The Bachelor S23 E06: Midseason Massacre
Every single week, a breathless Chris Harrison voiceover flows over expertly edited footage showing overly suspenseful nonsense that never actually happens: “It’s the MOST. DRAMATIC. EPISODE. EVER.”
It is never the most dramatic episode ever.
This episode is not the most dramatic episode ever.
But it is more drama-filled than usual, and we’re blessed with the deliciously untimely departure of not one, not two, not three, not four (!!) but FIVE fucking women.
Let’s dive in.
Rose Before Hoes
Unfortunately we open exactly where we left off last week—at the Cocktail Party, with Onyeka and Nicole heatedly claiming that they’re not the worst, the other one is the worst. What the fuck ever—ladies, you’re both the worst. You two make Demi look like a bastion of calm and stability.
Despondent over not realizing that women could be catty and dramatic, Colton wanders the beach and cries. (When you think about it, he’s spent upwards of 75% of his time in the Bachelorverse crying on one shoreline or another.) “I have women here that are really in for this. I have other women here that are throwing each other under the bus. That's not what I'm here for,” he laments, completely forgetting what show he’s on.
Sob Fest ‘19 Part 8347 (ABC)
There’s more drama between our feuding duo, but it’s so fucking boring and pointless and useless that I’m skipping right over it.
Drying his tears, Colton finally shuffles in to host the least surprising Rose Ceremony of all fucking time.
Already safe from last week are Finally-Been-Kissed Heather, Hannah Alabama, and Colton’s Sister Cassie. Joining them are:
Miss Carolina Caelynn
Tayshia Who Annoys the Fuck Out of Me
Kirpa with the Massive Face Wound
Demi the Demon
Makeout Queen Hannah G
Katie Whoever the Fuck That Is
Sydney the Bondage Enthusiast
This, of course, means that both Nicole and Onyeka have blessedly been ejected from Bachelor Mansion 2.0. Fucking FINALLY. If I had to watch one more minute of their nonsense I would’ve had to chug an entire bottle of wine, and it’s just too early for that.
One of our rejects, I forget who, forebodingly warns Colton that not all of his ladies are Here for the Right Reasons TM on their way out. I stopped paying attention because I literally do not care.
Apocalypse Now
But forget all that nonsense, because our intrepid group of losers are off to Vietnam! The women excitedly trill on and on about how Colton is going to totally get laid now that he’s in Vietnam, as a map comes on screen to show these fucking idiots where Vietnam is on the globe.
Look, Producers, you can chill the fuck out—no matter how many sexy locales you jetset our cast to, and how many times one of them will claim deviously in a confession that Colton will finally lose his v-card in said locale, we all know Colton will NEVER EVER HAVE SEX.
EVER.
If we need further evidence of that, we open with Colton fucking vlogging again.
As he frets about the drama, we’re treated to a seemingly endless montage of the women power walking to the hotel, frolicking about the sights, and laughing together in the most staged way I have ever fucking seen. How many times do you think the Producers make them do this? How long do they gleefully drag it on until they finally tell them they got their needed footage several hours ago?
I hope it’s upwards of 10 hours.
The women finally arrive at their hotel and freak the fuck out over it, as if they’ve never fucking seen a hotel in their entire lives. Again, they’ve been jet setting all over the world for the last few weeks, you’d think they’d be more used to this, but alas, once again, we are in hell.
Speaking of utterly non-shocking revelations, the first 1:1 of the episode goes to Makeout Queen Hannah G!
(A quick reminder that Hannah G and Colton’s combined age is 49.)
Any, makeout she does, for literally 99.9% of the entire date. The two are whisked away to an outdoor spa wonderland, where they makeout and grope each other’s legs incessantly whilst wrapped up in what I believe are gigantic banana leaves.
Just kill me now (ABC)
“There’s no one else I’d rather be wrapped up with than you,” Colton says adoringly, 20 minutes before the group date where he’ll suck face with 15 other women.
The two are, I believe, supposed to get massages, but instead just sit there wrapped up in their leaves. At one point, Hannah makes a joke about sushi, which leads us to the most vomit-inducing sound byte of the fucking season.
“Hannah, you look like sushi!” Colton gleefully agrees. “I’d eat that sushi roll,” he adds, quite seriously.
Colton, honey, no. Just no. I know you think you can eat that sushi roll, but no one on this planet actually wants you to. Hannah might think she does, because she’s 23 and an easily influenced fetus, but even she would be horrified at the actual act.
I do need to give it to Colton, however—the guy’s got sushi rolls on the brain. He thinks he’s falling in love with Hannah, but he’s a stunted 26-year-old man baby, so she’s clearly confusing lust with love. We can tell this by the fact that the two do no talking for the rest of the date, and instead just makeout aggressively in a hot tub, and then while he awkwardly stands in an outdoor shower and she hangs off him, legs wrapped around his waist.
“I like showering!” Hannah says stupidly, and now I do chug my entire bottle of wine. Mama’s gonna need it, the way this episode is going.
I’m proven right moments later, when we cut to dinner and Dramatic Talking Time. Hannah blathers on about her parents divorce, and attempts to use that as a litmus test for her depth and maturity, but at one point ends up saying “it’s like, so lame,” so she’s already lost.
We’ve all already lost.
Hannah gets the rose, and we blessedly cut to commercial. After lots more making out.
Are You Ready to Fight for Love?
Our gaggle of losers are fretting about in the living room the next morning as the Group Date Card arrives, wondering what the date will be (and which lucky lady will get to skip the insanity and get the 1:1 instead).
“Are you ready to fight for love?” The Group Date card screams excitedly, and we all know what that means—it’s time for bloodshed, baby!
I felt like I needed a shower after the Hannah G onslaught, but I now have intense PTSD around showers, so the idea of watching our contestants beat each other into bloody pulps couldn’t have come at a better time.
Off to fight to the fucking death (god willing) are Colton’s Sister Cassie, Finally-Been-Kissed Heather, Fucking Tayshia, Miss Carolina Caelynn, Katie Whoever the Fuck That Is, Hannah Alabama, Sydney the Bondage Enthusiast, and Demi the Demon.
Which means Kirpa gets the 1:1. Cool! Guess we’ll get the lamest fucking 1:1 of all time.
Anyway, our doomed battlers are lead to an open area where—WAIT, IS THAT….A NINJA??
Colton leaps to the ladies’ defense, flopping about in the most painfully staged kung fu fight the world has ever seen. It’s so embarrassing I pulled my blankets up over my face and hid until the commotion stopped. Blessedly, I dropped the blankets just in time to be introduced to our commentator and star fighter, who was 8374783463753 times hotter than Colton. I’d let him eat my sushi roll any day of the damn week.
As you can probably surmise, the date’s gist is to let the women… box each other. Yeah. We open with kung fu, and end with boxing. Sure. Why not.
What the fuck ever (ABC)
The women box. It is very, very, very sad. Heather squeals the entire fucking time. Hannah B calls forth Hannah Beast and breathily growls a lot. Demi gets her ass fucking handed to her by Katie. That particular bit was shocking, because I assumed Demi was going to decapitate her opponent and then eat her body, but alas, our little demonic chihuahua is all bark and no bite.
Colton seemed absurdly turned off by this turn of events, and basically called Demi a pussy. Again, Colton—pot, kettle, black. It’s fucking rich that our hilariously immature virgin thinks he can do things like tell Heather he’s worried about her never kissing anyone before, and insinuate that Demi is a pussy for getting her ass beat. Don’t stop playing that compassionate card, Colton, it’s literally the only thing keeping the general public from turning on you entirely.
After watching the Demi Debacle go down, Colton calls an end to the violence, and sadly everyone agrees to it. Where’s my actual bloodshed? Where are the broken bones? Why is everyone still standing??
By the time they get to the post-date cocktail and makeout fest, I’m pissed AF. I was promised gore, and I received none. Just like everything else with this season, I am once again fucking disappointed. Especially now that the women—seeing the Hometown Dates looming just over the horizon—are all turning up the Trauma Quotient so that they can stand out and show that they can be dramatic and damaged and ripe for the pickin’. I’m pretty sure 10 women this date lamented being broken and unable to open up, before promptly opening up.
WE GET IT, LADIES, SHOWING EMOTION IS HARD. WE'RE ALL BROKEN ROBOTS, STOP THINKING YOU'RE SPECIAL.
“This! This is what I like to see!” Colton exclaims at one point, as Katie literals pulls at her own hair and cries about not being able to open up emotionally.
In the background, Hannah B is practicing kung fu moves with a gigantic stick.
During all of this, we keep cutting to endlessly boring scenes of Sydney whining about not getting any time with Colton, despite not trying to get any kind of time with Colton. It’s Courtney 2.0 over here, and I am NOT here for it.
“I don’t get it—is it because I’m not a 22-year-old blond? (ABC)
Look, I kind of get it. Sydney is way more mature than these 23-year-old blond embryos. Like Elyse, she’s getting fed up about not getting any real time or real connection with Colton, and she can see that women like Hannah B—still flailing about with the gigantic stick—are the ones breezing through every single rose ceremony.
She’s absolutely right. But we’re not in the real world, Sydney, we’re in the Bachelorverse, and smart, mature, poised, powerful women don’t win this battle. Idiotic children and stunted lady-girls who aren’t ready for a real relationship do. You need to play the game, or you need to get out.
We’re momentarily distracted from this senseless debating by Demi, who—unfathomably—has been given a phone by the Producers. She drags Colton over to call her felon mother, and coos over the phone in one of the weirdest, most uncomfortable, most wonderful scenes of all times. Demi’s mother seems entirely nonplussed by the news that her daughter is on national TV in fucking Vietnam. Demi may as well have told her that she was at a Taco Bell at the local strip mall.
“I’m happy you’re working on yourself!” Demi says at one point, and we collectively come to the horrifying realization that Demi is the parent in this relationship, and may god have mercy on their souls.
Then it’s right back to Sydney. After debating playing the game and getting the fuck out, get the fuck out she does. For the second week in a row, one of the Cougar Crew (at least somewhat) gracefully removes herself from the show, sauntering off into the night in search of non-virgin men who don’t vlog and who know how to properly keep a shirt on. But not before echoing the warnings of Onyeka/Nicole—there are women in the mix that are not ready for marriage and shouldn’t be here.
Colton seems flabbergasted, because, again, Colton is a fucking idiot and doesn’t know what franchise he’s in, despite this being his third fucking Bachelorverse show. He frets, he whines, he almost cries. In the end, he comes back to break the news, and inexplicably gives Tayshia the Group Date Rose.
Now that Sydney's gone, this is literally just a Kindergarten Cop reboot. Just with more aggressive kissing and even poorer life choices.
Fishing for Love
Despite being treated to an aggressively edited segment where it looks like Kirpa is going to get sent the fuck home at the very start of the 1:1, alas, it doesn’t happen. Finally sans massive arm cast and chin bandage, Kirpa—she of the French braid and zero personality—flits off to spend some quality time with our resident virgin.
Their date is lethally boring. They go to a massive, empty restaurant for breakfast, sit at a table that’s set for 10, and Colton just whines about his situation. Then they go on a boat and search for urchins. At one point they jump into the water, even though I already though they were in the water.
The only good thing about this entire mess is that when it’s time for dinner, Kirpa fucking slays it in a black jumpsuit. But even this isn’t enough to save the date, because Kirpa then tells Colton that her ex-fiancee WAS ALSO A FUCKING VIRGIN AND SHE PASSED UP 8 YEARS OF SEX BECAUSE HE WAS WAITING UNTIL MARRIAGE. Jesus fucking Christ, my vagina is literally weeping at this. Who the fuck are these people, and why are they doing this to us?
At least we get ONE GOOD FUCKING THING out of this episode (ABC)
Colton seems to suddenly be interested in her, and asks if she can see them getting engaged.
“Yeah, we could get engaged,” she says unconvincingly, shrugging over her uneaten dinner. She, of course, promptly gets the rose.
The Perfect Storm
Sensing that their audience is drinking themselves to death to make the pain stop, the Producers finally show us mercy with a Very Special Demi Adventure—that’s right, now that Kirpa is back from her date and Colton is free, our resident demon has done her hair and put on cute Daisy dukes, and is about to sashay through a thunder and lightning storm to swipe Colton’s v-card!
Ha, ha, no, she’s not, because there is no god. Sure, Demi gets all dolled up and deviously plans to get some Colton D, but alas, it all goes to fucking hell. Despite seeming surprisingly happy to see her, Demi doesn’t promptly jump his bones, but instead warbles on about how great things feel between them, and tells Colton she’s falling in love with him.
Colton, because he’s literally the second worst thing to happen to this franchise (behind Juan Pablo, although Arie is a close third) tells Demi “I appreciate you saying that to me—it means a lot,” before immediately telling her he doesn’t feel the same way and SENDING HER THE FUCK HOME.
Goodnight, sweet prince of darkness (ABC)
Look, we all knew Demi MIGHT make it to Hometowns, but ONLY because of her felon mom’s drama appeal. Demi was never going to win this, but Colton cutting her so abruptly, especially after the one episode where she showed real vulnerability and heart, felt very aggressive. And weird. It just didn’t feel right. That might be, however, from the fact that they both handled it well. Surprisingly well. Staggeringly well, given the fact that Demi is a conjured demon from the underworld. She cried but held it together, and was kind to Colton after the rejection.
RIP, Demi. I already miss you, my little Beelzebub.
Before going, however, Demi echoes Onyeka/Nicole and Sydney, telling Colton not to trust all of the women there—some aren’t ready for marriage, and aren’t there for the right reasons. You can see Colton’s head explode, because he clearly thought Demi was the one the others had mentioned, and now he’s straight up panicking.
Who could it be?? Hannah B, the 23-year-old growling, kung fu fighting manic?? Heather, the 22-year-old until-recently kiss virgin?? Cassie, the 23-year-old super Catholic school grad who was just filming another reality show about religious dating?? Hannah G, the 23-year-old undisputed queen of makeout sessions without an iota of substance?? My god, WHO COULD IT BE??
The Rose Ceremony
Spoiler Alert: Not that Colton cares, because all of those toddlers live to see another day.
Already safe with their collective roses are Vagina Metaphor Hannah G, Fucking Tayshia, and Snoozefest Kirpa. Joining them are:
Hannah Alabama
Miss Carolina Caelynn
Colton’s Sister Cassie
Finally-Been-Kissed Heather
Meaning that Katie gets the boot. Au revoir, Katie, whoever the fuck you were.
Colton blandly says goodbye, but continuing the episode’s tradition of the women heavily fucking with Colton, Katie reinforces the Not Ready Doom by uttering almost the exact same words as Onyeka/Nicole, Sydney, and Demi—there are women that are NOT READY here, and you shouldn’t choose them! Or else!
Of course, like the others, she declines to name names, which almost completely breaks Colton. I really, really hoped this was going to finally fucking lead to the infamous fence jumping scene but, alas, it does not. What it does lead to is a super awkward scene of Colton gathering the remaining women to confront them with this information, and then he goes off to sulk. Off to the side, Tayshia and Kirpa declare that they’ll be the final two.
Lol, girls, no, you won’t. There’s a sea of immature, early-twenties blonds that clearly aren’t ready for marriage—your asses are going home soon. Very soon.
Up Next Week
We’re tortured with a horrific voice over of Colton declaring that love is blind faith and taking risks (false) and that, when he loses his virginity, it “will be tender, it will be passionate,” and that he “wants it to be the greatest thing she’s ever felt.” (FALSE. FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE. SO FUCKING FALSE I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN.)
Until next week!
