These womyn are about to tell us so much.
Oh man, oh WOMAN, the women certainly told all this week, and oh how amazing their stories were. The Women Tell All episode started with Chris Harrison babbling about how every Bachelor season they have the Women Tell All Episode, and sometimes, ya know, there’s just not that much to talk about, but this season is SO special and dramatic. Oh please Chris Harrison, we’re not idiots. The Women Tell All consists necessarily each season of a stage full of women, and we all know that The Bachelor‘s very most favorite thing to do is pitting women against each other.
It’s kind of darkly funny—jealousy between women is a thing that we learn from a sexist culture that tells us women have to fight each other for a man or a job or a book deal; it’s a biproduct of a culture that makes us feel invisible and starved for attention through making it harder for women to get the material stuff that many men get easily. As feminists we have to work to unlearn that internalized misogyny. But the thing is: The Bachelor takes that social message and makes it real in order to further perpetuate it. There is actually one boring dude that these lovely womyn have to fight over. They’re perpetuating competition amongst women because they are literally competing. And so the social norm of female jealousy and competition is so, and so on forever. And we get to watch it in its fullest force on The Women Tell All.
But before the CIRCUS OF INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY begins, we’re treated to America’s Two Favorite Chrises crashing a bunch of “Bachelor Viewing Parties.” This made me kinda sad that I was watching the show in my underwear with my special feminist companion Matt while eating dinner instead of chugging Tequila and eating corn-themed corn dishes with my best ladiiiieeeeeeesssssssssss while we all cackled crassly about how Farmer Chris could plow the fuck out of our fields anytime. Memorable moments included Farmer Chris saying, “There’s nothing cooler than hanging out with Chris Harrison.” And there was a laughable attempt to market The Bachelor to men by way of pretending all male viewers are wicked hetero, bro: “You just pretend you’re Chris and you’re good to go,” Bachelor Fan Dude told the camera. I am really fascinated with the idea of straight men potentially watching The Bachelor to “pretend they’re Chris,” or really of anyone watching The Bachelor for any reason other than to mock it. If this is your demographic, please identify yourself.
“Okay okay, I’m Chris, and all these wicked haht girls are all up on my jock, bro.”
Back in the studio, Britt is lookin’ great in her new shade of lipstick: red. And she starts sobbing basically as soon as the camera starts rolling. She wants to know why Carly acted like they were best friends but then talked hella shit about her behind her back. Then like all the womyn start talking passionately at once, and Chris Harrison is like, holy shit what have I gotten myself into, women are soooo hysterical and catty! Carly insists that Britt was disingenuous (see how I dropped that big word, Kelsey-style?) on the show, and that she was just looking out for her actual best friend Farmer Chris. Some nameless blonde girl helpfully calls out, “It’s not about friendship; it’s about Chris!” Britt rattles off all the childcare items from her resume dating back to middle school in an attempt to prove that yes she does indeed of course want kids; she is a woman, not a monster! And she tells Carly that she’s basically just jealous, which seems pretty accurate given Carly’s cringe-worthy venomous “NOW THE PRETTIEST GIRL GETS TO KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE A NORMAL PERSON” speech. Sorry, Carly, hating pretty girls for being pretty is still misogyny. Oh and we haven’t forgotten how you gender-policed Jillian, calling her a “man” for winning a race, and she hasn’t forgotten either. Jillian defends Britt, and calls out Carly for her mean gender-policing, and in the spirit of continuing that gender-policing, Chris Harrison tells Jillian “you’re a little jacked up.”
“Pretty girls need love too!!!!”
Moving on to Kelsey, Chris Harrison awesomely asks, “How did this widow come to be called a black widow?” Fellow Widow Julia and Daughter of a Widow Megan school Kelsey on appropriate widow behavior. Ashley accuses deceased husband Sanderson Poe of not being real, and then the chandelier starts to shake and all the candles in the room blow out mysteriously. JK, making jokes about someone’s dead husband is so not cool, Ash—Gahd. Jillian also defends SP’s existence, proving herself to be maybe the kindest person on the show? Kelsey is crying, and since The Bach inexplicably does not provide tissues for this show, she asks for one and gets Chris Harrison’s handkerchief from his dandy pocket and when she blows her nose into it the whole audience gasps in disgust like that mannerless husband-murderer just soiled his hankie! But fuck them—provide tissues, The Bachelor, I would have blown my nose into it too.
Ashley S. gives Chris Harrison an onion; don’t even know what to say about her. Jade wants Chris to “shoot it to her straight” why she was sent home. Kaitlyn is so confused, blah blah, all we care about is the fact that she has been CONFIRMED as the next Bachelorette, OMG!!!!
One man’s trash shall be another man’s treasure.
Farmer Chris comes out, and it’s kinda weird to get to hear him speak many sentences at once. He basically has nothing new to say. Britt clings to him sobbing. Kaitlyn gets the closure she needs. Teeming with internalized slut-shame and insecurity, Jade weepily wants Chris to explain why he said in his blog that it was “awkward” to look at her pussy pix with her, and Farmer Chris says it was a “poor choice of words.” Ugh who on this planet is better that Jade?! I do not understand this cruel Bachelor universe! (Also, wait Chris has a blog?! How am I not reading that!) Finally, we watch a bunch of Bachelor bloopers, wherein I think we might see Farmer Chris’s actual personality for the first time, by way of a fart joke?
There you have it, faire readers. Next week is the final showdown between Boring Becca and Equally Boring Fertility Nurse Whitney—omg omg omg. I don’t know what to think; I don’t even know who to root for! Who are YOU rooting for?? See you at our corn and Playgirl-themed Bachelor Viewing Party!!!
