Well, kids, it finally happened—The Most Dramatic Episode in Bachelor HistoryTM. 

I’m not kidding. 

We had:

• A painfully, horrifically awkward Fantasy Suite with 0.0% sex happening

• An admission that Colton wasn’t feeling it with one of the contestants 

• A tearful meltdown over Colton not getting another contestants' dad’s permission for her hand in marriage

• Said dad swooping in from over 5,600 miles away to talk his daughter out of this insanity

• The endless dragging out of an impending breakup that completely humiliated Colton on national TV

• Said wildly dramatic breakup

• Uncontrollable sobbing and shaking

• Desperate pleas and declarations of love

• A complete and utter disregard for the other two contestants

• A massive meltdown

• THE FUCKING FENCE JUMP

When all is said and done, we have concrete proof of why 23 year olds are completely and utterly unable to handle being on this show (and how they are in no way ready for marriage) and concrete proof of how everyone that chooses to go on this show is an absolute dumpster fire of a human being.

God, I love this franchise.  

Let’s dive in!

Portugal the Man

We open with Colton having a meltdown over the upcoming Fantasy Suites, because, in case you’ve forgotten, COLTON IS A FUCKING VIRGIN. Generally the Fantasy Suites are the touching, romantic time when our lead gets to fuck three of his or her favorite contestants, but this season Colton sees it as more of a looming tsunami of terror rather than an exciting romp fest where you really hope the STD testing was accurate. 

Zaddy Chris Harrison talks him off a ledge, I imagine by reminding himself of all the money he gets for dealing with stunted idiots like Colton. If Papa Harrison thought Colton would be a breath of fresh air in this franchise, hooooo BOY was he wrong. He might not be a swaggering Casanova (not that any of the Bachelors are swaggering Casanovas) but his “innocence” is its own overflowing basket of horror. 

Anyway, Colton finally pulls it together and trots back to his Final Three to sort of calm their nerves (given that he just stalked off and left them alone after doubting whether or not he was keeping the right women around) and give them the good news: that’s right, since no Fantasy Suite episode is complete without a sexy, exotic locale, our weeded-out pool of fucking losers are off to…Portugal! They all squeal with excitement, despite the fact that none of them even knew Portugal was a country until that very moment. 

“That’s in Europe!” Colton says helpfully, although I’d pay him a million dollars if he could point out Europe, let alone Portugal, on a map. 

Fantasy Suite #1: Tayshia Gets the Highs and the Lows

We kick off the Will They/Won’t They (spoiler alert: they won’t) Fantasy Suite extravaganzas with Tayshia and Colton, which is fitting because Colton is definitely not into Tayshia enough to bang. Mostly because she’s not 23 and blond, but whatever. 

Because these two fucking idiots think one-upping each other re: their fear of heights is the foundation of a solid relationship, they decide to take a fucking helicopter ride across the rolling Portuguese countryside. They seem awfully nonchalant about it, given that helicopters are whirling death machines and they both have a bone-deep fear of heights, but I literally don’t care about either of them or this fucking date in the slightest. At any rate it gave me a good excuse to pour my second vodka tonic of the night, so there we go.

“Wow, I had no idea Portugal was this beautiful!” Tayshia exclaims as they swoop dangerously over the landscape. If you told me that Tayshia thought Portugal was somewhere in Antarctica and was expecting a frozen, barren wasteland, I would not be surprised in the slightest. God bless the American education system. 

As the date seemingly stretches on forever, Colton halfheartedly makes virgin jokes to quell his nerves, and Tayshia rambles inanely on about intimacy.

“Intimacy’s a very big deal,” she shouts in a voiceover, despite the fact that she’s trying to bang a stunted 26-year-old virgin, and this is coming from the same woman who waited 8 FUCKING YEARS to bang her husband because he wanted to wait until marriage. I don’t think Tayshia would know intimacy if it smashed her in the face with a cast iron pan, but whatever. 

After their death-defying flight, the two have the world’s lamest picnic on a cliff overlooking the sea.

“If Tayshia’s my person, well, you never know what's going to happen later!” Colton chuckles. As he speaks, the cameras pan to a shot of the surf crashing dramatically, prematurely against the rocky shore.

If the helicopter portion of this date felt like it lasted the entire episode, then this pathetic picnic feels like it lasted an entire week. Tayshia and Colton have 0.0% interested in each other whatsoever, and listening to their stilted, awkward conversation caused me actual pain. Tayshia is only interested in fleeting Instagram fame and a chance to be the next Bachelorette, while Colton had to keep someone on that isn’t 23 and blonde to satisfy the audience. The idea of the two of them having enough physical interest in each other to actually have sex is more laughable than the idea of Colton actually banging someone during the Fantasy Suite frenzy. 

Eventually the two make their way to dinner, where the only saving grace is that Tayshia’s romper is lit AF. What’s not lit AF is her boob tape, however, as it keeps failing and she keeps nip slipping at the table. Colton boggles at what I can only assume is his first time seeing a boob, and the whole thing is fucking awful. Even more so when Tayshia then informs Colton that she was also a virgin before marriage, and that her husband cheated on her a year into the marriage. You know, I really, really dislike Tayshia, but damn did this make me feel for the girl—poor thing waited 8 FUCKING YEARS to finally get her freak on, only for her marriage to promptly dissolve into a dumpster fire of sadness and divorce. 

Colton, turned on by discussions of cheating and sex with other men, decides now’s the perfect time to take Tayshia back to the Fantasy Suite. 

Here’s where it really gets bad.

Colton bumbles into the Fantasy Suite like a bad caricature of a child raised by wolves and then rescued by White Saviors. Filled with a mixture of awe and terror, he goes around gingerly touching everything in the Suite, while Tayshia patiently helps explain what each item is. “Candle,” she says, nodding, as Colton touches a pillar candle and looks up at her for reassurance. “Pillow. Yes, pillow,” she confirms, as he gently pokes the corner of a velvet sham. If I wasn’t sobbing, I’d be laughing.

The next morning, Tayshia confirms that they did not have sex, and laughs awkwardly as she describes the night as “interesting.” As she’s shuttled off to wait for Colton to try to fuck the other two women, Colton confirms that he “knew she wasn’t the one” and that he’s "falling in love, but not IN love” with her, thus sealing her fate.

Fantasy Suite #2: The Curious Case of Cassie

Despite Colton wearing what appears to be a striped burlap sack as he excitedly awaits his date with Cassie, all of Bachelor Nation is waiting with bated breath to see what the fuck Cassie is gonna do. Last week, during Hometowns, she could barely muster up enough enthusiasm to say she liked Colton, never mind was falling in love with him. She refused to give him any indication of her feelings, and only at the very end panicked and said she should’ve told him her real feelings (which she never once stated), mostly because she needs to get far enough along for those Instagram deals and followers. It’s clear to everyone but Colton that Cassie’s not feeling him, which makes this date all the more delicious. 

The two finally meet up and kick things off with a cup of coffee out on a piazza, Colton in his dopey shirt and Cassie rocking extensions (or aggressive amounts of Sugar Bear Hair pills, considering her locks have grown approximately 15” over the course of this season). Colton is nearly exploding with excitement, while Cassie seems entirely uninterested. Which, given the fact that Colton is extremely stunted and can’t tell love from lust, he just takes as more of a sign that he’s clearly in love with her. 

As far a Bachelorverse dates go, this one is exceedingly stupid yet pretty par for the course. The two wander into a souvenir shop and Colton gushes about how fascinating and amazing and confident Cassie is, while we’re treated to a montage of them just sort of hugging, Cassie refusing to make eye contact, and Colton plopping a stuffed octopus onto her head and declaring it a jaunty hat. They then continue their wanderings out into a…courtyard? Where they sort of dance while a circle of random people dance around them, and then Cassie dances with an old guy. You know, typical date stuff. 

“It’s been so easy with Colton,” Cassie says miserably to the camera, “and there’s been no red flags.”

This is timed perfectly, because Colton then tells Cassie her dad didn’t give him permission to have her hand in marriage, and she FLIPS. THE. FUCK. OUT.

Three things here:

1. Women are not fucking currency. Let me repeat this for those of you in the back: WOMEN ARE NOT FUCKING CURRENCY. We don’t need a Male Guardian to approve of our transfer to another Male Guardian. I know this may come as a shock, but the year is 2019, not 1619, and we don’t need to be sold to creepy men for better positions at court or a bag of gold or a handful of promising turnips. 

2. Women do not need the permission of a Male Guardian to choose who the fuck they want to marry or who is “allowed” to propose marriage to them.  Male Guardians do not date our suitors, nor do they have control of our lives, decisions, or free will. Sure, if we trust you, we may ask for your opinion, but you do not get to give us permission to do anything. 

3. Cassie is the most stereotypical 23 year old I have ever met in my entire life. 

Let’s back up a minute here, so we can fully understand the situation.

Last week at Hometowns, Cassie and her dad had a hilarious conversation in which Cassie pouted, sulked, and insisted she was a grown up and could make her own decisions when it came to marrying Colton. This had absolutely nothing to do with Colton, because Cassie doesn’t actually love Colton or want to be with him, and she and the rest of Bachelor Nation have known this for some time now. 

Much like Colton’s desperate “love" for Cassie, Cassie doesn’t want to be told what to do, and wants exactly what she can’t have. Because Cassie’s dad was being An Actual Adult and pointing out minor details—like Cassie not really knowing Colton, and Cassie being in a hyper-surreal setting where she has to share Colton with 30 other women, and Cassie being 23 and not ready for something as long-term and legal as marriage—Cassie fought back and stubbornly declared she was ready and knew Colton enough and wanted this. Despite her distaste and unhappiness being written across her face in glowing neon lights, because her dad pointed out her actions as being illogical, Cassie had to do them. HAD to. This is babysitting 101, people. 

When it comes down to it, Cassie’s dad not giving his permission for her hand in marriage doesn’t mean anything. He literally could’ve said or done anything to Colton and it wouldn’t have mattered. He could’ve given his blessing, he could’ve told Colton to go fuck himself, he could’ve punched Colton’s face in—in this instance, the only reason Cassie latched onto her dad’s lack of permission-granting was because it gave her an easy out. She’s looking to self-sabotage, and this joint gift from her dad and Colton was just what she needed.

Cassie—because she’s 23 and ill equipped to deal with the pressures and realities of handling a breakup (much less on national television)—can’t just tell Colton she doesn’t want to be with him. Instead she latches onto her dad’s lack of permission and uses it as The Be All End All of red flags of why she can’t possibly be with Colton.

Of course she doesn’t say she can’t be with Colton, and instead just starts crying and panicking and completely overwhelming herself. Again, because she’s 23 and has never been in an actual adult relationship.

Anyway, after this incredibly uncomfortable scene, our doomed duo part ways to prep for the Fantasy Suite. 

BUT WAIT! 

As Cassie takes a momentary reprieve from her meltdown, who should knock on her hotel room door but Papa Cassie!

“I was in the neighborhood,” he jokes, which is funny because he lives 5,600 miles away, get it! In this totally unexpected twist, the two sit down and discuss the fact that Cassie isn’t ready in the fucking slightest for marriage, much less to a stunted man-baby, and that she needs to follow her heart and do what’s right for her. 

Sensing that she’s about to avoid getting hit by the equivalent of an 18-wheeler, she sags in relief and agrees that she’s going to send herself home tonight instead of traumatizing herself in a Fantasy Suite. 

Meanwhile, Colton happily sets up the Fantasy Suite (touching more candles along the way, now that he’s getting more confident being around them) and gushes endlessly about Cassie at the Producers’ goading. They say the devil works hard, and Kris Jenner works harder, but perhaps no entity in this universe works as hard as the Bachelorverse Producers. 

When Cassie arrives I expect her to swiftly yet kindly break up with him and send herself packing. I don’t know why I expect this, because this is Cassie we’re talking about, and this is The Bachelor, and we are in hell.

Instead she flirts with Colton, and they pour some wine, and they chat, and then only when she begins to act like Colton is Patient Zero for a particularly virulent strain of Ebola does our dense leading man sense something is amiss. 

When Colton haltingly calls her on it, Cassie breaks down and sort of admits that she doesn’t love him and is going to break up with him, only she drags it on and on and on and doesn’t ever really draw her line in the sand. Colton promptly has a fucking breakdown—no, seriously. I became genuinely worried about him, because he began aggressively shaking and crying. I mean AGGRESSIVELY shaking and crying. 

“I love you, and I want it to be you at the end of this,” he pleads in between sobs. “We don’t have to get engaged, we can just be together.” 

I really, really felt for him here. He definitely doesn’t love Cassie (he definitely doesn’t love any of the women left) but—because he’s 26, and stunted, and under the stressful microscope of reality TV, and being rejected by a woman he’s in lust with—he’s legitimately in real pain.

I also feel for Hannah G. We already know Tayshia’s a goner, but HG’s been the frontrunner since literally night one, when she received the First Impression Rose. I thought he was going to choose her in the end (and we know he’s going to, now) but man, it must be Becca-watching-Arie-choose-Lauren levels of pain and humiliation to watch that scene go down and realize you were the runner up all along.

Anyway, Cassie finally gets up and rushes off as quickly as one can in a very tight, very short dress. Colton, after crying a bit more, goes after her and continues to ramble on about he’s going to fight for her and will do anything for her. Cassie, meanwhile, makes awkward direct eye contact with the camera, and then throws herself in a black SUV with the force and fury of an imploding star.

And then…it was time.

Colton, heartbroken and devastated like only 26-year-old virgins can be, rushes off to his room and slams the door. “Fuck all of this, I’m done. I’m done,” his mic picks up, as he comes barreling out of said door moments later, shoving interns and Producers alike aside. He stalks through the semi-lit grounds and then, finally, FINALLY, leaps over an 8-foot fence with a single bound, hurling himself into the darkness on the other side.

“He just jumped the fucking fence?!” says an astounded Zaddy Chris Harrison, stalking through the night. 

By the time the cameras get over the fence, our train wreck of a leading man has disappeared into the Portuguese countryside, leaving only a trail of tears, sadness, and virginity in his wake.

Until next episode!