Next, Steven’s dad is paraded out for the next round of deep questioning:

• Scallop Fingers (27) gets: “Steven works at a nonprofit and” something something, I have no fucking idea. Something about is she okay with that? Wtf? I can’t tell if this is just stupidity or if they’re trying to weed out gold diggers (or not disappoint gold diggers) but FFS man, there’s a 22yo on stage, let’s be real here
  

• Sophia the College Senior (22) gets something about being a Millennial and texting, but honestly, is she Gen Z at this point? She is so very, very young. She shrugs out something about not using her phone at the dinner table, and Steven’s father seems fine with that, mostly because he probably yells at his own young children to GTFO with their phones at the table, too.
  

• Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32) gets what I can only assume is an ageist question, about how Steven was a baseball player in college and how does she feel about the gym, probably because she’s old AF by their standards and gotta make sure you keep that bod lookin’ good, sweetheart!

You already know where this is headed, right? Forget even a witty intro, let’s just do this stupid shit.

ELIMINATION ROUND 4
Sarah the Free-Spirited Bartender (32) is deemed Too Fucking Old and sent packing. Adios! This leaves:

• Sophia the College Senior (22)

• Scallop Fingers (27)

Welcome to the nightmare that is 2018. Bye, 32yo that’s actually ready to get married and have a family, and helloooooo 22yo that’s STILL IN FUCKING COLLEGE and Scallop Fingers! 

Now it’s time for THE REVEAL. Steven is pretty QT, just like we expected, but it still doesn’t redeem this hellhole of a show.  He eyeballs the 20-somethings and then regurgitates out his pre-planned statements. Then the ladies go and try to woo this idiot with:

• Scallop Fingers (27): Explains that she’s never told anyone that she loves them, but she’s ready for it now. She took time to work on herself, she likes what she heard from his dad, and she calls him a unicorn because apparently that’s a thing now, despite confusing the fuck out of several fetish groups.
  

• Sophia the College Senior (22): “I’m very young!” And really FUCKING ASTUTE. Yes, she actually does say that, and then prattles on about how she took a chance to come for love. The audience cheers, and I wanted to throw my glass because SHE IS 22 YEARS OLD. SHE IS IN COLLEGE. SHE HAS NO PLACE GETTING MARRIED RIGHT NOW, ESPECIALLY TO AN OLDER STRANGER.

In the grand scheme of things, 5 years isn’t a big age difference, but when you have a 27yo and a 22yo standing next to each other, for FUCK’S SAKE is it enormous. Scallop Fingers looks like a woman. She’s still young, but she’s been through some shit, she’s been out of school and working for several years, and even if a lot of that time was spent in the make-believe world of the Bachelorverse, at least it’s something.

Sophia, on the other hand, looks like she’s 12 years old, max. She’s super pretty, but gangly and childlike and it’s so painfully clear that she has so much living to do. She’s not ready to get married, she’s not even out of college yet! These years are the year that DEFINE you. She needs to date, to travel, to begin a career, to make friends, to LIVE.

You know, I never thought there’d be a day where I was VEHEMENTLY rooting for Scallop Fingers to win, but here we are. 

And of course it doesn’t work LMAO OF COURSE HE PICKS THE 22 YEAR OLD. That’s right, this goddamn grown-ass stranger just picked a woman that’s a SENIOR IN COLLEGE! He picked a FUCKING CHILD ON NATIONAL TV!

Someone, please call Chris Hansen, and then please, for the love of fucking god, cancel this goddamn nightmare of a show.

Until next week! God help us all.