The Bachelorette – Season 11 – Episode 8 – Live Blog

Chris’s heartwrenching sobs when Kaitlyn sent him away last week touched all of America, or at least those of us who enjoy seeing dentists in pain for a change. Chris, however, insists he found the disturbingly emotional scene amusing when he watched it later. Of course he did.

He tells People magazine that he came on the show partly to “combat dentist stereotypes,” an effort that apparently includes trying to impress women by riding around in a giant cupcake and singing the Broadway role of Aladdin with a suspicious amount of fervor.  Surely dentists around the nation celebrate his dedication to improving their reputation. In addition, Chris is described as a former model. Of course he is.

Tonight we’ll be exposed to more of Nick and his smarmy grin as the final few bachelors vie for Kaitlyn’s hand in marriage, or at least first crack at her in the Fantasy Suite. So loosen the top on the bourbon and settle in; it’s going to be a bumpy ride to reach the awarding of hometown visits and the unspeakably awkward horror of family meetings. The promo says, “The truth is out!” Let us see.

The three men who get roses this week will be awarded romantic, intimate dates, we are reminded. Also that KAITLYN HAD SEX WITH NICK. Eva Braun’s conjugal relations never incited such a hue and cry.

Kaitlyn tells us that sending Chris home made her sad. With him dispatched,  everything is so serious that it’s scary. She has to be that much more honest now, because apparently before she was only somewhat honest.

The guys discuss how emotional the week has been. Two of them will be going home at the Rose Ceremony. In other words, Joe and someone else will be going home at the Rose Ceremony. Ben H. gets the first date card.

Kaitlyn wants to show Ben all the sides of her as they appear while she’s still dressed. She needs all the guys to know that she’s not always a barrel of laughs. I think they’ve seen that side of her already. She and Ben ride off in a rowboat. He wants to help her experience her emotions, like with an orgasm. They proceed to play hide and seek around some rocky ruins, kind of like how their relationship has been to date.

When it’s time to talk, they discuss how hard rejection is. He seems like husband material to her, she tells him. Do the people on this show ever take a rest-stop between “What’s your name?” and “Do you like chocolate or vanilla for a wedding cake”? He tells her she’s hot, and also that he’s happier around her. It’s possible he’s confused because just one part of his body is happier around her. She wants to know that someone’s not going to give up on her. That’s definitely something she should be worrying about. As the two embrace on a pier, Kaitlyn says, “I feel I’m feeling all the feelings I should be feeling when I’m falling in love.” That’s exactly how Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it.

That evening, Kaitlyn is pleased with their day. They adjourn to a pub and sit in front of a fire, where Ben toasts her, saying that the ordinary things they do, like being filmed for national TV as they make out and discuss marriage, feel special. “I’m excited for these conversations with you,” he tells her. He admits he’s been afraid that he might be unlovable for a lack of long-term relationships. That blows Kaitlyn’s mind. Then again, so does shopping at Kohl’s. She tells him she’s falling in love with him.

How does he feel about the “overnights”? They’re not all about being physical, he asserts. He wants to talk all night. Maybe talk dirty. This makes Kaitlyn wonder if he’s a virgin, because anybody given the opportunity to spend time alone at night with someone of the opposite sex should want to shtup them.

A date card arrives at the suite for Shawn, Joe, and Nick. Shawn glares at Nick. He has no idea why Kaitlyn has fallen for him. Join us, Shawn, for we are legion. He doesn’t want to be on the group date, but figures it’s time to be with Kaitlyn.

Meanwhile, Ben laughs merrily at her virgin question. At least his hand isn’t one. Relieved, she asks him about when he lost his virginity. Try talking about travel or reading or pets, you nympho.

Time for the group date. Shawn grabs her immediately to talk privately. He tells her he wants to move forward and get back on track, like a commuter train. They make out. He feels like everything’s better now, although I have no idea why. She dreads telling him about Nick, but she must. She would prefer to just make out with him. She is stressed by the whole business. But here it comes!

Then Nick butts in and shunts Shawn out so he and Kaitlyn can giggle with each other like kindergarteners over Play-Doh they have formed into doody shapes. She insists she did not make a mistake on their “date,” but well, you know. Other people are not going to be so understanding that she fell into bed with a guy she barely knows while proclaiming her attraction to them. Nick mumbles something with that unctuous grin plastered on his face, and apparently both are satisfied by their discussion. Has anything been resolved, though? I have no idea what just happened, beyond more coy hands over mouths and looking up through eyelashes than a production of The Mikado.

Joe laments how he’s dragging in progress behind Nick and Shawn. When he’s finally alone with Kaitlyn, she asks if he’s ready for marriage. He is. He would be the happiest man in the world if he were with her for 60 years. No one else has said that so plainly and with such depth of meaning. But no, he’s out of the running. He never stood a chance, the rube.

“You know, we were talking about being brutally honest,” she begins, as if addressing a landed fish too small to take home to cook. “We’re not on the same page.” He’s in the index and she’s still stuck in the preface. Joe looks stoic. “That’s cool,” he replies laconically. She tries to make it seem like she didn’t just cruelly rebuff his impassioned declaration of love. They shake hands. He won’t say goodbye nicely, though, and she stalks away in a snit.

Meanwhile, Shawn and Nick have deduced that Joe got the shaft. Shawn accepts it with cold satisfaction. Kaitlyn isn’t giving a rose to either of them, but she will see Shawn later. Only we know why. “I wasn’t expecting any of that,” Shawn remarks to Nick. He’s thrilled to see Nick looking non-plussed, without a rose in his sweaty clutches and knowing Shawn has been granted extra alone-time with the sex fiend.Back at the suite, Nick tells Jared and Ben what happened. Ben is impressed with how nervous Nick is.

How come only Shawn gets to know about the NickSex? Kaitlyn feels compelled to be honest with him because their relationship has moved forward faster. It’s appropriate to lie to people you’re in slow-moving relationships with.

Shawn arrives at the pub and wraps his meaty paw around a giant lager. She hesitates, feeling sick at having to tell him she isn’t an asexual Mother Abbess. “Um,” she begins. “I don’t even know how to say this.” He grows wary. She continues, “Uh,” as somber, suspenseful music plays. Two full minutes of screen time have been eaten up with gutteral sounds and non sequiturs.

“I want to be honest with you, and I know your biggest thing is trust,” she finally manages. Maybe she embezzles money if stealing isn’t her employer’s biggest thing. She describes her night with Nick and concludes: “I feel like it went too far. We had sex.” “Going too far” might better describe trying heroin or hacking the federal government, but okay.

Shawn shakes his head, his pinkish slab of a face pained as sad music plays. He gazes beyond her, perhaps searching for her lost virtue.

“Do you regret it?” he finally asks. If she’s punishing herself, maybe he won’t have to. “I felt guilt,” she says. Apparently, that’s not harsh enough retribution. “I don’t know what to think,” he sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Like when, during afterglow? He needs a minute to regroup. The woman he loves has had sex fairly recently with a person with whom he is nominally acquainted. Is there any recovering from this devastating revelation, akin to finding out your sister is really your mother? He leaves her alone to purse her lips pensively.

Back at the suite, the guys continue to hash over the non-events of the day. Nick grins fatuously as he evaluates his chances to get a rose. Jared and Ben regard hm balefully. This part is not acting.

Shawn is still in the men’s room, brooding. Kaitlyn is “feeling guilt,” but would rather have been honest. Will Shawn be willing to get through this tremendous obstacle in their otherwise ideal relationship, so longstanding, committed, and open up til now?  Triumphant choir music swells as he finally returns and thanks her for her honesty. He’s upset, certainly, that she “went too far.” Maybe the sex involved sheep? Worse, it was with his nemesis. But she’s “the only thing” he wants, so he’ll fight through it, and get past the fact that her hymen is no longer intact for him, and the knowledge that Nick saw her naked before he did. She’s worth all that.

“It’s definitely making me a little sick to my stomach,” he reports. He doesn’t want it to affect their future together. Ah, but Shawn, it already has.

He returns to the suite and tells the guys there was no rose for him tonight either, but they had a good night. He’s confident a rose is his at the ceremony. Nick feels okay, too. Ha ha ha, I bet he does. Now Shawn seethes silently. He’s decided he needs more questions answered before he really wants a rose. And he may walk away if Kaitlyn’s responses do not satisfy him.

Chris Harrison arrives to tell them they’re going straight to the Rose Ceremony, overriding Jared’s opportunity for a little more alone-time. He’s out for sure. Shawn and Nick have to bristle at each other for at least the rest of the episode.

Kaitlyn tells the guys she’s shocked to have only four of them standing before her. She really enjoyed having more than 20 fawning all over her. But she feels confident that she has made the right decisions. Except the “having sex” one. She is breathless as she picks up the first rose. It is offered to Shawn, who approaches and murmurs, “I have to talk to you.” What a drama queen.

Kaitlyn is steely and resolute as she gazes at Shawn. He had a tough time sleeping, thinking about what she told him. Yes, he understands about the other relationships she has. Good, he finally read the show contract. But why “him,” meaning Nick? We’re all asking that, Shawn.

“Why would you do something like that to jeopardize us?” he implores. She essentially says she boinked Nick because once she gets married, she can’t be a nympho anymore. But she also says that she shouldn’t have told Shawn he was the one before she was sure. So it’s his fault, really. She questions whether this episode affects his trust in her. She thinks it might. Gee, I wonder why.

They return to the ceremony, and she offers the rose to him again. He takes it. What the hell with these people. “The bottom line is, I can’t give up on this girl,” Shawn says miserably. He probably just wants to see if he can make her yell louder than Nick did.

Ben gets the next rose. And now, who will get number three? As if we didn’t know.  Shawn thinks he can’t handle Nick getting the overnight date, and a second bite at the apple. But no one would watch next week if it were Jared.

And indeed, Nick smugly accepts the final rose. Jared is bereft. She walks him outside, where he offers his jacket against the chill. She doesn’t know how to explain his departure, because she’ll never forget the moments that they shared. He tells her she’ll always have a special place in his heart. They brought in Hallmark people to write this part. She starts sobbing; he comforts her. Off he goes in the limo, hopefully to find a razor, and tries to hold back the tears. “I know what we had was real,” he says, overlooking the surfeit of evidence that it wasn’t. “I’m going to miss her a lot.” Well, she’ll be on all the late-night shows and probably pop up on TMZ, too.

“He wanted me to have his coat,” Kaitlyn wails. Nick sure wouldn’t do that. Her biggest fear now is “coming out of this alone,” because which of the remaining three is truly the one?

Next day, Ben muses about the hometown dates. Shawn tortures himself over the prospect of Kaitlyn having more sex with Nick and possibly with Ben, too. Nick is all ready for his Fantasy Suite date. It’s a huge day! It’s all about the two of them. Kaitlyn needs to figure out if they’re just about the sex, or if there’s something else there. That’s often the challenge for inarticulate, shallow people who are lacking in character.

They visit a cathedral and pronounce it amazing. Then they discuss his childhood. Kaitlyn likes that Nick is open and vulnerable, although we don’t get to find out what the hell she means by that. He tells her about going to confession after the first time he “touched his privates.” This guy is right up there with Cary Grant on the suave scale.

They then mingle with the locals, whom they can’t understand, and happily guzzle booze together. When Kaitlyn asks the secret to a happy marriage, an old duffer says, “Trust.” There’s a theme developing here. Meanwhile, Shawn is disgusted that Kaitlyn is with Nick right now. He keeps getting in the way, and it’s driving Shawn crazy. Shawn could use a little booze himself.

Nick and Kaitlyn arrive at the pre-Suite moment. Nick says he wants to be honest with her, introducing the 492nd use of the word this hour. They celebrate that today was another big step for them, then discuss his position among the other guys, because that’s significant to their own relationship. Nick says he has no respect for one of the guys. He says a certain someone has bragged about having had sex with the same woman as “a famous country singer.” I bet it’s Blake Shelton. Of course he means Shawn–but Nick is only worried about Kaitlyn, he simpers.

Kaitlyn is angry. Why didn’t anyone say this before? Innocently, Nick suggests the other guys were okay with Shawn being an asshole. Nick is very good at this. “I want to be a person you lean on. That’s the silver lining in this,” he smiles at her. She feels really excited and happy about him, because she is an imbecile.

“I came here for you,” Nick tells her, and then they open the key-granting envelope. He wants to wake up with her. And then leave immediately. It;s a given he’ll spend the night with her, but their suite appears to be a dank old  jail cell in a museum. Another of Kaitlyn’s hilarious pranks! Not so funny when you realize it foretells the future. Off they go to the real Fantasy Suite.

“I love being next to you,” Nick says, biting his fingers. He must be awfully good in the sack. They dreamily walk off to the bedroom, and he sticks his hand under her skirt. Romance is not dead, my friends.

Morning dawns on shirtless Nick and tousle-headed Kaitlyn having breakfast in bed. She describes the previous night as them talking a lot and her getting to know him better, not only in the carnal sense. “Best date I’ve had with her ever,” babbles Nick, especially since someone else paid for the condoms this time.

And now for the confrontation. Shawn goes to see Nick in his room. He wants to get something off his chest, and he’s man enough to do it. He thinks Nick isn’t here for Kaitlyn. Nick objects vociferously, but without saying anything about caring for Kaitlyn. Shawn brings up all the guys from previous and current seasons who dislike Nick. He could bolster that argument with many comments from the internet. As the flames of rage and jealousy are fanned between the two desperate men, the discussion is cut off–to be continued.

Next week: Kaitlyn feels the hate between Nick and Shawn, and she’s going to do something about it. Possibly require a Jello wrestling match.

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.