Forget Luke P. Forget Berger. Wait, I mean Jed. Forget every other asshole this season has paraded out (MattDScottTylerG). The real villains of this season are the Producers.

No matter how the things actually went down, the root cause of the poison is the same:

OPTION 1: Hannah Actually Likes Luke P

Hannah—because she’s a newly 24 year old with the emotional intelligence of a dented tuna can—may genuinely have feelings for Luke P. They’re just lusty feelings, but because 24 is basically 14, she can’t tell the difference between lust and love—so fine. Fine. We all have atrocious taste at 24. But rather than stepping in with genuine concern over the mind-blowingly narcissistic, misogynistic, emotionally abusive behavior that violently spews out of Luke, the Producers are gleefully letting it unfold over national TV, and are willingly letting this horrific behavior smash into Hannah weekly like a “Well, actually” screaming freight train.  

The end result: The Producers willingly showing viewers of all ages (and impressionability) that this abusive behavior is acceptable.

OPTION 2: Hannah Actually Loathes Luke P

Hannah—because maybe she is the feisty, spirited, take-no-shit badass they keep trying to force us to believe she is—fucking loathes Luke P and wants him gone. Like, fucking yesterday. But because the Producers feed solely on drama and the ratings it provides, they force Hannah to continually endure the mind-blowingly narcissistic, misogynistic, emotionally abusive behavior that violently spews out of Luke.

The end result: The Producers willingly showing viewers of all ages (and impressionability) that this abusive behavior is acceptable.

OPTION 3: Luke P is Actually a Really Nice Guy (Just with Bad Editing)

Luke P—despite being a genuinely nice guy, if somewhat buffoonish—is painted as a fucking monster  continuously spewing mind-blowingly narcissistic, misogynistic, emotionally abusive behavior because A) every season needs a villain, and B) the Producers can’t retreat to their lairs between seasons unless they feast upon drama and high ratings.

The end result: The Producers willingly showing viewers of all ages (and impressionability) that this abusive behavior is acceptable. (Also, kind of totally destroying Luke’s life). 

The likely story is some unholy combination of Options 1 and 2, but the sentiment remains the same—the Producers are more than happy showing viewers of all ages (and impressionability) that this abusive behavior is acceptable. That it’s okay for men to gaslight women, and to shame them for the choices they make as grown-ass women. That it’s okay for men to judge women’s sexuality, that it’s okay for men to stake their claim on a woman that’s unsure she wants it, that it’s okay for mean to continuously disregard and disrespect the boundaries women set for themselves. That at the end of the day, this behavior is acceptable.

I’m so entirely disheartened by this season that I don’t know where to begin. Even with an episode rife with naked bungee jumping, dehydrating makeout sessions in saunas, and the reappearance of random hot tubs in the wild, I can find no joy, hope, or happiness.

Let’s dive in.

When In Latvia, You Do It the Latvia Way

Apparently, in order to truly connect to the Latvian way of life, you go naked bungee jumping in a forest. Sure! 

Our episode kicks off with a 1:1 date with Garrett, who I’d been feeling pretty lukewarm on. Like, he’s not as nightmarish as Luke P, but he’s not as perfect as Tyler C, but then he’s not as boring as…say, Dustin, whoever the fuck that is. He’s just sort of average. Like 2% milk. 

Luke meets Hannah in a random forest clearing, which is uninspiring at best. I swore I saw a tumbleweed float by.

“Welcome to Latvia,” Hannah says blandly.

“Wow, it’s BEAUTIFUL!” Garrett exclaims, staring excitedly at a dead stump. 

Because this is the Bachelorverse, our couple are guided towards a river area, where there are two naked people plunging out of a cable car while Whilhelm screams echo in the background. 

Okay, first and foremost, I have SERIOUS concerns about the amounts of chafing and fabric burns associated with naked bungee jumping. How do you not strip off layers of flesh? How do you not get third-degree burns? 

Anyway, our fear-filled duo try to laugh off their nerves. “When in Latvia, you do it the Latvia way, I guess!” Hannah exclaims. Uh, I’m pretty sure this isn’t an integral facet of Latvian society, but whatever. The two pile into the cable car, strip down (well, Garrett goes au naturel, Hannah keeps her undergarments on), and fret about their impending jump.

“How high up are we?” Hannah asks. Their instructor says 43 meters, and by our couples’ blank stares, we can tell that they didn’t know that meters were a form of measurement. 

“Oh my freak!” Hannah exclaims, and then they’re hurled 43 meters to their doom.

Okay fine, they survived. Although not sure it’s worth it, given the chafing and skin destruction, and the fact that their post-jump time is spent…sipping champagne around a shitty metal fire pit that looks like it was purchased 35 years ago at Wal-Mart. Uh.

The two lounge in bathrobes, sip champagne, and make out. Garrett actually seems tolerable during most of it. Especially when he’s kissing and not talking.

After the commercial break, our daring duo—Garrett sadly sans-salmon jacket, Hannah wearing a pink coat made of the carcasses of no less than 15 muppets—totter drunkenly down the streets of Riga for dinner in what sounds like a massive, empty amphitheater. Everything Hannah so much as whispers echoes so aggressively through the cavernous room that I ruptured both ear drums.

The two giggle over their nude bungee jumping experience. Hannah admits that she saw Garrett’s junk during it. “I thought: Oh crap, that is a real ding dong!” She exclaims, while Garrett chortles. 

Hannah and I do dirty talk very, very, very differently. 

A silence falls, and Hannah shifts restlessly against her pile of dead muppets. Because she’s a terrible lead, and doesn’t understand how to make actual connections, she wracks her brain for a good icebreaker question from her favorite TableTalks collection. 

“Since I like you,” she says unconvincingly, “tell me the biggest hurdle you’ve had to overcome. Like, mine is that I had to learn to live my life for myself, and not let others control what I do.”

Garrett ponders for a moment, looking thoughtful. He says that his biggest hurdle was thinking he wanted to play football, but then deciding that he liked golf more. Hannah nods sagely, as though this cements him as the deepest, most mature, most genuine man in the world. 

This is when I took a break to chug my full glass of wine.

Look, I’m not saying that learning to live life for yourself, and learning to not let others control what you do isn’t important. It is. It’s hugely important. But it’s a rite of passage. 24 year olds don’t understand this yet, and that’s okay, because they’re fetuses. But this is the kind of revelation you begin having in your late 20s, when you begin to really forge your own identity and begin to realize that you can actually live the life you want to have.

However, compared to other…hurdles…this is ridiculous. Here we have a white, blond pageant queen, and a white, sandier blond golf pro. The amount of privilege between the two of them is almost comical, especially as they swap sob stories about choosing a nine iron over a pigskin. 

Regardless, this deep, soul-opening conversation seems to be just what the doctor ordered. 

“I’m falling in love with you,” Garrett tells her breathlessly, despite this being their first 1:1 date ever. 

After the date, Garrett goes back to the hotel and calls a Bro Council to tell them that he basically saw Hannah naked. The bros are all awestruck, except for Luke, who looks like someone just beat him in the head with a rusty shovel. 

“I feel like it was a slap in the FACE,” he all but screams to the cameras during a confessional, seething that Hannah would exercise free will and indulge in a date that she deemed fun and comfortable. (Minus all the chafing, of course.) 

“She’s going to meet my family, and I want to feel comfortable doing that,” he continues, seething. He also says that Hannah showing her body to someone that isn’t her HUSBAND is basically unforgivable.

It’s nice that Luke's possessive, abusive misogyny really extends across every single facet of Hannah's very existence. In his world, women are merely possessions, and even thinking about sex can ruin them. All of this from a guy who claimed god came to him in the shower and told him to stop sleeping with literally everything that breathed.  

Cheers to Romance in Riga 

Despite Luke still acting like his literal world is falling apart, it’s time for the bros to saddle up for the first (and only) group date of the night! Off to explore all that Riga has to offer are:

• Mike

• Jed

• Tyler C

• Dustin

• Luke P

• Connor

• Dylan

First up is a stop by the market, where Dylan sees fish chilling on ice and is personally affronted. Next up are shots of moonshine, because why the fuck not. Third up is a scene of Tyler buying Hannah flowers, because he is literally an angel on this earth. 

Last up is a sightseeing bus. On the bus, they discuss the naked bungee jumping, much to Hannah’s delight and Luke’s horror. 

“Like, if I was going to a nude beach, I’d totally go naked,” she says cheerfully, while Luke turns purple beside her. 

After that amazingly interesting date, they go root around somewhere in Riga for the night’s cocktail portion. Tyler steals Hannah away for the first 1:1 of the night. “You looked like an angel today,” he says, and somehow I feel like he’s telling the truth. “I pray to god that you’re my angel,” he adds, and I sob into my glass of Pinot Grigio. 

Hannah gets compliments telling her she looks like an angel, even when she wears a coat made of muppet carcasses. I, on the other hand, once had a boyfriend tell me he didn’t hate my favorite flowy maxi skirt, but that I’d look much better in it if I wore painfully tight booty shorts he bought for me underneath them, so that my ass “was more pronounced.” This was a conversation that took place as I was getting dressed for work.

Anyway, my nightmarish reveries were interrupted by an even more nightmarish reality—now, according to Luke, is the perfect time to gaslight and slut shame Hannah. 

First, he rants to Tyler about how uncomfortable the bungee date made him. With all the class and restraint in the world, Tyler firmly informs him that Hannah is a grown-ass woman and can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. You know, instead of ripping Luke’s face right off his skull, which is my first instinct. 

Hardly calmed by this, Luke turns heel and drags Hannah away for a heated discussion. He turns the gaslighting up to 73648384 and tells her repeatedly that her body is a temple, and that this is a slap in the face, but that he “can forgive boneheaded mistakes.” 

This is basically him saying “yeah so I think you’re a huge slut for letting a man see some of your flesh, but because I’m a gaslighting psychopath, I’m going to tell you it’s okay a second later and that I accept your mistake, all so I can break you down so that you never leave me. Even when I cheat on you repeatedly, while calling you a slut for staying in and daring to wear shorts in the comfort of your own home.”

To add a cherry to the top of this nightmare sundae, Luke then equates Hannah pseudo-naked bungee jumping with Garrett to CHEATING IN A RELATIONSHIP. 

I. FUCKING. CANNOT.

To try to balance things out, Hannah gives Tyler the Group Date rose. I breathe a sigh of relief, but I know this feeling is short-lived. 

Love in a Latvian Spa

It’s time for another bro to dash into the Latvian woods for the second 1:1 of the episode! Our second tribute of the night is Peter the Pilot, who is such a fucking doofus. They go to a traditional Latvian spa, which seems to consist of flower crowns and aggressively making out in a sauna. I mean, I would’ve fucking died of dehydration, but you do you, guys.

After the spa we FINALLY get a randomly placed hot tub in the middle of the woods. Drink! Our dehydrated duo are gifted with piles of cheese and champagne, but ignore their veritable feast for more face sucking. Their priorities are so, so wildly different from my own. 

In between make outs, Peter tells Hannah she’s “a firecracker” I guess because she once yelled at them all. He then gives her some bland story about “how he loved and lost and put walls up, but with her, they’re coming down.” I’m pretty sure this is written on a postcard and handed out to all contestants night one, because this is their standard trope for “opening up.” 

They continue to make out, and then Peter exclaims “I’m high on cloud nine!” Which is a pilot pun, so drink, I guess. 

He gets the 1:1 Rose, and the night is over. Sort of.

Back at the hotel, Jed—sensing that he’s losing out on this one-sided Battle of the Bastards Round 2—decides that this is the perfect time to go try out for a record deal. He hurries after Hannah like he didn’t just dump his girlfriend on a fucking post-it note to come on the show, and proceeds to shriek along with his guitar outside her window.

Look, Jed’s desperate grasps for fame would be somewhat more palatable if the man could hold a fucking tune, but he’s pitchier than a dying cat, so here the fuck we are. 

Hannah lets him in, and they of course make out and roll around her bed a lot. This is where I finish my second bottle of wine. 

Gaslighting: The Sequel 

The next morning—the morning of the Rose Ceremony—Hannah crashes the bro pad and tells them she needs to talk to Luke. Once they’re alone, she tries to lay down the law and tell him enough is enough. She calls him out for his horrific misogyny and gaslighting and abusive behavior—well, sort of. She does say that their conversation the night before made her angry. 

Luke? Time to crank that gaslighting up, baby! He tells her that he wouldn’t be mad if Garrett had only not told him about the date. (False.) When Hannah pointedly brings up that he said this was a slap in he face to him, Luke claims he never said that. (False.) “Okay, you’re twisting my words,” he says, “I wasn’t talking about the bungee jumping.” (False.)

He then says he’s “sorry she misunderstood him” and then says this in about 15 different ways on repeat. “If you felt that way, I’m sorry you misunderstood,” he doubles down. “I’m sorry you didn't understand everything I said in that moment.”

This is classic gaslighting, people, and it’s fucking horrifying. He then keeps wildly insisting that they “got the train back on the tracks,” going so far as to shout it over Hannah as she tells him otherwise. 

ROMANCE, BABY.

Luke, because he’s a rabid animal, goes back to the group and tries to pick more fights. 

Garrett tells him firmly—and repeatedly—to stay in his lane.

Mike once again physically restrains himself from messily murdering him. 

Tyler tell him he’s “trying to be a big dog,” which is one of the best lines of the season. Seething and yipping like a teacup chihuahua, Luke tries to claim otherwise. He flushes bright ass red, just like he always does, because he always knows he's a fucking little liar and he's caught red-fucking-handed.

Tyler, our lord and savior, ends the segment by reminding Luke that he paraded around like a peacock in a teeny bikini during the pageant date, and yet is trying to shame Hannah and Garrett for daring to show some skin themselves. Tyler for President 2020. Tyler for My Husband 2020. 

Then Zaddy Chris Harrison swoops in and declares that there will be no Cocktail Party—we’re going right to the Rose Ceremony, fuckers.

The Rose Ceremony: The Rose Winners

Already safe with their respective roses are Tyler, Garrett, and Peter the Pilot. Joining them are: 

• Full-of-Shit-and-Bad-Pitch Jed

• Magic Mike

• Connor ???????

• LUKE. FUCKING. P.

Which means A) there is no god, and B) going home are:

The Rose Ceremony: The Rose Losers

• Dylan

• Dustin

After the ceremony, Hannah frets to Zaddy that she can’t tell if she loves Luke, or if he’s making her crazy. Zaddy hugs her and soothingly whispers “Shhhh, don’t question the divine acts of our Producers, my little guinea pig.”

Until next week!