The Bachelorette Season 12: A Review (Part 5)

Ok Day 5! Sorry I’m a bit late this week. But, we’re ready to go now! A review: Chad’s crazy. Let’s begin.

The boys are celebrating at the house that Chad’s finally gone (theoretically). They’re going pretty far with littler ceremonies, parties and even a funeral? I sense an ABC gimmick. Meanwhile, Chad’s creepily whistling through the woods…Annnddd he’s knocking on the front door of the house. Well damn. He walks in and trying to validate himself to the guys, which Jordan takes the opportunity to apologize to Chad for them not understanding him well enough and using it to maybe finally clear the air. You go Jordan! Instead, Chad decides to get more angry. He then points to Jordan’s skull saying he has “half a brain” and then gives him an overly tight handshake. Jordan tells Chad he’s sorry that Chad can’t come to the point to be man enough to apologize. Obviously, he turns to more insults. More creepy whistling… I feel like this isn’t the last we see of him.

Jojo and Alex are now kissing in front of a restaurant, and decide to go for a walk. He comes back to the house and the guys are literally carrying him on their shoulders.

We’re at the cocktail party now, and the guys are having their one-on-ones. Chase brings the little tackle bubbles to play around with Jojo. Robby’s next and he and Jojo make wishes in the pond. James F. is reading Jojo a poem, when Alex cuts in. Now Daniel’s talking to Jojo and Luke tries to cute in?

Evan points out the irony in Chad being gone is that the guys with roses have suddenly become mini-Chads. That doesn’t bode well. Luke comes up to Evan and says that if Evan hasn’t gotten his time with her, he better hurry up, because Luke is going to go for seconds. Evan’s not happy.

Jordan’s one-on-one is next, and he says that he doesn’t want to take up too much of her time; then pushes her up against a wall and just starts making out with her. That’s charisma?

Chris shows up (the host dude), and whisks Jojo away. I’m not entirely sure if all the other guys got a chance to see her?

Predictions on who leaves next: Vinny and Grant. Luke, Alex and Jordan already have roses.

Rose ceremony!

First Rose: Derek
Second Rose: Robby
Third Rose: Chase
Fourth Rose: Wells
Fifth Rose: Grant
Sixth Rose: Vinny
Seventh Rose: James T.
Eight Rose: Evan

That means James F. and Daniel are out.

Evan points out it’s been a month they’ve been pursuing her now. So basically every episode represents a week of real-world time. Just a fun fact to know.

Daniel points out that she obviously is looking for personality because his personality is shit. But if it was based off looks, he would be winning, but she picks guys like Wells and Evan. He has more experience than all the other guys combined. I’m really not sure what to do with this rant of his. But he’s gone, so whatever.

Jojo tells the guys they’re going to Uruguay for the rest of the trip! They’re very excited, needless to say.

Jordan gets the one-on-one that week. Chase points out that he feels like Jordan feels the most false to him, and there were 2 football dates geared specifically around him. The guys are super unhappy. On top of that, they find some trash magazines about Jojo’s ex-Chad and how they got back together after the last season of the Bachelor ended. They’re feeling incredibly insecure.

Luke, Derek, Chase, Evan, James, Vinny, Grant, Wells, and Alex all get the next group date.

Jordan tells Jojo that he’s falling in love with her, when Jojo brings up that she met an Ex of Jordan’s. Uh-oh. They have an actually productive and really enlightening conversation out of this. Jordan admits that he was just super immature in his last relationship and he should have done things differently, and although he didn’t cheat, he was definitely a jerk towards his ex. So Jojo ends up giving him a rose.

Jojo’s sitting down with the producers for her interview, talking about how confident she feels about her relationship with Jordan, when the producer comes up and shows her the magazine the guys found. Meanwhile, the guys tell Jordan about the article. They keep switching back and forth between the guys and Jojo’s interview, and she’s in complete tears at this point. She calls her Ex out for being a terrible person and just can’t allow other to be happy if he’s not. So Jojo goes proactive and goes over to the guys place to talk to them. Poor girl is really, really upset. I feel like she’s holding herself back from hysterics at this point.

Robby and Jordan are having a spa date, which is probably been the best part of this show, disregarding how gimmicky and set up it is. Robby predicts that the guys on the group date are going to take advantage of how upset Jojo was the night before.

On the date, the guys are going sand boarding and Evan predicts he’ll have another bloody nose. All of a sudden, it starts raining. Like, real rain. Not California rain.

Back at the hotel, Robby gets his own one-on-one date.

And then Luke swoops in on Jojo to take advantage of the article from yesterday, just like Robby predicted. Not saying he’s being malicious, just commenting. All the other guys seem to follow suit.

At the one-on-one’s, Derek’s having insane insecurity. He tells Jojo he’s having jealousy issues. Alex points out that he doesn’t like Derek either. He’s apparently jealous, insecure and calculated, which isn’t mostly wrong. Alex has his one-on-one too, but nothing pertinent was really said. So rose time, and Derek gets it. Alex is pissed and calls him an “insecure little bitch” and calls it a “pity rose”. Very harsh.

Robby’s date is the last date in Uruguay. I feel like the dude is fake, but I’m biased towards his name probably. He keeps using opportunities to speak a little bit of spanish, which is pretty adorable. He wants to say “I love you”, but is scared she won’t say it back. They then literally jump off a cliff together, and it’s apparently very romantic. Jojo says that for her, its a validation of how much she trusts Robby.

Back at the house, Chase and Alex aren’t happy with Derek and are semi-confronting him. It’ pretty petty and doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

Robby seems to be edging towards saying the magic words, but seems very hesitant. He tells a very heartfelt story about how his best friend dying last year made him realize he needs to do what makes him happy and be in the moment. He then tells her that he loves her, and of course, she doesn’t say it back. But he seems happy nonetheless. This makes him the first one to officially say “I love you!”

Time for the cocktail party, and everyone seems nervous. All of a sudden, Derek calls out Alex, Jordan, Chase and Robby to talk to them. I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking to them about and what they’re upset about, because no one really said anything concrete. Jordan sums it up that Derek feels like the guys have formed a clique and are exclusionary so Jordan asks the rest of the guys if anyone else feels like he’s excluded them. Wells defends Derek, but Chase jumps in to attack Derek again. None of this really makes sense. I can’t even parse this.

Chris comes in, and Jojo doesn’t want a cocktail party. They’re jumping into the rose ceremony and three of them will be going home tonight. Alex, still, is pissed.

Rose ceremony time! My suspicions for who is leaving: Vinny, Grant, and sadly Evan. I sense I’m going to be surprised again though.

First Rose: Luke
Second Rose: Chase
Third Rose: Alex
Fourth Rose: James
Fifth Rose: Wells

NOOOOO EVAN. So sad! His commentary was literally the best. But I hit it right on the head! Evan’s really upset that he didn’t take proper advantage of their time together and is disappointed in himself. Grant says that she made a mistake, but he’s really confused. Vinny seems the least upset at the beginning, but he quickly jumps to be incredibly upset.

RB’s Psych Corner

First off, I’m surprised the Chad caused as little trouble as he did. I honestly anticipated him coming back with a vengeance to hit someone. Not saying he wasn’t completely out of line, but less out of line than anticipated.

The main issue this week seems to have been that the majority of the guys were starting to form cliques and have pointless arguments. My feeling is when there is a constant bonding factor, such as a common enemy, and that factor is suddenly ripped away, a vacuum is immediately formed, and everyone subconsciously rushes to fill it with something else to bond about. There’s two ways to handle this. Either you find something else to bond over, or you continue to bring back patterns of the previous associations, all at the same level of intensity as before. Either way, you’re going to end up in a situation where everyone’s going to be acting very weird for a little bit of time. In this particular case, let’s take Alex. Alex arguably had the most hate for Chad, but with Chad gone, he needs something else to focus his energy one. Enter, Derek and Jordan. He doesn’t have particularly good reasons to hate either of them, but the intensity overall is probably amounting to a similar level as with Chad.

However, that being said, just because someone is over-reacting, doesn’t mean they aren’t necessarily right. Several of the guys have pointed out an issue with Jordan, either with him being fake or them feeling attacked. Now, with reality shows, there’s a lot of content and context they have to edit out for times sake. That means we may be missing pertinent information to psychoanalyze. But, if several of the guys have an issue with Jordan, and we don’t see it as the audience, it’s best to go with the opinion of those who are actually living through the situation. This makes me doubt my own belief in Jordan’s authenticity, though he seems to handle every situation with grace. Alex and Luke are also becoming rather haughty, which is most likely going to lead to problems if they don’t clean up their act fast.

I’d have to say the best part of this week is now that Chad’s gone, we finally get an opportunity to analyze everyone else! I’m personally crushed that Evan is gone, but it is indicative of the type that Jojo has. Though personality is her most important criteria, that personality seems to be balanced with body type. Instant chemistry and attraction are important to her, and she’s a visual person, so she gets a lot of that from looks. Basically, if a guy looks good, and treats her well, he’s a keeper; i.e. Robby, Chase, Jordan, Chad, etc. If it comes to a clash between looks and personality however, she’ll go with the personality, I suspect against her gut reaction, which is mainly towards “the bad boy” character. That being said, morals are the thing she’s most sensitive about, and the second she can’t trust them, she will dump them.

This brings us to Evan. One might think, “Evan had the personality! Why didn’t he stay?” The reasoning is simple: he didn’t “wow” her enough. Basically, she doesn’t do well with shy guys, and if it takes too much time for the charisma to come out, then she’s done with it. Evan, although witty on camera, had a tendency to be a bit more reserved and quiet around Jojo. So even though his kind personality shown through, the lack of desire to make-out with him in secret corners won out and she called it quits. Unfortunate, but ultimately for the best, because Evan needs a girl who is a bit more reserved, traditional and an intellectual equal. Anyone who participates on “The Bachelorette” is probably not that. And that’s a wrap!

See you next week!