The Bachelorette – Season 11 – The Men Tell All – Live Blog

Leading into the episode tonight, Hollywood Life is asking “8 Questions That I Need Answered During ‘Bachelorette: Men Tell All.”. These includes WTF happened with Clint & JJ?, Is Ben REALLY the new ‘Bachelor?’, and Has Joe recovered from that broken heart? Who cares about that stuff? What I want to know is: How does Kaitlyn get her lips to look like the weather stripping around my air conditioner? Does it bother Nick that his enormous span of forehead makes Frankenstein appear to be an “after” photo for Hair Club for Men? How does Shawn make a living as a fitness instructor when it’s evident he would be challenged teaching a dog to sit?

We’ll find out next week that Kaitlyn is daunted at the prospect of choosing between these two fine specimens of manhood, or else she’s horrified to realize that they’re all that’s left. Ultimately, while Nick does propose, she’ll put the kibosh on him. The faputzed Neil Lane rock will be presented by Shawn’s meaty paw–which is best, since he was the guy in bed with her in the infamous picture.

Reality Steve, however, believes the two crazy kids have already broken up, setting a new record for failed relationships produced by the franchise. Even Andi and Josh lasted long enough to have Us Weekly projecting what her wedding dress might look like.

It’ll take three hours to get through the season finale next week, forcing us to endure not only the de rigueur awkward visits to meet The Bachelorette’s family, but what is certain to be a tear-filled, snot-wiping extravaganza of manufactured distress on the part of all three participants.

Gird your loins, which Kaitlyn should have done so everyone wouldn’t be calling her a s* now.

We’re not going to believe what the men have to say, Chris enthuses at the opening. He’s said that before, but sadly, it’s all been pretty believable up til now. Now if he had said you’re going to be disgusted, that would make sense.

This was the most controversial season of the show ever! So Kaitlyn will appear to discuss the ugly, sexist double-standard applied to her, which is different from the ugly, sexist concept of the show in general, and the rules she broke that polarized viewers everywhere but especially in the Bible Belt. Chris introduces all the men, most of whom we’ve completely forgotten except the one black guy. Everyone cheers wildly for Ben H.

First, one very important thing. Season 2 of Bachelors in Paradise! Jared will be on, and Joe and JJ and Justin. Perhaps some of the Duggar family as well. They’ll all be in Mexico with a bunch of crying women, getting their hearts broken and their tans evened. The show starts Sunday, August 2nd and is also on Mondays every week, because this is America, Land of Plenty.

Next we get a montage of the entirety of Season 11 because otherwise, there is apparently not enough unbelievable material to fill the two hours in between dozens of commercials. Everyone cheers upon the closing scene of Ian calling everyone in the house shallow. Tanner, or is it Ben Z.,  confronts him about it in the studio, saying Ian never gave the other guys a chance to prove themselves equal intellects to him. If he had just asked them to discuss Proust or nihilism, they would gladly have stopped telling fart jokes. Corey agrees Kaitlyn is an imbecile and “tasteless” in her decision-making, but Ian should have been nicer about telling her that. Ben H. rises to her defense.

Unexpectedly, Ian agrees. He rises and takes off his jacket, gets down on one knee, and expresses regrets about what he said that was so cutting and unkind. He especially apologizes to Kaitlyn’s mother, who is perhaps on Princeton’s alumni board. He also says he’s sorry to America. Everyone is pleased with this new, penitent Ian, who also looks less demonic without the heavy beard. He probably hopes he will now be signed as spokesmodel for Drakkar Noir.

We move next to Clint. Corey feels Clint did a one-eighty after the first night they all met, and became arrogant and pompous. He wants to know why. In response, Clint first confirms that he is straight. He explains that he and JJ hit it off as friends, and as such, preferred to share a lot of time together, discussing sports, business, and large, sweaty animals. Other guys claim he snubbed them right out. What a bunch of girls these guys are. JJ agrees that their friendship recalled that of Damon and Pythias, Batman and Robin, Holmes and Watson, forsaking all others.

Kupah speaks up next to complain bitterly about Nick. This guy seems to have a perpetual bee in his bonnet. What about Kaitlyn’s previous relationship with Nick? Was that fair to the other guys? JJ defends Kaitlyn’s need to examine under every rock in her search for the right worm. Josh expressed his hate for Nick so much that Clint suggests he valued his own opinion over Kaitlyn’s about who was the right man for her. Not that Kaitlyn has shown herself to be such a good decision-maker in general. Kupah blathers that she should have left the show if Nick was her choice. But she had a contract, Kupah. And she wanted to boff a few more guys before committing.

Now JJ is called up to talk with Chris. First we have to see all the drama of his journey, ending with him crying after Clint got angry with him. He finds it amusing now. “I *bleeped* up that night,” he tells Chris. As for him and Kaitlyn, they started off well, but he “lost momentum,” probably because he his brake shoes were worn. He claims he and Clint talked about Kaitlyn a lot, though. Does JJ have regrets? He feels his sense of humor wasn’t understood by the other guys. But he’s going to be on B in P, so it’s okay. He can be an annoying twerp in Mexico now. By the way, the daughter he misses so much is going to miss him more during that.

Ben Z. is on the hot seat next. The ladies go nuts. What went wrong between him and Kaitlyn? Maybe the dozen other guys hanging around? He was the one whose mother died prematurely and who hadn’t cried in 11 years, until he broke that streak when he got kicked off the show early. We have to watch again as he is crushed by Kaitlyn’s unexpected rejection. Something happened in Ireland, he muses, that changed things, and it probably wasn’t the beer. He closed himself off there again, oddly after they made him read a eulogy to a pretend-dead girlfriend lying in a coffin. Now he wants to be open with his emotions again, which the ladies in the audience approve of. “Have you cried?” Chris asks. No, he hasn’t. Someone pinch him really hard.

Now for Jared and his demon eyebrows. In the recap, Kaitlyn questions herself for not wanting such a sweet guy–“that kind of person.” But it’s only because she prefers hulking, witless morons. It’s hard for Jared to watch the show, knowing he’ll never have that with Kaitlyn again. He’s moving on, but he still thinks about her, usually at night with a bottle of lotion. Chris remarks that he prefers Jared without the spotty beard. Finally, for once I agree with Chris.

Next comes poor Ben H., always the middle square on the left, never the top corner. Chris disses everyone else’s relationship with Kaitlyn by claiming Ben had the best one with her.  Why didn’t it work out, why, why, why? She crushes men cavalierly, like so many Reeses Peanut Butter Cup wrappers. Ben relives the painful feelings as he watches his rejection on the big screen. He still fears being unlovable, an issue that going on this show didn’t exactly help resolve. He tells the apocryphal story of Kaitlyn’s off-camera visit to his and Shawn’s room, when he momentarily left after a night of great camaraderie and possibly a threesome, then returned to discover he was a third wheel. Usually that’s Jan Brady.

And now we welcome Kaitlyn and her sparkly dress with the see-through panels all over. Chris describes how the show is a profoundly enlightening sociological experiment that continually challenges gender roles, but wow, this season was a pip. In an unusual turn of events, a lot of people on the internet behaved really badly. Kaitlyn disapproves of how so many people spread hate. She can handle it, since she has a PR team, but her family was affected. Thousands and thousands of cruel, judgmental comments are hard to a take, she reveals, especially when some of them are death threats. And those were just from the people who liked Britt.

Chris reads some of the terrible tweets. “You are a little wh*. #sl*.” Hey, only I can say that, because it’s all in good fun when I do it. Someone else tells her to “shut her wh* legs,” and another calls her a “dirty wh* with a filthy mouth.” Wow, Mike Huckabee seems pretty upset. Yet another message suggests children will learn a good lesson if Kaitlyn is destroyed on national TV. A bigger problem is parents who let their children watch this show in the first place.

Kaitlyn offers a stiff upper lip in the face of this torrent of shameful abuse. Everyone claps in support of not calling Kaitlyn a dirty wh*. She’s really more of a nymphomaniac, anyway. You wonder if Tongue-Thrusting Chris Soules, the Lusty Farmer, was the subject of tweets like that. Probably not, since he was merely a healthy, red-blooded American man striving to supplement our nation’s population of white people.

Now to the fun part, the men telling all to Kaitlyn directly. Jared speaks first. He really doesn’t say anything other than asking how it might have been different. She reminds him of how great she thinks he is. That should set his mind at ease. Next is Ben H. His question is why did she only tell Shawn about her having sex with Nick. She says she compartmentalized each relationship, which I guess means they weren’t polyamorous, and felt a responsibility to be honest with him because of his trust issues. Apparently, she didn’t think Ben minded being lied to, since he only felt unlovable.

What about Nick, then, Chris presses. They had a “friendship” before she was chosen for the show. When he showed up mid-season, it was a total surprise, at least to the crafts services people and a production assistant who had missed the meeting. When Jonathan babbles something about it, she ripostes that he voted for Britt. Corey feels it was a slap in the face to bring Nick in halfway–and he did vote for her. She replies that he must put himself in her position, which is usually Reverse Cowgirl, to try and understand. JJ rushes to defend her, while Tanner agrees in principle but does not approve the execution. She claims they didn’t see her struggle with the decision. Eyes roll. Kaitlyn suggests they all try making that many testosterone-fueled drunken guys happy at the same time.

Now, does she want to say anything to the guys? Ryan, the hopeless drunk who was tossed off early, rises to speak. He seems drunk right now, and so does the guy who cut his hair. He apologizes and gives her a rose. She asks Clint why he didn’t treat her the way he treated JJ. He tried, he says, certainly to get her into the hot tub naked. But JJ had more in common with him. Ian comes over to give her a note, then gets to his knees again and says he’s sorry. He got backlash, too, so he understands how she feels. The tweets about him just said #jackhole and #Princetonadmissionsdepartmentsucks, though.

Next is the blooper reel, which includes several shots of Kaitlyn cringing from birds. After that’s over, Joe dons a giant pigeon head and approaches her. Is she afraid to eat at KFC?

Chris praises her for owning everything she’s done, including responsibility for her own orgasm. Good night, everybody, until next week’s nightmarish proceedings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About E.M. Rosenberg 240 Articles
Favorite 40-volume series issued by Time-Life Music: Sounds of the Seventies. Favorite backsplash material: Subway tile. Favorite screen legend I pretend wasn’t gay: Cary Grant. Favorite issue you should not even get me started about: Venal, bloodsucking insurance industry. Favorite character from the comic strip “Nancy”: Sluggo, or maybe Rollo. Favorite Little Debbie snack: Nutty Bars. Favorite Monkee: Mike.