And then there were 12. As Leslie says, it’s getting to be “crunch time.” Everyone left in the mansion has started to develop feelings for Gerry, and some teensy little cracks are beginning to show in their collective camaraderie.
Kathy — who this week makes what I am confident is the first (and last) Three Faces of Eve reference in Bachelor franchise history — announces that she and several other women have formed a “group.” This is not necessarily that kind of reality show (you’re not going into the merge, ma’am), but I will be furious at anyone who lets her in on that. I’m not sure exactly what group activities they’re getting up to besides some light shit-talking and being, collectively, an anagram. A for April, S for Susan, K for Kathy, N for Nancy: ASKN? They even have a motto, Kathy informs us: “You’re askin’, we’re tellin’.” I do have some notes. Namely: Who is doing the asking? Is it Gerry? The other women? The viewers at home? And what exactly are they telling us, or them, or him?
This week’s group date is a talent show in which all the women are obligated to participate. The stakes are high. The winner — as judged by Gerry, Jesse Palmer, and visiting esteemed Bachelor Nation dignitary Kaitlyn Bristowe — gets a much-coveted dinner date with Gerry.
The whole segment is pretty fun, mostly just because I like these women a lot. Sandra’s version of standup involves not so much standing as marching around the stage with her hands on her hips and doing little poses. She tells a long joke about women spending various amounts of money, and my brain immediately turns off in the face of what it perceives to be a word problem, but I do appreciate that her punch line involves yelling, “Big boobs!” and then grabbing her own. That’s showbiz, baby.
Faith does, let’s be honest, a slightly less good Gerry-themed original guitar number than the one she whipped out the first night. They can’t all be winners. Nancy does something (non-sexual) with whipped cream that I don’t understand but that is nevertheless very exciting to everyone there. April sort of shimmies around, snapping her fingers, while shouting motivationally at the crowd: “We have power! We are loved!” I hope this is exactly what her therapy sessions are like.
Leslie, the actual professional performer formerly known as Sexy Dancer, is in her element. She pulls Gerry onstage for a PG-rated lap dance that climaxes in her producing a plate of cookies seemingly out of nowhere: “I bake too,” she says, feeding him one. Leslie understood the assignment. Her routine is perfectly calibrated between genuinely impressive and silly, hot, and wholesome. And yet, criminally, she loses. More and more, I find myself thinking that if Leslie doesn’t have the final rose coming her way, she will make a pretty solid choice for the inaugural Golden Bachelorette.
Oh, Joan. Joan, Joan, Joan. We’re shown something like half a dozen clips of Joan telling us how she doesn’t have any talents, how nervous she is, and how uncomfortable she is performing. This editing sets up Joan to beef so hard that the only logical conclusions are that either (a) she’s destined for victory or (b) she will spontaneously combust onstage, and this episode will reveal itself to be a Very Special crossover with Unsolved Mysteries.
Lo and behold, her recital of a self-deprecating poem titled “I Just Hope I Don’t Vomit on Your Shoes” takes home the win.
Gerry and Joan have dinner in the middle of what I can best describe as a haunted antiques store, silently observed throughout by at least two disembodied statue heads. Gerry liked that she put herself out there at the talent show. She likes that he’s “super-handsome.” They talk about figuring out when is the right time to start dating after losing a spouse.
The Gatch toasts to taking a “first step on a very strong connection,” and her literary efforts are rewarded with both a rose and some relatively chaste kissing. (Coincidentally, this is also what happens when you win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.)
Studies have found that people are really bad at judging their own performance in job interviews — a comforting thought to keep in mind when you feel like you’ve absolutely bombed and a reality check when you are otherwise sure you are hot shit. (I heard this one time and have no idea if it’s actually true — and I refuse to Google it.) I mention this because, to my eyes, I thought the date with Joan went … fine? But the events of the following morning lead me to believe I’d significantly underestimated Gerry’s infatuation with her.
Joan wakes up to an upsetting message from home: Her daughter, who had a difficult C-section just a couple of weeks ago, really needs her mom by her side. Family comes first. She’s got to go.
Joan takes Gerry aside and breaks the bad news. But she wants him to know that she had “one of the best nights of [her] life” with him and that feeling such a strong connection with someone for the first time since her husband died was a powerfully healing experience. That is genuinely beautiful. Gerry understands, but he’s deeply disappointed — he said his excitement over their date had him dancing when he’d gotten out of bed that morning. The music swells. She cries in the car. He cries on a bench. I had not remotely expected to be so moved by this pairing (or could-have-been pairing), but here we are.
Anyway, as the Gatch will tell the camera a few moments later, “I’ve absorbed and processed this news, and now it’s time to move on.”
Ellen — whose talent was teaching sex education to middle-schoolers, the curriculum for which apparently consists of making her pupils yell, “A hoo-ha is a vagina” (which, come to think of it, is still more than I learned in Catholic school) — gets the second one-on-one date of the week, and I continue to find her adorable.
She gets to try on a bunch of fancy shoes and dresses and settles on a gorgeous pink gown with a big bow. She looks like (I promise this is an unreserved compliment) an age-appropriate version of Madonna in the “Material Girl” video.
The Gatch says that, of all these women, Ellen is the one he can be most himself with — but is the romance there? I realize this is your life, sir, but respectfully, I don’t care. I like Ellen! More Ellen! Ellen all day!
He presents her with Neil Lane diamond earrings, which within the Bachelor mansion are, by this point, an oversaturated ad hoc street currency with an approximate cash value of $13, and then they smooch in a hot-air balloon. Rose acquired.
Theresa is spiraling. After getting almost zero one-on-one time with Gerry this week, she’s ruminating and obsessively rehashing their date. Unfortunately for Kathy, she is the nearest organism with ears, and so she gets to hear, in exhaustive detail, how Theresa’s night with Gerry was “off the charts, really incredible … amazing, absolutely amazing.”
Kathy is not amused. I don’t think Theresa meant any harm, per se, but I completely sympathize with why Kathy’s so put off by these interactions — it’s as if Theresa sees her fellow contestant as nothing more than a receptacle to dump her feelings into, treating her as a nonentity as far as Gerry’s potential affections are concerned. It’s dismissive and it’s disrespectful. Wounded, Kathy (whose talent, I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you, was push-ups) eventually runs off crying.
During her alone time with the Gatch, Kathy tearfully explains she’s had a rough day. Naturally, he wants to know what’s bothering her. She says that “people aren’t necessarily very nice” (okay) and that she’s had to face “a lot of meanness” (maybe a bit of a stretch) and “daggers” (not sold on this one, but I appreciate the dramatic word choice). Gerry asks her who he should look out for — she stops short of naming names, which is good because it is a sacred law of reality-dating shows that whoever narcs on another cast member will not make it far. He presents her with a please-stop-crying rose in advance of the ceremony. It does the trick.
Although you could certainly make the argument that Kathy’s own insecurities are at least somewhat of a factor here, I feel myself hardening toward Theresa, eager as I initially was to pledge my loyalty to a fellow Jersey girl. “I’m so sorry, oh my God,” Theresa tells Kathy once she finally catches wind that she hurt her feelings — is it my imagination or is she smiling a little?
Through the transitive property of crying, it is now Theresa’s turn to hide in her bedroom and sob for a while. Gerry stops by to comfort her but admits to the camera that he’s surprised to learn that it was seemingly sweet Theresa whose “boastfulness” triggered Kathy.
As punishment, Theresa is forced to wait until the very last rose to get her confirmation that she’s staying, but it’s still possible that the Gatch may be reborn as an unlikely Real Househusband of New Jersey. We sadly bid farewell to Edith (who claims the mansion yearbook superlative of Most Glamorous, without a doubt) and Christina.
In the immediate aftermath of the rose ceremony, Theresa doubles down on her cluelessness. It’s as if she cannot physically restrain herself from telling Kathy (Kathy?! If you must blab, choose literally anyone else in the house! Talk to a houseplant!) all about the lovely moment she just had with Gerry in the bedroom. In the immortal words of Kathy, “Zip your lip.”
