This was a tough one to recap. Between the pettiness of the drama that spilled over from last week and emerged this week, and the girls’ lack of mastery of the English language, it was hard to come up with an angle to dive into without making myself feel dumber in the process. The legendary Kobe Bryant passed on the day that I began typing this up, which puts a lot of things in perspective and makes it even harder to focus on trying to cover this in a meaningful way, but here we are.
I suppose I have to take some sort of stance on champagne gate, solely due to the amount of screen time it’s gotten, even though it’s clearly an instance of producer-inspired sabotage. Once a friend of mine visited LA and we took her to what was a city staple at the time – Lemonade. She brought the remains of her beverage home to drink the next day, but my other friend drunkenly repurposed it to make pink panty droppers instead. This scandal still comes up from time to time eight whole years later, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a stolen bottle of champagne would generate such a strong reaction.
While I’m no Hannah Ann stan, I AM convinced that she genuinely had no idea the champagne was for Kelsey. Worst case scenario, she was probably being presumptuous by assuming the champagne was unclaimed and was uncorrected by producers. Even more likely, the mix-up was actually facilitated by producers who saw the opportunity for some explosive drama – literally.
Even if Hannah Ann HAD knowingly stolen the champagne, Kelsey still would come out looking like the villain in this situation, due to the aggression behind her accusation and the degree to which she made it personal. Fortunately this week’s confrontation seemed like an attempt to put things behind them, but it still included some strong character accusations that Hannah Ann rightly called out as being unfounded.
Just when I thought I was done hearing the word champagne, I’m suddenly triggered by Demi’s introduction of her ironically-named henchwomen.
Demi’s return, while limited from a screen time standpoint, provided just enough time for her to deliver some self aware commentary on the fetishizing aspect of this episode’s pillow fight group date.
But Kelley takes the crown this episode as far as self-awareness goes:
I was genuinely hoping that the vapid drama would subside for at least the remainder of the episode, but clearly my expectations were too high. The flow of the episode made it seem as if Sydney’s disdain for Alayah was recently established, yet it was somehow established enough for the producers to pit the two of them against each other in the initial round of the ring as well, then double down by placing them in the finals matchup,
This is another situation where someone’s claims against another woman in the house may not be unfounded, but I have a hard time taking their side because the delivery is just so off-putting.
Sydney’s looming approach to Alayah, who appears to be simply minding her own business before this insult is delivered, is so wild. I often think about how boring I would be if I were to ever be cast to a show like this, because I’m far too nonconfrontational to seek someone out and call them out, even if I truly didn’t like them. In fact, a large part of why I like and relate to Kelley is because much of her screen time is relegated to self aware comments and poorly masked facial expressions in response to the surrounding shenanigans.
Honestly, I respected Alayah’s response to this. To her point, it IS easier to be measured and diplomatic in the face of confrontation when you’ve had eight years of pageantry to prepare you for undesirable situations. But nevertheless, I was impressed by the balance she struck between diplomacy and strength.
That being said, my admiration is essentially limited to this moment. Her future attempts to mend her reputation among other girls in the house seem like a desperate campaign to form allies among what is honestly kind of a motley crew:
In general, I try to live by the mantra “Show, don’t tell,” and Alayah does the exact opposite of this throughout the duration of what is shaping up to be potentially the least fun pool party in Bachelor history, which is truly saying something. Those familiar with Ben Higgins’ musings on the Almost Famous podcast may liken her actions to the “self describing” he so openly loathes. I can’t even blame Mykenna that much for her impending meltdown during the rose ceremony – the thought that she might be sent home because she sacrificed potential quality time with him in favor of this would drive me to tears as well.
I suppose the one conciliatory detail is the fact that those who DID get time with Peter seemed to largely dedicate it to dragging Alayah, proving Sydney’s previous statement that the other girls simply didn’t have the “balls” to complain to her face. With the exception of Madison, Peter’s depicted one-on-one time was a whole lot of this:
with “sweet,” spectacled Victoria P’s revelation that Alayah asked her to withhold their relationship serving as the seeming nail in the coffin. You’ll notice that this is my first mention of Victoria P, as I skipped over recapping her one-on-one. As vapid as I found the ensuing drama to be, her date was SO boring that I literally forgot about it when I began writing this – and when I DID remember I couldn’t find a way to recap this without seeming like a villain by admitting that I still felt offput by her even after she shared what is truly a tragic story about her upbringing. Now that episode 4 has come and gone and she’s played an integral part in that episode as well, I will choose to withhold my sentiments about her for the following recap.
Peter’s eventual dismissal of Alayah is clearly an attempt to avoid the destructive, yet attractive choice by doubling down on what you “should” do. A sad comparison – when I was in college, there was one guy in particular who I would continually drunk text, despite the fact that I knew it would do nothing but restart a cycle of emotions that were consistently unrequited. I could have simply committed to not texting him, but instead I went the extra mile, by deleting his number from my phone. Peter’s unnecessary removal of the extra rose is a similar move, as it adds a layer of drama to what could in theory be a rationale choice. Unfortunately, the drama of both moves fails to actually protect against self sabotage – my phone wasted no time pulling his contact information up straight from the cloud as soon as I began to type his name into iMessage, and the producers certainly didn’t waste any time pulling Alayah back into the mansion once Peter spoke her name in his confessional recording.
We started out the season here:
And a mere two episodes later, Peter clearly has not learned his lesson:
Frontrunners
Madison (still)
She hasn’t gotten much screen time lately, but that seems to be a common thread for the girls who aren’t committed to either causing the drama or commenting incessantly on it. And honestly, in her case I’m okay with it, because I’m not sure how much of this I could bear watching:
Sydney
Despite the fact that she got the group date rose last week, I’m surprised by Peter’s sudden and implicit trust in Sydney’s judgment. This is quite possibly the only time when being a snitch has had an immediate payoff.
Victoria P
This may change after episode 4…but again, this is about episode 3 so I’ll leave it at this for now.
Chopping block
Honestly everyone except for the aforementioned frontrunners, plus Kelley, Hannah Ann, and Mykenna?? Going off of what’s been shown so far, he hasn’t really given many of the other girls an opportunity to connect with him on a deeper romantic level, so I could see any of them being on the receiving end of a boilerplate “My other relationships have just progressed faster.” Also, if my week 1 and week 2 predictions are any indication, I’m just terrible at predicting this so I may as well bow out.
Outstanding questions
Are the girls required to carry their roses with them at group dates, or is Sydney just really this extra here?
Why is Alayah continually threatening to kidnap Peter?
How did Victoria F have the willpower to successfully break up with Chase Rice instead of continually “deleting his number” like I would have wound up doing? This girl is clearly stronger than I’ve been giving her credit for.
