The Bachelor: The Women Tell All recap: Liars and yellers
I hope they handed out earplugs to the audience at this week's The Bachelor: The Women Tell All — because man, those women can shout.
Let's recap!
It's a packed house in the Tealight Candle Thunderdome — though at the moment, the COVID community spread levels are low in Los Angeles County, so the mask-less crowd is not as horrifying as it was the last time we visited the hallowed soundstage in December.
That's weird, why is Clayton opening the show?
ABC Interchangeable white men.
Oh, my bad. I didn't read the chyron. Hey, Jesse. All of your "favorite" women are here. (Sierra wins the audience applause-o-meter, as she should.) The host rolls tape on the highlight reel of drama, and immediately this happens:
ABC The lambs... they were screaming...
Yep, everyone's screaming at Shanae — and that's just the way she likes it. Girl came to the WTA for the spotlight, and the other women just can't wait to give it to her. "I love how you can call us all bitches behind a screen!" shouts Sierra. "Call me a bitch to my f---ing face!" Yikes — Palmer, it's time to grab the reins, please. Before we can get to Shanae, we must go back to the beginning.
Part 1: Blondes Who Aren't Shanae
Remember Claire? The spray tanner who had one conversation with Clayton and decided that she "hated" him? Well, she's up first. "He was entirely too soft for me," says Claire, who attributes her behavior to boredom and an open bar. (Reminder: Contestants are allowed two drinks an hour.)
The conversation then turns to Cassidy, the 26-year-old who got the boot after bragging about having a f---buddy back home. Dr. Kira scolds her for being "disrespectful" to the other women by hogging all of Clayton's time before the "friends-with-benefits" news broke, but Cassidy says she was just "going for the guy I was into." She's got a decent sense of humor about it, saying the kiss-first, ask-questions-later approach may not have been the best strategy.
But Cassidy bristles at the idea that she was disrespectful to the other women. "I didn't have a negative word to say about anybody in my interviews, except for the generic, 'Game on, bitches,'" she adds. The women disagree, sharing some rude things she said to them ("Move, bitch" and "You told me you would instantly forget my name because I look like everybody else here") — and then, of course, there's the "private" conversation she had with Sierra about her side piece.
"This was not a game to me, and it never seemed like you ever really had a connection with him," Cassidy tells Sierra. "And you were willing to throw me under the bus?" Oh, now she's done it. Sierra — who is in full Paradise audition mode* — shoots back, "I'm not going to make out with someone instantly. I'm not going to go out and pounce on somebody instantly. A connection has to grow over time." (*Sierra absolutely deserves a spot in Paradise, and she should not have to audition.)
Cassidy tries to make it seem like Sierra was slut-shaming her — "Someone thought it was wrong that I had casual sex with someone before coming on The Bachelor" — but no one is buying it. The real problem, says Hunter, is that Cassidy was making plans to hang out with her side piece after the show was over, which is textbook Wrong Reasons? behavior. Cassidy's response?
ABC Cassidy has priorities.
"I wasn't going to cut it off unless I was engaged!" she adds. "Sorry." Fair enough, honey. Moving on!
Part 2: Hell to Pay for Shanae
Kate kicks things off by calling Shanae a "sinister, diabolical bitch." Lyndsey W. says being around her was a "lose-lose situation," and adds, "From the bottom of my heart, f--- you, Shanae." Now Hunter jumps in, calling Shanae "one of the most disgusting human beings I've ever met" — and soon, everyone's yelling.
ABC Earplugs, anyone?
"All right! All right! All right!" hollers Palmer over the noise. He calls Shanae up to the Hot Seat, as the other women grumble. "Her ass looks terrible," snipes Genevieve. "Are you wearing a diaper?" Okay, ladies, I know Shanae was a real see-you-next-Tuesday on the show, but let's not start trash-talking people's bodies on national television, mmmk?
The heckling continues. "Fake cry!" yells Genevieve, after Palmer asks Shanae how she's doing. "Crocodile tears!" adds Kate. And because this is The Bachelor, producers are happy to fuel the woman-on-woman-crime fire.
ABC Imagine making this sign.
Nice job, Bachelor interns! When Shanae does finally get an opportunity to speak, she launches into her old (and dubious) list of grievances: Elizabeth was "toxic" and "fake" to her starting on day 2, and it just went downhill from there. Elizabeth is all, Uh, we had one conversation in a group on the first night — I don't recall being best friends. Jill scoffs at Shanae's claim that the women are duplicitous: "I can't even riddle [sic] off the amount of lies you've told on this TV, so don't even try to sit here acting like you're not a liar, because we all know you are."
Speaking of lies, Palmer wants to know why Shanae "apologized" to the women in Houston. "I did it for Clayton," she says. "I didn't want to apologize." Ok, fine. But Sierra needs Shanae to admit to one thing:
Sierra has thoughts.
"You can't talk s--- about people lying when you lie to the man you're gonna marry!" bellows Sierra. Shanae doesn't give an inch: "So did you all." Gee, how could this get any more acrimonious? Oh, I know!
ABC Two-on-one, take two.
Palmer tries to get the women to talk about their extremely awkward two-on-one date in Niagara Falls, but Shanae has other plans. "After I got eliminated, I went home. I was grieving. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat," she says. "And then when you get eliminated, you go home and f--- Aaron from Katie's season." This accusation gets the intended response.
ABC Shocked. Shocked!
"I met him at a bar!" she says. "I didn't even kiss him!" By the way, so what if she kissed him, or slept with him, or spent an afternoon at Color Me Mine with him? Who cares? Genevieve has no reason to be on the defensive, but it's understandable that she feels attacked. She, in turn, blasts Shanae for contacting Aaron on social media. "He thinks you're crazy," she notes. "So, stop."
In conclusion, rose lovers: The women hate Shanae, and Shanae doesn't care what the women (or America) thinks of her — as long as the camera is pointed at her face. Next!
Part 3: Sarah, Vain and Small
Picture-in-picture sad face!
ABC Sarah, and Sarah.
Naturally, Sarah is on the verge of tears after watching her highlight reel back. It's just so sad, you see, to watch how her relationship with Clayton — which had "so much potential" — imploded. "It was never, ever, my intention to make anyone feel insecure," she says. "My intent would never, ever be to purposely hurt anyone."
Okay, fine — but the women want to know why Sarah said Clayton cried with her, when it apparently never happened. Sarah, however, sticks by her story and says she did, in fact, see tears leaking out of the Bachelor's eyes during their one-on-one date. Genevieve and Hunter still don't believe it, and they decide to ask Clayton when he hits the Hot Seat.
Part 4: Ready, Steady, Teddi
Awww, poor Teddi. Her "journey" from first to worst is clearly still weighing on her.
ABC Tearful Teddi.
"It's hard to see. It's hard to hear the ways he's validating me, and then I just remember that feeling of when he didn't call my name," she says. "And just, like, hearing myself talk about not feeling worthy — it isn't fun."
Teddi goes on to say that her dad wasn't around a lot when she was growing up, so she always tried to be "perfect" for him. "My parents love me so much, but I think like, as I child I just took on so much of that and feeling like I wasn't worthy of that love," she admits. "This was another scenario where I was in an environment where I was kind of having to gain this guy's affection and gain his love by doing things to try to earn his attention. So then to, like, come up short again — it was hard."
Damn, Teddi just boiled down the system of psychological manipulation at the foundation of The Bachelor franchise to its very essence. To be that self-aware at 24 — what a gift. The other women spend this segment nodding their heads in agreement, though they break into applause when Teddi, a virgin, announces: "I think it's okay if someone wants to wait until marriage. I think it's okay if someone wants to have sex every weekend." (Every weekend? Gah, that sounds exhausting.)
Though she says she's "open and ready for love now," Teddi isn't open to love from everyone — at least not people related to the Bachelor. "Clayton's brother did reach out to me," she says, after Palmer asks her about someone who recently slid into her DMs. "I didn't reply. I will say, I think [one] Echard boy in my lifetime was enough for me."
Yep, Teddi is downright adorable — but she's way too young to be the Bachelorette. Don't even think about it, producers.
Part 5: Short and Sweet with Serene
"I felt like I gave everything, and it still wasn't enough," says Serene, after watching her highlight reel. Still, she's "really excited for the future." And that's about it. On to the next!
Part 6: Clay-uhn Takes a Beat-uhn
All night, we've seen previews of the women attacking Clayton for his dubious choices — and now, the moment has finally arrived. "The hardest part's been watching it," says Clayton. "It's one thing to go through it and feel that you gave it your best. It's another thing to go back and analyze it all and realize that I was far from perfect, and I made a lot of mistakes."
You sure did, buddy. Sierra jumps in first, asking Clayton why he chose to believe Shanae over all the other women who kept telling him she was toxic. "It's a fair question," he says. "I was wanting tangible evidence."
[Loud buzzer noise] Try again, pal. "What could be more tangible than the entire house?" asks Sierra. Lyndsey wishes the Bachelor would just admit that he had the hots for Shanae, and that's why he kept her around. "We had a connection," he says. "I was basing the decisions off of the connection I felt." It was only after Shanae threw the trophy in the pond that he realized her behavior was "indefensible." What's that, ladies? You have something you'd like to add?
ABC Jill, Sierra, and Elizabeth
"You sent us home!" cries Jill. Sierra also has something to say: "I tried to help you! I literally tried to. And it's like, I think you're confusing love and lust."
She's not wrong, rose lovers. Palmer wants to know what Clayton has to say to Shanae now, having seen all her to-the-camera tomfoolery. "To see you playing this game, you manipulated the women, you manipulated me," he says. "I trusted you, I believed you — and it was the worst thing I could have done." Periodt.
As for Sarah, Clayton says he immediately acted on the complaints about her because he had a "fair amount of trust" in the women who shared them. "What it came across, just to me, was that you were playing this game for your benefit to get them to all leave," he tells Sarah. In fact, she messed with his head so much, that it left him "in a really bad spot mentally" for the rest of his "journey."
Sarah's all, Nuh-uh, you were the one stirring the pot! "I wish you would have respected me enough in our goodbye to have ended our relationship… based on you and I, and our relationship," she says. "Not based on external things and hearsay." This leads us back to the Did Clayton Cry? question — he says he didn't, though he's also quick to point out that "real men cry." Cool, cool. Can we consider this topic settled now?
In non-crying news, the Bachelor apologizes to Serene for how he handled their goodbye. "I hope you don't close off going forward," he says. "You did everything right. You did, and I just wish that I would have opened up to you instead of having you be the person to teach me that." Kira, meanwhile, has a proposition for Clayton:
ABC Kira has no hard feelings.
Kira's been watching the season, and she says she found Clayton "more and more attractive" each episode. "I don't know if you're engaged," she says, "but if you're not and you're single, just know I'm single, too."
Part 7: Blooper Time
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Make Gabby the Bachelorette.
ABC ILHSM
Sierra papering her face with oil-absorbing sheets was also sheer perfection.
Part 8: Memory Lane with Jesse Palmer
Honestly, rose lovers, the only moment you need to relive from Jesse's season of The Bachelor is right here:
He may be a failed football player, but he sure threw a perfect shame spiral.
Part 9: "A Recipe for Disaster"
We may not know much about the end of Clayton's journey, but we do know it gets messy. The "exclusive sneak peek" is filled with tears and "I love yous" and another clip at the infamous "I was intimate with both of you" rose ceremony. (It now looks like he says that to Gabby, Rachel, and Susie… but he said "both," so there's probably some creative editing going on.)
One night down, one more to go, rose lovers! Before you go, a few questions: Who is your pick for Bachelorette? Who aced their Paradise audition? And how do these women not know the difference between a possum and an armadillo? Post your thoughts below!
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